Senior Manager - Omnichannel Application Strategy & Support

Job description / Role

Overview

For over six decades, Chalhoub Group has been a partner and creator of luxury experiences in the Middle East. The Group, in its endeavor to excel as a hybrid retailer, has reinforced its distribution and marketing services with a portfolio of eight owned brands and over 300 international brands in the luxury, beauty, fashion, and art de vivre categories. More recently, the Group expanded its expertise into new categories of luxury watches, jewelry, and eyewear.

Every step at Chalhoub Group is taken with the customer at heart. Be it constantly reinventing itself or focusing on innovation to provide luxury experiences at over 750 experiential retail stores, online and through mobile apps, each touch point leads to delighting the customer.

Today, Chalhoub Group stands for 14,000 skilled and talented professionals across seven countries, whose cohesive efforts have resulted in the Group being ranked third in the Middle East and first in Saudi Arabia as a Great Place to Work.

To keep the innovation journey going, the Group has set up "The Greenhouse", which is not just an innovation hub, but also an incubator space and accelerator for start-ups and small businesses in the region and internationally. This is just one of the several initiatives taken by the Group to reinvent itself, catalyzed by forward thinking and future-proofing. The Group has also been embedding sustainability at the core of its business strategy with a clear commitment towards people, partners, and the planet, and by being a member of the United Nations Global Compact Community and signatory of the Women's Empowerment Principles.

Responsibilities

We are seeking an inspiring and strategic Senior Manager - Omnichannel Application Strategy & Support to lead the support operations for critical business applications, including Oracle, SAP, Salesforce commerce, CRM, MuleSoft, and other enterprise platforms. This role goes beyond traditional support; it is about driving transformation, elevating system performance, and leading with data-driven insights. The ideal candidate is a visionary leader who thrives at the intersection of technology, strategy, and business outcomes. They will spearhead initiatives in observability using tools like Datadog, ensuring proactive issue resolution and performance optimization. This role demands a blend of deep technical expertise, strategic leadership, and the ability to influence change across the organization.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Leadership:
  • Partner with the Architecture Team to identify opportunities for system improvements and architectural advancements.
  • Provide strategic advisory on operational architecture and potential risks during project delivery, sharing lessons learned to continuously improve systems.
  • Bridge the gap between business strategies and application support strategies, ensuring IT delivers tangible business value.
  • Act as an agent for change, driving continuous improvement, challenging the status quo, and fostering a culture of innovation.
  • Plan proactively for high-impact sales periods (e.g., Ramadan, Black Friday), ensuring flawless system performance and readiness.
  • Influence and shape technology roadmaps, contributing to long-term strategic planning.
• Observability & Performance Excellence:
  • Lead the observability strategy across applications using Datadog or similar tools, establishing a culture of proactive monitoring and real-time insights.
  • Implement advanced dashboards, alerts, and metrics to ensure system health, performance tuning, and early detection of anomalies.
  • Analyze application performance data to identify trends, optimize performance, and drive informed decision-making.
  • Collaborate closely with engineering teams to resolve performance issues and enhance system resilience.
• Vendor & Stakeholder Management:
  • Own and manage vendor relationships, including contract negotiations, service performance, and strategic partnerships.
  • Foster strong relationships with key business stakeholders, ensuring alignment between IT services and business goals.
  • Drive accountability with external partners and internal teams, ensuring service excellence and continuous improvement.
• Technical Leadership:
  • Provide deep technical guidance on application architectures, infrastructure, cloud technologies, and security best practices.
  • Lead initiatives to improve application performance, system reliability, and operational efficiencies.
  • Champion best practices in infrastructure, cloud computing, and cybersecurity, ensuring robust, scalable solutions.
  • Actively participate in project delivery, offering insights on operational risks, architectural gaps, and strategies for optimization.
• Analytics & Data-Driven Decision Making:
  • Harness the power of data-driven insights to guide decisions, improve operational efficiency, and enhance service quality.
  • Develop comprehensive analytics dashboards and performance reports for senior leadership, highlighting key metrics and improvement areas.
  • Use data to proactively identify risks, drive continuous improvement, and optimize business outcomes.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Qualifications & Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in application support, with at least 3 years in a strategic leadership role.
• Proven expertise in observability tools like Datadog, including building dashboards, setting up alerts, and performance monitoring.
• Strong technical background in platforms like Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, MuleSoft, and cloud environments (AWS, Azure).
• Demonstrated experience in vendor management, contract negotiations, and strategic partnerships.
• Solid understanding of infrastructure, cloud technologies, and security principles.
• Strong background in data analytics, using metrics to drive operational excellence.
• ITIL certification or equivalent knowledge of service management best practices is preferred.
• Experience in retail, e-commerce, or MarTech industries is an advantage.
• Managing a business with high volumes and transactions where uptime is crucial and performance is critical.
• Leading teams of 10 or more employees.

What We Can Offer You

With us, you will turn your aspirations into reality. We will help shape your journey through enriching experiences, learning and development opportunities, and exposure to different assignments within your role or through internal mobility. Our Group offers diverse career paths for those who are extraordinary, every day.

We recognize the value that you bring, and we strive to provide a competitive benefits package which includes health care, child education contribution, remote and flexible working policies as well as exclusive employee discounts.

We Invite All Applicants to Apply

It takes diversity of thought, culture, background, differing abilities, and perspectives to truly inspire, exhilarate, and delight our customers. At Chalhoub Group, we are committed to inclusion and diversity.

We welcome all applicants to apply and be part of our exciting future. We ensure equal opportunity for all our applicants without regard to gender, age, race, religion, national origin, or disability status.

Department: Tech
Role: Project Manager - Tech

About the Company

The Chalhoub Group is the leading partner for luxury across the Middle East since 1955. As an expert in retail, distribution and marketing services based in Dubai, the group has become a major player in the fashion, beauty and gift sectors regionally.

By blending its Middle East expertise and intimate knowledge of luxury, Chalhoub Group is building brands in the region, by offering service excellence to all its partners and a unique experience to its customers through its passionate teams.

With a growing workforce of more than 9,000 people, implemented in 14 countries, as well as the operating of over 470 retail outlets, the group's success is attributed to its most valued asset of highly skilled and dedicated teams. Professionalism and passion are what fuel the Chalhoub Group's competitive edge in today's market.

By being committed to implementing sustainable practices into their business, the Chalhoub Group has been awarded in 2013 the CSR Label from the Dubai Chamber of Commerce.