Client Support & Initiatives Lead at Nielsen Holdings PLC

Purpose and Objective of the Job

Responsible for the overall client deliverables for the Buy business and operations in East Africa (EA). This role leads and coordinates the operations teams to ensure sustainable best in class operations processes & SOP Compliance including Business Process improvement activities. A key part of this role involves coordinating and ensuring a high performing Operations team with high capability to deliver results. This is a business partnership role to the Commercial leaders and their teams to deliver the required Operations targets in line with client and business expectations

Principal accountabilities:

• Drive key growth initiatives within the region through effective collaboration with commercial and operations and technology teams to achieve the desired quality and optimum cost.
• Align local Operations actions and priorities to the commercial strategy, priorities and projects; proactively gather future client needs and incorporate them into the Operations Roadmap and strategic plans.
• Advice, support and effectively coordinate the Operations teams to deliver to expected business outcomes and to client expectations ensuring achievement of all KPIs.
• Continuously collaborate with the CS teams to identify new revenue generating opportunities through existing or new services.
• Set up cross functional SLAs for client inquiries monitoring the performance and implementing areas for improvement
• Drive client centric and One Nielsen behaviors ensuring end to end client enquiry resolution and generating the required communication across clients, the commercial and operations teams.
• Critically analyze client queries to identify key issues with the business and the impact on clients. Generate actions to minimize the impact and enable preventative measures with the operations teams to avoid recurrence.
• Prepare the monthly Operations dashboard and drive productivity to achieve optimal cost management. Propose application, process and functional improvements to address risk and opportunity areas that will facilitate both increased efficiency and improved standards.
• Provide advice and insights to drive effective and efficient decision making to support short term and long term business goals.
• Drive Business Process improvement activities locally using it as a key method for optimizing processes in areas such as quality improvement and cycle time reduction.
• Track client satisfaction, initiate and implement all necessary actions to restore/upgrade service levels to ensure client business needs are met and that services provided exceed client expectations.
• Define effective KPIs, metrics and control mechanisms in collaboration with the contact of execution (COE) and monitor the key business indicators in light of client impact and overall business expectations.
• Effectively coordinate and efficiently finalize costing of projects and manage cost and workload drivers across the operations functions. Understand the budgeting process – actual vs OP variances and provide input for the forecasting process.
• Create a high performance and accountability work environment utilizing employees’ feedback and best demonstrated practices identified in other organizations and /or countries.

Knowledge and Skills Required

•  
• Minimum of an Undergraduate degree.
• At least 6 years’ experience in operations, client service or business process improvement.
• A demonstrated track record/ability to effectively influence people and teams with multi-cultural backgrounds within a multi-functional matrix organization.
• Ability to translate organisation strategy into clear operational outcomes and work closely with senior leaders to deliver this.
• Project management skills and a good understanding of client requirements is essential.
• Business financial acumen with an understanding of and an ability to apply financial principles to business projects and plans.
• A good understanding of Nielsen’s business, services and clients in East Africa.
• Ability to think clearly and apply problem solving techniques in a pressurized situation is essential.
• Ability to bring about a significant positive change in business processes, people and teams.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the demonstrated ability to effectively resolve conflicts.
• High proficiency in the use of Microsoft Office Desktop tools (Excel & PowerPoint)