Head of IT Business Domain

Tasks and Responsibilities:

Leadership of the IT Business Domain Function

• Lead and develop the IT Business Domain department within the overall IT Target Operating Model.
• Establish the IT Business Domain as the central business-facing IT function for domain-related business-IT topics.
• Define and continuously improve the operating model, collaboration principles, governance routines and interfaces of the IT Business Domain.
• Ensure clear roles, responsibilities and decision rights across IT Business Domain Leads, IT Domain Project Managers and IT Domain Solution Architects.
• Provide leadership, coaching and direction to the IT Business Domain organization.
• Foster a culture of ownership, transparency, business orientation, collaboration and continuous improvement.

Business-IT Alignment and Strategic Partnership

• Act as senior IT partner for business leadership on strategic, cross-domain and high-impact IT topics.
• Ensure that business strategies and priorities are translated into coherent IT domain roadmaps.
• Drive alignment between business demand, IT strategy, enterprise architecture, portfolio planning, budget and delivery capacity.
• Ensure that business stakeholders have a clear and structured interface into IT.
• Strengthen IT’s role as a business enabler and value contributor.
• Support business and IT leadership in understanding dependencies, trade-offs, risks and investment priorities.

Domain Portfolio, Roadmap and Prioritization

• Oversee the domain roadmaps across all IT Business Domains.
• Ensure consistent demand intake, structuring, evaluation and prioritization across domains.
• Establish transparency on business value, urgency, dependencies, risks, capacity needs and architectural implications.
• Ensure that IT investments are aligned with business priorities and HARTING’s overall IT strategy.
• Drive cross-domain prioritization and prepare decision proposals for IT and business governance bodies.
• Resolve or escalate priority conflicts, resource constraints and cross-domain dependencies.
• Ensure that roadmaps remain realistic, value-oriented and aligned with available delivery capabilities.

Governance and Decision Preparation* Define and operate governance mechanisms for domain-related IT demand, roadmap planning, project initiation and decision-making.

• Ensure that domain-related decisions are prepared in a structured, transparent and decision-ready manner.
• Drive consistency in portfolio management, project initiation, architecture alignment and business value assessment.
• Ensure compliance with IT governance, enterprise architecture, security, data governance, compliance and financial steering standards.
• Represent the IT Business Domain function in relevant IT leadership, portfolio and governance forums.
• Ensure that escalations are raised with clear options, impact assessments and recommendations.

Cross-Domain Coordination* Coordinate dependencies and priorities across all business domains.

• Ensure alignment between domain roadmaps and shared enterprise platforms, especially SAP, CRM, PLM, data, integration, infrastructure and security.
• Identify cross-domain synergies, duplication, conflicts and standardization opportunities.
• Ensure that domain-specific initiatives do not create isolated, redundant or conflicting solutions.
• Promote enterprise-wide standardization where appropriate while respecting legitimate domain-specific business needs.
• Ensure that major transformation initiatives are coordinated across affected domains and IT functions.

Collaboration with Core / SAP Technology and Technical Functions* Establish clear collaboration models between IT Business Domain and Core Technology, SAP Technology, Shared Technology Services, Enterprise Architecture and other technical functions.

• Ensure that technical functions are involved early in demand assessment, feasibility analysis, estimation, solution design and implementation planning.
• Ensure that Core / SAP Technology teams receive structured, prioritized and business-validated demand.
• Align with technical leadership on capacity, standards, delivery dependencies, technical risks and lifecycle topics.
• Respect and reinforce the technical ownership of the responsible technology functions.
• Ensure that the IT Business Domain organization does not duplicate or replace technical operations, development, configuration, platform administration or support responsibilities.

Architecture and Solution Alignment* Ensure that domain roadmaps and initiatives are aligned with Enterprise Architecture and HARTING’s target IT landscape.

• Oversee the work of IT Domain Solution Architects from a domain alignment and prioritization perspective.
• Ensure architectural risks, technical debt, integration dependencies and standardization opportunities are transparent in decision-making.
• Promote sustainable, scalable, secure and integrated solutions across the business domains.
• Ensure major architecture conflicts or deviations are escalated to the relevant architecture governance bodies.
• Support the translation of technology innovation into business-relevant opportunities.

Project and Delivery Steering* Ensure that approved domain initiatives are handed over into structured project or delivery execution.

• Oversee the portfolio of domain-related projects from a business value, priority and dependency perspective.
• Ensure that IT Domain Project Managers receive clear objectives, scope, governance expectations and stakeholder alignment.
• Monitor delivery progress of strategic domain initiatives together with project managers, domain leads and IT governance bodies.
• Support resolution of major delivery conflicts, business escalations and cross-domain dependencies.
• Ensure that delivered outcomes are reviewed against expected business value and roadmap objectives.

Financial and Capacity Steering* Support budget planning and investment prioritization for domain-related IT initiatives.

• Ensure transparency on financial implications, cost drivers, resource needs and capacity constraints.
• Align domain priorities with available internal and external delivery capacity.
• Support make-or-buy, sourcing and partner decisions together with relevant IT leadership functions.
• Ensure external partners are used effectively and in line with governance, cost and quality expectations.

Qualifications:

• University degree in Information Technology, Business Administration, Engineering, Business Informatics or a comparable discipline.
• Extensive leadership experience in IT, digital transformation, business relationship management, enterprise applications, IT portfolio management or a comparable environment.
• Strong experience in leading business-facing IT functions or complex IT transformation organizations.
• Proven ability to align business strategy, IT strategy, portfolio priorities, architecture and delivery capacity.
• Strong understanding of enterprise IT operating models, application landscapes, IT governance and project delivery.
• Experience in complex, international and matrix-oriented organizations.
• Experience with business domains such as Operations, Sales & Marketing, Product Development, Corporate Services or comparable enterprise functions.
• Strong understanding of SAP, enterprise applications, integration, data and digital platforms at management level.
• Experience in stakeholder management at senior business and IT leadership level.
• Fluent English skills.