Senior Service Management Advisor - Southern Africa Region, Johanessburg

PURPOSE OF POSITION:

Work independently or in project teams and have the experience and skills required to manage multiple projects/issues at a time for the purpose of assuring and planning IT service. Under the general direction of the Service Delivery Manager, provides highly-valued consulting level support, guidance and planning to ensure that identified and implemented IT services perform as per agreed-on service level agreements. Proactively serve as a “trusted advisor”, and represent Global Information & Communication Technology (GICT) in promoting IT services and capabilities across a number of entities/offices within Southern Africa Region. As a lead, provides support in delivering technology products and services to ensure business satisfaction and strive to be a valued and preferred IT service provider to all business partners. S/he communicates decisions, priorities and relevant project information to different levels of staff.


KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Leadership:
• Establishes and maintains strategic relationships with Regional Office (RO)/National Office (NO) offices, business functions and IT colleagues to coordinate service support to meet their needs.
• Support the formulation of Regional and NO ICT Strategies that are aligned to Global ICT strategy and Regional/NO strategies.
• Promote adoption and implementation of Global ICT initiatives, policies and processes within the region..
• Supports the development and implementation of ICT initiatives and solutions that meet business needs.
• Implements defined processes and inform process improvements initiatives for identified service management processes including business workflow automation in designated offices.
• Participates in and/or provides input to longer-term service management strategy and planning for the organization.
• Work close with IT managers to manage, coach and provide mentoring and development of their teams. 
  Management:
• Provide input to the Demand Management process to inform national and/or regional prioritisation and sequencing of ICT initiatives.
• Coordinate and oversee implementation of Partnership solutions by understanding customer’s landscape and ICT readiness in Southern Africa Regional office / national offices.
• Participate in identification and selection of IT vendors; and Identifies metrics and evaluates vendor solutions to ensure requirements compliance and cost effectiveness.
• Works with key stakeholders and technical resources to create and implement an appropriate solution required to meet business goals.
• Provide field facing technical expertise and perspective in one or more domains (e.g. Infrastructure, Applications, InfoSec, and Enterprise Architecture) and participate in relevant Centers of Competency (CoCs) and special project teams.
• Act as liaison between assigned National Office (NO) and Global ICT building a rapport and relationship with NO staff. Consult with and advise NO management on their information technology and services plans, including budget cycle consultation for future ICT projects.
• Manage the introduction, implementation and support of appropriate information and communication technology in RO/NOs in line with Partnership standards and policies and local legal requirements.
• Provide regular and ad hoc management reports for performance benchmarking and decision making and technical reports for operational support.
• Identify opportunities for innovation and foster the development of creative solutions that help the organization to better fulfill its mission and vision.
• Develops and delivers technical briefings and presentations to users and management.
• Ensures resolution of all reported ICT issues and manages any incident escalations. Also analyses reported issues and establishes trends in problems to identify lasting solutions to common causes.
  Service Level Agreements –SLA:
• Evaluate the feasibility of new products and services in assigned business area. Assess and analyse organizational impact of new initiatives on existing information systems and recommend appropriate corrections and adjustments.
• Participates and provides input to the SLA development process.
• Monitors service level agreements to ensure that requirements are met or exceeded and escalates problems as required based on SLAs.
• Explains service procedures to clients and monitor metrics in a timely manner to measure and report on customer satisfaction with ICT services.
• Participates and provides input into the development and review of the Service Catalogue.
• Monitors service-level objectives and recommends service level standards and tracking capabilities to ensure that ICT service conforms to performance and monitoring requirements.
• Collaborates in the development of service-level objectives and takes steps to meet or exceed targets.
• Makes recommendations and provides service management guidance to improve performance and client satisfaction metrics.
• Defines and negotiates service level agreements with vendors; and recommends alternative solutions to the vendor, where appropriate. 
  Project Management:
• Assist in the identification and definition of ICT projects including identification of budget and other resources required for major RO/NO projects.
• Maintain an aggregated view of all significant/major ICT projects status and schedule for implementation and support across assigned business area.
• Participates in short and long term planning sessions with clients and enterprise wide projects to ensure service delivery requirements are met.
• Interface with stakeholders, business owners, and project team to execute the project activities and ensure communications with users, team members, and management on a regular basis regarding the progress, risks and results.
• Review project deliverables and ensure close out procedures are performed.
• Participate or contribute directly to project tasks where expertise or resourcing is required.
• Monitor, track and report on all planned projects across the designated offices and ensure associated project risks are logged and mitigated.
  Resource Management:
• Identifies the roles, skills and knowledge required to achieve the service delivery goals in assigned offices.
• Participates in the recruitment of the ICT workforce in the national offices.
• Contributes to the organizational practices of staffing, performance management, development, reward and recognition, and retention.
• Provides advice, guidance, encouragement and constructive feedback to team members.
• Develops, motivates, and directs IT team members and fosters a team environment.
• Recommends training programs targeting specific areas of improvement.
• Identifies and understands ICT capacity and capability within the designated national offices.
• Perform any other duties assigned.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES:

Required:
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or other related specialised training, or equivalent work experience.
• Typically requires 7 or more years of experience within the relevant IT area of work performed.
• Technical certification in one or more IT disciplines or technology.
• Certification in Service Management framework, preferably ITIL.
• Requires experience in successfully leading complex multi-site projects.
• Requires experience in negotiation skills, and experience/in depth knowledge of business requirements and IT processes.
• Experience in working with or leading a team of Technical staff, preferably virtual teams.
• Willingness and ability to travel domestically and internationally, as necessary.
• Ability to gather and analyse information or data on current and future trends of best practice.
• Ability to identify the ongoing needs of internal and/or external clients.
• Ability to function in high security risk situations.
• Collaborates with other members of formal and informal groups in the pursuit of common missions, vision, values and mutual goals.
• Good leadership skills and experience.
• A mature and committed Christian.
  Preferred:
• Experience preferably working in or with virtual teams.

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