Cognizant - Program Manager - Publishing Sector

Role - Program Manager

Location: Chennai

What will the Program Manager Do :

As a program manager, the associate is required to be dynamic, energetic and highly motivated. He/she will possess analytical skills, be comfortable working in cross group environment and will have a passion for client satisfaction. The program manager will also be responsible for managing cross team dependencies, customer connect and working closely with service lines leads, demand and supply managers

Key Responsibilities:

- Ensure that engagement/process objectives are in continuous alignment with the evolving business direction

- Accountable for overall program management across multiple projects/programs/service lines against timelines, deliverables, budgets and other operational metrics

- Coordinate with Demand Managers from across service lines and effectively execute end to end delivery as per expectations

- Responsible for ensuring churn out of timely MIS and reporting of performance metrics. Connect for delivery reviews. Tracking and supporting the activities of project teams to ensure quality and timeliness of program execution

- Proactively identify the need for new capability or service types, based on product and program plans, and work with the Leadership Team to design new services and source supply accordingly

- Maintain a comprehensive understanding on the full scope of services, with the ability to draw on specialists from each of the service lines, as needed, in order to define the scope of work for theto deliver the required outcomes for individual products and programs.

- Maintain oversight of all services being delivered to a particular business area, and act as a point of escalation, proactively driving resolutions where needed, for both Customers and teams working in that business area

- Work with delivery to solution and identify additional requirements

- Lead & execute MIS planning, organizational changes, governance model

- Interact with clients to understand and capture all requirements to assist in set up of SLAs and continuously benchmark processes, baseline performance and target setting

- Communicate emerging led initiatives to Onsite counterparts and Customers, to drive the innovation agenda

- Extend ongoing support (or lead) to a business unit, service line lead around business development, knowledge management, quality, process improvement etc.

Qualifications:

Required Education: MBA or Master's Degree like MBE/Economics/MFC/MIB

Preferred: 5+ years of experience in publishing industry

PMP and Six Sigma with good knowledge of Lean practices

Experience:

- Over all 12-15 years experience in Product Management/ Program Management/ Business analyst/ experience preferably in a Management Consultancy firms or KPO set up

- Exposure to at least one complete cycle of project inception through delivery

Key Skills

- Candidates from tier 1 business schools (preferred) with at least 5 years of experience in publishing industry

- Program management, delivery experience, planning, risk and issue management, regular reporting, budget management

- Deep Acumen for driving operational metrics & efficiencies

- Excellent communication, leadership and inter-personal skills with a customer-focused and result-oriented engagement approach

- Content creation and development experience for print and digital. Should possess good technical and functional background

- Excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills

- Proficiency in Microsoft Office skills including Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Access, and Project

- Excellent analytical, communication, presentation and negotiation skills with cross-functional organization, customers and upper level management and service lines

- Self-driven mindset, possess a high energy level to react to situations quickly and decisively, possessing self-confidence to be assertive when taking a position, not afraid to make decisions

- Motivated to work with and leverage internationally distributed development teams