About Avida
Avida is a retail experience company dedicated to creating captivating retail encounters designed with purpose.
Today’s bricks-and-mortar retailers face many challenges. Stiff competition, high customer expectations, technological disruption, and legacy real estate and IT infrastructure, are but a few. We provide strategic, creative, human-centred approaches to experiential planning and design – all fully supported by a flexible and scalable technological platform. From ideation to execution, deployment and ongoing service and maintenance, we’ve got our clients covered.
We enable retailers to deliver exceptional in-store experiences that align customer needs with brand and business objectives.
We’re enablers of elevated in-store experiences.
The Position
The Technology Operations and Support Services (TOSS) team is responsible for ensuring that the technology solutions that Avida recommends, deploys, and manages for our retail clients are operating at optimal levels for maximum up-time in the retail environment. The Team works closely with the Program Management, Design, and Strategy & Innovation teams to develop, deploy, and manage innovative in-store experiences.
The Director of Technology Operations and Support Services is expected to provide oversight, mentorship and guidance to his or her direct reports to ensure operational excellence and collaboration with cross-functional teams. As a member of Avida’s Leadership Team, this individual is the voice for the functional area and a business partner in assisting Avida to achieve its strategic goals.
The Director of Technology Operations and Support Services reports to the CEO and is accountable to peers on the Leadership Team at Avida which is comprised of functional area team leads.
What you'll be doing
- Work closely with Avida’s Executive Team (CEO and Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer) and functional area Leaders as part of Avida’s Leadership Team to collaborate, prioritize, and execute on action plans to achieve company strategic goals
- Interact regularly across all functions of the company to ensure proper alignment of priorities for each client program
- Lead the Technology Operations and Support Services practice through coordination of activities for which responsibility is delegated to ensure achievement of targets and objectives
- Manage a team of technical support employees with responsibility for the overall direction, coordination, and evaluation of the team’s performance and success and continued growth of Technology Operations and Support Services team
- Manage relationship with field services and installation partners; key technology vendors such as hardware manufacturers, CMS providers, RSS providers, distributors, and fabricators
- Manage inventory requirements and have complete oversight of inventory management processes and systems
- Manage all aspects of assigned projects including setting technical requirements and leading implementation plan with business partners and colleagues
- Monitor project progress by tracking and analyzing actives, resolving problems, publishing progress reports and recommending proactive actions which address root causes of issues
- Research potential hardware/software including but not limited to: testing media players, examining and documenting new/existing digital signage software(s), software services
- Research, recommend, implement and troubleshoot technology, and identify ticketing trends per client to proactively plan potential technical solutions
- Research, develop, test, and operationalize products and technology solutions in collaboration with Strategy & Innovation, Programs, and Design, led by the Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer to achieve business objectives
- Work with functional area leaders to create new processes and procedures in a holistic and collaborative way
What you'll need to be successful in this role
- Possess excellent written and verbal communication skills along with patience especially when dealing with colleagues, clients, and partners that are less technically minded
- Model Avida’s core values during all interactions with colleagues, clients and suppliers
- Have an entrepreneurial mindset: Ensure cost efficiencies when purchasing, implementing and scaling hardware/software, planning and implementing processes as well as executing rollout plans
- Collaboration with internal teams to create technical solutions, and instill a sense of accountability and ownership in the Technology Operations and Support Services team
- Possess a sense of self-awareness, situational awareness, ownership and accountability for yourself and the Technology Operations and Support Services team
- Lead the team with empathy by modelling the behaviours congruent with Avida’s core values
- Understand that the Technology Operations and Support Services functional area is a key component of client success together with Program Management, Design, and Strategy & Innovation
- Have the ability to exercise good judgement by being able to balance the desire for operational effectiveness with client retention and stakeholder relationship management
- Establish operational procedures and best practices to achieve operational efficiencies within the context of Avida’s unique business model in collaboration with functional area team leads and their teams
Minimum qualifications
- University degree or diploma in Information Technology, Computer Science or equivalent
- A minimum of 5 years’ experience in personnel management
- Ability to motivate, inspire, lead and develop a multi-disciplinary team
- Ability to collaborate with cross functional teams
- Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions
- Ability to demonstrate Project Management skills in a waterfall and agile environment
- Have excellent written and verbal communication skills
What we offer
- Strategy and innovation-focused company facing rapid growth
- Inclusive and engaging team atmosphere, with supportive and collaborative mentality
- Competitive compensation, with opportunities for advancement
The above are not intended to be an exhaustive list of the duties, responsibilities and requirements of the job described. Rather, they are intended to describe the general nature of the job.
Avida is committed to creating an inclusive and diverse work environment. If you require any accommodation in the application process, please let us know in advance.
As an equal opportunity employer, we would like to thank all candidates who apply, but only those selected for an interview will be contacted.