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Job Description

As Journey Owner, you will be responsible for designing, optimizing, and managing the customer journey across various touchpoints and channels to ensure a seamless and positive experience for customers/advisor. You will work closely with cross-functional teams, including marketing, sales, product, customer support, and IT, to align strategies and initiatives that support the overall customer journey.

The Disinvestment Journey Owner is responsible for overseeing the entire customer journey for disinvestments across Old Mutual’s savings and investment products (excluding retirement products), covering all channels – digital, in-person, and call center – and all processing areas. This role demands strategic leadership to ensure a seamless, efficient, and customer-centric disinvestment experience. The Journey Owner will be accountable for enhancing customer satisfaction, aligning with regulatory compliance, managing operational and financial risks, and driving excellence in operational processes. This includes leading initiatives in process optimization, fostering digital innovation, and ensuring robust stakeholder collaboration to elevate service quality and meet business objectives. Additionally, the Disinvestment Journey Owner will spearhead a change enablement team focused on continuous improvement, driving innovation, and delivering a superior disinvestment experience that sets market benchmarks for efficiency and customer satisfaction.

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP & CUSTOMER JOURNEY OPTIMIZATION:

Develop a clear strategy for enhancing the disinvestment journey for savings and investment customers, ensuring a streamlined and customer-focused process.Continuously map, assess, and refine the customer journey from initial disinvestment requests to final payout, ensuring clarity, efficiency, and transparency.Align disinvestment processes and communication with broader business goals and customer service standards.Design and implement customer-centric processes to ensure that disinvestment requests are handled promptly and efficiently, with a focus on clarity, simplicity, and ease of use.Gather customer feedback and insights to identify pain points and continuously improve the disinvestment experience.Develop educational resources and support tools for customers to understand the disinvestment process, tax implications, and any associated fees.Removing friction, driving point of contact resolution, a seamless and integrated experience across all channelsDevelop a deep understanding of the customer journey, from awareness to post-purchase support.Identify pain points and opportunities for improvement within the customer journey.Monitor and analyse customer behaviour and feedback to identify trends and insights that can inform decision-making.Drive initiatives to optimize and streamline the customer journey, leveraging technology and data-driven insights.Champion a customer-centric mindset within the organization and advocate for continuous improvement in the customer/advisor experience.Stay informed about industry trends and best practices related to customer/advisor experience and journey mapping.

OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY & PROCESS IMPROVEMENT, COST OPTIMIZATION AND AUTOMATION:

Lead the optimization of front-office and back-office disinvestment processes to improve turnaround times, reduce manual interventions, and ensure accuracy.Leverage technology, automation, and digital tools to streamline the disinvestment process, reducing cycle times and improving data accuracy.Implement a feedback loop to identify opportunities for process enhancement and apply methodologies like Lean or Six Sigma to drive operational excellence.Implement digital solutions to support self-service capabilities, automate repetitive processes, and increase the efficiency of disinvestment handling.Increase cost efficiency of the journey

QUALITY ASSURANCE & CUSTOMER SERVICE EXCELLENCE:

Monitor and ensure that staff maintain proactive communication with customers, providing timely updates, clarifications, and managing expectations throughout the disinvestment process.Develop and utilize communication templates, scripts, and training to enhance the consistency and quality of information provided to customers regarding their Disinvestments.Ensure High Standards in Disinvestment Processes: Set up quality assurance measures to monitor and improve the accuracy, timeliness, and transparency of disinvestment processes.Quality Monitoring & Error Resolution: Regularly review disinvestment transactions, payouts, and customer communications to ensure compliance, correctness, and customer satisfaction.Feedback & Process Enhancement: Utilize customer feedback, complaints, and QA findings to drive enhancements in disinvestment procedures, reducing errors and improving the customer experience.

COMPLAINTS, ESCALATIONS & DISPUTE RESOLUTION:

Effective Complaint Resolution: Establish a standardized framework for handling disinvestment complaints, ensuring that issues are resolved promptly and transparently.Escalation Pathways: Develop clear escalation procedures to address complex or high-priority disinvestment issues, minimizing delays and maintaining a positive customer experience.Root Cause Analysis & Improvement: Analyze trends and recurring complaints to identify root causes, improve processes, and prevent future issues in the disinvestment journey.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT & ENABLEMENT:

Lead a change enablement team to design and implement new processes, systems, and ways of working for improved claims handling.Develop stakeholder engagement strategies and change management plans to support smooth transitions and adoption of new processes.Foster a culture of continuous improvement and innovation within the Disinvestment and related teams.Training & Enablement: Provide comprehensive training and enablement to staff to support the adoption of new disinvestment processes and technologies, ensuring a positive impact on the customer journey.

