Associate Director, Solution Enablement (System Owner) - Business Enablement

The Associate Director, Solution Enablement position in the Business Engagement and Enablement department in Data and Technology is a highly varied and challenging role, suitable for an individual with an in-depth understanding of business operational processes and aptitude for technology implementation and support. In this role, they will act as a Solution Enablement Lead (SEL) for one or more key business solutions at Parexel.  

The SEL’s main accountability is to represent their assigned business solution(s) in the technology and process domain to ensure the business maximizes the benefits and ROI of their solution and improves our ability to serve the needs of patients, sites, sponsors, and internal staff. To achieve this, there will be a need to strongly collaborate with other internal and external stakeholders during the identification, configuration, implementation, and support / maintenance of their solution(s) within the business.

Key Accountabilities:

Business solution(s) representation

• Single point of contact for solution throughout the organization.
• Optionally act as business owner for solution (in agreement with business sponsor).
• Form strong working relationships with all solution stakeholders.
• Work to resolve any solution issues with stakeholders and other support functions and escalate where needed.
• Attend or provide input into pre-sales opportunities when solution expertise is required.
• Assist with audits (internal or external) when related to solution usage.

Understanding business strategy and requirements

• Understand the business strategy and requirements by regularly engaging with business sponsors, owners, and SMEs.
• Manage a high-level backlog of solution changes, prioritized by value to business.
• Verify backlog by regular discussions with business stakeholders & periodically present back to the broader business stakeholder groups for full alignment.
• Provide input to IT BAs to accurately document business requirements in detail for implementation projects.

Formulation of technology strategy /vision

• Work closely with all stakeholders (IT, Business, Vendors, Quality) to help formulate the solution strategy and vision.
• Socialize the strategy / vision with stakeholders to help build companywide consensus.
• Partner with Vendors to help develop their products in line with our business strategy and vision.
• Maintain a long term (3-year) roadmap for the solution with major updates and releases to help communicate the plans amongst stakeholders.

Business value realization

• Work with IT and Vendors to continually deliver the highest priority items on the solution backlog. This could mean advocating new features and functions with external Vendors to get these built into their product(s).
• Collaborate strongly with business, IT and Vendors to build business cases and secure approvals for new projects.
• Working with IT, TQM and QA, input into the planning and execution of any Vendor audits required to bring a new vendor on-board and assist QA with the follow-up and resolution of any audit findings with the Vendor.
• Assist IT or the Vendor during the build or configuration the solution and attend regular review sessions to ensure the new functions or changes are meeting the needs of the business.
• Working with business, IT and TQM stakeholders, ensure any new technology solution is validated. These activities include:
• Planning of validation activities o Ensuring requirements are appropriately documented.
• Securing resources for writing and execution of UAT scripts (in some cases this may be the solution owner themselves)
• Reviewing test results to ensure the solution meets the needs of the business, with quality.
• Review and finalization of validation summary reports.
• Ensuring there is an adequate process for the maintenance of the solution(s) in a validated state.
• Input into the change management and training strategy of the solution.
• Input into the support and maintenance plans of the solution to ensure the needs of the business are being adequately addressed for long term support and maintenance.
• Provide business input into the long-term support of the solution by:
• Attending regular support meetings with IT and/or Vendor for the review of support performance and issue resolution.
• Prioritizing support issues and any resulting bug fixes with IT and/or the Vendor.
• Communication and/or escalation of critical issues to business sponsor and other senior stakeholders.
• Responding to project level or partnership escalations, identifying root causes, and formulating plans to address.

Skills:

• Excellent interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills.
• Highly collaborative approach to work and realizes the importance of the outcome to the team and business over the interests of an individual or department.
• Willingness to work in a matrix environment and to value the importance of teamwork.
• Able to think tactically and strategically for the formation of technology and longer-term plans.
• Able to translate complexity into clarity for a wide audience to understand.
• Service excellence mindset, always willing to try to positively improve the situation.
• Consulting mindset, able to ask the right questions before jumping to solutions and successfully identify the root causes.
• Client focused approach to work.
• Flexible attitude with respect to work assignments and new learning. 
• Ability to manage multiple and varied tasks with enthusiasm and priorities workload.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Comfort level with technology, able to rapidly adapt to new capabilities and changing business and technology environment.

Knowledge and Experience: 

• General understanding and experience of business processes performed by a CRO in the business of initiating, executing, and reporting clinical trials.
• Thorough understanding and experience of at least one business process area (e.g., Clinical Operations, Feasibility, Site Start-up etc.)
• Thorough business understanding of the technology used by the role to be supported (e.g., CTMS, EDC, eTMF etc.)
• Significant experience in managing the use of technology in the business, including prioritizing features and functions, and understanding the impacts of these changes on the business.
• Thorough understanding of technology implementation, training, support, and maintenance. 
• Significant experience of performing return on investment analyses, with follow-up after go-live to prove return.
• Significant consulting experience and able to demonstrate the consulting mindset.
• Significant experience of working with global teams across different time zones.

Education:

• MSc/BSc in a related discipline with experience, or very extensive relevant experience in the industry.