Solution Architect - Loss Prevention at Shoprite Group of Companies

Purpose of the Job    

Loss Prevention in retail entails the minimising of theft and shrinkage, safeguarding store personnel and assets, and intervention where security incidents occur. This multifaceted approach includes, amongst others, surveillance systems, access control measures, security personnel deployment, technology solutions, a focus on excellent customer service, and collaboration with law enforcement. 

Key components of Loss Prevention: 

• Surveillance tools, such as CCTV cameras and electronic article surveillance tags, deterrence of theft, countermeasures, and identifying suspicious activities. 
• Access control measures restrict entry to sensitive areas, ensuring authorised personnel-only access. 
• Collaboration with law enforcement facilitates incident reporting, and information sharing. 
•  As a recognized authority of Retail Loss Prevention Technologies, the solution architect strategically advises and shapes requirements for loss prevention platform solutions and creates high quality data, application and technology architectures in support of the business requirements and leads the realization of the design into the final solution implementation. Expert subject matter knowledge of Infrastructure Platforms, retail networks and associated security and loss prevention as applicable to the Retail business domain is essential

Job Objectives    

• Define and continuously improve the loss and prevention platforms architecture framework and solution architecture modeling standards. 
• Define and create solution level loss and prevention architecture models that are aligned with business blueprints, non-functional requirements, delivery constraints, data, application and technology standards. 
• Provide expert loss and prevention guidance, ensure solution architectures and designs are in line with the infrastructure platforms architecture domain strategy and technology standards and conduct architecture and design reviews as part of the Architecture Review Committee. 
• Contribute to solution architecture and design standards and SDLC governance requirements. 
• Develop and maintain an understanding of the business strategy and changes to business priorities. 
• Define a structured loss and prevention architecture approach and methodology for capturing the key views of the enterprise. 
• Architect the next-generation loss and prevention framework developed on a group of core technologies.  
• Align to the enterprise data reference architecture in support of the enterprise and regulatory information governance needs such as Information Security, Enterprise Information Management, POPI, PCI, etc. 
• Identify, define and communicate standards, guidelines, formats, meta-models, policies, best practices, and governance practices for loss and prevention architectures and designs. 
• Ensure that the loss and prevention platforms approach integrates into the methodologies and processes of the rest of the Enterprise Architecture team. 
• Stay abreast of best practices and / or new developments in loss and prevention and related disciplines and drive adoption as deemed appropriate.
• Analyze business requirements and create related infrastructure platforms architectures and designs for the baseline (“as is”) and target (“to be”) solution architectures. 
• Define loss and prevention architecture governance processes and quality compliance criteria. 
• Perform quality assurance checks on loss and prevention Architectures and Designs and enforce quality compliance criteria to set policies and standards. 
• Perform quality checks on existing loss and prevention Architectures and Designs to identify potential business risks areas and make re-engineering recommendations. 

Qualifications    

• Degree in Information Systems / B Sc Computer Science
• TOGAF certification
• Infrastructure / Data centre Certified Professional (CCNP or VCE-CIAE or VCP6-DCV)  

Experience    

• Working experience within the IT industry. 
• Experience with infrastructure platforms, retails store and distribution centers,, IT security and cloud architectures. 
• Retail industry experience with an understanding of retail business processes. 
• Experience in architecting IT Infrastructure and Security programs with detailed understanding Technology Frameworks. 
• Experience in Information Security regulatory frameworks eg. PCI DSS, POPI, GDPR. 
• Experience in relevant National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards 
• Experience with all aspects of IT projects from business analysis, architecture, system analysis and design through development, testing, 

Knowledge and Skills    

• Architecture and design of IT Infrastructure. 
• Experience with cloud architecture, including AWS and Azure 
• Proven experience creating technology platforms, building and maintaining reliable and scalable solutions as well as experience working with varied forms of data infrastructures 
• Software development frameworks and methodologies (Agile, Scrum, TOGAF, etc.) 
• Strong analytical, problem-solving and logical skills 
• Strong senior stakeholder management skills 
• Excellent teamwork, interpersonal skills 
• Out of the box thinker (lateral)