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES (SOPS):

Design & Implement Disinvestment SOPs: Develop SOPs for the disinvestment journey, covering every aspect from initiation, documentation, processing, payout, and communication.Alignment with Compliance & Product Rules: Ensure SOPs align with regulatory requirements, internal policies, and product rules, providing a clear framework for handling disinvestment requests accurately and efficiently.Staff Training & Compliance: Train teams to follow SOPs meticulously, and establish a mechanism to monitor adherence and identify areas for improvement.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, SELF-SERVICE ENABLEMENT & INNOVATION:

Drive the adoption of digital self-service tools for disinvestment requests, enabling customers to initiate and track their requests easily online.Drive digital transformation initiatives to enhance the customer experience, such as online disinvestment requests, real-time status updates, and digital communication channels.Leverage technology to automate disinvestment processing, reducing manual interventions and accelerating turnaround times.Enhance Digital User Experience: Monitor and improve the digital disinvestment journey to ensure intuitive, user-friendly interactions and effective support.Leverage data and analytics to improve disinvestment processes, predict potential bottlenecks, and enhance overall operational efficiency.Stay abreast of emerging technologies and industry trends to identify opportunities for innovation and implement new solutions that improve the disinvestment journey.

RISK MANAGEMENT & COMPLIANCE:

Making sure all legislation applicable to the journey are met and there is appropriate risk monitoring and management.Identify, assess, and mitigate operational risks within the disinvestment process to ensure a secure and trustworthy experience for customers.Establish and enforce quality assurance standards for handling disinvestment requests, preventing errors, and ensuring customer satisfaction.Implement controls and oversight mechanisms to detect any discrepancies, fraud, or process inefficiencies promptly.Ensure the disinvestment journey adheres to all regulatory requirements, compliance standards, and internal policies.Maintain up-to-date knowledge of industry regulations affecting savings and investment disinvestments, including financial services regulations, tax laws, and consumer protection acts.Establish processes for tracking and documenting compliance with regulatory requirements throughout the disinvestment lifecycle.

CUSTOMER COMMUNICATION & SUPPORT:

Design a clear communication strategy to keep customers informed throughout the disinvestment process, from initial request to completion, ensuring transparent and empathetic interactions.Develop communication templates, FAQs, and customer support protocols to enhance the quality and consistency of information provided to customers.Ensure that staff are trained to effectively manage customer inquiries and complaints related to disinvestment in a timely and supportive manner.

PEOPLE LEADERSHIP:

Lead, mentor, and develop a diverse team and change enablement team focused on operational excellence and process optimization.Collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop and implement strategies to enhance the customer experience.Define key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of the customer journey.

STRATEGIC PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT:

Understanding overall business objective, competitor landscape, providing thought leadership and foresight to ultimately to provide a leading customer journey experience

STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATION:

Managing all stakeholders involved in the overall journey experience across departments and also across journeys where relevant.Engage and collaborate with multiple stakeholders, including sales, customer service, IT, compliance, legal, finance, and product teams, to ensure disinvestment processes are well-integrated across all touchpoints.Act as the primary point of contact for internal stakeholders and external partners, ensuring alignment in service delivery and addressing any potential issues that may arise in the disinvestment journey.

DATA ANALYTICS & PERFORMANCE MONITORING:

Utilize data analytics to monitor disinvestment journey performance, track KPIs such as turnaround time, customer satisfaction, and process efficiency.Insights-Driven Process Enhancement: Use data-driven insights to identify trends, predict bottlenecks, and refine the disinvestment journey for improved customer outcomes.Establish a continuous improvement feedback loop to measure the impact of process changes and drive ongoing enhancements in the disinvestment process.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIS):

Customer Satisfaction: Improvement in customer satisfaction scores related to the disinvestment process (e.g., NPS, complaints reduction).Process Efficiency: Reduction in disinvestment turnaround times, error rates, cost of servicing, automation rates, and manual interventions.Digital Engagement: Increase in the use of digital channels and self-service tools for disinvestment requests.Compliance & Risk Management: Adherence to regulatory requirements, minimization of disinvestment-related risks, and timely resolution of compliance issues.Communication & Transparency: Effective customer communication throughout the disinvestment journey, leading to fewer inquiries and complaints.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS/EXPERIENCE (REQUIRED FOR THE JOB)

Appropriate Bachelor’s degreeProven track record of risk management experience.At least 8 years at middle/senior management level.Experience in managing cross-functional teams and driving process improvementsDemonstrated experience in project and stakeholder management.Proven management experience in savings and investment operations, customer journey mapping (or components thereof) or process optimization within the financial services industry.Proven track record with management of disinvestment processes, customer service, and handling complex customer transactions within a regulated environment.

ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS/EXPERIENCE (PREFERRED, NOT A REQUIREMENT)

Knowledge of Agile methodology and experience in managing Agile Teams

COMPETENCIES REQUIRED

Strategic

Collaboration (Relating)

Customer (claim stakeholder) first

Execution

Innovation (Perspective)

Leading with influence

Personal Mastery (Learning)

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Data-Driven Decision Making

Technical Knowledge

Agility to deal with changing regulative, legislative & procedural environments.

Skills

Education

Bachelors Degree (B) (Required)

Closing Date

08 November 2024

The appointment will be made from the designated group in line with the Employment Equity Plan of Old Mutual South Africa and the specific business unit in question.

Old Mutual Limited is pro-vaccination and encourages its workforce to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

All prospective employees are required to disclose their vaccination status as part of the recruitment process.

Please refer to the Old Mutual’s Covid-19 vaccination policy for further detail. Kindly note that Old Mutual reserves the right to reinstate the requirement to vaccinate at any point if it is of the view that it is imperative to do so.

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