Senior Delivery Manager at Kantar

Job ID: R049035
Location: Ikorodu Road, Lagos

Role Description

• The role of the Senior Delivery Manager (Sr/Project Manager) is to provide mentorship and guidance as well as management support to research programs/projects. 
• This role provides strategic support and is pivotal in both ensuring program/project success and delivery of the Kantar strategy.

This role involves working closely with:

• The Senior Delivery Manager (Domain Lead) in terms of decisions regarding resource allocation and work standards within the team
• The Junior Delivery Mangers by providing team members with day-to-day project guidance, mentorship and training
• Key Stakeholders in Client facing teams on Operational aspects of the project/program.
• Offshore Delivery Centres, providing advice and guidance throughout the course of a project, ensuring accurate on-time, on-budget, to-specification

Project/Programme Delivery:
Accountable for:

• The operational inputs and management of the SOW to ensure the success of the project delivery.
• Ensuring local adoption of Best Practices and standard Ways of Working across the end-to-end process
• Local Data Privacy and IT security compliance across all assigned research projects
• Providing support in solving non-routine, moderately complex problems which require integration of research and operational knowledge and following escalation matrix protocol where/when needed.
• Managing the overall project timeline; proactively anticipates problems and recommends solutions to prevent delays.
• Monitors Operations metrics and works with the Senior Delivery Manager (Domain Lead) on tactical improvements, to ensure continuous process improvement.
• Driving Domain+1 strategy across teams ensuring PM continuous knowledge building.

For more complex studies, or in certain circumstances, the Senior Delivery manager will not only be accountable at a whole project level, but will also take ownership of preparing some, or sometimes most of the related material and outputs required for that project.

Commercial Management:
Accountable for:

• Staying abreast of Operational developments to ensure a cost-effective design is proposed and implemented.
• Good operational costing knowledge and ensuring this knowledge is continuously shared with respective Domain team members to cost effectively
• Accountable for the Operational Commercial success of the program, ensuring Client standards are followed, reaching out to domain experts (Domain Lead or Consultancy Lead) as needed
• Driving collaboration, delegating responsibilities, and ensuring overall Client satisfaction.
• Delivery against the Operations Statement of Work to ensure profitability of the project/program
• Managing the project Operational budgets

Client Management:

• Understands the Client’s objectives and priorities in consultation with Senior Delivery Manager (Domain Lead), and how the project/program delivers against these - ensures both Onshore and Offshore delivery teams understand these and delivers on them accordingly.

Relationship and Stakeholder Management:

• Establishes strong partnerships with all key Stakeholders, including Onshore Operation teams, Offshore Operation teams and external suppliers, building credibility and rapport
• Building and maintaining relationships with the onshore CS and PM teams as well as the OCPM (Offshore Centre Project Management) team
• Embrace collaborative behaviour and ways of working with all key stakeholders.
• Provides feedback noting what’s working well and any areas for improvement
• Management of local nuances or language requirements, as necessary
• Client-centric and quality-centric, in both thinking and approach to work
• Acts as a trusted partner, invested and wholly accountable for delivering on all Operational elements of a project
• Displays ownership/sense of urgency
• Highly organized with ability to manage multiple priorities and deadline pressures
• Strong inter-personal skills; proven ability to develop strong, collaborative relationships that drive internal/external customer satisfaction
• Excellent communication and problem-solving skills with a high level of emotional intelligence and intellectual curiosity
• Strong project management experience with ability to maintain good time management while prioritizing, delegating and delivering against multiple deadlines.
• Proven experience interacting with internal client teams
• Excellent verbal and written communication with internal clients using logical reasoning and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to manage complexity and challenging situations in consultation with Senior Delivery Manager (Domain Lead).
• Innovative, possessing natural curiosity and a can-do attitude
• Flexible; Comfortable with ambiguity
• Ability to coach and mentor junior staff
• Comfortable working in a global matrix environment
• Written/Spoken Business English language skills are essential
• Models Kantar’s values and supports Kantar’s strategic initiatives

Role Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree or
• Any Project Management Certification / PM on the job experience
• 3-5 years of Primary Market Research experience (end to end Marketing Research cycle exposure)
• Hands on Market Research program or project management executional experience is mandatory
• Working knowledge and mid-level expertise in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
• In-depth knowledge of the end-to-end Market Research process
• Strong knowledge of, and proven ability to advise on, Market Research techniques such as best fit methodological practices for client objectives, quota setting, operational design, etc
• Operational knowledge and know how.