Operational Excellence Manager

JOB PURPOSEThe Operational Excellence Manager leads end-to-end improvement across the licensing and facilities sales funnel in an economic-zone context. By combining shadowing, data analysis, and stakeholder engagement, the role diagnoses bottlenecks to reduce TAT, eliminate rework and lift productivity. Findings are converted into prioritized initiatives with clear governance, targeted automation, and measurable impact on SLAs, capacity, and conversion.This position will drive cross-functional collaboration with stakeholders in strategy, sales, finance and operations to advance the maturity of RAKEZ’s Operational Excellence capabilities.CORE RESPONSIBILITIESProcess Deep Dive: Sales Funnel & Operations:Map end-to-end flows from lead to onboarding and service activationShadow teams to capture AS-IS process, handoffs and digital touchpointsQuantify cycle time, wait time, WIP and failure demand to reveal TAT driversBuild swim lanes and value-stream maps to expose constraints and reworkPrioritize fixes by impact, feasibility, risk and time to valueStakeholder Engagement & Governance:Run interviews and shadowing with stakeholders like Sales, Registration, Compliance, Finance, Facilities, ITAlign problem statements, success metrics and delivery cadenceFacilitate workshops to co-design TO-BE flows and service standardsSocialize quick wins and manage a steering rhythm with ownersData & Insight Development:Translate observations into metrics on demand, volume, productivity, utilization, leakage and FTRAnalyse TAT distributions and queues to find bottlenecks in processes like registration, compliance checks, payments, verification etc.Coordinate to build BI dashboards for SLA adherence, aging backlog, productivity, utilization etc.Convert insights into hypotheses, business cases and clear calls to actionTaxonomy, Capacity & Root Cause:Break processes into tasks; tag value-added vs non-value-added; flag elimination or automation candidatesQuantify work volumes by task; compute utilization and availability to model capacity and constraintsRun 5 Whys and fishbone to isolate delay and rework driversRecommend streamlining, load balancing and staffing or automation leversImprovement Delivery & Benefits Realization:Define TO-BE designs, SLAs, entry-exit criteria and control checks by stepDeploy digitization and RPA with training, comms and adoption metricsTrack impact on median/P80 TAT, FTR, capacity, conversion and aging; publish dashboardsEmbed continuous improvement with metric reviews, countermeasures and owner accountabilityQUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE, & SKILLSEducational Qualifications:Bachelors in business, Operations Management, Engineering, Mathematics or related fieldMBA or relevant master’s preferredLean Six Sigma training or certification a plusProfessional Qualifications:Strong grounding in Lean, VSM, RCA, swimlanes, control plansProficiency in advanced Excel and BI tools such as Power BIWorking knowledge of CRM processes and workflows, ideally SalesforceFamiliarity with process/task mining, RPA or workflow automation platformsSolid documentation skills for SOPs, SLAs and governance artifactsRequired Experience:6-10 years in operational excellence or process improvement in B2B services or sales operationsProven delivery of TAT and productivity gains across cross-functional teamsHands-on in stakeholder interviews, workshops and change managementExperience building dashboards, KPIs and benefits trackingTrack record of running pilots and scaling improvementsOther requirements:Clear communicator with executive presenceStrong facilitation and negotiation skillsStructured problem solver with hypothesis-driven approachComfortable with ambiguity and fast iterationExperience in agile or stage-gate delivery environments preferred