West Africa Regional Supply Chain Systems Advisor at Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Reports To: Regional Advisor – Supply Chain Management with a dotted lined to the Global Supply Chain Management Business Process Manager

Country/Location: Home-based Telecommuting

NOTE: This is a global telecommuter position; CRS will give preference to candidates who are based in countries where we have existing offices. CRS does not sponsor visas for telecommuting employees.

Job Summary

CRS is modernizing its Supply Chain operations with a new Oracle Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning system, internally called “Insight’’, as well as other systems, tools and standard processes to enable the Agency to be ‘best in class’. As CRS continues to implement improvements, the full deployment of Insight to all countries is a critical initiative. The Regional Supply Chain Systems Advisor will be instrumental in the preparation, implementation, stabilization, and optimization of Insight.

Beyond Insight, the Regional Supply Chain Systems Advisor is responsible for contributing to the design, build, and adoption of complementary supply chain systems and technologies. S/he is also responsible for helping to establish and execute a robust data usage culture for supply chain staff and contributors, in line with the Agency vision.

Job Responsibilities:

• Under the direction of the Regional Advisor, SCM, manage SCM workstream tasks to make sure that all staff at the country program can deliver on technical, functional, and training deadlines, and that all activities are well coordinated.
• Be the primary point of contact between the regional office and GSCM for all SCM global and regional systems initiatives under the supervision of the Regional Advisor, SCM. This includes supporting the CP for automation of the integration of last mile data in Insight.
• Is responsible for regular updates on status, challenges, and solutions to regional and GSCM teams on projects and operations.
• Other responsibilities as assigned by supervisor. This includes having some supply chain expertise on commodity management, procurement, Health products management in order to provide some additional support to the RTA when needed.

Systems Implementation

For Insight and other relevant systems that are introduced:

• Review Country Program (CP) SCM operations in their entirety, organization structures, processes, vision and business need in order to recommend process improvements and design solutions and create an action plan to implement all needed activities before system go-live. Conduct assessment activities for relevant complex countries. Support CPs as they work through their action plans.
• Collect data on key local design elements and structure, as well as all relevant transactional documents. Work with the GSCM team to ensure correct configuration for each CP.
• Participate as a reviewer and subject matter expert (SME) in the preparation of policies, procedures, and guidelines, based on system needs and key organizational changes, to support system implementation.
• Liaise between Global Supply Chain Management and all relevant CP staff to ensure common understanding of proposed system designs, associated training requirements, and potential for errors or need for intensive support (hypercare) during go-live.
• Leading up to formal trainings, organize and facilitate meetings, and presentations to sensitize, educate, and prepare staff for Insight.
• Provide trainings for country program SCM staff.
• Ensure quality hypercare support is consistently applied.

System Stabilization and Optimization

• Develop and maintain a strong working relationship with application end-users and management to continuously improve their user experience.
• In close coordination with RTA ensure CPs are properly conducting Supply chain management business process impacting system processes
• Monitory KPIs to measure Supply chain Management operations health, as well as system health
• Provide ongoing support for the technical aspects of Insight and other relevant systems that have been introduced.
• Act as tier one support for incident resolution
• Identify, prioritize, and manage stabilization activities.
• Support CPs through analysis of processes and data to ensure user progression from adoption to stabilization to value realization.
• Contribute to the plan of the GSCM Systems and Performance (S&P) team, providing recommendations for effectively and efficiently accomplishing project activities by team members.
• Serve as coach, coordinator, and leader to CPs, guiding, assisting and consulting in executing project tasks and fulfilling project plan deliverables in a timely manner.
• Support SCM master data management and data quality activities.
• Support agency-wide SCM systems knowledge management and learning activities.

Supporting Integration and Performance Activities

• Work with RA SCM, GSCM and CPs to design Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will help drive regional and country data-based decisions to improve SCM operational efficiencies.
• Conduct training sessions on the use of KPIs to identify areas for improvement.
• Evaluate KPIs at a regional level to assess CP execution of SCM best practices.
• Provide regional support for Last Mile Distribution data capture and incorporation into HQ and national systems as scoped with the goal of providing full visibility to the SCM pipeline from Requisition through Final Distribution.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Information Systems, Business Administration, International Development, or related discipline required. Master's degree preferred.
• Five years related experience, with at least two years international experience required. Demonstrated experience in supply chain and in implementing and/or supporting finance and supply chain applications required.
• Experience with ERP is required. Experience with Oracle applications is preferred.
• Experience with an international development organization preferred
• Experience with finance and supply chain business processes within Non- Governmental Organizations preferred.

Required Language Skills: Professional level English + French

Travel Required Up to 50%