Business Application Support Specialist

• Develop a strong relationship and work closely with the business community/users, leveraging commercial knowledge to drive the assessment of specific technology requirements to enable respective business functions to achieve business targets 
• Communicate findings to the IT Business Solutions Manager to ensure alignment with established business priorities, and to aid in: (1) formulating the right solution strategy for the Market and (2) managing the demand for IT solutions and services. 
• Actively engage with business stakeholders to drive operational excellence and implement required improvements 
• Provide effective communication to relevant parties. 

Business Transformation / Change Management:

• Proactively looks for potential business improvements and supports designated business power users to formally raise requisite IT change requests to support these business transformation initiatives, ensuring compliance with JTI's IT change management process. 
• Conduct an initial assessment and provide timely feedback on potential issues/risks. 
• Responsible for analyzing and implementing subsequent change requests for solution enhancements, as per JTI's IT change management process. 
• Supports the Business Solutions Manager coordinating corporate project teams for respective implementation/modification of the corporate IT systems (SFA, ERP, etc.). Actively contributes to the implementation of solutions covering the functionality required by business functions but not existing in the corporate IT systems portfolio. Coordinating programming interfaces between these solutions and corporate IT systems being part of the responsibility. 

• Through proactive business involvement, drive the completion of the detailed functional and technical analysis of business transformation and change initiatives. 
• Responsible for completing the required documentation, ensuring adherence to JTI quality standards.
• Collect business requirements and convert into technical requirements. 
• Coordinate the sign-off process and assist with effort estimation. 
• Support the preparation of test scenarios and test cases. 

• Provide coordination support during the solution evaluation and selection process. 
• Successfully complete assigned tasks during solution design and delivery, in accordance with established JTI quality standards and best practices.
• Assist in formulating the operational support model and in delivering the requisite knowledge transfer and solution documentation. 
• Assist in the planning and execution of solution implementation projects, in line with JTI's Project Management Framework. 
• Coordinate onsite project activities and ensure that business operations are not adversely affected during project execution. 
• Provide project administration support, including but not limited to budget tracking, project documentation, task scheduling, and project logistics. 
• Assist IT Project Managers in assessing project go-live readiness 
• Support the local roll-out of global solutions. 

• Through partnership with the IT user community, stay up to date on business initiatives requiring technology implementation, making sure that IT is involved from the initial stage. 
• Monitor compliance of IT solution implementation projects vis-a-vis IT standards, policies and procedures, and applicable J-Sox and IT risk controls. 
• Supports the development, implementation, and execution of the IT Services part of IT Service Continuity Plan 
• Contributes to the management of respective regular activities including review, testing and back-up resource planning 
• Assist in evaluating the feasibility of leveraging existing solutions to optimize expected benefits and total cost of ownership. 
• Provide the necessary support to evaluate the IT cost impact of solution(s) to be implemented, including comparative cost-benefit analysis. 
• Provide project budgeting support, ensuring compliance with JTI operating guidelines, policies, and procedures. 
• Assists Business Solutions Manager in planning and execution of the IT AP/SP budgets (for Business Application's systems/services) and any adjustments through budget process. 

• Establish effective working relationships with all internal IT Service providers at regional and corporate level.
• Provide the necessary support to select qualified 3rd-party IT suppliers for solution delivery. 
• Coordinate relevant procurement and billing-related tasks, ensuring adherence to Operating Guidelines, policies and procedures, and J-Sox controls. 
• Provide feedback on supplier performance.

Position Label: (Market) Business Application Support Specialist (Outsourced)

Position Dimensions: Budget / KPIs 0 Nr of direct & indirect 0 - 8 including reports contractors