Mgr, Advanced Digital Workplace Services

The Mgr, Advanced Digital Workplace Services is responsible for digital workplace projects, release coordination, communications, reporting, licenses and entitlement management, and roadmap creation. This role will work closely with digital workplace engineering, operations and enablement teams to ensure the coordinated delivery of digital workplace services. The individual fosters a strong relationship with technology vendors, corporate communications, procurement and vendor management, finance, IT service and asset management, and legal or compliance teams.

This role manages a technical team of engineers and product managers responsible for implementing, managing and continuously improving digital workplace technologies. The individual drives the team to automate or eliminate repeatable tasks and reduce administrative overhead for themselves and workplace operations, including configuration variations, performance issues on endpoint devices and security vulnerabilities. The Manager, Advanced Digital Workplace and Strategy owns digital workplace technology roadmaps and lifecycle and fosters a strong relationship with technology vendors, IT security, legal and compliance teams.

The responsibilities include designing, securing and ensuring that the Messaging environments are operationally stable, cost effective and optimized, and managing the Office 365 solution, focusing on collaboration and business productivity. In this capacity, this role is responsible for Service Level Management and direct operational control over all services associated with IT Messaging and the Office 365 Environment (EXO, Teams, OneDrive and other applications). These services include Tenant System Configuration, Client Management in Intune, Microsoft Exchange, Email archiving, SPAM gateways, Skype for Business, Mobile Device Management including BES and MobileIron, and the Office 365 environment and all supporting technologies (AzureAD, Sharepoint Online, etc).

This position is responsible for leadership of the Advanced Digital Workplace team, which is responsible for the installation, maintenance, testing, troubleshooting and support of the associated systems required to manage the above described services. This role must work with VW Group to ensure that we are compliant with Global Policy, while ensuring the interests and experience of VWGoA are represented within the IT Group.

Will be responsible for leading technical team members and managing technology vendors during project implementation, standard activities, troubleshooting efforts, and guiding Advanced Digital Workplace team personnel while they solve service issues and fulfill new requirements. Will be responsible for the creation and maintenance of standard operating procedures and policies. Position requires communications with VIP customers. Directly accountable for all lifecycle planning, strategy, procurement, invoicing, contracts, and vendor management.

This position is responsible for the governance of contracted services outsourced to IT Service Providers for infrastructure and database operational services. The governance relates to all ITSM disciplines such as Incident, Change, Problem, Capacity, Availability, IT Security, SLA Management, Financial Management and Contract Management. This position will direct the day to day activities of VW employees (IT systems architects), contracted technical engineers, managed service providers, and vendors responsible for the development of architecture and design of solutions and lifecycle strategy, while overseeing an annual capital investment from $1.5-2M.

In addition, this role is responsible for technology vendor-management activities, including oversight of the hardware and database portions of the $2M hardware and software maintenance budget. Ensuring VWGoA is in compliance protected from license audits by managing license inventory and maintaining vendor relationships for all vendors that provide IT services and software to VWGoA.

The following functions are the responsibility of the Manager, Advanced Digital Workplace and Strategy. This individual may be asked to perform the following functions: lead the team that is performing these functions, work together with a team from other IT&S Departments, business departments, and Third Party Suppliers/Vendor personnel to integrate products and services, ensure compliance to VW IT and other Corporate Standards and guidelines, and to provide the appropriate technical leadership to support the needs of each line of business.

Management 20%

• Manage engineering resources covering the following technologies:
  • Email (Exchange 2016 & Exchange Online)
  • Skype for Business (including Enterprise Voice)
  • Mobile Device Management (MobileIron and Blackberry Work)
  • Office 365 (Teams, Exchange Online, InTune, OneDrive, SharePoint Online, AzureAD, etc)
• Define need for and develop initial budget and project definitions for strategic technology initiatives, prioritize the approved initiatives.
• Help prioritize tasks for team members and give general guidance & direction.
• Set cross functional direction and insure integration across technology functional areas.

Office 365 & Collaboration Strategy 20%

• Responsible for the Office 365 solution as a whole
• Work with business units to develop priorities, offer solutions and meet business needs.
• Set strategy for product timelines to be introduced to the environment (new product cadence, when to replace on-prem product, etc).
• Ensure legal compliance (retention rules, eDiscovery solutions, litigation hold, etc)
• Work with the security team to ensure configuration meets security guidelines
• Focus on user adoption of new products, including training and communications

SLA Management 20%

• Ensure a stable and secure operational environment for VWGoA business applications to increase system availability, reliability and scalability through the management of outsourced service providers.
• Develop contractual metrics
• Audit/Monitor metrics performance
• Govern service providers
• Monitor technology recovery strategies
• Manage IT budgets
• Define operational priorities
• Perform technology audits
• Manage the implementation of cost efficiencies activities and define cost efficiency metrics

Technology Vendor Management 15%

• Review Messaging & Technologies vendor contracts
• Primary contact point for Messaging and Client technology vendors
• Responsible for Messaging Hardware, Messaging Software, and Client Management Software license agreements

Technology Project Sponsorship 10%

• Create a stable infrastructure through scalable, secure, and proven processes and technology implementations.
• Standardize architectural planning to improve efficiencies in the business and IT environment by lowering the time to delivery & cost of solutions (IT & Business) across the enterprise.
• Propose, sponsor and provide budget planning for IT messaging projects.

