Senior Director, Hotel Products Deployment

Job Summary

• Lead and manage product design, product roadmap, testing and implementation delivery of next generation solutions. 
• Lead and manage product change management process within Great China Regional. 
• Lead and manage IHG's digital solutions in the short, medium, and long term within Great China 
• Lead and manage solutions with return on investment and winning metrics.
• Lead and Manage the Hotel Deployment team, which will include Hotel Products Deployment, hotel Technical Infrastructure & Services, and central deployment team within the Greater China IT organization.
• Direct all activities related to the standardization of IHG hotel core business applications that and IHG standard business processes for Greater China.
• Support Hotel Products design and delivery of Training to the hotel level. Prioritises training needs across functions, identifies key gaps at hotel level, and delivers hotel embedding of cross-functional Technology programs, standards and initiatives through effective implementation and training.
• Drive continuous improvements on the use of Technology across our hotels to maximize Hotel Operations Excellence. 
• Ensure service level agreements are maintained for Hotel’s products and systems problems within the hotels.
• Develop and manage consistent and concise vendor relation and service level management model.  Maximize Products and Technology’s ability to effectively respond to Hotel systems
• Responsible for new services to be transitioned to the Technology vendor and providing program level management for projects associated with the delivery of service. 
• Provides technical expertise to support the delivery, localisation and pilots of networks, systems, services and solutions in the region working with our regions customers and other parts of Global Technology. 
• Ensure technology is secure, can be recovered in the event of failure and is compliant with PCI-DSS, Data Privacy and other compliance requirements as needed for the region. 
• Works with internal audit, risk management and other parts of Global Operations to remediate audit findings and drive information security awareness. 
• Deliver, train and embed new Hotel Ready programs (Technology related) and initiative to hotels. Provide guidance and support to cross Global and Regional functions in developing Hotel Ready programs based on the needs of the Greater China business to support the delivery of Winning Metrics

Essential Duties and Responsibilities 

• Partner with Hotel Operations Support team to fully integrate the hotel ready process in Global Products and Technology solutions. 
• Partner with global and regional functional team to design and development and deployment the best hotel’s products and solution to hotels.
• Aligned the objective, content and timing between Global Products and Technology and Ops forum to make the process more efficient.  Provides operational support and guidance to hotel GMs to drive ongoing enhancement in hotels operation Experience and Standards Compliance. 
• Partner with regional functions team to design measuring the success of next generation products and lead hotel feedback on continuous improvement in program, system and tools to Operations and Hotels.
• Gatekeeping the COO call to ensure all the programs have been through Global Hotel Solutions Program Management process and Ops forum. 
• Manage external vendors and a team of subject matter experts for standard hotel business applications and guest facing technology solutions. 
  • Provide business and technology consulting to assist commercial/ operation/ finance areas in improving processes, applying value-added technology, identifying high value opportunities to enhance revenues or reduce costs through process improvements.
  • Embed operational process with our core hotel applications and ensure supplier training delivered to our hotels is aligned with our operational standards and procedures. 
  • Overall responsible to ensure supplier training and implementation resources are certified to deliver and support IHG hotel projects. 
  • Act as lead interface between hotel system vendors, IHG business units and hotels.
  • Act as a hotel application support escalation for IHG. Manage and prioritize hotel application enhancement and bug fixes. 
• Drive consistency in adoption in processes, tools and mythologies within Greater China and across other regions.
• Work in collaboration with the Global Technology Enterprise Architecture (EA) teams  to be the be the leading expert in the region on IHG’s central technology, solutions, policies,  standards and strategy, ensuring that:
  • Globalised solutions are consistently designed and delivered to meet the needs of the Greater China region whilst supporting the global vision.
  • A rolling three-year technology roadmap for the region in support of global and regional plans and targets is developed.
  • Global teams are provided regional insight, expertise, and leadership in the development of IHG’s enterprise technology systems.
  • Awareness is increased in Global teams of the regional and cultural aspects of Greater China.
• Direct and oversee the implementation of knowledge based systems in order to ensure appropriate resources are available to respond to hotel systems inquiries/issues.
  • Next-generation platform and solutions and services are introduced which meet our business requirements and meet the utility/warranty needs of our customers.
• All changes to our technology infrastructure are planned, integrated, tested and are compliant with industry standards, regulations and legal requirements (e.g. PCI-DSS, Data Protection, Sarbanes Oxley, etc).
• The effective local design and planning of technology global technology standards, including networks, firewall and intrusion protection, communication services, application certification and policies and desktop & server architecture.
• Appropriate compliance testing and assessment activities are completed and that the region operates an appropriate security framework for IT systems and services.
• Our Business Continuity Plans cover all data centre, core environment and networks, and hotels and are tested regularly for effectiveness.
• The process of developing and releasing functionality patches and updates into the region’s technology environment is performed and consistently improved.
• Close collaboration with Global Audit functions for hotel’s major applications to ensure appropriate on-going IT controls and processes are in-place.

Education & Experience

1. Bachelor's or Master's Degree in a relevant field of work or an equivalent combination of education and work related experience.
2. 15+ years progressive work-related experience in information technology with demonstrated proficiency in technologies, processes management related to position; 10 years or more managing significant complex projects. Strong understanding of hotel operation; 7 years and above in leadership role to manage a team 

TechnicalSkills and Knowledge 

• Strong understanding and demonstrated ability in integration of the IHG hotel core business applications with hotel operation requirement such as: GRS and IHG ecosystem, PMS, POS S&C,.
• Strong understanding of core hotel operational processes, including Front Office, Reservations, Sales, F&B and Procurement and financial processes. 
• Good experience in delivering training.
• Strong project management ability 
• Expert in change management
• Strong product design thinking and management ability.
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize a project portfolio based on the needs and resources of the business.
• Demonstrated ability to identify, manage conflict, cross dependencies across projects and business areas.
• History of successfully interpreting customer objectives & translating to service delivery requirements.
• Demonstrated proficiency in promoting ideas persuasively, building consensus and negotiating mutually beneficial solutions.
• Demonstrated understanding of information systems, business processes key drivers and measures of success for assigned business area, including the short and long-term direction of the technology.
• Demonstrated effective verbal and written communication skills.