What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Program Manager – Business Readiness & ERP Transformation position at SMX Services & Consulting, Inc.?
Role: Senior Program Manager - Business Readiness & ERP Transformation
Location: Remote (USA) - Deerfield, IL listed as worksite; role is fully remote
Duration: 07/13/2026 - 02/28/2027
Openings: 2
Position Overview
We are seeking an experienced Senior Program Manager to lead business readiness, testing coordination, and deployment activities for a large-scale ERP and financial systems transformation initiative. This role will play a critical part in ensuring business stakeholders, third-party vendors, and trading partners are prepared for System Integration Testing (SIT), User Acceptance Testing (UAT), cutover, and operational transition activities.
Reporting to the Third-Party Vendor Senior Program Manager, this individual will support Vantive's enterprise transformation efforts and separation initiatives, serving as a key liaison between business teams, IT, consulting partners, and external vendors.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Technology, Project Management, or a related discipline.
- 8-12 years of program/project management experience leading complex, cross-functional initiatives.
- Strong experience supporting large-scale ERP implementations, enterprise transformations, or financial systems programs.
- Deep understanding of SIT and UAT testing lifecycles, including readiness assessments, entry/exit criteria, defect management, and test governance.
- Strong business process knowledge with the ability to understand end-to-end operational workflows.
- Experience managing third-party vendors, trading partners, and external stakeholders during system implementations and transitions.
- Familiarity with cutover planning, deployment readiness, and go-live support activities.
Leadership & Soft Skills
- Exceptional stakeholder management skills with the ability to coordinate global business teams and drive accountability across functions.
- Proven ability to influence without direct authority and align diverse teams toward common objectives.
- Strong executive communication and reporting capabilities, including risk, readiness, and status reporting.
- Proactive problem-solving skills with the ability to identify, assess, and mitigate project risks.
- Comfortable operating in fast-paced, complex, and evolving environments.
Key Responsibilities
- Drive business readiness activities for SIT and UAT, ensuring all prerequisites and dependencies are addressed.
- Partner with consulting teams to validate testing readiness and ensure successful execution of testing phases.
- Ensure business SMEs, testers, and test scenarios are identified and prepared for UAT participation.
- Conduct regional readiness reviews and drive closure of identified gaps.
- Lead business-side coordination and execution during UAT and support SIT activities as needed.
- Monitor stakeholder engagement, testing progress, and readiness across business functions and regions.
- Coordinate defect triage activities and ensure business impacts are clearly documented and prioritized.
- Facilitate collaboration between business teams, IT, vendors, and implementation partners to resolve testing issues.
- Drive testing phase exit readiness by validating business process functionality, data integrity, and operational preparedness.
- Support go/no-go decision-making by documenting risks, issues, and readiness assessments.
- Coordinate business readiness activities for cutover and deployment, ensuring teams are prepared for operational transition.
- Track and manage dependencies between testing outcomes and deployment readiness.
- Serve as the primary liaison among business stakeholders, vendors, consulting partners, and technology teams.
- Own and maintain RAID (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, and Dependencies) management for business readiness workstreams.
- Deliver structured, executive-level reporting to program leadership and governance forums.