Manager SAP Finance Application Service Management

Job description

- **Why This Job Matters?** - This role sits at the heart of BT's Finance technology operations, acting as the primary guardian of service excellence across the SAP Finance application landscape. Finance runs on SAP and this manager ensures that every incident, every service request, every change, and every enhancement is resolved with precision, speed, and care. The role is critical not only for keeping the lights on, but for proactively transforming how SAP Finance services are delivered. With SAP AI capabilities rapidly embedding into Finance workflows from automated reconciliations and anomaly detection to intelligent incident triage — this manager will be instrumental in leading BT's transition towards **AI Ops** and next-generation service management. You will be the single point of accountability between Group Finance leadership, Digital technology teams, and external vendor partners — ensuring the Finance domain's SAP services operate at the highest level of availability, reliability, and business value. **What you will be doing (Role Accountabilities)** **SAP Finance Incident & Service Management (Core)** - Act as the **primary owner of all SAP Finance incidents**, ensuring swift triage, prioritisation, and resolution in line with agreed SLAs across FI/CO, AP, AR, GL, Asset Accounting, Treasury, and connected Finance modules. - Lead the end-to-end **Incident Management lifecycle** — from logging through to root cause analysis, post-incident review, and permanent fix — ensuring zero recurrence through structured problem management. - Own the **Major Incident Management (MIM) process** for Finance-critical SAP outages, coordinating war rooms across vendors, Digital infrastructure teams, and Finance stakeholders. - Proactively monitor SAP Finance system health using AIOps-enabled observability tools (e.g., Dynatrace, Splunk, ServiceNow), establishing early warning thresholds and automated alerting to pre-empt incidents before they impact Finance operations. - Drive Problem Management by identifying recurring incident patterns, conducting trend analysis, and implementing root cause fixes to reduce incident volume quarter-on-quarter. **Service Delivery & SLA Governance** - Manage and publish weekly/monthly SAP Finance Service Performance dashboards covering incident volumes, SLA adherence, mean time to resolve (MTTR), change success rates, and service availability. - Ensure consistent adherence to ITIL-aligned service management processes (Incident, Problem, Change, Release, and Service Request Management) across all Finance SAP modules. - Conduct regular Service Review meetings with Group Finance leadership, Digital Directors, and third-party vendors — presenting performance data, risk assessments, and continuous improvement plans with clarity and confidence. - Lead Change Advisory Board (CAB) participation for all Finance-impacting SAP changes, ensuring proper impact assessment, rollback planning, and communication to Finance stakeholders. **Stakeholder & Vendor Management** - Serve as the trusted liaison between Group Finance, Digital Technology, and SAP AMS vendors — translating business needs into technical solutions and vice versa with fluency and credibility. - Build and sustain strong relationships with senior Finance stakeholders (CFO office, Group Financial Shared Services, Finance Controllers) and Digital leadership, ensuring transparency, trust, and proactive communication at all times. - Manage SAP AMS partner performance — holding vendors accountable to contractual obligations, KPIs, and quality standards, while fostering a collaborative, outcome-focused partnership. - Escalate vendor performance risks with structured evidence and clear remediation plans, maintaining executive-level confidence in service delivery. **Proactive Service Improvement & AI Ops Readiness** - Lead the Finance SAP team's AI Ops transformation roadmap — introducing intelligent automation, predictive incident management, and AI-assisted ticket triage to reduce manual effort and improve MTTR. - Champion the adoption of SAP Business AI capabilities within Finance workflows — including AI-powered reconciliation, anomaly detection, and intelligent process automation — working with SAP and internal teams to embed these into BAU operations. - Define and execute a Continual Service Improvement (CSI) plan aligned with Finance and Digital OKRs, including automation of repetitive tasks, self-service enablement for Finance users, and reduction of technical debt. - Identify opportunities to leverage SAP S/4HANA Fiori, SAP Cloud integrations, and embedded analytics to enhance the Finance user experience and reduce dependency on manual workarounds. **Governance, Compliance & Controls** - Ensure all SAP Finance services operate within BT's IT governance, audit, and regulatory compliance framework — including SOX controls, GDPR data handling, and internal financial controls embedded in SAP. - Collaborate with the SAP Security and Basis teams to maintain role-based access controls, segregation of duties (SoD), and audit readiness across Finance modules. - Support internal and external audit cycles by providing accurate evidence of IT controls, change management trails, and incident records. - **Team Leadership & Capability Development** - Lead, mentor, and develop a diverse team of SAP Finance functional consultants and support analysts based in Bangalore, fostering a culture of ownership, collaboration, and continuous learning. - Build team capability in emerging technologies — AI Ops tools, SAP BTP (Business Technology Platform), and intelligent automation — through structured learning and hands-on enablement. - Promote an inclusive team culture that celebrates diverse perspectives and enables every team member to do their best work. **What you’ll need to succeed (Skills & Experience)** **Must Have** - Deep expertise in SAP Finance modules: FI/CO, AP, AR, GL, Asset Accounting, Controlling (Cost Cen