Senior Specialist

JOB DESCRIPTION

Strategic input

• Assist in Identifying key changes to Billing systems in the future from technological, commercial, business and consumer behaviour perspectives.

Tactical Plannings and Operations

• Assist line management in the development of the 3 year and 1 year plans for all BILLING systems such as applications Eppix, Singleview, Siebel RODOD BRM, RICA, Mobile Number Portability, Interconnect Billing, etc
• Ensure these plans are aligned with business requirements and budgetary prioritisation.
• Ensure BILLING system designs are developed in order to achieve these plans.
• Ensure planned BILLING systems are delivered on time to meet operational requirements.
• Ensure the effective utilisation of BILLING systems infrastructure, scalability and capabilities.
• Ensure BILLING systems meet business requirements and are sufficient for growth in customer numbers and demand.
• Oversee and approve detailed BILLING systems design ensuring impact on existing systems and processes is managed.
• Ensure knowledge transfer including support document to operations team minimising escalations to development team.
• Capture of business requirements and their analysis.
• Monitor performance of deliverables, investigate performance and functionality issues, and ensure future designs are optimised to prevent issues found.
• Facilitate transfer of MTN-SA developed technology to other African markets.
• Continually identify the following in respective area:
• Capacity Upgrades that are required due to Network Traffic;
• Software Upgrades required to ensure adherence to maintenance agreements;
• Aspects of a system that have not been performing optimally that require changes to architecture; and
• Hardware that is reaching end of life and requires replacement.
• In the BILLING space, "Planning" and "Operational" areas need to function as a cohesive unit. This means that 'working' relationships with Operational area units must include:
• Discussing status of new/current projects;
• Discussing system issues that may or may not require planning analysis;
• Ensuring that Operations is involved in a project every step of the way, such that they can prepare for ATP/UAT- work and any roll-out activities;
• Provide Operations the opportunity to provide ideas on system evolution from the perspective of maintaining platforms on a day to day basis;
• Perform ATPs with Operations and vendors; and
• Help test system functioning through the application of custom scripts
• Provide system consultation for all applications related projects so that decisions can be made as to the most appropriate delivery methodology
• Ensure delivery of authorised projects according to the prioritised project list
• Ensure the one performs the necessary analysis, design, modelling and documentation tasks necessary to pass MTN IS governance forums
• Ensure that vendors whether they do development or system configuration are correctly driven and that in-house business and resultant functional logic is maintained within MTN through the supply of fully fledged and detailed specifications and ensure that vendors are driven to fulfil these and supply a an end result that meets any IS quality standards
• Ensure professional system documentation is up to date at all times
• Provide input into the design of technology solution architectures with a 2 to 5 year horizon. Focus for both converging IT, Telco technologies and future ICT requirements
• Assist in the evaluation of new technologies and products to determine feasibility and desirability of incorporating their capabilities into the Company's IS systems
• Capacity Upgrades that are required due to Network Traffic
• Software Upgrades required to ensure adherence to maintenance agreements
• Assess and mitigate Security Vulnerabilities on the BILLING Applications
• Aspects of a system that have not been performing optimally that require changes to architecture
• Hardware that is reaching end of life and requires replacement
• Project manage single domain projects or change requests
• Manage vendors development capacity and ensuring utilisation aligns to Vendor MSA/Development contract

Stakeholders

• Interface with internal and external industry experts to anticipate customer needs and facilitate solutions development.
• Collaborate across functional teams within the Broader MTN SA team to enable the development of solutions necessary to drive the desired business outcomes for customers.

Governance and Risk Management

• Follow all corporate governance procedures.
• Ensure that changes to the current environment are properly documented and tested before promoting into production. Post production changes should be documented and managed.
• Support the prioritisation process to drive prioritisation of requirements and initiatives in functional areas to ensure timeous delivery of requirements.
• Support Revenue Assurance functions to understand issues and resolve any revenue issues or leakage.
• Create visibility of changes to core systems, data and products by informing the organisation of changes.
• Support assessment of Portfolio maturity on an annual basis.
• Influence and implement aspects of data security policies.
• Support the creation of critical Policies, Processes or Procedure such that Business risk is managed which also ensures that any ISO certifications can be maintained and ensure that they are being utilised in day to day operations.
• Manage vendor interaction through RFPs and verification of BOMs.
• Ensure system documentation is sufficiently detailed and up to date to ensure business continuity and prevent over-reliance on a few individuals

Communication & Co-ordination

• Liaise with Marketing regarding product development with respect to BILLING systems capabilities and requirements.
• Consolidate requirements for BILLING systems and decide on clear development paths while managing what may be opposing views from different stakeholders.
• Build the understanding of existing and emerging BILLING systems technologies and capabilities across the business.
• Provide MTN Group with subject matter expertise related to BILLING systems.

Financial

• Vendor relations, and quarterly/monthly reporting:
• Meet with vendors regularly;
• Convey problem areas to vendors and request action plans;
• Ensuring that vendors supply quarterly reports on system health and utilisation and any other items as per contract; and
• Ensuring that assistance is provided to obtain maximum value for minimum cost from vendors.
• Budget Requirements
• Tracking financial information such as:
• Requisition, PO and Invoice numbers.
• Project costs; and
• Breakdown of spend tangible and intangible software, licenses and hardware;All funding must be capitalised within the targets set by MTN.
• Assistance with Yearly CAPEX Plans and tracking spend through the year
• Ensure that team members are working together to ensure that spend is kept track of.
• Must work with Line Management to:
• Ensure that capitalisation targets are achieved.
• Extract all Roadmap-items from team members and supply full budget requirement breakdowns each year; and
• Tally up all spend and budget positions on a regular basis;
• Assistance with contract negotiations and driving to conclusion
• Update a central location with information on what the Vendor supplies;
• Update a central location with any particular contract issues that need to be addressed at renewal stage or with T&C changes and new contracts;
• Drive any internal commercial or procurement area to conclude negotiations between the vendor and legal teams and be available for consulting where required; and
• Ensure "correct" pricing is in place and that MTN IP is protected.

Project Management

• Develop and drive the execution of agreed projects.
• Drive the implementation, tracking, monitoring and compliance of Projects.
• Co-ordinate project reporting.

QUALIFICATIONS

Education:

• Minimum 3 year Degree or Diploma in Information Systems or Engineering Bsc IT, Bcom IT
• Togaf certification
• eTOM certification or on hands experience

Work Experience:

• At least 5 years' experience in the IT/Telecoms industry and specifically the application of Information Technology within the telco space of which at least 3 years should be applicable experience at an internationally recognised operator or BILLING
• company.
• The Senior Specialist BILLING must be widely read and know about many facets of Telecoms including open-source projects and BILLING and Billing technologies.
• Minimum of 3 years' experience in an area of specialisation; with experience in supervising others.