Enterprise Architect (senior)

The role of enterprise architect

Taking into account bpost’s current vision and strategy, and with the aim of adapting it to new trends and opportunities; develop the technology strategic plan by identifying, tracking and experimenting with new and potentially disruptive technologies.

allow bpost to take the right innovation initiatives for its future, to further the company’s objectives, by monitoring and exploring technological evolutions, defining their possible implementation, and determining their feasibility and economic justification.

Maintain bpost’s application, product and technology landscape and align it with the strategic objectives of bpost as a group, between the subsidiaries, and within the subsidiaries.

Assist the CTO in carrying out his tasks and provide him with the necessary support to support the strategically relevant processes. In addition, it is crucial that the Chief Enterprise Architect can navigate bpost’s complex organizational landscape and act as a mediator between the various IT and business services.

Main tasks

a. Determining bpost’s technological mission and vision to support a business-oriented culture and way of thinking. A mission and vision that goes beyond pure ICT. Namely determining which technological building blocks are essential for the business unit(s) to either survive, save costs or grow as a business.

b. Developing a technological strategy for the ICT entity, in order to achieve bpost’s strategic objectives faster and more efficiently and to stimulate the creation of new BU strategies and models. Provide support in the definition, communication and implementation of the strategic BU roadmaps. Supporting the CTO in determining the objectives of the ICT entity. It is essential to ensure that the business units are correctly informed about the technological possibilities for their business evolution. In addition to a purely advisory and guiding role, there is also a responsibility towards implementation and strategic approach to ensure that the business can implement this technology in the most efficient manner.

c. Setting up, directing, aligning and controlling the technological vision and speed within bpost corporate in order to efficiently and effectively realize value creation between the units by realizing “economies of scale” in the technological field. In addition to the necessary building blocks, this function also determines where and when deviations from corporate rules in the technological field are allowed. Collaborative development between the ICT components, but also between all BUs, is essential.
d. Ensuring stakeholder management:

• Develop and maintain relationships with strategic partners and Senior Management of the BU and corporate to gain a clear understanding of business needs and ensure that these are met in an efficient and innovative manner and that synergies are created created;
• Acting as a confidential counselor and advisor for the BU with regard to technological aspects;
• Organizing strategic meetings at regular intervals with internal (including the other ICT units such as architecture, governance, customer service, business, etc.) and external stakeholders.
• Sharing information, consulting and developing and maintaining constructive cooperation with the other ICT units such as governance, sourcing, customer service, commercial, logistics & supporting entity.
• Stay informed of all technological developments in order to provide appropriate advice to senior management.
• Maintaining relationships with bpost’s key strategic technology suppliers.

e. Providing input for the further development of the ICT sourcing strategy and managing strategic partnerships. Monitoring the evolution of partnerships with regard to who supplies and maintains which technology, as well as the performance of the partners in the recent past.

f. Providing strategic direction and supervision of the design, development, operation and maintenance of the ICT systems and programs that meet customer needs, including the evaluation of architecture management, applications management, security and risk management, infrastructure and operational support management. It is important that the organization is able to deal with new trends and technologies on a real-time basis, i.e. the aspect “readiness for a continuous change” is one of the most essential and challenging aspects of the position.

g. Managing an IT workforce of internal architects with a mix of business knowledge, technical skills and competence to create and maintain a good balance between the agility required to achieve the digital business objectives on the one hand and the reliability, stability and efficiency of the to monitor “core business” and all the manufacturing components that go with it. Ensuring that there is sufficient flexibility and knowledge to respond to bpost’s needs.

h. Contribute to the definition of bpost’s strategic 5-year plan, policies, business technology standards, governance processes, and KPIs that ensure that ICT generates value for bpost.

i. Demonstrating innovative leadership: identifying new technologies that can/must be assimilated, integrated or introduced into the ICT entity. Actively encouraging the search for incremental and disruptive innovation according to established methodologies: for example, the 10x thinking principle, putting the customer and the customer experience first, implementing the “fail fast and early” principle and celebrating successes and failures.