Professional Services Manager

Job description / Role

Purpose of the Role
The primary function of the Professional Services Manager is to manage and oversee projects to achieve on-time / on-spec project completions to the mutual satisfaction of both the client and the business. This key leadership position will be responsible for the preparation of proposals for back to base sales including final signoff (up to a designated limit) and is responsible for the transition of all sales through to delivery. This will involve motivating and educating the Professional Services team to ensure successful project delivery, and for new installations transitioning the Project from delivery to the Customer Care team.

This leadership role works closely with the Customer Care Manager to coordinate any resource sharing requirements for successful project implementations and ensures that the post implementation handover to the Customer Care team occurs effectively and on time.

This role engages actively with the Product Managers for the solutions as well as the Marketing and Sales teams and may be required to work in partnership with other Market Sector teams where Trapeze Group solutions are utilised.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

Reporting to the Managing Director - ME and working collaboratively as part of a cross-functional team, undertake the following high-level responsibilities in a professional manner:

Leadership / Management
• Effectively lead and drive a team of Professional Service specialists who are empowered to deliver customer focused outcomes with commercial awareness and urgency.
• Communicate a clear vision of goals and objectives, and facilitate an effective long-term services delivery strategy for the full suite.
• Support the personal and professional growth of everyone on your team. This includes establishing Scorecards and Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), monitoring and measuring these regularly, providing coaching and discipline as required.
• Work with your team to discuss, plan, and implement process improvements.
• Monitor the overall performance of the department by tracking and analysing statistics and trends, providing reporting to the Senior Management Team for regular status meetings.
• Departmental planning and scheduling to ensure project timelines are met.
• Manage professional services revenue and expenses for quarterly financial forecasting.
• Manage Professional Services resources to ensure ratio targets and billable utilisation levels are met.
• Ensure that processes are in place to identify and capture billable items, as well as monitor new opportunities to provide billable services.
• Partner with the Customer Care Manager to achieve team goals.
• Work collaboratively across multi-functional teams to achieve high customer satisfaction.

Professional Services
• Proactively source, scope and secure back to base sales opportunities up to AED200,000 Net Revenue per opportunity, to achieve set Scorecard targets.
• Work with the Sales team on all other PS opportunities to provide a clear solution definition and accurate project estimation for the preparation of quotes, tenders and proposals.
• Ensure the successful delivery of all Professional Service bookings to TGME clients in accordance with project budgets, plans, schedules and milestones.
• Develop detailed Project Plans including identifiable critical paths, task dependencies, major milestones and resource scheduling and allocation.
• Lead and manage Projects with a focus on Schedule Management, Scope and Change Management, Issue and Risk Management, Client and Internal Communications.
• Manage stakeholder involvement in all projects through the creation of productive partnerships, proactive follow up, strong communication and issue management.
• Periodically attend client project meetings, business process reviews, software implementation and training sessions.
• Monitor ongoing customer satisfaction through project satisfaction surveys and roll out action plans to combat issues discovered.

Other
• Regular travel within the UAE, GCC and some overseas travel is expected.
• Work effectively with key stakeholders to achieve company goals.
• Undertake any other reasonable tasks consistent with training and skill levels required for this position as requested.

Requirements

Education and Experience
• Relevant tertiary qualifications or an equivalent level of experience in a related role.
• Minimum five (5) years’ experience in project management in software development or similar.
• A proven track record in both service delivery and people management in an IT services environment; including demonstrated team leadership, motivating individuals and/or teams to excel (in delivery and in quality) whilst ensuring excellent service delivery is provided to all clients.
• Experience working on technical projects at a high-level to allow effective communication to both a technical and non-technical audience.
• Strong financial and commercial awareness and experience dealing with clients of all sizes, including the ability to manage expectations across multiple levels of the customer organisation.
• Experience with understanding and applying a disciplined process approach to projects.
• Experience in driving continuous value of products and solutions.
• Proven ability to implement process improvement initiatives.
• Experience in managing budgets, applying governance and developing processes.

Personal Attributes
• Exceptional ‘take charge’ delivery, technical, business, and ‘change management’ skills.
• Ability to thrive in a multi-tasking, multi-project environment and be able to adjust priorities on-the-fly.
• Proven ability to effectively build and maintain client and vendor relationships in line with business processes and requirements.
• Be accountable and follow process; with an ability to adapt to the relevant internal procedures of a customer whilst adhering to company procedures.
• Impeccable written and verbal communication skills, with key stakeholders.
• Effective communication and interpersonal skills in dealings with team members and other stakeholders.
• Possess an aptitude to learn; have a high level of initiative, be self-motivated, highly organized and independent with the ability to manage your own workload and work unsupervised.
• Possess a mature and professional approach to work with an ability to instill a high level of confidence with others
• Excellent troubleshooting and problem solving skills within a multi-facetted environment.
• A cooperative approach to “go the extra mile” to achieve results.

About the Company

BAC Middle East - the longest established professional recruitment consultancy in the UAE. Established in 1979, we have been at the forefront of the region's recruitment industry for 40 years and were the first firm of our type in the world to achieve ISO9001 certification: a reflection of our constant emphasis on quality and customer satisfaction.

With our well-developed infrastructure and staff strength, we are able to assist you with recruitment needs ranging from junior professionals through to middle and senior management, whatever your industry sector.

BAC's proven regional experience and resources can help ensure that you recruit the best available candidates and enjoy the many advantages of a managed recruitment process.