IT Operations Manager

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time.

With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Job Summary

Build high-performing, scalable, enterprise-grade applications & build capability in others to do the same. This includes but is not limited to applying critical thinking, design thinking and problem solving skills in an agile team environment to solve complex technical problems (Front End, Back End and Integration) with high quality solutions & leading all phases of the development lifecycle to deliver.

Job Description

Product & Service Direction Setting, Solution Design & Performance Management

• Assume ‘one stop shop’ accountability & ownership for the ITSM / ITOM platform/s and associated Databases. Ensure ongoing development and evolution of expertise in ITSM /ITOM & associated Enterprise technologies & tools.
• Work with CIO’s and business product owners to define the product strategy for the ITSM/ITOM Platform, including optimisation and configuration of existing capabilities and identification, design and configuration of new capabilities.
• Leverage a deep understanding of the organisations internal and external environment to identify opportunities to leverage the ITSM /ITOM platform for business benefits.
• Act as the single point of partnership & assume responsibility for managing the senior business interface relationship for our chosen platform technology.
• Collaborate across the tech value chain and the business value chain to guide the business on appropriate solutions and strategic technical choices within the platform.
• Define & ensure approvals of the ITSM /ITOM platform/s roadmap and associated business cases and budgets.
• Work with business product owners / SME’s & process engineers to understand business processes & identify opportunities based on platform capabilities.
• Leverage specialist analysis tools, frameworks, techniques and practices to elicit, define and organize business requirements into platform user stories.
• Translate & document user stories into a technical solution vision & specifications detailing integration points, business & technical impact & associated risk / opportunities.
• Apply design thinking practices to define & design product solutions & associated functionality.
• Lead & facilitate the design of the config / new capability solution blueprints in partnership with various technical experts.
• Ensure all stakeholders are aligned and have relevant information for effective technical decision making throughout the product development lifecycle.
• Lead the detailed scoping, prioritisation & integration planning for the design & deployment of platform product solutions.
• Take ownership for leading discussions in the Group Architecture forum and acquiring the appropriate approvals for platform enhancements & new capabilities.
• Design & produce platform related management information & translate this into business insights for effective ITSM/ITOM.
• Identify, source & produce accurate, reliable, consistent information & ensure this is maintained in the ITOM database for effective estate management.
• Contribute to ensuring solutions align to the design & direction of the Group Architecture standards and practices.
• Monitor the performance of products and services ensuring ongoing adoption, optimization & cost to value.
• Stay ahead of the curve on all platform capabilities and future enhancements.
• Ensure knowledge management practices are implemented to mitigate risks related to key man dependencies.

Managed Services

• Lead the commercial negotiation & contracting processes with platform providers in collaboration with procurement.
• Close commercially viable deals on behalf of the organization.
• Act as the single point of contact for MSP’s regarding product management, changes, challenges, and issue resolution.
• Ensure effective relationship & communication management routines for successful service provision.
• Lead the on-boarding process for MSPs & ensure the environment is conducive to partnership service provision.
• Ensure partnership delivery on all parameters to obtain value from the partnership.

DevOps and DevOps Delivery Management

• Cascade the product vision and strategy to all support, engineering & architecture teams.
• Provide strategic product & roadmap advisory to all platform engineers, support engineers & architects.
• Leverage expert level skill & knowledge on the platform and manage all configuration, development & outputs.
• Coach & guide teams on effective design and configuration of our ITOM Platforms.
• Ensure optimal design & deployment of platform solutions with a strong focus on release, quality & backlog management.
• Manage the DevOps / Config / Optimisation & Maintenance pipeline for maximum customer impact.
• Monitor all Platform activity and ensure effective risk management & controls are designed and implemented.
• Lead all change & communication processes related to product configurations and releases.
• Assume ownership for problem & incident management processes across the platform.
• Ensure delivery of all product related projects on time and on budget.
• Proactively identify, monitor & manage all platform related risk.
• Work in collaboration with transformation & change teams for effective resourcing and delivery management.
• Ensure agile practices are implemented for effective delivery to business.
• Manage business owner relationships and build their technical capability for balanced decision making.
• Coach & Mentor platform teams on technical & business requirements.

People

• Proactively attract, recruit, develop, retain, reward & deploy a diverse resource base.
• Build a high performance team environment through self-directed teams.
• Accountable for the right people in the right teams to deliver on our tech strategy.
• Leverage coaching techniques to drive quality design and deployment of technical products.

Financial Management, Risk & Governance

• Carry the ‘one stop shop’ accountability for all risk associated with technical decision making.
• Manage & Apply the organization risk & governance frameworks.
• Ensure decisions on product design and capabilities are aligned to chapter & guild guidelines.
• Engage chapter & guild leads in product design & infrastructure decision making.
• Deliver on time & on budget.

Education

Bachelor's Degree: Information Technology

Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.

Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised.