Principal Business Architect

Summary

Increasingly our customers are becoming Systems Integrators on their transformation journey. The transformation is often driven through the adoption of our cloud platform. In doing so our customers are looking for expertise around converting their business intent and strategies to an execution model that best leverages the unique capabilities of Guidewire.
To achieve this objective we are looking for individuals with strong business domain knowledge in areas such as Claims, Pricing, Commercial Underwriting coupled with a functional knowledge of Guidewire platform. The Business Architect plays a pivotal role in aligning the strategic goals and objectives with decisions regarding products and services;partners and suppliers; organization; capabilities; and key business and IT initiatives.

Job Description

Principal Business Architect

The primary focus of the Business Architect’s role is the business motivations, business operations, and business analysis frameworks that link these aspects of the enterprise together. A Business Architect is expected to be a visionary, a strategic thinker, an analyst, and a change agent. This unique blend of roles requires an understanding of the business’s operational and strategic direction and can communicate it effectively to a wide variety of audiences. A business architect will build strong relationships across the organization and use those relationships to align strategic goals with business reality, and will work across Business and IT to build and apply targeting operating models (TOM) by enhancing Guidewire Cloud capabilities, including optimization of customers' Business and IT operations, in an agile, collaborative, and dynamic environment across multiple client projects.

The Professional Services Organization

We assign a small team of SMEs who work in tandem with the insurance company’s internal team, and partners, to address their needs, and become a trusted technical advisor and mentor. Our software is exceptionally sophisticated and well-tested – with over 2,000 person years invested in our products so far.

Responsibilities

• Develop a business architecture strategy based on a situational awareness of various business scenarios and motivations. Demonstrate how these key end-to-end scenarios bring the strategy to life, where the value drivers are, and the impact and influence on outcomes.

• Engage with various stakeholders across business units and IT, facilitating discussions, negotiations and influencing decisions that drive optimal outcomes

• Continuously monitor the business architecture to ensure it effectively supports business needs and adapts to organizational changes.

• It's important that business architects can accurately assess client and business needs to provide actionable improvements for business models. After implementing a change, the architect assesses the impact of strategic plans on capability levels to determine how successful the changes were.

• The business architect assesses the current capabilities and strategies for a company, then builds a future-state view. An important part of this is communicating with business leaders and helping them understand the changes.

• As a subject matter expert in the insurance industry, consult with insurance carrier business and technical resources to produce business requirements and business process documents as a functional resource.

• Communicate with stakeholders to ensure necessary buy-in.

• Work with Guidewire Customer Success and Sales functions to propose and deliver value of Guidewire Cloud Platform and to seek customers’ Success Plans through program lifecycle

The recommended skill set for a business architect is listed below:

• Ability to solve complex problems analytically, communicate effectively and research solutions, collaborating with domain specialists where necessary

• Ability for Critical thinking is the ability to identify a problem, recognise what's causing it and suggest potential solutions.

• A deep understanding of the local P&C insurance industry, regulations, and market trends, with primary focus on customer-facing operations and processes. Minimum of 5-7 years experience in business leadership and operational roles.

• Leadership: Ability to inspire and motivate others, lead from the front, and drive a culture of accountability.

• Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex concepts to a broad range of stakeholders.

• Influencing: Ability to shape decision-making without direct authority, influencing all organizational levels.

• Analytical Thinking: Ability to understand and solve complex problems, turning insights into actions.

• Collaboration: Ability to build and maintain strong relationships with peers and stakeholders, promoting a cooperative working environment.

• Adaptability: Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, adapt to change, and manage multiple priorities.

• Strategic Thinking: Ability to connect the dots between the organisation’s strategic, operational, and tactical levels.

• Presentation Skills: Effectively presenting and explaining the business architecture to diverse audience groups.

• Ability to identify when business requirements are not in scope

• Consulting & Leadership Skills along with deep industry knowledge of the P&C insurance industry with a focus on policy, claims and/or underwriting

• Experience with software implementation project(s) in requirements gathering, functional specifications, and user acceptance testing

• Experience in software package implementation through customization or configuration using agile methodologies along with a familiarity with object-oriented design principles and databases.

• Experience in applying change management concepts on a software implementation project

• Exceptional documentation skills, and the ability to facilitate discussions with both technical and business stakeholders, including C-level executives

• Native or equivalent Japanese language skills to communicate with local stakeholders including customer C-level executives, and sufficient English language skill to communicate with colleagues and leadership globally in Guidewire

About Guidewire

Guidewire is the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. We combine digital, core, analytics, and AI to deliver our platform as a cloud service. More than 540+ insurers in 40 countries, from new ventures to the largest and most complex in the world, run on Guidewire.

As a partner to our customers, we continually evolve to enable their success. We are proud of our unparalleled implementation track record with 1600+ successful projects, supported by the largest R&D team and partner ecosystem in the industry. Our Marketplace provides hundreds of applications that accelerate integration, localization, and innovation.

For more information, please visit www.guidewire.com and follow us on Twitter: @Guidewire_PandC.

Guidewire Software, Inc. is proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. We are committed to an inclusive workplace, and believe that a diversity of perspectives, abilities, and cultures is a key to our success. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship, marital status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, or disability. All offers are contingent upon passing a criminal history and other background checks where it's applicable to the position.