VP Service Operations

IFS is a billion-dollar revenue company with 7000+ employees on all continents. Our leading AI technology is the backbone of our award-winning enterprise software solutions, enabling our customers to be their best when it really matters–at the Moment of Service™. Our commitment to internal AI adoption has allowed us to stay at the forefront of technological advancements, ensuring our colleagues can unlock their creativity and productivity, and our solutions are always cutting-edge.

At IFS, we’re flexible, we’re innovative, and we’re focused not only on how we can engage with our customers but on how we can make a real change and have a worldwide impact. We help solve some of society’s greatest challenges, fostering a better future through our agility, collaboration, and trust.

We celebrate diversity and understand our responsibility to reflect the diverse world we work in. We are committed to promoting an inclusive workforce that fully represents the many different cultures, backgrounds, and viewpoints of our customers, our partners, and our communities. As a truly international company serving people from around the globe, we realize that our success is tantamount to the respect we have for those different points of view.

By joining our team, you will have the opportunity to be part of a global, diverse environment; you will be joining a winning team with a commitment to sustainability; and a company where we get things done so that you can make a positive impact on the world.

We’re looking for innovative and original thinkers to work in an environment where you can #MakeYourMoment so that we can help others make theirs. With the power of our AI-driven solutions, we empower our team to change the status quo and make a real difference.

If you want to change the status quo, we’ll help you make your moment. Join Team Purple. Join IFS.

The VP, Service Operations : Unified Support is responsible for the design, adoption and ongoing successful delivery of the full Service Operations portfolio of offerings to the full end user IFS customer base and its growing number of internal customers. The portfolio includes multiple services that IFS deliver to both Cloud and on premise customers to support the normal usage of their IFS services. These services are all delivered within an ITIL derived service management framework and are operated in ways which are compliant with multiple international standards including ISO27001, ISAE3402 and more.

The role will be an instrumental part of the Unified Support leadership team who are jointly responsible for the support, availability, latency, performance, efficiency, monitoring, and emergency response of our customers services. The role requires service minded, process aware, energetic, detail-oriented individuals who will lead the team to achieve the primary goals of meeting multiple service SLAs, maintaining service SLA availability targets and delivering a high quality customer experience throughout the support phase of the service lifecycle.

The ideal candidate has a proven track record in service delivery & people leadership at a global scale on a 24x7x365 basis. They will be a creative thinker, problem solver, a teacher, a learner, a fantastic leader of people, a careful controller of costs and be motivated by operational excellence in every aspect of service delivery.

Duties & Accountabilities

• Operational Duties
  • Lead a large, multi-lingual, globally diverse, multi-discipline team providing a wide number of disparate services to both internal and external IFS customer bases.
  • Be the single, end to end guardian and owner of the customer experience quality for each and every (internal or external) customer utilising any of the services provided by Service Operations.
  • Create and lead initiatives with all relevant internal customers to design, develop and deploy new services to meet the common needs of their businesses and their end customers.
  • Represent Unified Support in meetings with end customers, internal stakeholders, external stakeholders, partners and suppliers.
  • Work with the Service Operations leadership team to create and maintain operational models, functional budgets and capacity plans for each of the functions to meet all of their current service level commitments and to anticipate for future developments
  • Work with the Service Operations leadership team to create and maintain succession plans, business continuity plans and skills distribution models to ensure continuous 24x7x365 delivery of all service commitments within the service operations organisation to meet the expected service level commitments
  • Ensure all the Service Operations teams comply with best security practices and constantly assess potential vulnerabilities and risks within their service portfolios
  • Design, develop and operate suitable reporting methods for all relevant service metrics associated with the efficiency and quality of operating the Service Operations portfolio which delivers value to external and internal customers, working with IFS reporting teams wherever necessary.
  • Produce data driven improvement plans to demonstrably increase the efficiency and quality of the services we deliver to external and internal customers
  • Ensure the Service operations teams fulfill their duties at the required level for all of our standard ITIL based processes (case, incident, request, problem and event management plus all the supporting processes that underpin them.)
  • Work with the wider Unified Support and GCS organizations to improve common processes and documentation to drive continuous improvement in team performance and in overall service delivery
  • Work with all relevant internal suppliers on a regular and ongoing basis to ensure they deliver all required services as the required service levels to underpin the services delivery by the Service Operations team.
  • Work with all relevant internal customers on a regular and ongoing basis to ensure the Service Operations teams deliver all required services at the required service levels to underpin the internal customers services.
  • Work with the Unified Support leadership team to define, design, develop and deliver a strategic and operational roadmap to align the output of the organization with the IFS business and GCS business units strategic aims, vision and commitments.
  • Build and maintain relevant industry awareness to enable detailed, factual and relevant conversations can be had with end customers, internal customers and stakeholders using appropriate industry terminology and phrasing.
     
• People Management
  • Lead a global team of senior managers/directors/senior directors, each of whom manages their own functional area and teams which deliver a selection of different and unique services consumed by a wide variety of internal IFS and external stakeholders, including delivery partners and paying customers.
  • Ensure all subordinate teams have clearly defined and achievable personal and organisational goals which align with the wider company goals and are supported and are driven to achieve those own unique and common goals
  • Serve as a leader, manager, mentor, knowledge resource, and escalation point for the service operations leadership
  • Identify & organize required training/coaching programs to continually improve and upkeep team performance, for direct reports and their organizations
  • Initiate and participate in regular organization level meetings to keep employees informed about organizational direction/strategy, business plans, organizational goals/objectives, results, HR/welfare initiatives, etc.
  • Develop and maintain a collaborative culture between the different functions in the team and the wider Unified Support organization

• Technical Skills
  • A wide-ranging baseline of technical knowledge covering the core relevant technologies for the IFS product suite will be useful, including:
    • Cloud based technologies (e.g. App Services, SQL Database, Storage, Redis Cache, etc.)
      • Any mainstream Cloud platform provider is acceptable - Azure, AWS, GCP or OCI
    • Oracle Database/Middleware, Web Servers, Proxies, Firewalls
    • Network architecture technologies and concepts (e.g. vNets, NSGs, VPN, ExpressRoute, SSL/TLS certificates, DNS)
    • Monitoring Technologies (native Azure monitoring and 3rd party monitoring tools such as Thousand Eyes, Nagios, and others)
    • Security principles – encryption, authentication, authorization, integrity, auditing, pen-testing, etc. – and how these are applied in a cloud environment.

Experience

• Mandatory
  • Have extensive experience in the provision of 24x7 cloud computing services or enterprise software support
  • Accomplished in managing multi-discipline, globally diverse teams
  • Skilled in leading a team with multiple levels of hierarchy beneath them
  • Extensive experience of building and growing highly skilled, highly motivated teams on an international basis
  • Expert in in P&L management, budget reconciliation and financial forecasting
  • Demonstrable knowledge of cloud computing services or IT service management methodologies and best practices (preferably via ITIL)

We embrace flexibility and hybrid work opportunities to support diverse needs and lifestyles, while also valuing inclusive workplace experiences. By fostering a sense of community, we drive innovation, strengthen connections, and nurture belonging. Our commitment ensures you can work in a way that suits you best, while also engaging with colleagues to share ideas and build meaningful relationships.