Group Ai Solutions & Decision Intelligence Lead

POSITION: GROUP AI SOLUTIONS & DECISION INTELLIGENCE LEAD

LOCATION:

Durban or Port Elizabeth / GqeberhaTRAVEL:
Regular national travel required INDUSTRY:
Diversified Manufacturing Group REPORTING TO: GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER REMUNERATION:
Market related and negotiable according to experience, technical capability and proven delivery CORE BUSINESS SYSTEM: SYSPRO ERPROLE PURPOSE

A large, listed consortium of manufacturing companies is seeking an exceptional and commercially astute AI professional to lead the identification, development and implementation of artificial-intelligence applications across the Group.

The Group currently uses SYSPRO as its core enterprise resource planning system. A central focus of this position will be unlocking greater value from SYSPRO and other approved business-data sources by developing secure AI applications, automated reports, analytical tools and executive decision-support solutions.

This is not a purely theoretical, research or advisory position. The successful incumbent must be able to understand complex business requirements, interrogate and structure data, develop practical applications and convert operational information into reliable executive insights.

The role will work directly with the Group CEO and senior leadership teams to identify opportunities where AI, automation, analytics and intelligent applications can improve decision-making, operational efficiency, market awareness and commercial performance.

• Develop and implement a practical Group AI strategy aligned with business objectives.
• Assess the operations of the Group's various companies and identify high-value AI and automation opportunities.
• Translate business challenges into clearly defined AI, analytics and application-development projects.
• Prioritise initiatives according to commercial value, feasibility, risk, implementation time and expected return on investment.
• Develop an AI implementation roadmap covering short-, medium- and long-term opportunities.
• Distinguish genuine business applications from low-value or unsuitable AI use cases.

• Work with the Group's SYSPRO environment as a primary source of financial, manufacturing, inventory, procurement, sales and operational data.
• Understand the Group's SYSPRO structure, modules, workflows, tables and reporting requirements.
• Develop AI-enabled applications and reporting tools that securely access approved SYSPRO data.
• Integrate SYSPRO information with other approved operational and external data sources.
• Automate the extraction, consolidation and analysis of SYSPRO information.
• Develop natural-language tools that allow authorised users to interrogate approved SYSPRO data.
• Build reports and alerts identifying exceptions, trends, risks and opportunities within SYSPRO data.
• Work with SYSPRO administrators, super users, IT teams and functional managers to ensure that integrations are accurate and controlled.
• Protect the integrity of the live SYSPRO environment and avoid unauthorised changes to source data.
• Ensure that all reports and AI-generated conclusions can be traced back to the relevant SYSPRO records.
• Maintain consistent definitions and calculation methodologies across Group companies.
• Identify gaps in SYSPRO data quality and coordinate corrective action with the responsible departments.

• Design, develop, test and implement AI-enabled business applications.
• Build internal assistants, AI agents, dashboards and decision-support tools.
• Create applications that retrieve and interpret information from SYSPRO and other approved data sources.
• Develop automated workflows that collect, validate, analyse and distribute business information.
• Integrate AI solutions with SYSPRO, CRM, MES, quality, production and other enterprise systems where appropriate.
• Develop prototypes and minimum viable products before progressing approved solutions into production.
• Maintain appropriate documentation, version control, testing and deployment procedures.
• Determine whether solutions should be built internally, through low-code platforms or with specialist external providers.

• Consolidate information from SYSPRO and other systems across companies, plants and departments.
• Develop executive dashboards, automated reports, exception alerts and predictive indicators.
• Reduce the time currently required to produce operational, financial and management reports.
• Provide decision-support information relating to profitability, margins, sales, production, costs, quality, inventory and procurement.
• Identify patterns, anomalies, risks and opportunities that may not be evident through conventional reporting.
• Ensure that AI-generated information is accurate, traceable and supported by source data.
• Establish human review and approval controls for material reports and recommendations.

• Develop systems that monitor and…