Centre of Excellence Principal Consultant

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At Sage, we recognize that the world of work has rapidly shifted over the last few years, particularly how we work. That is why we have committed to working in a hybrid way going forward. Human connection is an essential ingredient of the 4 principles that make up our Flexible Human Work hybrid framework and we want to be transparent in what that looks like when you join our Sage family. On one hand, our offices will continue to play an important role in our future and serve as a place for spontaneous conversations, connection, collaboration as well as focused time. On the other hand, we have learned to reimagine where and when we work and to unlock that flexibility and innovation for our colleagues offering them the opportunity to work flex across their home, Sage offices or customer sites.

More specifically, the Principal Consultant is responsible for the appropriate design, setup, configuration, customisation, testing, delivery, documentation, and transition to support of the solution predominantly to Business Partners who in-turn support the end customers - including technical and functional reviews. They lead and/or participate in design sessions and workshops, in all relevant project meetings and in any knowledge transfer with various other project stakeholders, internal and external.
The Principal Consultant will mentor other consultants and assist with training internally as well as partner and / or customer training.
The Principal Consultant is also involved in pre-sales to produce feasibility assessments and estimates to meet customer requirements. They proactively position value added services with the customers through Business Partner led implementations.
The Principal Consultant is billable and as such is responsible for the delivery and invoicing of tasks contributing towards the profitability of the Centre of Excellence.

**Key Responsibilities**
- Stand as an expert and architect for partners and customers in their implementation efforts
- Assist Business Partners in delivering solutions in critical implementations situations
- Mentor Business Partners on projects from design through to delivery on technical and functional requirements
- Occasionally participate in technical and functional requirement gathering meetings and calls
- Participate in project meetings to support resolution of complex issues
- Analyze technical feasibility, and propose solutions to meet customer requirements
- Propose design for complex software solutions
- Deliver quality work on time and within budget
- Qualify and track issues, and deliver fixes to customer when no-one else has the skills to do so
- Create and maintain documentation for complex designs
- Create and share best practice recommendations with customers and partners, ensuring an optimal use of the software
- Lead design and functional reviews
- Design, deliver and maintain advanced enablement programs towards upskilling of Business Partners
- Responsible for monthly billing aligned to the HR and Payroll stream and overall Centre of Excellence division budget
- Manage monthly individual utilization for both billable and non-billable activities
- Develop and maintain best practice methodology toolkits aligned with product(s) update
- Pro-actively identify and share best practices on configuration
- Provide expert services to the Sage Ecosystem
- Align individual delivery to local and global strategy
- Pro-actively identify and mitigate risks on project delivery (costs, delays, etc.)
- Proactive on self-learning and ensure up to date with relevant HR product-based certification.

Must have:
Skills, know-how and experience:

- At least 5 - 7 years HR implementation experience
- Possess outstanding written and verbal communication skills accommodating technical and non-technical audience
- Highly focused on Partner and end-customer satisfaction
- Ability to lead key project activities such as Discovery Sessions, Workshops, UAT, Migrations, Upgrades, etc.
- Agile in resolutions to complex support queries
- Ability to transfer skills and knowledge to both internal and external stakeholders
- Demonstrate ability to participate in technical / functional community, forums and/or events
- Ability to position commercial value of both product and service offerings
- Sound financial knowledge and ability to bill on activities delivered
- Ability to identify advanced training needs for partners
- Self-motivated and enthusiastic
- Proactively manage their own workload across multiple projects
- Strong analytical/problem-solving skills
- Ability to work independently and in teams
- Knowledgeable on regulatory and statutory components relative to HR and Payroll
- Solid understanding o