Operations and Support Manager

The Operations and Support Manager manages systems and database administration and help desk function. He/ She focuses on strategic and policy development aspects that will have medium term consequences on the operation of the function and impact elements of organization performance. He is responsible for Overseeing the incident resolution and business continuity plans along with the database and systems administration. He focuses on setting goals and priorities, allocates accountability among staff, manages the career development of others, liaises with professional staff and other managers, advises the business on technology related issues and engages in medium-term planning. He is familiar with enterprise architecture frameworks, database administration and systems, and application monitoring tools. The Operations and Support Manager possesses an end-to-end understanding of an organization's system environment and its critical elements that need to be actively managed to ensure service levels are met. He is driven leader, able to align the team behind strategic business priorities and to motivate key stakeholders to strive for continuous improvement at all levels.

Skills and Competencies

Technical Skills & Competencies

Application Development
Proficiency Level
"Plan the application development process, and program complex applications, applying suitable debugging techniques to resolve complex errors."
4
Applications Integration
Proficiency Level
"Oversee end-to-end process of application integration, determining suitable middleware and testing procedures and resolving issues that arise"
4
Applications Support and Enhancement
Proficiency Level
"Establish internal protocols for application support, and evaluate viability of application enhancements and change requests in collaboration with developers"
4
Budgeting
Proficiency Level
"Manage budgeting and forecasting for annual financial and business planning within the business unit "
4
Business Continuity
Proficiency Level
"Develop business continuity plans, and direct resources to establish and maintain business continuity processes"
5

Generic Skills & Competencies

Communication
Proficiency Level
"Negotiate with others to address issues and achieve mutual consensus."
Advanced
Leadership
Proficiency Level
Lead by example at team level. Encourage and guide others to adopt a point of view, make changes or take action. Provide a team environment that facilitates relationships building, teamwork and the development of others.
Intermediate
Developing People
Proficiency Level
Provide coaching to others to develop their skills and knowledge on their jobs to enhance performance.
Intermediate
Interpersonal Skills
Proficiency Level
Influence, guide and handle others’ emotions to build instrumental relationships and manage conflicts and disagreements.
Advanced
Decision Making
Proficiency Level
Make decision in a complex setting to achieve intended goals using a structured process and multiple sources of available information.
Intermediate

Critical Work Functions and Key Tasks

Formulate strategy for service level agreements (SLAs) and improvements

• Provide inputs for IT operations and support strategy planning 
• Develop plans to deliver IT operations and support, systems and database administration services 
• Develop service level agreement key performance indicators (KPIs) and dashboards 
• Monitor service level dashboards to ensure compliance to KPIs 
• Determine corrective action to address non-compliance with SLAs and KPIs

Manage and optimise IT operations and support performance

• Establish priorities for IT operations and support activities, initiatives and incident resolution 
• Set direction for continuous improvement of operational procedures and customer experience 
• Certify the functionality of components and services to ensure deployment meets expectations and requirements 
• Oversee migration of components into the operating environment 
• Recommend enhancements to improve systems availability and performance 
• Develop and maintain a comprehensive database and/or library of supporting documentation 
• Develop capacity planning models and load balancing solutions 

Oversee incident resolution and business continuity plans

• Drive and oversee resolution of operations and support centre incidents 
• Explore opportunities to improve incident response rate 
• Formulate the organisation’s disaster recovery and business continuity plans 
• Oversee disaster recovery plan drills and activities to determine if technical criteria is met 
• Develop, test, maintain and exercise procedures for back-up, restoration and disaster recovery for high availability, 
high volume mission critical databases

Oversee database and system administration

• Design, monitor and maintain data replication primary and secondary databases 
• Oversee database activities to ensure continued reliability, performance monitoring and tuning, security, 
back-up and disaster recovery 
• Oversee the allocation of database resources 
• Design security controls for data and databases 
• Participate in security investigations of database 
• Direct the scheduling of DBMS software installation 
• Oversee the upgrade of databases, new structures or elements 

Manage people and organization

• Manage the budget expenditure and allocation across teams and projects 
• Monitor and track the team’s achievements and key performance indicators 
• Propose new operational plans, including targeted budgets, work allocations and staff forecasts 
• Acquire, allocate and optimise the use of resources 
• Develop learning roadmaps to support the professional development of the team 
• Manage the performance and development process, including providing coaching and development opportunities 
to maximize the potential of each individual

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