Commercial BEST IT Program Manager

Commercial BEST IT Program Manager NA SAPMENA.

Location:  Shanghai
Department: O+O Zone IT
Reporting to: Head of Commercial IT, NA SAPMENA
Key Collaboration Partners: Zone & Market Commercial Transformation Teams, India Tech Hub (ITH), Market commercial and finance teams.

Mission & Role Overview

Based in Shanghai, the Commercial BEST IT Program Manager is a strategic leadership role. You will be the primary architect and orchestrator of the BEST Program for the Commercial IT domain across the APAC zone. The BEST program is a major strategic initiative putting key business resources into our India Tech Hub (ITH) to operate as a dedicated, business captive starting with Business planning followed by other commercial process areas.

In this role, you will not just manage execution, you will drive the strategy, align regional roadmaps, define timelines, and take full ownership of budget tracking. Working in lockstep with the Commercial Transformation Teams and Zone leadership, you will act as the key pivot point between strategic decisions, market-level commercial needs, and the delivery capability in the ITH captive. Your mission is to maximize the business value of our commercial applications, including Business Process Management (BPM), Sales Force Automation (SFA), Distributor Management Systems (DMS), and by effectively leveraging this new business-captive delivery model.

Key Responsibilities

1. Drive Commercial Strategy & Roadmap Alignment

• Strategic Leadership: Drive the long-term technological and operational strategy for Zone Commercial IT, positioning the BEST business-captive program as a core accelerator of business growth.
• Roadmap & Timeline Ownership: Consolidate and align disparate market requirements into a single, cohesive Zone roadmap. Establish, negotiate, and enforce realistic timelines for major rollouts (such as SFA, DMS, and BPM applications).
• Dependency & Risk Management: Proactively identify and resolve roadmap dependencies and resource conflicts between NA SAPMENA markets and the ITH delivery teams to guarantee seamless deployments.

2. Rigorous Financial & Budget Tracking

• Financial Stewardship: Own the end-to-end budget tracking (CAPEX and OPEX) for the Commercial BEST related program and associated application rollouts.
• Cost-Benefit & ROI Analysis: Monitor, analyze, and report on the financial efficiency of the business-captive model. Ensure IT solutions delivers the targeted financial optimization and return on investment (ROI) for our businesses.
• Resource Costing: Manage and forecast resource allocation costs, balancing budget constraints with market demands and program delivery speeds.

3. BEST Program Governance & Organizational Design

• Captive Operating Model: Define and govern the operational framework that allows commercial business resources in the ITH captive to seamlessly integrate with technical delivery squads.
• Commercial Transformation Partnership: Partner deeply with regional and local Commercial Transformation Teams to ensure the IT solutions are directly addressing market pain points and driving efficiency.
• High-Level Governance: Establish and lead SteerCos and operational review meetings with senior business and IT stakeholders to report on program health, timeline adherence, and budget consumption.

4. Stakeholder Navigation & Change Management

• Senior Stakeholder Management: Act as the trusted advisor to Market Tech Leads, Local market commercial business stakeholders, and Zone Business Owners, translating complex technical architectures into strategic business outcomes.
• Change Leadership: Champion the cultural shift required to run a blended business-and-tech captive model, maintaining high trust and collaboration between Zone, local markets, and ITH.

Technical & Domain Requirements

 Soft Skills & Competencies

• Strategic Visionary: Ability to connect long-term organizational transformation with day-to-day timeline execution and P&L impact.
• Influencing & Negotiation: Outstanding capability to negotiate timelines and align roadmaps across multiple markets with competing priorities.
• Analytical Problem Solving: Highly data-driven, comfortable navigating complex budget sheets and resource capacity models.
• Excellent Communication: Exceptional presentation skills, comfortable presenting roadmaps, financial health, and strategic pivots to Executive Committees and Zone leaders.

Experience & Qualifications

Required Experience

• Professional Experience: 10+ years of experience in IT Program Management, Business Transformation, or IT Consulting, with a strong focus on Commercial/Sales technologies.
• Industry Background: Proven experience in FMCG, Retail, or Consumer Goods sectors is highly preferred, with a deep understanding of route-to-market strategies and distributor networks.
• Captive/Hub Operations: Hands-on experience working with or establishing global shared services, offshore delivery hubs, or business-captive operations (specifically managing transitions of IT capabilities to centralized hubs).
• Track Record in Commercial Tech: Successful history of delivering large-scale, multi-market rollouts for SFA (Sales Force Automation/Salesforce), DMS (Distributor Management Systems), and BPM solutions across APAC (Anaplan experience can be added advantage).
• Financial Stewardship: Demonstrable experience owning, tracking, and optimizing complex IT budgets with strict adherence to corporate governance.

Education & Professional Certifications

• Education: Bachelor’s or Master's degree in Business Administration, Information Technology, Computer Science, Management Information Systems, or a related field.
• Project Management Certifications: PMP (Project Management Professional), PgMP (Program Management Professional), or equivalent credentials.
• Agile Certifications: Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), or Agile Project Management (PMI-ACP) certifications are highly valued.
• Change Management: Prosci or equivalent Change Management certification is a strong advantage given the organizational redesign aspects of the BEST program.

Success Metrics (KPIs)

• Roadmap & Timeline Adherence: On-time delivery of SFA, DMS, and BPM regional milestones according to the aligned Zone roadmap.
• Budget Precision: Management of CAPEX/OPEX budgets within a +/- 5% variance, demonstrating strict cost control and optimized resource allocation.
• Captive Maturity & Speed: Significant improvement in application delivery velocity and market adoption rates driven by the integrated ITH business captive.
• Stakeholder Satisfaction: Strong alignment and high feedback scores from both the Zone Commercial Transformation Teams and local market business leaders.