Product Owner: IAP at Sanlam Group

What will you do?

• The investment admin platform is the core product within SCI’s technology landscape and is responsible for a diverse set of processes and products. Each of these independent products within the IAP platform has a unique strategy that strives to optimize either the service delivery or value proposition offered to the business and ultimately, our clients. Each of these products must adapt to the demands of the IAP and ensure alignment with the overarching business strategy. 
• The Sanlam group is in the process of re-platforming the administration partner and platform across all business units, of which SCI is one of them. The re-platforming of SCI’s admin platform (currently on FNZ) will be a key deliverable for the IAP product owner, and they will need to ensure a successful migration from a business strategic intent. 
• The product owner’s responsibility is to maximize the value of an application/product and bears business responsibility for the successful project implementation. 

Key responsibilities will include:

• Being the lead product owner in the team. 
• Producing strategic roadmaps for various products within the IAP.
• Product assessment and viability of the new vendors IAP to align with SCI’s strategic intent, across multiple business streams. 
• Playing a key role in the migration of SCI’s admin platform, from a business strategy perspective.
• Clearly expressing the product backlog items, which will combine business as usual and project requirements.
• Identify the scope of requirements and define backlog items (epics and user stories).
• Prioritizing items in the backlog to best achieve goals and objectives (optimizing the value of work delivered by the PMO and production support teams).
• Ensuring the backlog is visible, transparent, and clearly illustrates the roadmap of work to come to all relevant stakeholders.
• Responsible for decision support and guidance to the project and support teams.
• Communication link between the project/programmer manager and business sponsors/stakeholders. 
• Assist business sponsors in the documentation of project definitions and briefs.
• Provides business sign off at various stages in the product lifecycle (project or sprint plans, business requirements/user stories, entry and exit criteria etc.)
• Review and sing off on various project strategy documents, as required.
• Documenting, presenting, and tracking of project/product benefit realizations through BI dashboards.
• Collaborate with key stakeholders during product ideation and design.
• Accountability for the IAP platform both pre and post implementation of initiatives.
• Collaborate with communication team to articulate product releases and features to the business.
• Fulfill the role of the “champion” of the product by being the primary source of contact for any product related queries.
• Continuous market-related research to stay abreast of the latest trends & features.
• Providing guidance to project team on priorities during sprint the  planning. 
• Chairing and facilitating project steering committees alongside the project manager to provide updates on strategy, projects and tabling decisions that need to be made. 
• Liaising with scrum master and project managers to oversee the various development stages to ensure alignment with end goal/product. 
• Anticipating next phases in the solutions that will maximize client benefit through statistical evidence (BI dashboards and cubes). 
• Building out dashboards and cubes that will continuously measure the benefit realization.
• Report directly into the Head of Product Management as part of the product management. 
• Attend multiple group forums to stay abreast, align or leverage off areas/functionality within the business. 

 
Minimum requirements:

• B Comm degree or an equivalent qualification.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in Financial Services Industry.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in an IT related role.  
• Technical background with knowledge of software development.  
• Excellent understanding of data warehouses and BI.
• Strong SQL skills.
• Knowledge of BI cubes and dashboards.
• Strong knowledge of agile principles.
• Strong understanding of unit trusts. 
• Experience working with web services and API’s.
• Previous experience in a product owner role.
• Experience in client journey designs.
• Strong presentation abilities. 

Behavioural competencies:

• Client focused. 
• Excellent written and verbal skills.
• Ability to identify different audiences and engage accordingly.
• Ability to convey strategies/visions and influence.
• Inspire peers and stakeholders. 
• Dynamic, agile and adaptable.
• Innovative, creative and unorthodox way of thinking.
• Strong relationship building capabilities.
• Ability to lead and drive teams.
• Ability to work as part of a team.
• Strong collaboration skills. 
• Ability to run with multiple initiatives and projects simultaneously. 
• Ability to perform well under pressure, prioritize and meet deadlines.
• Accept accountability and take responsibility for products.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Good planning, problem solving and analytical abilities.