Specialist: Engineering: Fore sighting and Innovation (x2) _ Business Design and Engineering Division

BUSINESS DESIGN AND ENGINEERING (BDE): The FORESIGHTING AND INNOVATION team is looking for a highly skilled results-driven professional with relevant academic competence, experience, and solid work values to join this dynamic team of seasoned professionals.

As a seasoned futurist or strategic foresight professional, you intuitively blend science and art, predicting, creating, and leading the probable, possible, and preferable futures.

Adopting a strategic approach and building on your executive-level engagement and facilitation capabilities and experience, you will apply your core Foresighting skills of Anticipation, Innovation, and Strategy, together with your business insight, to propose, influence, or alter strategies, goals, plans, and actions in support of the SARS Vision and enterprise strategy. Simultaneously applying your Leadership Action skills of Executing, Influencing, and Relating, you will seek to ensure that strategies and plans are mobilized and stakeholders are engaged, while applying steward leadership.

As part of the SARS Business Design and Engineering Fore-sighting and Innovation team, you will be responsible for conceptualizing and facilitating the adoption of new leading-edge ‘Game Changer’ concepts in support of the SARS product, process, segment, and service strategies.

You will apply your unique skill set to conduct research and benchmarking, participate in open collaboration networks, identify the organizational foresight and innovation focus areas, conceptualize business solutions across the process value chain, incubate chosen concepts through prototyping/piloting, and develop implementation roadmaps for adoption in the SARS business architecture and solutions landscape.

If you are fascinated by futuristic trends, passionate about radical improvement, and have a track record of conceptualizing business solutions from newly identified technology and business innovation trends in the financial services industry, we’d like to hear from you.

Job Purpose

To predict, create and lead the future SARS by applying the Foresighting skills of Anticipation, Innovation, and Strategy, to propose, influence, or alter the product, process, segment, and service strategies, goals, plans, and actions in support of the SARS Vision.

To leverage the foresight, innovation, and business insights to facilitate the identification and adoption of new leading-edge ‘Game Changer’ concepts through research and benchmarking, participation in open collaboration networks, crafting and socialisation of ‘SARS of the Future’ or ‘Tax, Customs, and Excise 3.0’ concepts, jointly identifying and conceptualizing key innovation focus areas, incubation of these concepts through prototyping/piloting, and development of implementation roadmaps for adoption in the SARS business architecture and solutions landscape.

To conduct strategic engagements at the executive level to facilitate the adoption of future innovation strategies, concepts, and solutions in support of the achievement of sustainable business results.

Minimum Requirements

Relevant Bachelor's Degree / Advanced Diploma (NQF 7): Industrial Engineering, preferably augmented by a qualification or further studies in Future Studies, Fore-sighting or Innovation Research AND 8-10 years experience in a similar environment, of which 3-4 years must be at operational specialist level

OR

Senior Certificate (NQF 4) preferably augmented by a qualification or further studies in Future Studies, Fore-sighting or Innovation Research, AND 15 year’s related experience, of which 3-4 years must be at the operational specialist level

Job Outputs

Ability

• The ability to identify patterns or connections between situations that are not obviously related and to identify key or underlying issues
• This is the ability to formulate new concepts based on information gathered
• Ability to determine trends from raw data to assist decision-making in various aspects of work 
• The ability to take all relevant details into account to ensure that a task is completed to the required standards

Knowledge

• Knowledge of innovation, industry, and technology trends
• Understand a situation or problem by breaking it into smaller pieces/tracing the implications of the situation in a step-by-step way
• Knowledge of own organizations, policies, procedures, services, products, and business operating models
• The knowledge and interpretation of the functional policies and procedures, including monitoring their consistent application internally within

Process

• Conduct fore-sighting and innovation research and benchmarking
• Manage the business ideation process
• Conduct and/or facilitate innovation prototypes, simulations, and pilots of emerging business trends
• Craft innovative conceptual designs
• Design and maintain the of the Future’ model
• Ensure that business requirements are clearly identified, prioritized, and satisfied by appropriate technical and or business process solutions.
• Accumulate information to review work progress that provides input to reporting, decision-making, and the identification of improvement opportunities.
• Apply practical and applied knowledge and act authoritatively on methods, systems, and procedures to identify trends and potential risks.
• Communicate situational interpretation and judgment of work outputs and queries in the area of specialization.
• Correctly apply policies, practices, standards, procedures, and legislation in the delivery of work outputs.
• Draw on your own knowledge and experience to diagnose symptoms, causes, and possible effects in order to solve emerging problems.
• Initiate process and procedural change, implement the change, and provide guidelines and support related to new requirements as a result of the change.
• Plan for value-added process improvements, initiatives, and services to deliver on operational strategy and objectives.
• Execute specialist input through investigation &opportunities within the production process including risk concerns.
• Analyze and review legislative changes and practically translate these pieces of legislation for scoping consumption.
• Provide business design and engineering support to institutionalize process initiatives.
• Design, model, and document business design specifications.
• Apply and utilize systems in a manner that ensures efficient and effective service delivery, optimized quality, financial accuracy, and calculation.
• Contribute to the successful implementation of change initiatives by providing support in the area of work.
• Apply processes to improve data validation across service delivery systems in line with operational targets.

Governance

• Implement and provide input into the development of governance, compliance, integrity, and ethics processes within the area of specialization.
• Ensure that completed work adheres to relevant policies, procedures, governance, and legislative requirements and report on deviations & discrepancies.

People

• Develop and maintain productive working relationships with peers and team members to achieve predefined objectives.
• Search for, integrate and share new knowledge attained through formal and informal learning opportunities in the execution of your job.
• Enable a culture where information regarding successes, issues, trends and ideas are actively shared between team members.

Finance

• Adhere to organizational policies and procedures to ensure cost-effectiveness and reduction of financial costs.

Client

• Contribute to a culture of service excellence, which builds positive relationships and provides opportunities for feedback and exceptional service.
• Provide authoritative, specialist services, expertise, and advice to internal and external stakeholders.

Behavioral Competencies

• Accountability
• Analytical Thinking
• Attention to Detail
• Commitment to Continuous Learning
• Conceptual Ability & Competence
• Inquisitive
• Problem Solving & Analysis

Technical Competencies

• Innovation-driven research & benchmarking
• Idea incubation
• Innovation concept development
• Business Knowledge

• Capacity Planning
• Institutional Process Analysis & Redesign
• Process Auditing
• Reporting