Service Manager

Job description

**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 Centre/Profit Centre), and Treasury — with the ability to engage credibly with both functional and technical teams. • Proven track record in SAP Application Management Services (AMS) — managing service delivery across incident, problem, change, and release management in a complex enterprise environment. • Strong command of ITIL Service Management processes (ITIL v3 or v4) — with demonstrable experience of applying these frameworks to SAP support operations. • Exceptional stakeholder management and communication skills — able to engage confidently with Finance Directors, CFO-level stakeholders, Digital leadership, and external vendors; translating technical issues into business language and vice versa. • Experience with AI Ops tools and platforms — such as ServiceNow ITSM, Dynatrace, Splunk, or equivalent — with an appreciation of how AI-driven analytics can transform service operations. • Proficiency in service performance reporting — building dashboards, KPI frameworks, and executive-facing reporting pa