About the position
ENVIRONMENT:
AN exciting 12-month Contract position has opened up with our client, a dynamic Energy Specialist seeking your specialist expertise as a Senior Product Manager where you will be responsible for defining and implementing the strategy to fully automate its forecourts and shops businesses. The role will aid the identification of the right partners for hardware, software and support based on the business requirements and the deployment of the chosen solution across CO and DO sites & is critical to ensuring the continued growth of the Retail business as well as automation being a key dependency for data, insights, operational efficiencies and CVP deployments. The successful incumbent will require a suitable Bachelor’s Degree with experience and leadership in Site Automation choices and implementation in a global capacity with a strong understanding of POS (Point of Sale) systems, terminals, BOS, HOS, Forecourt controllers, ATGs, payment networks, and loyalty program integrations. You will also require experience working in a multi-country environment, preferably across Africa or other emerging markets.
DUTIES:
Right Global Partnerships and Vendor Management -
- The business has started an RFP to identify potential vendors. You will be responsible for ensuring the RFP is assessed correctly and recommend the right solution, or hybrid solutions to meet the business needs.
- You will need to ensure the costs are fully documented, SLAs are agreed and documented, and the contract award is endorsed by senior stakeholders and the contract board.
- Once identified, you will be responsible for managing the solution providers, ensuring commitments are met and performance and delivery is regularly monitored and documented.
Solution and Deployment –
- Define the priority of market deployments and will work with the markets to get their buy in to the project and commit to timings.
- Ensure the right budgets are allocated in each annual cycle and report on costs.
- Oversee all hardware orders and shipping and customs to the required locations.
- Manage new OUs to Site Automation as well as retrofitting the chosen solution to partly automated OUs.
- Ensure “one touch” approach so DO sites are considered alongside CO to ensure the OUs are not overly disrupted and the customer experience is the same, regardless of operating platform.
- Work with natural team to ensure the solution is compliant to all legal and fiscal OU specifics and meets all architectural and security reviews.
- Manage the interactions and relationships with QSRs and other retailers who have a presence on the site footprint where needed, to enable the desired customer experience and integrations.
- Ensure the Change Impact Assessment is conducted and work with the project manager to ensure a consolidated plan around technical delivery and business readiness.
- Establish and enforce the SLAs for delivery, support and maintenance.
- Define ongoing performance monitoring frameworks, including KPI tracking for system uptime, transaction success rates, and customer experience impact.
- Support hyper-care activities post-deployment, ensuring rapid issue resolution and continuous improvement.
Value Realisation –
- Liaise with the OUs during each stage gate of the project to ensure the right resources are allocated and the right training and onboarding is given for the OU to understand the capabilities of the new system and the operational impacts.
- Ensure the OU are utilising all the available tools and data to optimise their business and gain value from the Site Automation made.
- Share best practice and learnings from experience and from other Ous to drive additional value from the solution.
- Align the data to the central data strategy, data lake and Power BI reporting.
- Enable the deployment of strategic CVPs around payments and loyalty that need automation as a dependency.
- Implement a culture of replication and product evergreening.
Stakeholder Management & Collaboration -
- Work closely with central and local teams, including IT, Operations, Finance, Legal and Retail, to align deployment efforts with business objectives.
- Collaborate with external partners, technology providers, including payment processors, terminals, connectivity to ensure compliance and security.
- Provide regular updates to senior management on deployment progress, challenges, and risk mitigation strategies.
- Engage with suppliers to ensure adherence to quality and performance standards for hardware and software solutions.
REQUIREMENTS:
The role is suited to a person that is a Site Automation specialist with previous experience successfully implementing Site Automation solutions (ATG, DOMs, HOS, BOS) in the fuels industry globally, ideally in Africa or with emerging markets.
Qualifications –
- Bachelor’s Degree from a recognised University preferred.
Experience/Skills –
- Experience and leadership in Site Automation choices and implementation in a global capacity.
- Strong understanding of POS (Point of Sale) systems, terminals, BOS, HOS, Forecourt controllers, ATGs, payment networks, and loyalty program integrations.
- Experience working in a multi-country environment, preferably across Africa or other emerging markets.
- Hands-on experience with vendor management, procurement, and SLA negotiations.
- Strong Project Management skills, including Stakeholder Engagement, Risk Management, and Reporting.
- Ability to work under pressure, manage multiple priorities, and ensure execution within tight timelines.
- Experience in Change Management and staff training for technology rollouts in a retail or fuel station environment.
- Willingness to travel as required to oversee deployments and support local teams.
- French Language skills would be an advantage.
Strong focus on DELIVERY:
- Understanding and experience of Site Automation across the shop, forecourt, QSRs, in the retail petroleum industry.
- Have a strong working knowledge of Site Automation systems and solutions, vendors strengths and weaknesses.
- Experience in working with organisations across multiple geographies and languages and understanding the intricacies of project delivery across multiple cultures.
- Ability to problem solve, utilising a knowledge base focused on replication.
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, troubleshooting and resolution skills.
- Proven ability to work with limited supervision whilst exhibiting strong time management skills and delivering with a sense of urgency and attention to detail.
- Able to demonstrate supportive relationships with peers, customers and third parties.
- Can manage and extract maximum value from disparate teams.
- Proven ability working in a complex and ever-changing environment.
- Excellent decision-making skills.
While we would really like to respond to every application, should you not be contacted for this position within 10 working days please consider your application unsuccessful.
COMMENTS:
When applying for jobs, ensure that you have the minimum job requirements. OnlySA Citizens will be considered for this role. If you are not in the mentioned location of any of the jobs, please note your relocation plans in all applications for jobs and correspondence. Apply here [URL Removed] OR e-mail a Word copy of your CV to [Email Address Removed] and mention the reference number of the job.
Desired Skills:
