Business Architect Lead

At Honda we embrace inclusion in our various policies, so whilst our contracts state that the hours are as required to fulfil the role with a minimum of 35 hours per week, we offer flexibility for when you work.  The regular office hours are 08:00 – 16:00 Monday to Thursday with a half hour lunch break & 08:00 – 13:00 on a Friday.  However, we offer flexibility of when you work with our daily flex-time start of between 07:00 and 11:00 providing that there is no business requirement.

Whilst there is no contractual right to work from home, the flexibility we offer is that you can request to work from home for a maximum of 50% of the working days in any one month, again providing there is no business requirement to attend the office.

Role:
Honda is embracing digital technology to transform the way we do business across all of our product lines. From online selling and connected vehicles to implementing the latest technology in our back-office operations, we need to ensure that business agility is supported by a robust enterprise architecture which is fully aligned to our business operations.

Responsible for defining and maintaining the target enterprise architecture - the environment in which IS operates at Honda, and to promote that environment. This role establishes and maintains the EA program & roadmap and delivers input to strategic planning. The role also provides guidance and support to solution design & development teams through use of reference and/or solution architectures. 

The role holder will also provide proactive proposals to the business for continuous improvement and innovation or cost optimisation, ensure correct security and IT policies are in place to minimise business risks and manage cost down by simplifying the IT landscape - reducing the application & technology portfolio.

Occasional travel to Europe is required (depending on project schedules).

Main Responsibilities: 

• Analysis of the application and service portfolio & prepare/propose roadmaps that will be part of the tactical/strategical roadmap of the Honda IT development.
• Support  the business units of Honda to realise their strategies & requirements into a sustainable architecture in line with the ISD strategy in function of services, processes, functions and information.
• Develop solutions that address the tactical and strategic goals for the business while sustaining and driving further process standardization across the Enterprise through your evaluation, design and solutioning for process improvement requests.
• Help define business requirements for new initiatives and gather current business requirements and user perspective for process improvement design.
• Identify integration opportunities for business system management applications and other applicable interdependent technology assets to maximize their capabilities to drive process efficiency, effectiveness and/or affordability. Provide expertise on systems integrations and potential issues/bottlenecks.
• Drive cross functional process alignment, manage and provide guidance on BPM technology tools and applications.  Define & maintain L0-L3 process flows working with the business process owners.
• Foster innovation and bring technical improvements and opportunities to the business.
• Collaborate with other parts of the IT organisation to manage out non-compliant applications and infrastructure over time to reduce costs.
• You will collaborate closely with program managers & project leaders of the various digital transformation initiatives. 
• Other related tasks as may be assigned from time to time.

Qualifications, skills and experience:
Required
This is an important role in Honda’s transition so demonstrated success in a similar role is essential. That will include:

• The definition and adoption of the target architecture.
• Solid knowledge and understanding of digital technologies and transformation.
• The implementation of good governance processes.
• Demonstrated ability to understand business drivers and to work closely with the business to understand their strategy and translate that into an IT environment.
• The ability to communicate at all levels of the Honda organisation, to present a coherent proposition and to listen and understand the needs of others.
• The ability to think and plan strategically and to deliver tactically.
• Demonstrated ability to work well with colleagues at all levels.
• Ability to take ownership over digital transformations with the best guarantee on creating business value, no matter the technological and structural context. You also can act to improve our existing processes to achieve better efficiency, effectiveness, and value creation.
• Design/document business processes end to end.
• Analyse & improve business processes to industry best practice.
• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills to identify performance gaps and root cause.
• Clarity of thinking, clarity in communication – ability to present technical concepts to non-technical audiences for understanding and decision making.

Desirable

• Demonstrable experience in an organisation which sells and distributes manufactured goods.

Honda is committed to the principle of equal opportunity in the workplace for all employees, temporary workers, contractors, applicants and visitors. Honda also encourages respect for the individual differences and talents of others while making full use of one's own abilities, based on Honda's philosophy of respect for the individual.

At Honda, we value and celebrate diversity and are committed to being a fair, non-discriminatory company that promotes and welcomes the uniqueness and differences of people around the world. We recognise that a diverse workforce allows for different ideas and perspectives, and we encourage everyone to share them. We strive to foster a culture of belonging that is consistent with Honda's core values and lived out in the way we work and respect each other. For us at Honda, diversifying our workforce means increasing its overall strength by providing people with equal opportunities - regardless of personal characteristics or previous careers.

This commitment flows directly from the Honda philosophy and the belief that we are all working towards a common goal. Honda recruits, hires, trains and promotes the most qualified/experienced individuals at all levels without regard to race, origin, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability or any other protected characteristic.