Direct Responsibilities
I. Strategic Leadership & Management:
Team Leadership & Development:
- Lead, mentor, coach, and manage a team of application support engineers, analysts, and specialists.
- Set clear performance objectives, conduct regular performance reviews, and foster a culture of accountability, continuous learning, and professional growth within the team.
- Identify skill gaps and facilitate training programs to enhance team capabilities and keep them abreast of new technologies and best practices.
- Participate in recruitment, onboarding, and retention strategies for the application support team
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Process Definition & Optimization:
- Define, implement, and enforce robust IT Service Management (ITSM) processes, particularly focusing on
Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, and Release Management
, in alignment with ITIL best practices. - Continuously review and optimize existing support processes to improve efficiency, reduce resolution times, and enhance overall service delivery.
- Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation for support procedures, runbooks, and knowledge base articles.
II. Application Operations & Service Delivery:
Incident Management Oversight:
- Oversee the end-to-end incident management process, ensuring timely logging, prioritization, diagnosis, resolution, and closure of all application-related issues.
- Act as the primary escalation point for critical or high-priority incidents, coordinating resolution efforts across multiple teams (development, infrastructure, vendors).
- Ensure effective communication with business stakeholders during major incidents, providing regular updates on status and expected resolution.
Problem Management & Root Cause Analysis (RCA):
- Drive proactive problem management activities to identify underlying causes of recurring incidents.
- Lead or facilitate deep-dive root cause analyses (RCAs) to prevent future occurrences and implement permanent solutions.
- Collaborate closely with development teams to ensure identified problems are addressed through software fixes or enhancements.
Application Performance Monitoring & Optimization:
- Implement and manage robust application performance monitoring (APM) tools and strategies.
- Proactively monitor application health, performance metrics (response times, error rates, resource utilization), and security vulnerabilities.
- Identify performance bottlenecks and collaborate with development and infrastructure teams to implement optimization strategies.
Change & Release Management Execution:
- Oversee the planning, testing, deployment, and post-implementation review of application changes, upgrades, and new releases.
- Ensure that all changes are thoroughly tested, documented, and deployed with minimal disruption to business operations.
- Manage rollback strategies in case of deployment failures.
Maintenance & Patch Management:
- Plan and manage regular application maintenance activities, including applying patches, hotfixes, security updates, and performing routine health checks.
- Ensure compliance with security policies and vulnerability management programs.
System Health & Stability:
- Responsible for the overall health, stability, availability, and security of all supported business applications.
- Implement preventative measures to minimize downtime and ensure continuous operation
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III. Stakeholder Engagement & Communication:
Business Partnership:
- Act as a key liaison between the application support team and various business units.
- Understand business requirements, challenges, and priorities to ensure that application support services are aligned with business needs.
- Educate business users on application best practices and effective issue reporting.
Cross-Functional Collaboration:
- Foster strong working relationships with other IT departments, including Development/Engineering, Infrastructure, Networking, Cybersecurity, QA, and Project Management Office (PMO).
- Collaborate on projects, system integrations, and cross-functional problem-solving initiatives.
Vendor Management:
- Manage relationships with third-party application vendors, ensuring adherence to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and effective resolution of vendor-related issues.
- Review vendor performance and participate in contract negotiations when required.
Reporting & Communication:
- Establish and track key performance indicators (KPIs) and service level objectives (SLOs) for application support.
- Generate regular reports on incident volumes, resolution times, problem trends, system availability, and team performance for senior management and business stakeholders.
- Communicate effectively (written and verbal) on application status, outages, planned maintenance, and significant incidents
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IV. Compliance & Risk Management:
Adherence to Standards:
Ensure all application support activities comply with internal IT policies, industry regulations, and security standards.Audit & Compliance Support:
Assist in internal and external audits related to application systems, providing necessary documentation and explanations.Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity:
- Contribute to the development and testing of disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity plans (BCP) for critical business applications.
- Ensure the application support team is prepared to execute DR/BCP procedures effectively during an actual event.
Contributing Responsibilities
I. Strategic Leadership & Management:
Strategic Planning & Roadmapping:
- Contribute to the overall IT strategy by aligning application support initiatives with broader business objectives and IT goals.
- Anticipate future application support needs based on business growth, technology evolution, and potential system changes.
- Participate in capacity planning and forecasting for application systems to ensure scalability and performance.
Budget Management & Resource Allocation:
- Manage the operational budget for the application support function, optimizing resource allocation (human, financial, technological) to achieve service level objectives.
- Evaluate and recommend tools, technologies, and services that can enhance the effectiveness of application support.
Technical & Behavioural Competencies
1. Should be well versed in all RDBMS.
2. Good spoken and written communication.
3. Open to learn new applications.
4. Team Management.
5. Vendor Management.
