IT Manager - Retail Stores Products & Services

The Manager of Retail Store Products & Services leads a product-oriented focusing on strategic technology solutions for Retail Store Operations and POS systems. This role manages the entire lifecycle of technology products to enhance store productivity and support business expansion, ensuring seamless customer experiences in physical retail.

As a strategic technology partner within IDS - Omnichannel Retail, the Manager combines retail business knowledge with product management to deliver technology that drives customer experience, revenue growth, and business alignment. The team leverages Platform Products & Services (PPS) for innovative solutions, adhering to a product-centric model. This role is crucial for establishing a vision and strategy that prioritizes customer experience, store productivity, and business expansion.

This role is within the Information and Digital Services organization at Les Schwab headquarters in Bend, OR.

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES:

35% - Business Partnership & Product Strategy

• Accountable for a significant portion of the Omnichannel Retail technology product portfolio, defining and communicating vision and roadmap.

• Cultivate deep relationships with Retail Operations leaders to understand strategies and challenges.

• Manage and prioritize the Retail Operations portfolio product backlog, making data-driven decisions to maximize business value.

• Ensure alignment on business priorities amongst business leaders and stakeholders across Retail Operations, Marketing, and Customer experience.

• Communicate product strategy, roadmaps, and performance to business stakeholders and IT leadership.

• Partner with business departments to develop, influence, and align portfolio roadmap objectives with company-wide strategic goals.

• Research new technologies and vendors to support the long-term vision and growth of the organization.

25% - Product Delivery & Lifecycle Management

• Lead a team of product managers, business analysts, and developers to deliver and manage Omnichannel technology products.

• Direct the design, development, and deployment of Retail Store processes, systems, and applications, aligning technological vision with business initiatives.

• Ensure successful delivery of business value through agile, product-centric approach and champion enterprise platform consumption by partnering with PPS.

• Manage vendor relationships and contracts, ensuring value delivery.

• Define and monitor key product metrics and KPIs.

• Ensure successful delivery of business value through technology projects, overseeing deliverables, budgets, SLAs, and resource needs.

20% - Team Leadership & Development

• Lead and mentor a diverse team, fostering a culture of business acumen, product ownership, and customer-centricity.

• Responsible for the performance management and career development of direct reports, including corrective action and termination as necessary.

• Build a high-performing team by hiring, developing, and retaining top talent with skills in product management and business analysis.

• Empower the team to make decisions and to be accountable for the success of their products.

• Provide leadership, direction, coaching, motivation, guidance, goal setting, recognition, and development opportunities to team members.

10% - Operational Excellence

• In collaboration with the PPS team, ensure that Retail Operations products are reliable, stable, and secure.

• Oversee the product support strategy (monitoring, measuring, and improving system performance and reliability), ensuring that business users receive timely and effective assistance.

• Provide input to the PPS teams on the operational performance and future needs of the foundational platforms that support the Omnichannel portfolio.

• Ensure controls compliance and enterprise-wide standardization and operational documentation are followed.

10% - Financial Oversight

• Drive the annual budget planning process for the Retail Store portfolio and manage expenses against the budget.

• Roadmap and strategize future budget planning for Retail Store.

• Manage to financial plans ensuring adherence to financial objectives.

Educational/Experience Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, or a similar field. An advanced degree is preferred.

• 10+ years of experience in a technology role, with a strong focus on Retail technology.

• 5+ years of experience leading product management or technology delivery teams in a Retail or customer-facing domain.

• Demonstrated experience working in a product-centric IT model, acting as a consumer of centralized platform services.

• Experience leading business case development and managing a portfolio of technology products.

• Experience leading and managing change in a large, distributed organization.

• Experience with industry portfolio management, project management, and business analysis standards, tools, and methods.

Required Technical Skills/Knowledge:

• A strong ability to manage a diverse portfolio of technology products in a complex, fast-paced business environment.

• The ability to build collaborative partnerships with internal platform teams (PPS) and external technology vendors.

• An understanding of how to leverage enterprise data integration and BI/analytics platforms to achieve business goals.

• Experience managing product budgets and financials.

• The ability to solve complex problems and manage risks that typically arise during project delivery and production support models with a diverse group of individuals across multiple departments.

• Proficient understanding of Retail business principles, including Store Operations.

• Experience with Point of Sale (POS) systems and store operation solutions.

• Experience interfacing with various retail software and systems to ensure seamless execution of end-to-end omnichannel fulfillment.

General Knowledge and Abilities:

• Product Acumen & Business Agility: Excellent ability to translate business needs into product features and prioritize for maximum value. Demonstrated learning agility to absorb information and apply it to emerging technologies.

• Communication: Excellent ability to communicate a product vision and roadmap clearly and professionally to both technical and non-technical audiences. Ensuring that the quality and content of the message (both verbally and in writing) are relevant while demonstrating the ability to be an active-listener.

• Initiative: Ability to organize, manage, prioritize, and budget projects effectively and strategically.

• Leadership: Excellent ability to manage, inspire, and grow employees in a product-oriented model, delegating ownership and setting clear expectations for product success.

• Service Excellence: Behave in accordance with core values: honesty, integrity, and respect. A commitment to creating a culture where the business is treated as a true partner and customer. Ability to create and promote a culture in which service excellence is expected for all levels of staff; encourage service excellence through collaboration and engagement; clearly communicate service expectation to staff and recognize when excellence is achieved.

• Collaboration & Teamwork: A strong ability to establish cooperative working relationships, particularly with the internal platform teams who are critical partners for success.

Physical Requirements: Primarily desk position; regularly required to sit, occasionally required to stand and walk.  Requires frequent and repetitive use of hands and fingers to operate computer, mouse, keyboard, and office related equipment and the ability to reach with hands and arms.  This position requires lifting no more than 10 pounds.  Specific vision abilities required by this job include close visual acuity and the ability to adjust focus.  Requires the ability to communicate verbally and exchange information by phone and in person.

Work Environment: Office, non-manual work; the worker is not substantially exposed to adverse environmental conditions.  The worker must be available when urgent issues arise that require their coordination or escalation.  Urgent-availability needs are rare but the worker is expected to comply when they occur.  This may include performing work outside of regular hours and/or supporting teams performing off-hours work by checking in remotely and/or in person as necessary.

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions/primary responsibilities. This job description is not all inclusive and is subject to change. Additional duties and tasks may be assigned, as necessary. Employment remains “AT WILL” at all times.