Technology Framework Strategy 15%

• Strives to ensure an adaptive technology environment as measured by the alignment of business functions to core technology services and speed to delivery of new business initiatives.
• Provide strategic technology direction by setting clear, strategic technology direction for the enterprise through the creation and maintenance of a strategic technology plan.
• Mediate deviation of standards
• Govern technology compliance
• Monitor technology trends
• Liaison to Group IT and evaluate group technology alignment
• Communicate technology strategy
• Define Technology Plans
• Define & maintain Architecture Direction, standards, policies & guidelines.
• Ensure alignment to Group standards and be an active participant in setting those standards

Qualifications:

Years of Experience:

• 15 years of experience within the Information Technology field, possessing a broad range of technical understanding, including Digital Workplace technologies (collaboration technologies like Office 365, Slack, Jira, etc), email and communication platforms including Skype, Teams, Exchange, ProofPoint, MSSQL, end point management solutions (MobileIron, BES, Intune, etc).
• 10 years of experience managing operational environments (preferably automotive based).
• 10 years of experience in strategic IT planning with demonstrated project management and analytical skills..

Education:

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent work experience - required
• Master's degree, MBA or Computer Science Degree - desired
• Technical certifications a plus

Skills:

• Analytical and conceptual thinking – using logic and reason, creative and strategic
• Strong Communication and presentation skills – interpersonal, presentation and written
• Vision. The ability to see and explain how digital workplace technology can improve employee experience and engagement
• Business-results orientation. Seeks to understand business needs and works to anticipate, identify, and meet end-user needs.
• Technology Leadership – skilled in the management of both technical teams, and individuals
• Enablement mindset. The ability to focus on empowering and ensuring that employees have the motivation and knowledge to fully exploit IT-supplied technology.
• The ability to effectively guide and sustain people, process and technology change in a dynamic and complex operating environment.
• Integration – joining people, processes or systems
• Influencing and negotiation skills
• Problem solving skills
• Resource management
• Contract management and governance
• Leadership skills and ability to lead and direct diverse technical teams across countries and cultures
• Strong teamwork and interpersonal skills, and ability to communicate with all management levels
• Strong analytical and conceptual skills
• Strong financial management skills
• Flexibility. Willing to roll up the sleeves and help, or diving into details when necessary.
• Digital dexterity. The ability to learn and utilize digital workplace technologies to catalyze new ways of work.

Specialized Skills:

Required:

• 10 years of technical experience implementing, managing and supporting digital workplace technologies.
• Experience building technology roadmaps and aligning with enterprise architecture.
• Strong understanding of digital workplace technologies (hardware, software, services and SaaS tools).
• Strong understanding of adjacent technologies (identity, security, endpoint management, vulnerability management, asset management, IT service management, analytics, etc.).
• Working knowledge of managing digital workplace tools and configuration management, identity and access management, active directory, desktop virtualization, collaboration platforms and other cloud-based services.
• Experience implementing continuous engineering or other agile methods to keep pace with frequent changes and to reduce complexity.
• Awareness of modern management techniques and concepts.
• Personnel management and team development
• Excellent leadership and management ability
• Strong commitment to a team environment including individuals from different cultures, languages and backgrounds
• Willingness to learn new technologies and innovate
• Ability to quickly adapt to new situations
• Strong initiative and drive to achieve results under stressful or challenging situations
• Business process improvement involving broad based information systems and utilizing tools and techniques to effect business change
• Project management and execution of larger projects
• Experience within Information Technology leading an operational or application team managing to SLA guidelines, on-site, as well as, remote (offshore) leadership experience required.

Desired:

• ITIL Certification
• Knowledge of VWGoA IT Organization and its North American operations
• Experience in B2B and B2C technologies
• Spanish and German Language skills a plus

Work Flexibility:

• Up to 15% Travel
• Some global travel will be required to review operational services from other external service providers, to remain aligned with VW Group in technology and/or security standards, and to lead NAR activities in area of responsibility.
• Domestic travel as required.

Volkswagen Group of America is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We welcome and encourage applicants from all backgrounds, and do not discriminate based on race, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, color, gender identity/expression, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristics protected by applicable laws.