Operational Excellence Manager

PURPOSES OF THE ROLE

• Optimize company operations to achieve maximum efficiency, minimize operational costs, elevate product/service quality, and enhance customer experience (CX).
• Effectively execute process optimization strategies to boost operational productivity. Drive continuous innovation across systems, workflows, and technology integration.

 

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

Root Cause Definition & Problem Identification

• Analyze current operations through a multi-dimensional lens (Process – People – Data – System) to uncover the "underlying truth" behind poor performance metrics, rather than merely treating surface-level symptoms.
• Collaborate with cross-functional business units to dissect and isolate the root causes of operational bottlenecks, variances, redundancies, or friction points in the customer journey.
• Standardize the formulation of operational problem statements, ensuring they are accurate, comprehensive, and actionable to serve as a robust baseline for improvement and transformation decisions.

Operational Data Analysis & Assessment

• Extract, synthesize, and analyze operational data from existing legacy and core systems to accurately map the current state, identify emerging trends, bottlenecks, and anomalies.
• Leverage data as an objective mechanism to validate root-cause hypotheses, cross-referencing quantitative findings with on-the-ground gemba observations.
• Translate raw data into actionable insights to prioritize critical operational issues, design targeted interventions, and conduct post-implementation impact assessments.

Designing & Leading Operational Changes

• Translate validated root causes into viable, scalable operational changes that align with the organizational context and practical execution capabilities.
• Architect target-state workflows and deployment roadmaps, explicitly mapping the scope of impact, affected stakeholder groups, and required adjustments to standard operating procedures (SOPs).
• Govern the end-to-end execution of operational adjustments to ensure alignment, preventing unauthorized process variants, fragmentation, or internal friction.

Change Management & Adoption Governance

• Formulate and execute comprehensive change management strategies to ensure all involved stakeholders thoroughly understand, embrace, and internalize new operational paradigms.
• Proactively mitigate behavioral friction, legacy habits, misaligned incentives, or psychological resistance to change.
• Establish feedback loops with front-line operators to iteratively refine implementation tactics and training programs as required.

Orchestrating Execution & Measuring Improvement Sustainability

• Coordinate closely with business units to ensure synchronous execution and to embed process improvements into business-as-usual (BAU) operations post-project closure.
• Monitor the long-term, sustained impact of operational modifications on core business metrics, efficiency targets, and the internal user experience.
• Harvest institutional knowledge, post-mortems, and best practices to elevate the overall continuous improvement and change management maturity of the organization.

Knowledge Base

• Deep understanding of Lean, Six Sigma methodologies, Business Process Management (BPM), and contemporary continuous improvement frameworks/toolkits.
• Formal Lean / Six Sigma certifications (Green Belt / Black Belt) or equivalent professional credentials are highly advantageous.

 

Professional Experience

• A minimum of 7–10 years of progressive experience in operational excellence, process improvement, change management, transformation PMO, or strategic bridge roles between business strategy and field operations.
• Prior experience within large-scale, multi-unit, highly complex ecosystems (e.g., modern retail, chain stores, consumer services, logistics, or financial services) is strongly preferred.
• Proven track record of direct collaboration with ground-level operational units, possessing a realistic understanding of how workflows execute in practice (beyond theoretical desktop flowcharts).
• Demonstrated experience leading or contributing to large-scale operational transformations involving process re-engineering, structural realignment, or operational system integration.
• Practical experience working with operational data streams, performance KPIs, analytics dashboards, or enterprise systems (ERP, CRM, OMS, etc.) at an analytical level sufficient to drive strategic decision-making (technical programming skills not required).

 

Core Competencies & Skills

1. Root Cause Thinking & Analytical Acumen

• Exceptional ability to trace a logical path from surface-level symptoms -> data anomalies -> behavioral trends -> operational root causes.
• Skillful at asking probing, high-impact questions to dissect complex scenarios rather than prematurely rushing to solutions; refuses to accept "plausible-sounding" assumptions that lack empirical data or clear executability.

2. Operational Data Analytics

• Proficiency in interpreting, contextualizing, and challenging operational metrics (KPIs, reports, interactive dashboards) and synthesizing them into the realities of daily field operations.
• Ability to convert raw data into strategic insights that justify operational revisions and quantify user adoption/performance gains.

3. Change Management & Adoption Velocity

• Profound understanding of human psychology and behavioral dynamics in corporate change (habits, motivational drivers, friction points, loss aversion, and perceived impacts).
• Competency in designing and deploying tailored change interventions across diverse cohorts, with the ability to detect resistance early and dynamically pivot strategies.

4. Stakeholder Management & Influencing Without Authority

• Ability to collaborate effectively and build trust across all organizational tiers, from executive leadership and middle management to front-line execution staff.
• Persuades and aligns stakeholders via structured logic, empirical data, and operational context, completely independent of hierarchical authority.
• A skilled facilitator capable of aligning cross-functional teams with competing priorities toward a unified, optimal change objective.

5. Operational Design & Execution Orchestration

• Proven capacity to deconstruct high-level strategic direction and data insights into highly structured, concrete, and realistic action plans.
• Adept at monitoring progress, detecting drift or operational regression early, and initiating swift corrective adjustments.
• Ensures that all optimized workflows are successfully synthesized into daily routine operations, eliminating single-point-of-failure dependencies on specific individuals.