Lead Service Manager at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Description

Accountability: Service Delivery Management

• Act as the single point of contact & assume ‘one stop shop accountability’ for strategically partnering the CIO & Heads of Technology on the design, implementation and delivery of end to end Service Management across an estate
• Assume responsibility for service delivery and service performance across the business & deliver on service performance targets (quality, efficiency etc.) and objectives through proactive service delivery management & partnership to Technology teams
• Leverage emotional, social & business / commercial quotient to understand the broad range of stakeholders, their opinions & perspectives and reconcile these to deliver fit for purpose service management solutions that add value to the business (negotiation skills and dealing with complex and divergent stakeholder opinions are a must)
• Leverage deep technical expertise (Technology Stack & Broader Group Architecture, Infrastructure & Service Mapping) to lead the accurate and continuous mapping of IT services across the estate. This includes mapping & formally documenting & modelling all assets, resources, dependencies, accountabilities & associated risks across the IT infrastructure environment (internally and externally provided).
• Mobilise the service management value chain (group & business) & Tech Leadership team to leverage the service health analysis and lead the development & implementation of plans and associated solutions to prevent events & disaster ahead of time
• Lead the Service Delivery optimisation and automation agenda across the estate – continuously improving and evolving technologies, processes and practices with visible and tangible business impact Design, lead and implement change management and capability plans to ensure the ongoing adoption of Service Engineering technologies by technology teams e.g. Service Now & CMDB ensuring clean & flawless datasets across the estate
• Drive & Cascade the technology stability and resilience vision & agenda across the estate (e.g T100R and any other versions thereof) – and transition teams to a resilience vs. recovery mind-set
• Drive increased productivity and minimize disruptions through quick resolution of incident, aim to increase availability, improve service levels, and improve customer satisfaction through implementation of stability and resilience capability.
• Work collaboratively with the Service Delivery SLA & Process Manager as well as the CIO & Head Technology to define Service Delivery SLA’s & processes for the business area
• Leveraging Service Management practice expertise and expert knowledge of the business area support to positively contribute to the design of the service catalogue, SLA’s and service delivery processes and practices
• Leverage expertise in analytical and creative problem solving to lead and implement effective processes (e.g. service reviews), practices and teams to proactively assess end-end service health of the business unit
• Leverage the service health analysis to proactively identify trends and predict potential business continuity & service availability & resilience risks (people, process & systems) ahead of events across an estate
• Leverage data analytics and insights to produce well organised, relevant & business aligned service delivery reporting that enables effective business decision making with an associated, tangible business value add
• Leverage management information dashboards to effectively & proactively drive Service Delivery objectives for incidents (including MIM), problem and change management to ensure service quality and service improvement
• Drive the adherence to Service Management processes (Incident (major and standard), problem and change), and produce of the relevant process deliverable (i.e Executive Incident Summary)
• Stay Ahead of the Curve on advanced global service management improvements, tools, processes and practices and drive a culture of continuous improvement across the service delivery & technology teams
• Ensure Continuous Improvement by developing Service Improvement plans and facilitating and coordinating remedial activities with relevant support teams, business and other stakeholders
• Drive strategic and priority objectives aligned to Service Delivery outcomes with relevant Technology stakeholders. Support Business Unit objectives through collaboration and ongoing engagements & feedback between Tech and Business.
• Manage communication between technology teams and business relating to Incident, Problem and Change management

Accountability: Event & Problem Management & DR

• Embed the Stability and Resilience processes and practices across the estate (align people, processes & systems)
• Act as the point of escalation for all events & lead problem solving processes to minimise business & customer impact
• Lead major incident processes and activities across the estate and mobilise cross functional teams for effective problem resolution, including facilitating MIM bridge and WAR rooms
• Lead start of day activities with Service Delivery teams, Technology technical teams including active participation and driving daily production meetings
• Leverage data analytics and insights to identify trends in event management and lead the planning & change processes to prevent their recurrence resulting in improved technology resilience across the estate
• Leverage the outcomes of problem resolution processes & own deep technical expertise to proactively influence technology teams on technical product & service solution design (full stack engineering across the development lifecycle), associated capacity & capability planning & implementation

Accountability: Change & Release

• Consolidate & communicate all large scale change & release activity across the estate & proactively identify change & release risks to own & other estates (where key dependencies or interdependencies in stacks lie)
• Leverage leading practice operational readiness practices & processes to ensure the continuous & accurate updates to services across the estate (consolidate all new & decommissioned services & ensure effective performance monitoring & management thereof)
• Work proactively with the Operational Readiness teams to ensure appropriate communication, awareness and integration across technology teams of incoming / outgoing changes that could impact the estate and or other estates
• Drive a culture of ‘operational readiness’ across the service delivery & technology teams & embed effective planning & implementation processes that prevent business impact ahead of change & release

Accountability: Finance, Risk & Governance

• Carry ‘one stop shop’ accountability for delivering on an optimal cost to serve / cost of delivery of Service Management Activity
• Develop a deep understanding of IT Service Costs and Service Cost impact (where resilience, stability, availability issues come into play)
• Embed a commercial & cost mindset through the effective use of analytics, reporting & problem resolution activity to ensure optimal cost to value of IT services to the organization (speak the language of the business)
• Show business & commercial impact of service delivery management activity across an estate (including opportunity costs)
• Ensure business alignment to all Group Technology Standards, Processes & Practices (Engineering & DevOps, Security, Architecture, Infrastructure, Change & Release, DR, all end to end Service Management Activity – SLA, OLA, DR, MIM, etc.)
• Ensure business alignment to relevant industry standards e.g. ITIL, Agile, DevOps etc
• Partner the business area for audit (internal & external) readiness
• Lead the implementation of all risk related activity e.g. audit, compliance & ensure audit compliance & corrective post audit action & resolution across teams & hold one stop shop accountability for all unresolved risk (including prevention)
• Lead reporting & remediation on all non-compliant activity across the estate – on time & quality & in alignment with Group & Regulatory standards
• Participate & positively contribute to various risk & governance forums e.g. architecture etc.
• Ensure alignment of all service management practices & processes to Group & Regulatory requirements
• Maintain effective MI, knowledge management & document management processes & practices aligned to Group & Regulatory standards and practices
• Deliver on time & on budget (always)

Accountability: People

• Set & Cascade business / client strategic direction to service delivery teams
• Leverage strong capacity management tools and processes to ensure the right resource & capability mix to deliver on service management objectives
• Proactively attract, recruit, develop, retain, reward & deploy a diverse resource base aligned to an ever evolving business / client environment (ahead of demand)
• Build a high performance team environment through self-directed teams by driving performance management & measurement that is aligned with agile working practices (including daily, weekly, etc. sprint routines, regular & honest feedback etc.)
• Accountable for the right people in the right teams to deliver on our strategy (always!)
• Leverage coaching expertise in all activity to drive improved technical service delivery to the organisation

Skills, Experience and Knowledge Required

• Must have a relevant National Diploma in IT or Degree
• Must have an ITIL Certification
• Minimum 7 years of IT Operations Management Experience, Service Delivery Management or IT Management
• Must have a Team Lead experience
• Good Business Acumen (SLA, Vendor and Stakeholders Management experience ) 

Education

• Bachelor's Degree: Information Technology

End Date:

• June 5, 2025 (6 days left to apply)