Thank you for your interest in the Director Business Services role at DE&S.

The global threat picture is ever changing and is becoming even more demanding given our adversaries’ intent. Across DE&S we strive to ensure the UK is able to meet its strategic aims for national security and foreign policy in the face of this challenge; to be ‘secure at home and strong abroad’.
We are in the midst of implementing our re-designed operating model to align with our strategy. We designed our new operating model using a ‘by us, for us’ approach; harnessing the insights of colleagues across the entire Defence Enterprise to ensure that everything we do adds most value to the front line, helping to keep the country safe and to protect our citizens. The new ‘Corporate’ area provides DE&S with essential strategy, planning, and governance as well as the shared business services which support delivery.

The Director Business Services will play a key role in delivering lean, operationally excellent services across the ‘business services portal’, business change, estate planning and digital services; driving continuous improvement, to free up capacity within our organisation to deliver its mission.
What we do and how we do it deeply matters. We’re looking for outstanding leadership, with a focus on outcomes, where accountability and empowerment comes naturally whilst building effective teams to unlock people’s potential – all whilst delivering at pace. A ‘servant leadership’ approach that is all about servicing the needs of the team and the organisation. You will be a positive role model with a proven ability to collaboratively lead through change; this will involve fostering a culture of autonomy and choice as well as demonstrating your commitment to diversity and inclusion.
The position offers huge professional challenge in an organisation that plays a crucial role in the security of the UK. This is an exciting time for DE&S and ‘Corporate’ and we look forward to discussing with you how you might become part of our journey.

The Director Business Services has the following areas of responsibility:

• This role has four direct reports and leads approximately 1000 people with a budget of circa £225M. It has great breadth of responsibility; including embedding and running the new single front door ‘business portal’ that handles queries from our people; leading on all business change; delivery and maintenance of all digital live services; and estates planning. Specifically, they will:
• Lead multi-disciplinary teams delivering these four End to End (E2E) services for our 12,000 people, ensuringan operationally excellent approach that harnesses best practice from comparable organisations.
• Mature the Business Services Portal: Mature the new business portal that provides a single point of entry for queries of any nature for our 12,000 people and strives to ensure seamless multi-disciplinary handling behind the scenes to the satisfaction of the colleague. This includes seeking to maximize on the data generated e.g., gleaning insights on causes of failure demand across the Corporate area.
• Enable Change: Embed a culture of continuous improvement across DE&S, providing the tools and techniques to enable true and lasting change that improves our ability to deliver our organisational mission.
• Enhance Digital live services: Delivery of resilient, safe and secure IT services for critical business systems maintaining and improving Services (approx. 100) in line with MOD enterprise direction, ensuring they meet the needs of the business and its people in a cost-effective manner. This extends to the provision of physical and digital Knowledge, Information and Management (KIM) services and strategic risk management.Owning strategic relationships with key suppliers (Internal and external), developing partnering arrangements where appropriate, managing performance and ensuring customer satisfaction.
• Deliver Estates planning: Delivery of the 10-year funded estates plan, working with Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) and multiple providers, being alive to the implications of climate change and taking risk-based judgements on where a limited budget needs to be spent. This covers the entire DE&S estate including logistics and munitions sites and offers opportunity to better integrate digital and estates to create a more modern environment for our workforce. Oversight of legal and regulatory responsibilities for provision of safe working environments, and the delivery of facilities which are essential for day-to-day operational delivery to the Armed Forces, and the storage and distribution of some £6Bn of inventory. Challenges include addressing backlogs of security infrastructure and lifecycle replacement, working at a strategic level with DIO and its primary contractors, against a background of budgetary pressures and pressurised supply chains.
• Role model a ‘service delivery’ mindset by directing continuous improvement of services across the portfolio, e.g., through automation, culture change and by embedding frictionless processes. All to free up the capacity of our people to deliver and give them a better experience.
• Be proactive in Organisational Leadership: This role will also sit on the Enterprise Operations Team; the cross-cutting forum that runs the day-to-day business of DE&S. This requires pragmaticism, judgement, creative problem solving and prioritisation as well as a ‘One Defence’ mindset.

To be successful with your application, you will need to be able to demonstrate the following essential criteria:

• A successful track record of leading the delivery of operationally excellent services within a large, diverse and complex organisation.
• Experience of successfully delivering continuous business improvements that demonstrably improved productivity and user experience in organisations of similar scale and complexity.
• Evidence of effective programme management, with demonstrable accountability for balancing opportunity and risk with the highest standards of integrity.
• Effective senior stakeholder skills, with the ability to successfully use your impact and professional skills/ experience to engage and influence effectively.
• A visible leader, with a proactive commitment to diversity and inclusion and demonstrable experience of creating and maintaining a psychologically safe and inclusive environment.
• A leader that empowers their teams, providing clear direction and respecting the valuable contributions they make – a ‘servant leader’.

Essential Qualifications:

• Equivalent degree level qualification.
• Qualification in one or more of these areas: Business Change Management; Lean/Six Sigma/Agile; Project Management.

Desirable Qualifications:

• Qualification in one or more of the areas for which this role is responsible for; however, you may have shared services experience across other areas such as HR or finance; the imperative is the ability to lead multi-disciplinary teams of experts.
• Digital literacy gained from either leading digital teams or leading digital projects as an active sponsor in the business.

For full information on the role please see the candidate pack.