STRATEGY AND ARCHITECTURE LEAD

Asahi Europe & International is part of Asahi Group Holdings, a global beer, spirits, soft drinks and food group with leading positions in European and Asia-Pacific markets, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Japan. As of November 2020, Asahi Europe & International Group runs 19 production facilities in 8 countries across Europe, and is the custodian of some of the best beer brands in the world, including Asahi Super Dry, Pilsner Urquell, Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Grolsch and Kozel. Within the Asahi Group, the remit of Asahi Europe and International is also to develop and manage all export markets globally, outside of Japan and Oceania. Covering 90 markets and with over 10,000 passionate colleagues on board, the business is well positioned to inspire people around the world to drink better.

Company overview 

Asahi Europe & International is part of Asahi Group Holdings, a global beer, spirits, soft drinks and food group with leading positions in European and Asia-Pacific markets, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Japan.  As of November 2020, Asahi Europe & International Group runs 19 production facilities in 8 countries across Europe, and is the custodian of some of the best beer brands in the world, including Asahi Super Dry, Pilsner Urquell, Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Grolsch and Kozel. Within the Asahi Group, the remit of Asahi Europe and International is also to develop and manage all export markets globally, outside of Japan and Oceania. Covering 90 markets and with over 10,000 passionate colleagues on board, the business is well positioned to inspire people around the world to drink better.  

Functional overview 

#digital aims to be the best strategic technology partner and enabler for AEI business to meet its strategic goals.  A regionally integrated function in which every employee plays a part. Organizationally, #digital is structured to enable digital innovation and is capable of agile value delivery on pre-defined, technology platforms. We are organised around business functions and empowered to achieve goals. We will harness capabilities with suitable technologies, together with a unified data model to enable and meet expected business outcomes. Our AEI behaviours and #digital Principles will shape the way we collaborate across business functions, fusing and working together on joint goals, strategy and execution. The function is the forefront of new technologies, deliberately reducing the constraints of the ‘old’ and enabling the ‘new’, to contribute directly to the increasing expansion of our premium brands at scale. 

Main purpose of the job

Strategy and Architecture Lead proactively and holistically helps guide the enterprise through transformation and optimization initiatives. This person will scope activities includes helping the organization grow revenue, optimizing costs and mitigating risks. He or she focuses on understanding and applying existing, new and emerging technologies to transform and optimize business and operating models. Their focus is to help the organization plan, design, innovate, orchestrate, facilitate, navigate and operationalize the digital enterprise. Strategy and Architecture Lead owns all aspects of the enterprise architecture design and governance, refines and optimises frameworks and owns the technology asset. They will also manage the development and maintenance of IT policies, procedures and methodologies. They will understand how technology can enable business transformation and partner with the transformation team to enable business growth objectives. Strategy and Architecture Lead is responsible for leading and managing the EA practice. This includes the organizational design, management and day-to-day running of the EA practice as an internal management consultancy that offers a portfolio of services to business leaders and enterprise stakeholders. He or she is responsible for defining the advisory process, EA process, and architecture review and governance, and for leading the integration of those processes with related business and IT functions and processes. Optimises the strategic planning process to ensure aligned, prioritised and optimised portfolios are assembled to deliver against the strategic intent of AEI and AEI IS. This should reposition IS as a high performing strategic enabler. Will also manage strategic IS vendor relationships, ensuring sustainable and equitable partnering is achieved with key service providers and will also be accountable for delivering and maintaining a sourcing strategy that will deliver both financial and strategic value . He / she will also assume routine staff management of #dLT team. 

Accountabilities and deliverables

1. Strategy and governance

   • IS Strategy

     • Define objectives, frameworks, and metrics for the strategic planning process and establish ownership and timelines for key planning steps (Financial and IS) 

     • Ensure alignment across IS of the Strategic priorities and investment areas 

     • Measure success of strategy over time 

     • Conduct market and competitive research to identify broader business trends and assumptions that may affect the IT strategy 

     • Special projects startup 

     • Provide strategic focus in the portfolio prioritization process and publish strategy 

   • Enterprise Architecture

     • Lead and facilitates the creation of governing principles to guide solution decision making for the enterprise  

     • Roadmap alignment to strategy 

     • Solution architect interface to strategy 

     • APM governance and communication 

     • Champion SAP and BI/Analytics strategy 

2. Manage the EA Practice 

   • Leads the development of a value proposition and execution of a communication and education plan for the enterprise architecture practice. 

   • Promotes the business value of EA as an enabler of strategy formulation, and as support for technology innovation, which drives the organization’s top and bottom lines. 

   • Leads the development of an implementation plan for the enterprise architecture based on business strategy and requirements. 

   • Leads the creation and maturing of the enterprise architecture practice into an internal management consultancy. 

   • Plans and manages a talent pool of architects that works with EA and non-EA related disciplines to deliver the goals, objectives and outcomes of the organization. 

3. Facilitate Innovation 

   • Assesses disruptive forces impacting the organization and identifies technology-enabled innovation opportunities that enables business strategy. 

   • Contextualizes technology trends based on social, economic, political and other nontechnology trends. 

   • Scans the world for major disruptive technology and nontechnology trends (trendspotting) that affect business. Provides practical advice and best practices to overcome these challenges and successfully deliver the expected business outcomes. 

   • Tracks and applies innovative technologies, anchoring them in the business and operating model to assess their potential, and use agile and lean approaches to evolve and manage innovation. 

   • Runs technology experiments to create new products and services and integrate the best of these into steady-state operations for the organization. 

4. Orchestrate the Delivery of Business Outcomes 

   • Positions the EA practice at the intersection of business and IT. Ensures the EA practice is designed and enabled to help formulate, translate and execute business strategy. 

   • Works with business leaders to identify key drivers and targeted business outcomes to derive useful business context. 

   • Develops diagnostic and actionable deliverables that help our business guide investment decisions in support of executing business strategy. 

   • Leads analysis of the business’ future-state capabilities and future (and current) IT environment to detect critical deficiencies and recommend solutions for improvement to drive the business forward. 

   • Identifies organizational requirements for the resources, structures and cultural changes necessary to support the enterprise architecture. 

   • Works with the CIO and IT leaders to find the right EA organizational design to drive business-outcomes. 

   • Ensures the EA organizational design process leads to a more efficient and effective business and IT operating model, significantly improved results (profitability, customer service, internal operations), and EA resources who are empowered and committed to the integration of business and IT. 

5. Informs the IT Portfolio 

   • Presents gap analyses and/or IT investment roadmaps that reflect the status of the existing IT estate, namely, its ability to contribute to future-state business capabilities around ecosystems and digital platforms. 

   • Leads analysis of the IT environment to detect critical deficiencies and recommend solutions for improvement. 

   • Leads the development of an implementation plan for the enterprise architecture based on business requirements and the varying IT strategies for project-driven or product-driven delivery teams. 

   • Develops and applies standards and minimal viable architectures through the EA governance model, which is informed by the business strategy and corporate governance. Clarifies accountability and provides the focal point for agile, effective and efficient decision-making. 

   • Collaborates with agile teams to ensure consistency with the enterprise architecture, as well as to leverage shared technologies, tools and processes that impact speed to value and time to market. 

   • Collaborates with infrastructure and project teams to ensure consistency with the enterprise architecture, as well as to identify when it is necessary to modify the enterprise architecture. 

   • Oversees EA implementation, continuous improvement and ongoing refinement activities. 

   • Oversees the documentation of all architecture design and analysis work. 

6. Supplier Relationship Management 

   • Owns and manages all strategic vendor partnerships 

   • Owns and drives the Vendor governance model 

   • Drives and supports continuous improvement (CI) within ABEG  

   • Strategic partnership management (innovation, long term future, collaborations, etc.) 

   • Regional strategic vendor identification/definition and negotiations in collaboration with Procurement 

   • Vendor licence management 

7. Leadership management and innovation 

   • Is responsible for driving focus and prioritization within the IT organization through establishing strategic planning and governance principles and processes. 

   • Oversees the development and maintenance of IT policies, procedures, methodologies, and governance — as well as performance management frameworks and metrics to ensure the IT organization delivers value to the enterprise. 

   • Provides broad insight to IT domains and capabilities in support of enterprise wide business decisions. 

   • Establishes and implements continuous-improvement programs for the IT organization. 

   • Stays current with developments in new market trends and innovations in technology and the leadership of enterprise IT. 

   • Drives and facilitates effective collaboration and communications between the IT organization and the user and customer communities. 

   • Is responsible for directing the preparation, review and consolidation of business plans and budgets for the IT organization. 

   • May regularly review IT costs and cost structures for IT services and products so that the financial implications of IT projects and activities are communicated to the proper IT and business executives. 

   • May direct risk evaluation and compliance management processes. 

   • May be responsible for developing and managing strategic vendor and partnership relationships.