Job description Posted 28 August 2019

Business Change and Readiness Stream Lead
GSK House, Brentford
6 Month Contract
Pay: up to £640 per day


Background Information:

In Spring 2019 GSK completed a decade long transformation journey to deploy SAP to their global business. At its heart the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) programme’s mission was to simplify and standardize; business processes, system landscape, and operating model.

The ERP template is now live in 140+ markets, with approximately 118,000 end users spread across Europe, Asia, North America, and Latina.

We have shifted from being an ERP programme, to a steady state organization known as ERP Value Optimisation (EVO). EVO’s key drivers are to resolve pain points in the ERP template, embrace new technologies and integrate them to SAP, and ultimately deliver products of value for our stakeholders and business teams.

This is an exciting time for the team, as we enable the business to leverage the value of the SAP asset, and ensure our work directly contributes to GSKs mission to be come the most innovative, high performing, trusted healthcare company in the world. We believe we are creating something truly special in EVO, where we are able to embrace new ways of doing things, approach our delivery with an agile mindset, and bring our best creative selves to our work.

EVO has a large scope of (30+) global projects, many of which are significant end to end transformations, that not only enhance the ERP template (including integrated technologies – i.e. Concur, Fiori, etc), but also create impactful behavior shifts in our people, and can in some instances transform our processes and operating models.

Examples include:

  • A Buying Goods and Services improvement programme, introducing new mobile apps and better user interfaces;
  • End to end transformation of our Finance processes to ensure a faster, better close
  • A series of projects to further align the business to GSK’s commitment to make it easier for our employees to do their day to day activities.

This role sits in the EVO Business Change and Readiness team, which consists of approximately 40 business change and communication managers focused on a wide and interesting range of projects. You will be required to lead and support change and communication managers assigned to projects across multiple process and business areas.

Our team are experts in change, and thrive in fast paced, dynamic work environments where they can apply their experience and creativity, to drive change delivery and prepare our business for real, impactful transformation. GSK as a business is moving to Agile ways of working, and as such a number of projects in scope of this role will be delivered in an Agile way.

This role is a real opportunity to join a high performing global change function, that will be key to helping GSK evolve, and deliver value faster, and more effectively to our patients and customers, ultimately enabling them to do more, feel better, and live longer.


Job Purpose:

Reporting to the Business Change and Readiness Director, the Business Change and Readiness stream lead will be accountable for ensuring delivery of a portfolio of projects, and will be accountable for ensuring change managers assigned to projects in their area are supported to deliver to quality and plan. These projects are of varying scales and complexities, spanning multiple process areas, project delivery methods and geographies.

You will work in close collaboration with the other Business Readiness, Capability, and Communication team members, including other Stream Leads, the Communications Director, and Learning Director. In addition, you will build close relationships with project delivery teams and key stakeholders to ensure your projects obtain the right focus and buy-in needed to execute change and engagement successfully.


Key Responsibilities:

  • Accountable for successful delivery of the Business Change, Readiness, and Communications scope of work for the group of projects within the remit of the role – to plan, quality and budget
  • Responsible for managing a mixed team of contractors and permanent members of staff to deliver business change, readiness, and engagement expertise for their assigned projects
  • Coaches team members, and creates an environment where they feel supported, motivated and enabled to do their best work
  • Ensure project teams are appropriately resourced, and working with the Business Change and Readiness Director to address any gaps / performance issues
  • Support bringing new projects into scope – doing the initial / high level impact assessment, resourcing requirements analysis
  • Work collaboratively with project and delivery teams to ensure “one team” ways of working and alignment across the wider change landscape
  • Ensure project Change Managers are managing and mitigating risks and issues, and support escalations as appropriate
  • Regularly report of each project progress and status to Business Change and Readiness Director, clearly identifying and articulating risks, issues, resolutions and management support required
  • Act as personal role model for GSK expectations, behaviors and ways of working
  • Support the Business Change and Readiness Director in creating and driving high performing team behaviors, and developing future strategy

Capabilities Essential to Perform the Role:

  • A leader, a team player, who brings creativity, energy, and drive to their work
  • A value driven mindset underpinned by an ability to be agile and flexible
  • Able to thrive when dealing with ambiguity
  • Must be an excellent stakeholder manager and able to influence senior leaders in the business
  • Must be a seasoned change professional, regarded as an SME in business change, with a solid understanding of related streams (Communications, Training, Project management, Delivery)
  • Strong skillsets in communication (both written and verbal), presentation, organisation, negotiation and leadership
  • Strong interpersonal and relationship building skills to develop productive working partnerships with leaders, managers, and to establish credibility with an existing group of experienced change managers
  • Ability to facilitate communications between diverse groups and achieve an outcome bought into by all parties
  • Self-motivated and self-directed in understanding and setting priorities, establishing clear activities/responsibilities and target outcomes, with proven ability to work collaboratively, independently and as a team member
  • Effective in an environment with tight deadlines, finite resource and uncertainty. Drives performance against timelines and budget constraints
  • Solid capability with Microsoft tools
  • Strong experience of delivering transformational change
  • Demonstrable experience across change, training, communications and HR
  • Substantial experience / strong track record of people management and of leading a portfolio of projects and large teams - not just team leading a team for a single project/programme
  • ERP experience highly beneficial
  • P2P, Finance, and Supply Chain experience strongly desirable
  • Agile project experience highly desirable
  • Organisational Development experience desirable

Additional information about the process

All profiles will be reviewed against the required skills and experience. Due to the high number of applications, we will only be able to respond to successful applicants in the first instance. We thank you for your interest and the time taken to apply.