Job Purpose :

The Integration Head role is accountable for successful delivery from project commencement to project completion, through the initiating, planning, execution, monitoring and control and closing phases for integration with third party suppliers in Travel Domain. This includes liaisoning with external suppliers, business stakeholders, acquiring resources and coordinating the efforts of the team members and third party contractors or consultants in order to deliver project according to plan. The Head will also define the project's objective and oversee quality control throughout the life cycle.

Role :

The role of an Integration Head is to :

- Liaison with third party suppliers (GDS, Aggregators, consolidators, Channel Managers, payment gateways etc.) to ensure readiness for the integration.

- Coordinate with business stakeholders for the functional touch points in integration process.

- Adopt the best practices for supplier integration as per Industry standards.

- Guide the integration team on the functional flows w.r.t different products such as flights, hotels, transfers, rentals, payment gateways etc.

- Review the functional, logical and technical integration flows and services for suppliers.

- Manage the entire life cycle of integration process including certification from suppliers and go live.

- Plan and manage the migration of existing integrations in accordance with the supplier API version / platform upgrades.

- Plan and Manage the content and inventory distribution for both online and offline suppliers.

- Review Supplier agreements and provide feedback from technical integration standpoint.

- Commit the Delivery Model in conjunction with the Project/Program manager.

- Ensure that contractual agreements with solution providers and vendors are managed

- Identify, maintain and manage project budgets.

- Manage project to ensure that the project remains within agreed scope, schedule, cost and quality.

- Manage project plan and schedule.

- Management of project risk.

- Promptly resolve project issues and remove associated project delays.

- Provide project reports, dashboards to the management committee on the progress of the projects.

- Identify team resources required in conjunction with all the Project/Program Managers.

- Maintain resource capability across the project.

- Ensure that IT, infrastructure, process and organization elements of a project are addressed and integrated.

- Maintain resource capability across project.

- Ensure best value for Company in respect to negotiations / contracting with both internal and external suppliers

- Manages the effective achievement of the department objectives by setting individual targets, developing and motivating staff.

Accountabilities :

The Integration Head is accountable for:

- Managing and tracking the supplier integration to end to end completion.

- Providing technical and functional inputs to the technical team to aid them to successfully complete integrations.

- Ensuring that integrations are in line with the signed business requirements and meet both the functional and non functional requirements.

- Facilitating the preparation of the supplier flows, certification of supplier flows and integrations.

- Formation of the project team including SME for supplier integration.

- Identification and engagement of resources required for the project team.

- Managing and maintaining a project plan in line with the Work Breakdown Structure.

- Managing and executing the projects within the defined agreed budgets.

- Ensuring contracting arrangements are in place for potential vendors.

- Managing team meetings.

- Managing the Change Management process associated with the project.

- Facilitating the preparation of the Solution Brief.

- Identifying project risks and mitigation planning.

- Engagement of internal and external suppliers for development process.

- Ensuring that management of build activities.

- Ensuring that testing is complete and issues or defects are addressed and closed.

- Obtaining - endorsement to go-live from business stakeholders and suppliers.

- Managing the project through the Project / Operational Readiness Review

- Preparation of a deployment plan.

- Managing the deployment of technical, process, organizational and support elements of the solution.

- Evaluation of project and team activities.

Competences :

To perform the job successfully the Integration Head should demonstrate the below competencies:

- In depth knowledge of Travel domain.

- Proven Experience in integrating with suppliers across various products.

- Hands on experience in understanding and interpreting APIs.

- Knowledge on REST/ SOAP and JASON/ XMLs.

- Technical Ability to understand the OTA standards.

- Strong Analytical and Problem solving skills.

- Good Project Management skills.

- Technical Ability to manage large scale projects.

- Customer/ Client management.

- Vendor Management.

- Strong Interpersonal skills.

- Good Oral and written communication skills.

- Teamwork and People management skills.

- Business Acumen.

- Strategy thinking, Planning and Organizing.

- Professionalism and Dependability

- Attendance and Punctuality

Deliverables :

Deliverables for the Integration Head are:

- Project team comprising representatives from key impacted areas.

- Delivery Model for the project.

- Project Plan, with regular reports and updates.

- Business requirements Specification.

- Solution Brief.

- Supplier specific flows approved and certified by suppliers.

- Integrated, tested and consumable services of various products (flights, hotels, payment gateways etc.)

- Solution as defined in the Solution Brief adhering to the requirements in Business requirements Specification.

- Evaluation of project and project team.

Reporting Requirements

Weekly update of progress to the Management, delivered showing:

- Project Status against schedule and budgets.

- Change Requests.

- Issues (to be added to Project Issue Register).

- Risks (to be added to Project Risk Register).

Key Relationships :

The key groups with whom the Integration Head will need to interact include :

- Senior Management - CEO and CIO

- Business heads of other divisions

- Project team members and their line managers

- Project testing team

- Integration team

- Corporate Procurement Teams

- Associated companies.

- Technology Partners, Vendors, API clients and Suppliers

Qualification and Experience:

- BE/ME/M-Tech.

- 15 + years of related experience.

- Knowledge of travel domain is a must.

- Hands on experience in supplier integration is a must.

- Experience in Oracle SOA suite/ ESB is good to have.

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