Product line manager, ERP

Organizational Context

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian network, with 191 member National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. IFRC uses the Triple R – response, resilience and respect – to deliver on Strategy 2030. IFRC responds to disasters and crises, ensuring timely, coordinated and locally led humanitarian action. IFRC supports its members in building community resilience in the areas of climate and environment, health and wellbeing, and migration and displacement. IFRC promotes respect for our fundamental principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality, including in our work on values, power and inclusion. The IFRC focuses throughout on our core mandate – our raison d’être – of strategic and operational coordination, humanitarian diplomacy, National Society development, and accountability.

IFRC is led by its Secretary General and has its Headquarters in Geneva and five regional offices in Africa (Nairobi); the Americas (Panama); Asia Pacific (Kuala Lumpur); Europe (Budapest); and MENA (Beirut) as well as representation offices, service centres and delegations across the globe.

The IFRC has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment and other forms of harassment, abuse of authority, discrimination, and lack of integrity (including but not limited to financial misconduct). IFRC also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles.

Job Purpose

Background to the position

The Digital Transformation Department (DTD) has full leadership responsibility for the implementation of the digital transformation strategy and the positive impact it will have on the 191 National Society members of the IFRC. The DTD provides strategic leadership and guides the IFRC Secretariat as well as the members network to adapt and innovate humanitarian services, drawing on digital services, data-enabled decision-making, and other opportunities for digital transformation in support of the IFRC’s Strategy 2030. In addition, the DTD is responsible for the development and implementation of business transformation, information technology and digitalization services throughout the IFRC Secretariat, thereby supporting the same transformation in 191 NSs, setting the vision, and drawing stakeholders together on this digital journey.

The position holder manages the ERP, within the DTD’s Digital product development and management Unit, in close cooperation and collaboration with the managers and staff of the Enterprise Architecture, Strategy & Planning Manager, Data management and Service units, as well as IT Managers located in the five Regional Offices and functional reports within different departments with the IFRC. Until the organisational change process is completed the Product manager will report to the GSC IT Manager, based in Budapest, Hungary.

The responsibilities of the Digital product development and management Unit include the digital strategy development, annual planning and development and continuity of the global digital products portfolio for the IFRC. Moreover, the unit ensures that digital opportunities are considered and requirements are adequately represented, and implemented in time and within the approved budget.

The ERP provides IFRC with a core platform that serves as the foundation for agile management, identifification and implemention of opportunities to increase efficiency and effectiveness in alignment with the Agenda for Renewal. Additionally, the ERP development and deployment in the organisation has adapted the way we work, made our work more united, automated processes, and provides a platform to deliver more value from our data. It creates a stable platform for transparency, trust, accountability to donors and communities we serve alike. The ERP runs on Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365).

Job purpose

To develop the ERP product vision, roadmap and its service to provide IFRC with a global digital platform to increase efficiency and effectiveness in alignment with the Agenda for Renewal and IFRCs Digital Transformation strategy. To lead the organization-wide use and improvement of the ERP product to meet the organisation’s future needs. To ensure the ERP as a organisation’s core platform, to drive agility and innovation, to deliver more value from our data to increase transparency, trust, accountability to donors and communities we serve. To rally up to 30 direct and dual reports across the world to analyse and prioritze IFRCs business needs and product performance, manage and optimize the use of human and financial resources allocated to the ERP, in a collaborative approach. To drive communications and change management for continued adoption and evolution of the ERP product.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

Product strategy & vision:

Product vision & rooadmap: Define and continuously evolve the ERP product vision, strategy, and outcome-driven roadmap. Translate IFRC’s strategic priorities (S2030, Agenda for Renewal, IFRC DT Strategy) into a clear product direction, measurable goals, and a backlog that delivers user and organisational value incrementally.

OKRs & success metrics: Define and own the ERP product line’s Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), in partnership with the Business Owners.

Integration & interoperability: Define and own the ERP’s integration and interoperability strategy as IFRC’s core platform. Determine which applications connect to ERP, on what terms, and how that evolves over time. Work closely with Enterprise Architecture to ensure alignment with the target architecture and cross-cutting platform standards.

Continuous product discovery: Maintain an ongoing discovery practice with the Business Systems Analysts, conduct user research, analyse usage data and support trends, run stakeholder workshops, and systematically identify unmet needs and improvement opportunities across IFRC departments and geographic structures.

Product delivery & team leadership:

Product backlog & lifecycle: Own and prioritise the ERP product backlog across its full lifecycle in line with IFRC’s Hybrid Delivery Framework. Balance investment between new capabilities, enhancements, technical debt reduction, and compliance.

Technical debt management: Maintain visibility of the ERP’s technical debt and ensure it is systematically tracked and prioritised alongside feature delivery.

Team leadership & product capability building: Lead and manage 7–10 direct reports and guide up the functional/dual reports across departments and geographic structures. Build the product culture the organisation is transitioning towards.

Human-centred design: Ensure all ERP development follows a Human-Centred Design approach. Champion user research, usability testing, and accessibility.

Governance & Stakeholder Management

Governance & DT Steering Committee: Ensure all required inputs for ERP product governance bodies are prepared to a high standard, enabling efficient and effective decision-making.

