Brief Role Description

This position is Career Level 20L, located in Auburn Hills, MI, with a Role Classification of Hybrid.

Role Summary

The US Incentives Operations Technical Lead is responsible for the development, execution, reporting, audit and ongoing management of all Incentives program activity for the in the US. This role provides leadership and support to the sales and group functions of the brands and manages the implementation team and services.

This role is responsible for $1.4 billion in incentive spend each year.

The US Technical Lead is responsible for business partner satisfaction and shared business goals. Individuals must have high services orientation, and ability to build a strong trusted partnerships. This role will support various business units throughout the company, including Retail Sales, CPO, Fleet, Customer Experience, Parts/Accessories, Service Retention, Corporate Vehicle Services, Wholesale Ops, Group Service & Tech, Aftersales, Network, Marketing, Finance, and IT.

Role Responsibilities

Manage Incentive Services (25%)

• Own the complete process life cycle and its associated applications, including the project and program management, scope-definition and delivery-acceptance, on-time, in-budget and in-quality delivery and acceptance.
• Ensure accuracy and timely completion of +300 yearly incentive programs that will administrator >$1 billion dollars in incentives spend.  Lead the development team strategically and prioritize workload to meet deadlines
• Maintain a profound understanding of business strategies and processes, and their associated applications
• Manage the Incentives Management Console and ensure the proper configuration of +80 captive and brand programs on a monthly basis
• Create Operating Level Agreements and metric to measure efficiency and effectiveness of services
• Ensure compliance to standards
• Meet with key business stakeholders on a monthly basis to review services, budget and make any necessary adjustments
• Act as project manager for Incentives (or Sales & Marketing)-related IT projects and collaborate with cross-functional teams and leadership within IT to accomplish business goals
• Ensure business partner satisfaction measured via monthly meetings and quarterly surveys

Maintain Key Business Knowledge (20%)

• Study and analyze key business operations in terms of processes/functions, information, technology and organization to drive innovation within business processes and supporting technologies.
• Maintain process knowledge over the respective processes and its dependencies to the whole process chain
• Meet with stakeholders during the program rules creation process to provide feedback on clarity, ease of execution, compliance, and influence consistency throughout the different teams
• Manage Services Planning Processes
• Collaborate with business owners to develop strategic plans and encourage innovation in Process/IT improvement
• Act as the trusted “technical” advisor and “go to person” for the process owners for business process improvement, innovation and supporting technologies.
• Develop innovative Process/IT projects to support business strategy
• Support the OMD & Incentives Competency Center Senior Manager through continuous improvement of the planning process

Manage Development Team (25%)

• Support sourcing of development resources
• Manage development team resources (>6 people) to collectively support monthly Incentives programs
• Set clear goals and measure resource achievement of those goals
• Establish a culture that attracts top talent and provide ability for personnel development
• Develop and maintain high performing resources for use across projects
• Plan, lead and follow-up on organizational and operational change
• Act as a trusted advisor to the business and field leadership teams
• Ensure quality performance (on-time, within budget and scope)

Manage Budgets (10%)

• Comply with department budgets as required (mobile phone, travel, etc.)
• Develop and manage project budgets within respective portfolio
• Ensure compliance to established funding and applicable policies

Team Effectiveness (20%)

• Ability to establish, maintain and cultivate business partner relationships across the Audi, VW and Group business units for US and Canada operations. These relationships would primarily be with grade 10 through 13 business leaders but may require relationship development with grade 14 and higher Directors and VPs
• Ability to manage vendor relationships, contracts, vendor personnel while maintaining a cost-effective, competitive environment for the necessary skills needed to staff the incentives development team
• Business process improvement involving broad based information systems and utilizing tools and techniques to effect business change
• Strong business operational management skills and the ability to manage and measure the efficiency and effectiveness of the incentives development team
• Ability to be comfortable in a non-hierarchical, flat organization; ability to thrive in a somewhat unstructured hands-on environment that demands a consultative approach and solutions that span multiple environments in a business area

Qualifications

Years of Experience:

• Minimum 7-10 years of IT Automotive Industry or related experience

Required  Education:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent amount of work experience      

Desired Education:

• Masters in IT

Skills:

• Collaboration
• Customer Focus
• Process Orientation
• Results Driven
• People Development
• Strategic Agility

Required Skills:

• Minimum 3 years of Managerial experience
• Proficient sales operations knowledge that includes working closely with IT in the development and implementation of projects
• Knowledge of Incentives systems and enterprise data environment
• Knowledge of business systems in a large scale environment across multiple systems
• Knowledge of dealership and corporate sales operations processes
• Extensive sales operations knowledge that includes working closely with IT in the development and implementation of large scale projects
• Experience with incentives systems and enterprise data environment to be able to effectively guide the development staff to create programs based on the brand business requirements
• Experience with business systems analysis in a large scale environment across multiple systems
• Knowledge of the dealership and corporate sales operations processes; experience in the strategic use of technology in managing and growing a business
• Account Management- Perform strategic thinking and demonstrate competency in developing efficient and effective solutions to complex business problems
• Account Management - Strong technical knowledge and ability to express complex technical concepts in terms that are understandable to the business
• Fiscal Accountability - Accountable for all systems and processes required to make payments to dealership and their personnel for all incentives programs for Audi US and Audi/VW Canada (totaling over 300 programs a year) and the ability to track and audit those payments
• Fiscal Accountability - Able to provide detailed knowledge and use both systems and processes to audit incentives programs and recover any funds that are inappropriately paid
• Decision Authority - Ability to make decisions regarding incentives programs and payments on behalf of the business areas
• Creativity - Ability to conceptualize, design and sponsor projects that will assist in meeting business objectives such as dealer satisfaction, cost effectiveness, and sales targets
• Influence Management – Able to interact, lead conversations and tailor message to audience, including all levels in the organization.  Build meaningful connections.
• Influence Management – Quickly understand key areas of stakeholder’s business to appropriate recommend IT solutions to support incentive activities.
• Team Management - Ability to work with staffing vendor personnel while maintaining a cost-effective, competitive environment for the necessary skills needed to staff the Incentives development team
• Team Management - Ability to manage a team of individuals; define key yearly goals; foster a growth environment

Required Technical Skills:

• SQL and PL/SQL – 5+ years
• Unix and Shell Scripting – 5+ years
• Oracle Experience
• Data Warehouse Knowledge
• Supervising Experience
• Perl, Source Control software and Business Objects reporting

Proficiency in Microsoft applications including:

• Access
• Excel
• Outlook
• Visio
• Word                 

Work Flexibility:

• Ability to work overtime as required to meet business requirements
• Ability to travel up to 10%