Purpose of the role

The purpose of the Alliances Architect Team is to ensure that Keyloop is positioned as a strategic partner, that helps OEMs make stepped advancements in their digital transformation process by delivering strategic projects and initiatives.

The role of the Solution Architect is to bridge the strategic direction of the OEMs with the solutions and capabilities of Keyloop. By working across multiple OEMs, the Solution Architect should combine their deep understanding of Keyloop’s products / solutions to help OEMs find suitable solutions to address their evolving digital requirements.

Through this relationship, Keyloop will extend the breadth and depth of solutions & services provided to both the OEMs and their International dealer networks. The overall objective of the role is to be a key contributor to Keyloop’s revenue and margin targets by generating opportunities for Keyloop to power the automotive retail industry.

Duties and Responsibilities

Accountable for translation of OEM requirements to the organisation and articulate the key challenges that the OEMs are trying to overcome, whilst linking these to Keyloop capabilities (current and future).

Requirements Management

• Work across multiple OEMs to understand their strategy and help identify how Keyloop capabilities can be linked with these.
• Listen to the needs and aspirations of various stakeholders in the OEMs to build strong understandings of their strategies and needs.
• Look for recurring requirements which can be grouped together as a combined capability by Keyloop.
• Collaborating with the Product and Alliances teams, develop candidate solutions to address customer needs.
• Through this process, validate the requirements and share throughout the Keyloop organisation as part of the in-house system / process.
• Regularly share with the rest of the Alliances team and organisation an up-to-date overview of how OEM requirements are evolving along with their strategies.
• Work closely with the internal teams as well as the OEM to ensure that solutions become a reality and are deployed to maximum impact.
• Assessing the business impact that certain technical choices have

Communication and collaboration

• Work hand in hand with the Brand Solution Directors and Programme Management to address the Business Requirements of respective OEMs.
•  Collaborate closely with the Business Units / IT departments of the OEMs.
• Provide consistent and clear communications lines across all interested parties within Keyloop to/from the OEM requirements.
• Work closely with Functional Management to ensure alignment of strategy and operation.
• Collaborate closely with Keyloop Product and Engineering organisation to ensure client requirements are clearly communicated and shared.
• Support the business in prioritising OEM Requirements.
• Communicate (and escalate where necessary) the status of OEM issues and requirements gaps to relevant parties.
• Communicate with the organisation other solutions in the marketplace and their value proposition
• Assessing the solutions currently in place and working with Product and Engineering to recommend solutions to improve.

Knowledge and Experience

Keyloop Product Knowledge

• Keep up to date on all Keyloop product offering and ensure deep understanding of the product features and capabilities.
• Develop and maintain a deep understanding of the Keyloop platform product integration and act as an influencer.
• Understand the Keyloop platform strategy and how this is planned to integrate with OEM needs.
• Understand what other solutions are available in the market place along with their value proposition.
• Develop and maintain an understanding of the OEM landscapes (applications and functionalities).

Skills and Abilities

Attributes that will lead to success in this role are:

• An evangelistic nature to represent customers views in internally and Keyloop solutions externally.
• Strong ability to support teams in developing solutions.
• Self-starter who looks to engage widely both internally and externally.
• A problem-solving mentality, always looking for simplification and pattern matching to other solutions when presented with new challenges.
• Natural client management skills that are adaptable to the level and style of the client being engaged with.
• Strong Software as a Service delivery understanding and ability to apply this in the Automotive industry.
• Good technical Understanding of platform-based solutions and an enquiring mind about how Keyloop's platform can be deployed and enhanced.
• Good commercial awareness and skills.
• Champion of clear customer requirements definition with a systemic approach to documentation and knowledge sharing.
• Ability to handle Issue Management in a calm and structured way.
• Wide IT literacy with ability to use common tools but also adapt to new OT systems and processes quickly.
• Significant technical and product experience to be able to represent Keyloop at pivotal moments in that relationship is also essential. o A broad business background that allows the candidate to maintain credibility over a wide range of matters is very important.
• A strong ability to maintain a delivery conversation with key customers to ensure we build software that is quickly and effectively delivered to the maximum number of users.