IT Business Relationship Manager, Japan

Commercial IT BRM - Japan will collaborate with the Japan Commercial business and product owners to input to strategic direction, develop roadmaps to achieve the long and short-term capability needs, identify improvements, and calculate cost/benefit data.  

The Commercial IT Business Relation Manager will collaborate with the IT Centre of Excellence (CoE) & International BRM Management team to deliver solutions and services that measurably improve business KPIs - while efficiently/effectively leveraging internal and external IT capability. The BRM is also the key point of contact for IT for Local Business stakeholders, therefore play a key facilitator role between other IT functions and stakeholders on need basis.

1. Strategic Partnering

Objective: Align IT capabilities with business goals.

Understand business strategy and translate into IT needs

Advocate for IT initiatives that deliver measurable value

Foster collaboration between IT and business leaders

2. Value Realization & Optimization

Objective: Maximize return on IT investments.

Track and measure the impact of IT solutions

Ensure delivery of expected business outcomes

Support value assessments and continuous improvement

3. Demand Shaping

Objective: Ensure IT resources focus on high-impact initiatives.

Engage business early to influence IT demand

Prioritize initiatives based on strategic value and feasibility

Balance innovation with operational capacity

4. User Adoption & Change Enablement

Objective: Maximize effective use of IT solutions.

Promote user engagement and manage resistance to change

Support training, communication, and onboarding

Gather feedback and drive iterative improvement

5. Relationship Management & Communication

Objective: Build trust and transparency across IT and business.

Act as a trusted advisor and single point of contact

Communicate IT plans, progress, and outcomes clearly

Manage stakeholder expectations and resolve issues proactively

6. Innovation & Continuous Improvement

Objective: Deliver future-ready, business-aligned IT solutions.

Monitor trends and propose relevant innovations

Initiate pilots and scale successful technologies

Encourage a culture of continuous learning and adoption

Responsibilities: 

(20%) Strategic Partnering:

Establish proactive engagement with business leaders to understand current objectives, anticipate future needs, and co-create strategies where IT acts as a growth enabler rather than just a service provider.

        Develop Business Understanding:

        IT-Business Alignment:

        Strategic Planning Collaboration:

        Perform Advisory Role:

(25%) Value Realization: Ensure that technology solutions actually generate the business benefits they were intended to deliver. Optimization focuses on enhancing the ongoing performance of IT services and solutions to increase efficiency, usability, and ROI.

        Define and Track Business Value:

        Benefits Realization Planning:

        Performance Monitoring & Reporting:

        Optimize Existing IT Investments:

        Lessons Learned & Continuous Feedback:

        Stakeholder Engagement in Value Management:

(25%) Demand Shaping: Takes responsibility to help the business articulate, refine, and prioritize its needs in alignment with organizational strategy and IT capacity. It’s about making sure the “right” ideas are pursued at the “right” time, based on their strategic value, feasibility, and impact—not just urgency or volume

         Early Engagement in Idea Generation:

         Value-Based Prioritization:

         Capacity Awareness and Demand Balancing:

         Business Case Development Support:

         Manage Unstructured or Excess Demand:

(30%) User Adoption & Change Enablement: Drive successful adoption of IT solutions by enabling users to embrace and effectively utilize new technologies and processes.

         Perform Stakeholder Engagement & Readiness assessment:

         Champion User centric Implementation:

         Change Management Planning:

         Training & Enablement:

         Feedback Loops & Continuous Improvement:

         Adoption Metrics & Reporting

         Promote Culture of Change & Agility

Location:

Tokyo

Education:

Requires Bachelor's degree in computer science / information technology/ Business or equivalent experience

Licenses/ Certifications: Nice to have

- Business Analysis or BRM Certification

- Training/certification in Agile, Project Management preferred

Experience:

- 5+ years of experience Business Relationship Management experience in the driving & delivering business initiatives and projects in a multi-national company.

- 2+ years of experience managing demand and translating business strategies into IT initiatives.

- Experience with CRM solutions, salesforce.com preferred

Competences:

- Strategic Thinking & Business Acumen

- Business case creation, justification, and measurement for IT investments/projects

- Relationship building & Influence

- Business solution requirements creation (emphasis on process and data requirements)

- Business process design and re-engineering techniques and methods

- Communication & Facilitation

- Functional process knowledge needed - e.g. Salesforce Processes, Order Management

- Change Leadership - manages, leads and enables the process of change

- Facilitates collaboration between stakeholders who have diverse objectives.

- Health Care Experience Preferred.

- Ability to operate effectively in a global multi-cultural environment and drive harmonization and standardization

- Facilitates collaboration between stakeholders who have diverse objectives. 

- Assesses and evaluates risk.

Physical Demands: N/A

Travel Requirements:  <10%