Change management & communications: Drive organisation-wide change management and communications for the ongoing evolution of the ERP, in close collaboration with the Business Owners.

Stakeholder alignment: Build and maintain strong relationships with business owners, department heads, and key stakeholders across IFRC headquarters, regional offices, and National Societies. Ensure business needs and priorities are accurately represented and that the product roadmap reflects the organisation’s most important problems to solve.

Network & external insights: Build a network of peers inside and outside the IFRC network to leverage digital experience, ERP market intelligence, and humanitarian sector insights. Stay current with Microsoft D365 developments, the broader ERP ecosystem, and product management best practices to continuously evolve the product’s vision and strategy.

Job Duties and Responsibilities (continued)

Operations & continuous Improvements:

Product performance monitoring: Together with the Service team and suppliers, continuously monitor ERP performance, availability, user satisfaction, and key metrics. This includes regular analysis of audits and role based access to ensure controls and segregation of duties are in place.

Compliance & security: Work with the Information Security team to implement and maintain appropriate security measures. Ensure compliance requirements are treated as first-class backlog items.

Support model oversight: Work with the Service team to ensure an effective ERP support model is in place, covering L1 through L3 support with the right supplier mix. Monitor support quality through metrics and user satisfaction data, and feed systemic issues back into the product backlog.

Release & patch management: Oversee timely and quality release and patch management (delivered by the Service team and suppliers), ensuring releases follow the Production Readiness Review (PRR) process and that users are adequately prepared and informed.

Resource and supplier management:

Total cost of ownership & ROI: Own the ERP product line’s Budget & Demonstrate ROI to the DT Steering Committee, identify cost optimization opportunities, and ensure the product delivers measurable value for money.

Licensing strategy: Work with the teams to ensure the license model is appropriate for current and future needs, delivers value for money, and is proactively monitored for supplier changes. Collaborate with the Service team on license forecasting.

Supplier relationship & performance: Own the product level strategic relationship with ERP suppliers (Microsoft and implementation/support partners). Define performance expectations, conduct regular reviews, and hold suppliers accountable for quality and delivery.

Shared responsibilities

Partner with Data, Service and Architecture teams/roles to deliver data management strategy, enterprise architecture and transition of digital products to production and maintenance.

Collaborate with Planning team on DT Secretariat strategy development, application of project management standards.

Collaborate with Service Unit for Service delivery as well as on Business value case formulation, feasibility analysis of product production and maintenance, in case of development.

Education

Required

• Bechelor’s degree in Engineering, computer sciences or equivalent experience in managing organisation-wide ERP Products.
• ITIL certification (Foundation or above), OR a recognised agile/product certification (e.g. PSPO, SAFe Product Manager/Product Owner, Pragmatic Institute PMC).

Preferred

• Project management professional certification

Experience

Required

• Min. 7 years of professional experience or equivalent as ERP operation support Microsoft D365
• Proven experience in leading & managing large teams in matrix-based organisation
• Minimum 5 years professional experience in product management
• Minimum 7 years professional experience in roll-out, maintenance, upgrades and customizations of ERP’s
• Proven experience in contract and supplier management

Preferred

• Minimum 4 years professional experience in business requirements analysis
• Experience in service management and reporting tools

Knowledge, Skills and Languages

Knowledge and Skills

Required

• Knowledge and Skills Required
• Strong analysis and problem solving skills
• Solid strategic and conceptual thinking; setting meaningful, long-term vision, consider long-term potential, propose challenging goals
• Effective communication, collaboration and negotiation skills
• Ability to drive results, and create culture that fosters proactive action, actively prioritize, set high standards.
• Proven skills across the digital product lifecycle: from intake and discovery through iterative delivery to operation and continuous improvement. Comfortable managing both a product backlog and an outcome-driven roadmap.
• Experience in adopting Human centred design principles into the product lifecycle
• Propensity for embracing change and ambiguity: anticipate emerging conditions and demands, embrace widespread organisational change, navigate complex dynamics, view uncertainty and disruption as an opportunity
• Excellent interpersonal skills; proven people’s management skills (staff and consultants), including conflict resolution.
• Proven teamwork and trust-building skills, including development of effective and efficient networks and partnerships in diverse cultures and language settings.
• Proven training, knowledge transfer and supervisory skills as part of the people’s management.
• Well organized, able to work under pressure and manage emergencies .
• Proactive approach to finding creative and constructive solutions to difficult issues.
• Demonstrated core proficiency in (a) digital communication & collaboration, (b) basic digital content creation, (c) digital safety & security, (d) data literacy, and (e) problem solving with technology (including responsible use of AI assistants.
• Understanding of and commitment to IFRC’s mission and values.

Preferred

• Proven skills in production vision, business value and cost model development

Languages

Required

• Fluent spoken and written English

Preferred

• Good command of another IFRC official language (French, Spanish or Arabic)

Competencies, Values and Comments

Values: Respect for diversity; Integrity; Professionalism; Accountability
Core competencies: Communication; Collaboration and teamwork; Judgement and decision making; National society and customer relations; Creativity and innovation; Building trust
Functional competencies: Strategic orientation; Building alliances; Leadership; Empowering others