Associate, IT Service Operations Manager

IT Service Operations Manager

Established in 1896, Knight Frank is the leading independent property consultancy in the UK offering agency and professional advice across Commercial, Residential and Rural sectors. Headquartered in London, Knight Frank now comprises a global network of over 523 offices in 60 territories.

We are seeking a highly talented, motivated and experienced IT Service Operations Manager to support us on the evolution of our IT Transformation. This is a critical role within the Group IT department, responsible for defining service and owning our IT service operations, ensuring the successful, timely and secure delivery of all IT services across Knight Frank. As the Service Operations Manager, you will be the owner for our ITSM policies and processes, ensuring adherence, measurement and compliance for both internal and external resolver groups.

This role is a senior leadership position reporting directly to the Head of Technology Projects & Operations with overall responsibility for the delivery of the IT operations 'run' environment. The role ensures the strategic direction for the IT service operations team and ensures that the IT services that unpin our business remain highly available and reliable, meeting the needs of a constantly changing and growing business.

The IT Service Operations team consist of outsourced IT Service Desk, EUC Operations, Infrastructure and Information Security and in-house Application Support and Microsoft Power Platform support. The Service Operations Manager is responsible for process and service level management for all other technology resolver groups, both internal and external to Knight Frank. The IT Service Operations team is responsible for the ensuring the successful delivery of Incident, Problem, Change, Release, Request and Access Management and with such, the Service Operations Manager is the process owner for such ITIL processes and Product Owner for our ITSM platform, Halo ITSM.

Under the leadership of this role, the IT Service Operations team are responsible for ensuring end-to-end IT Service Delivery Policies, Processes and Procedures are well defined, integrated, maintained and continually improved within a complex multi-vendor support model. Includes responsibilities for education, training, communications, strategic vendor management, delivery to SLAs, OLAs and UPCs, operation of appropriate governance forums, day to day process outputs, complaints & operational reporting.

Responsibilities include:

• Service Level Management
• Process Owner & Process Improvement
• Team Management and Development
• Vendor Management
• Reporting, Monitoring and Metrics
• ITSM Excellence
• Developing Standards for Working and Sharing Best Practice
• Understanding the Organisation
• Processes and Tooling
• IT Operations Management
• Problem Management
• Incident Management
• Change Management
• Commercial and Contractual Management
• Senior Management Team
• Risk Management
• ITSC & BCP
• Financial Management
• Service Catalogue

Skills include:

• Strong leadership and coaching
• Knowledge of IT infrastructure
• Building relationships
• Understanding of Critical Service Levels
• Ability to own activities
• Successful delivery track record
• Presentation and Reporting skills
• Financial management
• Excellent communication skills
• Ability to create a collaborative environment
• Ability to work under pressure
• Commercially aware
• Strategic thinking
• Strong analytical and reporting capabilities
• Willingness to take charge

Knowledge includes:

• ITIL expert
• Technical knowledge in Networks, Infrastructure, Applications and Information Security
• Experience managing IT operations teams
• Understanding of compliance and governance
• Knowledge of Cloud and Digital Transformation technologies
• Knowledge of data, data integration, data governance and the operational management of data
• Knowledge of Information Security
• Knowledge of vendor procurement, team management and recruitment
• Knowledge of Service Design, Transition and Continual Service Improvement
• Knowledge of IT control frameworks
• Knowledge of commercial and financial management techniques
• Knowledge of business and IT service continuity planning
• Ability for proactive risk and issue identification and mitigation
• Excellent communication skills
• Understanding of regulatory and legislative landscape

Qualifications include:

• Masters/Bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems, computer engineering, or a closely related specialist field
• ITIL V3/4 qualified – Service Operations and Service Transition as a minimum
• Professional certifications such as COBIT, Prince II, Lean, Six Sigma desirable

Experience includes:

• Minimum of 10 years of experience in IT Service Management
• Experience in the support and provision of IT Service infrastructure, EUC services and application and product support
• Experience in people management with strong interpersonal and leadership skills
• Experience of vendor management
• Experience of service level management, reporting performance to stakeholders
• Experience of stakeholder management in a complex partner-based organisation
• Experience of setting up and maintaining budgets and resource plans
• Experience of successfully embedding, validating and testing the SIAM operating model
• Property business knowledge and understanding
• Up to date and highly specialist knowledge and experience across the full range of activities and areas undertaken by the post holder
• Advanced theoretical and practical knowledge of methods that evaluate and improve information management and technology
• Significant proven experience and knowledge of strategy and finance in a major organisation
• Confidence to successfully explain and guide people through the process
• Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment