Senior IT Business Relations Manager

▶ Who we are

With more than 13,000 stores in the U.S. and 84,000 stores globally, it is no wonder 7-Eleven, Inc. has been named an iconic brand. In addition to 7-Eleven stores, 7-Eleven, Inc. also operates and franchises Speedway, Stripes, Laredo Taco Company and Raise the Roost locations. Since inventing the convenience industry in 1927, 7-Eleven has built a rich 96-year history filled with beloved products like Slurpee, Big Gulp and Big Bite, and fan-favorite holidays like Slurpee Day and Bring Your Own Cup Day. Now, 7-Eleven is on a mission to contemporize the brand and redefine convenience – and we need your help.
 
▶ About This Opportunity

Job Summary:

In this role, the Sr. Business Relations Manager (BRE) acts as the chief liaison between IT and the business units, a trusted advisor to the business units, and is the face of IT to the business and the face of the business to IT. This role will establish and maintain a relationship between IT and the business to increase the value realized from IT assets, investments, and capabilities. The Sr. BRE is responsible for understanding the business, participating in the development of the business strategy and roadmap, facilitating the creation of project business cases, managing interdependencies across departments, contributing to the prioritization of projects, ensuring projects align with the technology roadmap, educating IT about the business, and ensuring the IT strategy supports the overall business strategy.

Responsibilities:
•    Acts as the principal technology advisor to all Business Units assigned and serves as a champion for identifying, leading, and driving information technology transformation.
o    Anticipates and identifies Business Unit needs.
o    Maintains knowledge of the information technology landscape and proprietary technologies, while working across the organization to drive standardization and the vision of technology selection and implementation.
o    Ensures communication and education on technology options available.
o    Advises on and influence overall technology strategies.
o    Participate in vendor evaluation, selection and negotiation.
o    Develops and manage the relationship between IT and internal and external partners (i.e. Business Units, service providers, etc.). For each Business Unit, assist in the development of technology strategies that align with the overall business strategy.
o    Maintains an awareness of current and potential technology issues and concerns within the organization and the IT industry and recommends potential solutions to meet expectations and forecast requirements.
o    Ensures the Business Unit strategy is supported in the IT roadmap.
o    Seeks opportunities to leverage technology to achieve Business Unit objectives.
•    Interfaces with company leadership to ensure that technological needs are met.
o    Facilitates the creation and presentation of project business cases.
o    Participates in project prioritization across the enterprise, understands dependencies, and the impacts of priority changes.
o    Maintains an understanding of Business Unit IT projects, enhancements, and maintenance items always.
o    Serves as the primary escalation point for assigned Business Units.
o    Serves as the primary escalation point for IT as it pertains to the Business Units.
o    Participate in and advocate for Service Level Agreement (SLA) negotiations to enhance value to Business Units.
o    Ensures technology is delivered securely in compliance with overall security program.
o    Deepens client relationships as a trusted and valued partner to collect customer feedback.
o    Leads the management and documentation for all business requirements for assigned project work in conjunction with related Subject Matter Experts (SMEs).
o    Ensures the gathering of requirements for major technology initiatives are accurate, complete, and meet the needs of the business.
o    Researches, reviews, analyzes the effectiveness and efficiency of existing requirements-gathering processes, and develops strategies for enhancing or further leveraging these processes.
o    Ensures the gathering and reporting of key metrics, including Key Performance Indicators and Key Goal Indicators.
o    Ensures that Business Units understand the technology solutions, overall solution delivery, and compliance to governance processes, architecture standards, end-to-end testing, etc.
o    Participates in trials and the piloting of new tools; provides appropriate support and expertise in testing procedures and the development of appropriate testing standards, testing and distribution, implementation and reporting; tracking and project planning support.
o    Defines and sustains change control procedures as part of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC).
•    Collaborate with IT teams to ensure system integrations and upgrades are properly executed, and functional testing occurs. 
•    Assists in managing risk assessment process to completion, which includes risk documentation and risk mitigation controls for assigned projects 
•    Participates in and/or drives application rationalization activities to ensure the justification of ongoing technology spend and develop roadmaps that align with broader enterprise application strategy.
•    Identifies and assists with the development of efficiencies and optimization practices across business units.
•    Works with assigned Business Units to develop and maintain technology budgets.
•    Prepares cost-benefit analyses for projects and assist business stakeholders in prioritizing projects submitted to application governance councils. Work with stakeholders and project teams to prioritize requirements.
•    diligence related to acquisition targets.
•    Performs other duties as requested or assigned.

Education Requirements:
•    Bachelor’s Degree preferred in Management Information Systems, Computer Science, Business, or related field.

Senior IT Business Relations Manager
•    6 years+ progressive retail leadership and/or IT experience.
•    Project management experience is preferred.
•    3+ year experience with delivering executive presentations and interfacing with executive leadership.
•    Experience with Jira/Confluence, project management tools, and business process management tools preferred.
•    Trains, leads, and provides technical guidance to professional and technical staff assigned to business systems analysis; directs the work of peers and/or Business Relations Managers on assigned projects.
•    Manages, coordinates and communicates initiatives for a variety of functional areas and technologies
•    Advises executive sponsor of status and issues requiring attention
•    Provides advice and guidance to less experienced professionals and other personnel as situations require and encourages future development.
•    Possesses the skills necessary to coordinate efforts of very large corporate initiatives and special projects
•    Has an advanced understanding of the business systems used by business client(s)

Skill Requirements:
•    Critical thinker.
•    Self-starter requiring minimal supervision. 
•    Demonstrate the behavioral and technical competencies necessary to effectively complete job responsibilities.  Take personal initiative for technical and professional development.
•    Good understanding of business issues and technical implications.
•    Excellent understanding of client operations and systems; Business strategy development and execution skills.
•    Establish and maintain positive and productive work relationships with all staff, customers and business partners.
•    Demonstrate a high level of customer service and cooperation.
•    Business process improvement.
•    Broad knowledge of business applications, operating systems, network systems, Internet, telecommunication systems, and all other relevant technology platforms.
•    Demonstrated expertise with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other MS Office suite applications.
•    Excellent communication, organizational and interpersonal skills and the ability to research and resolve issues.
•    Strong facilitation skills for requirement elicitation and management communications.
•    Ability to handle diverse situations, multiple initiatives and rapidly changing priorities.
•    Ability to present information, both verbal and written, in a clear and concise manner.
•    Ability to multi-task and track multiple efforts concurrently.
•    Ability to develop estimations, including the work steps and effort hours. 
•    Ability to translate business requirement(s) into detailed technical documentation.
•    Experience with software development and deployment processes.
•    Familiarity with waterfall, agile and iterative software development lifecycles.
•    Ability to test thoroughly, including boundary testing, negative testing, ad hoc testing and regression testing.
•    Ability to troubleshoot issues in the certification and production environments.
•    Understanding of organizational change management (OCM) to assist with adoption of system changes.
•    Ability to perform repeated bending, standing and reaching.
•    Ability to occasionally lift to 40 pounds.
•    Ability to travel.

If an hourly or salary range is included in this ad it represents the range 7-Eleven in good faith believes is the range of compensation for this role at the time of this posting. The Company may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range is only applicable for jobs to be performed in this state. This range may be modified in the future. No amount is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable under the terms and conditions of the applicable policies and plans. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, long-term incentive compensation, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole discretion, consistent with the law.