IT Application Support Manager

Job description / Role

Reporting to the IT Service Manager (Group IT), the IT Application Support Manager will manage a team of 12 Application Support Specialists and oversee all Business Application related support for all Group companies.

The IT Application Support Manager is the heartbeat of the application organization, interfacing daily with our global user community and partners to deliver excellent support services through our portfolio of solutions.

In their endeavour to excellence, the fundamental values all our employees must possess are Commitment, Integrity, Empathy and Flexibility.

Main Responsibilities:

Overview:
- Provide thought leadership for a team of support analysts
- Oversee supplier/partners and ensure they are meeting our quality standards.
- Build trusting relationships with business stakeholders
- Devise and provide key performance indicators to report team activity
- Strategize and drive the continuous improvement actions
- Own the service monitoring and controls ecosystem as the primary customer
- Guide the problem management program, driving stability within the portfolio

Detailed responsibilities:
- Coordinate overall production events
- Work supportively and collaboratively with internal teams, such IT Service Desk, Technical Teams and IT Training. Coordinate with and expedite to Application outsourcing teams on high severity issues.
- Build relationships and trust with key stakeholders to support program delivery and collaborative approaches where appropriate. Meet and discuss with end users to assess their business needs and requirements.
- Support the central team in mapping the requirement in ERP. Service transition from Project delivery (Oracle ERP Rollout) to the Application Support teams.
- Communicate in line with communications and program plans with team and wider stakeholders.

Incident Management:
- Use established best practices to ensure efficient handling of production incidents
- Manage and follow up on the day-to-day Incidents related to the Business Applications using BMC RemedyForce to meet OLA’s and SLA’s.
- Monitor the IT Application Support Queues / Views and ensure timely resolution of Incident & Tasks and ensure that incidents are assigned, updated and resolved with a high level of quality.
- Partner with Development team to develop efficient production support management

Problem Management:
- Display a deep understanding of problem solving, including the ability to lead the search for root cause and implementation of corrective actions and the structured introduction of change into LIVE environment
- Chair monthly Business Review meetings with the key stakeholders to provide a detailed status update on Oracle ERP (status of key Problems and incident trends).

Change Management:
- Represent the IT Application Support team during the weekly CAB (Change) Meetings.
- Ensures proper testing has been completed and proper documentation exists to support new/modified applications in production. Works with team to address any documentation gaps.
- Risk assess the major / minor Changes (CR) and planned for release into production.

People Management:
- Manage IT staffing, including recruitment, supervision, development, evaluation, and disciplinary actions / .
- Ensure best practise management of the team, including regular feedback and effective and supportive people management. A demonstrable ability to construct and maintain a robust, scalable and successful service
- Support and guide the team in resolving the issues and problems
- Develop and actively manage a skills matrix to ensure resources exist to support the business requirements.
- Lead cross-training initiatives to allow increased flexibility.

Continuous improvement:
- Recommend / implement enhanced tools/processes to streamline daily support requirements and defines/owns metrics that can be used as key indicators.
- Develop and communicate a support model/process that maximizes the resources available to support the 24/7 business requirements.

Minor Enhancements:
- ERP setup and Roll out to new companies.
- Project Management - Oversee the Application Support team projects and ensure that the milestones and deadlines are met

Requirements

- Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems or in Computer Science or equivalent
- Expertise in Operational Analytics, reporting and metrics
- 10+ years of experience, with 5+ years in management, leading large scape web-based applications
- A successful track record, working Oracle Support (functional or technical) within a Managed Services provider organisation. Management of support staff.
- Functional Expertise in the following areas
- Accounting & Finance
- Retail processes including consignment and concession
- Distribution / Supply Chain processes
- Strong knowledge of Oracle ERP (Retail / Finance / Distribution and BI), Oracle Configurator and SOA middleware.
- Expertise and experience in the support and implementation of the following applications
- Oracle EBS modules – GL, AP, AR, CM, FA, OM, Pur and Advanced pricing
- Oracle REIM / RESA / RMS / RPM
- Oracle SIM / POS
- Oracle BI – OBIEE
- Oracle Integration applications – AIA, RIB, ODI
- Infor WM9
- Infor Baan
- Microsoft Dynamics - Nav
- Ability to see the effects of a process change across all the above applications.
- Enjoys a challenging, yet rewarding environment.
- Excellent management and organizational skills.
- Excellent written and verbal communications skills.
- Excellent problem solving skills
- Strong experience with and understanding of all aspects of Service Management within ITIL framework. Advanced ITIL certification preferred

Linguistic Skills:
- English
- Arabic
- French

About the Company

The Chalhoub Group is the leading partner for luxury across the Middle East since 1955. As an expert in retail, distribution and marketing services based in Dubai, the group has become a major player in the fashion, beauty and gift sectors regionally.

By blending its Middle East expertise and intimate knowledge of luxury, Chalhoub Group is building brands in the region, by offering service excellence to all its partners and a unique experience to its customers through its passionate teams.

With a growing workforce of more than 9,000 people, implemented in 14 countries, as well as the operating of over 470 retail outlets, the group's success is attributed to its most valued asset of highly skilled and dedicated teams. Professionalism and passion are what fuel the Chalhoub Group's competitive edge in today's market.

By being committed to implementing sustainable practices into their business, the Chalhoub Group has been awarded in 2013 the CSR Label from the Dubai Chamber of Commerce.