Responsible for establishing, managing, and maintaining strategic relationships with internal customers in one or more firm departments (including Finance and other administrative and legal departments).  Perform as liaisons between IS and the end-users of these firm departments to define and establish service and support requirements. Lead the gathering of business needs through direct interaction with firm personnel, and are proactive in understanding business processes, the key drivers and measures of success for the firm, and the short-term and long-term direction of the departments, the firm and technology. Search for and identify sources of technology advantage and look for opportunities to anticipate and satisfy changing internal and external customer needs.  Function as internal consultants in developing and improving/automating business processes and productivity, applying developments in technology to business systems. Translate high level business requirements into functional specifications for the IS organization and manage changes to such specifications.

Based on breadth and depth of understanding of business needs and processes, collaborate with IS professionals to determine if solutions currently exist (internally or externally) or whether new solutions are feasible.  Analyze and determine the operational and financial impact of new product and service offerings. Take a broad perspective to determine how such solutions will impact existing work processes and systems, and how to manage the integration. Align IS resources and processes to meet the client organization’s needs. Regularly communicate with the business unit(s) and promote IS services. Facilitate end-user testing, implementation, and training.

PRINCIPAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Identifies opportunities to use technology to impact business unit strategy and performance. Identifies sources of advantage and look for customer opportunities that anticipate and satisfy changing customer needs. Identifies new product and service offerings, which may create unique, innovative and high-value customer solutions. 
• Facilitates a continuous planning process. Works with business units to manage and prioritize product and service portfolios.  Analyzes potential solutions to estimate value to the organization and return on investment (ROI).  Advocates for technology needs of the business units. 
• Communicates technology strategy, plans and status to the business community. Provides information to IS about customer plans, opportunities, and needs. Manages customer plans and expectations.
• Elicits requirements using interviews, document analysis, requirements workshops, surveys, site visits, business process descriptions, use cases, scenarios, business analysis, task and workflow analysis.
• Understands the business processes and challenges as well as information/technology capabilities and assess client needs. Works with the business units to define and validate system requirements. Prepares functional specifications and system design specifications that can be used by IS to build solutions. 
• Evaluates information gathered from multiple sources, reconcile conflicts, decompose high-level information into details, abstract up from low-level information to a general understanding, and distinguish user requests from the underlying true needs. 
• Develops governance agreements with business units. Defines and monitors Service Level Agreements (SLA).  Measures customer satisfaction and IS effectiveness with the business units.  Develops and implements recommendations for improvement. Works with IS to resolve problems and improve service levels.
• Acts as the liaison between the business units, technology teams and support teams.
• Works with the IS to develop implementation plans for new products and services and communicate them to business units. Identifies business unit technology training needs.  Coordinates with technical training group regarding the delivery of training programs.
• Builds IS’s understanding of the business and help to educate the business about emerging technologies.
• Promotes IS services to the business units. Demonstrates the value of IS services and how they meet business objectives to improve solution adoption.
• Assumes additional responsibilities as assigned.