Business Architect

Location London
Discipline: Change Management
Job type: Permanent
Contact email: simon@weareedenbrook.com
Job ref: J3548
Published: over 2 years ago
The Business Architect reports into The Head of Business Change. The job holder will work closely with the COO, other senior stakeholders and with counterparts in IT to align technical solutions with business needs. The job holder role will be able to proficiently engage with SMEs, change actors and BAU representatives in different areas of the business, to ensure their initiatives scope, requirements, design, plans, cross dependencies, assumptions, etc. are consistent with each other and in respect of the business ultimate goals. The role will entail developing an approach to engage with the various change initiatives and influence their course, within the boundaries of their respective governance, to ensure risks and issues to the integrity of the expected outcomes are properly identified, monitored and managed. The role also acts as an internal consultant to the business with regards to opportunities / ideas and projects that they may want to undertake. The consulting aspect of the role is to help develop and shape such opportunities and initiatives to a stage where they have a robust benefit case and can be presented as an initial project request to evaluate funding and to investigate solution options. The role will require an extensive knowledge of the insurance business and Lloyd's market insurance, as well as core business and operating models including off-shore, near-shore and outsourced. Key Responsibilities • Leading conversations with the business to assess, propose and challenge change initiatives • Understand the overall landscape of business needs at a detailed level (target operating models, cost base assumptions, target and achieved profit by line of business / product, growth strategies), pain points, constraints and validate how the entire portfolio of change across the business is holistically going to address them. • Define and design the design authority for the business, including governance and process for reaching decisions and maintaining design principles. • Evaluate and create business cases for change. • Support the development and sign-off of strategy plans with senior business and IT representatives. • Assess requirements, objectives and approaches of the various change initiatives through the review of collateral and engagement with the key actors, linking these back to the business strategic needs. • Identify potential gaps or unintended consequences to BaU from the planned/in flight change initiatives, suggest remediations and follow through with relevant stakeholders. Organise and coordinate with SMEs from various groups to perform design and scope “health checks” as required. • Provide business architecture, business knowledge and design expertise to project teams to ensure alignment of deliveries with overall business strategies. • Validate cross assumptions, interdependencies and risks to ensure the portfolio of change “hangs” together and any discrepancies or “grey areas” are dealt with promptly in the appropriate governance decision forums. Key skills / experience • Several years of experience in the Insurance Industry, highly preferrable London Market, with broad exposure to the key areas of the business: underwriting, claims, finance, technical pricing, operations etc. • A very good appreciation of key insurance business applications and processes (policy, claims, finance, etc), data management and reporting. • High understanding of key operating models such as onshore, off-shore, near-shore, outsourced, with the ability to identify and manage the impact and interdependencies on existing and future models in the design and delivery of key initiatives. • Experience in preparing the business model to accept changes such as defining transition states, migration paths, cut-over plans and business readiness acceptance • Significant experience in the field through delivery and participation to large programmes of change that touched base systems, data, processes, organisation. • Similar role performed in the past for a large organisation – Business Architect, Enterprise Architect, Solution Architect are few of the roles that the candidate might have covered in the past. • A broad, organisational-wide view of the business and an appreciation for strategy, processes and capabilities, enabling technologies and governance. • The ability to apply architectural principles to business solutions. • Extensive experience planning and deploying complex business and IT initiatives. • Comfortable in challenging positions and assumptions, making sure the right decisions are taken for the organisation regardless of strong vested interests that might exist within the various change initiatives and their stakeholders. • Extreme attention to detail to be able to capture nuances that might have a detrimental effect - maybe years down the line if not addressed promptly – being able to perform forensic analysis in areas such as: • Scope definition • Interdependencies, assumptions, constraints • Key Design decisions and their impact long term for the business • Requirements and design • Ability to outline the “big picture” from detailed analysis findings, communicating appropriately to senior management, to enable them to take informed decisions on direction of travel. • Comfortable in dealing with complexity, uncertainty and evolving business requirements and constraints.