Senior Finance Product Owner at TFG (The Foschini Group)

Job Description

• As a Finance ERP Product Owner, and a member of the agile team, you are responsible for the execution of finance product vision and delivery aligned with customer needs. As the product owner you play a crucial role maximising the value delivered by the team. Acting as a liaison between business and product development, this role facilitates communication and determines solution objectives that align to business needs. The product owner will ensure that the right solutions are built and that they are built the right way.
• Your primary focus is ensuring optimal functionality of the finance systems and seamless integration with other systems.
• At the heart of the success of the Finance Projects and Systems team is a dedicated team of individuals passionate about transforming the finance landscape. Are you ready to be part of TFG success story? Apply now and let’s shape the future of the finance systems together.

Key Responsibilities:

Requirements Analysis and Solution Design

• Drive creating value for customers by translating customer needs into meaningful solutions
• Apply expertise to manage product requirements, and deliver product optimisation
• Introduce new tools and practices that will enhance the user experience 
• Drive selection of solution options, working with IT to assess technical solutions to increase value
• Provide business context to ensure solution meets business needs and support business owner to provide clear guidelines in terms of business expectations
• Lead the integrations design based on business needs and best practices, while evaluating the impact thereof

Prioritization and Value Management:

• Maximise the value produced by the team and ensuring stories meet the users’ needs 
• Gather the requirements for the product and capture them in the form of a product backlog, consisting of user stories with acceptance criteria
• Working with business owners in determining the value of the deliverables
• Prioritise the delivery team’s backlog assessing benefit vs. effort and ensuring alignment to strategic business needs on an ongoing basis
• Ensure the teams focus on delivering the highest value items first 

Product and Operational Delivery

• Continuous refinement and sequencing of the Product Backlog
• PI planning preparation – confirm business priorities, and leading conversations on cross team dependencies
• Defining user stories (with clear acceptance criteria) with extensive domain knowledge
• Participate in Iteration/Sprint planning and solution demonstrations with stakeholders/business owners
• Make business decisions to ensure the end-to-end build of a solution works as designed
• Oversee the planning and execution of testing by Finance ERP team, act as a subject matter expert drafting test scenarios and test cases, and provide approval
• Support Business Process Owner to plan and execute User Acceptance Testing
• Responsible for approval of final test results
• Apply compliance requirements within scope of responsibility, ensuring documentation, system configuration and compliance activities are current
• Drive reporting and analytics to provide visibility on the Finance ERP Teams performance, and monitor sprint metrics and user results

Leadership and Stakeholder Management

• Shape the Finance ERP vision & roadmap - communicate and align the vision and strategy across product and technology teams
• Align the stakeholder needs across business areas and engage with stakeholders on the product development process and product management mindset
• Steer the team in delivering products and features oriented around business impact
• Empower and inspire Team to deliver their best
• Interact with other Teams as part of synchronization ceremonies to implement cross-team tasks
• Drive engagement with third parties to support delivery of team objectives
• Plan resourcing for the teams (i.e. new role, change in role), create requests, interview, select and onboard members to join the team
• Drive continuous improvement across the product lifecycle

Skills: 

• Proficiency in ERP systems, integration, maintenance, and reporting
• Analytical and project management skills
• Deadlines and results driven
• Ability to work under pressure with agility
• Excellent Problem solving and communications skill

Qualification and Experience: 

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, information systems or related field
• Scaled Agile and Product Owner certification, is desirable
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in Finance ERP applications and processes
• Experience in performing the role of the Product Owner

Competencies and behaviours for success: 

• Independent, motivated self-starter
• Ability to interpret and simplify complex information 
• Ability to drive change, improvements and innovation 
• Ability to prioritise effectively
• Excellent problem-solver and analytical thinker
• Excellent knowledge of systems and design thinking practices
• Effective collaboration with various stakeholders
• High degree of comfort with ongoing technological and organisational change
• In depth knowledge of Scrum and Agile Software Development Methodology