D&A Services Manager

Key Skills

Aartificial intelligence, Big Data Technology, Data Analytics, Data science techniques, IT, KPIs, Management, SLA

Job Description

ABOUT UNIOPS:

Unilever Operations (UniOps) is the global technology and operations engine of Unilever offering business services, technology, and enterprise solutions. UniOps serves over 190 locations and through a network of specialized service lines and partners delivers insights and innovations, user experiences and end-to-end seamless delivery making Unilever Purpose Led and Future Fit.

Business Background

UniOps’ purpose unleashes the power of people, experiences, technology, data, and performance to deliver experiences that grow, fuel, and protect Unilever and our stakeholders.

The Data and Analytics (D&A) team plays a critical role in driving Unilever’s Growth and Fuel for Growth, empowering our people to make smarter and faster decisions to unlock value. Our vision is to transform Unilever to become truly Data Intelligent, delivering superior performance through data-driven decisions.

About D&A – Context and Vision

Digital technology is transforming business, creating huge amounts of data. Our belief is that those companies that can truly harness data and deploy analytics at scale, will be those that succeed in the future.

Our vision is to elevate data and data use across Unilever, to transform Unilever into a Data-Intelligent enterprise, where every decision and action is powered by the best data and advanced analytics (AI) to deliver on our business goals. It’s about empowering our employees, helping them to make smarter and faster decisions and freeing up their capacity to focus on growth and the decisions that matter. Decisions about our categories, brands, channels, key markets, and our people.

We are helping to lead Unilever into the Future of Work, combining the best of human intelligence and machine through data-intelligent decision-making.

Who we are and what we do

We are a passionate team of over 350 data experts, data scientists, information experts, technical specialists, and business analysts. We operate as ‘One D&A’, made up of Global engagement and expertise teams, based in our key hubs including India, the UK, and US, and local UniOps in Market D&A teams, based in our key markets. Together, we combine the best of global for scale and efficiency, and local for intimacy and impact.

‘We are in the midst of a paradigm shift where the intelligence of machines will complement human ingenuity to do good, do better and smarter – Sanjiv Mehta, Unilever President, South Asia

Our key objectives as D&A are to:

Set the Unilever data strategy and lay the foundations to maximise the value of our data​. Deliver the connected Data Platform to accelerate access to integrated and trusted data at scale across the company for analytics and decisions​. Embed core data and analytics capabilities, leading to automation, AI, and Big Data to boost Unilever’s decision intelligence. Lead the Data and Analytics Culture to build a future-fit workforce that values and adopts data-intelligent decision-making across all levels.

We are also passionate about powering our growth with purpose, building a diverse and inclusive team and culture, for example through our #WomenInData program, and continuing to innovate in the use of data and AI to meet our sustainability goals. 

Role Profile

As a part of the D&A Product Services and Technology Transformation team, the Service Manager role is to ensure end to end ownership of IT services to deliver expected business outcomes in accordance with the agreed scope and service level agreements while ensuring application uptime and greater customer satisfaction.

Following are the verticals that a Service Manager is responsible for:

• Application Support/Service Delivery – Integrating across Service Lines to ensure our services are available and fit for purpose.
• Vendor Management – Managing relationships with vendors
• Resilience and Availability – Ensure Availability and Resilience of Services
• Stakeholder Management – Engage, influence, and negotiate with service stakeholders to agree, review and improve service levels.
• Landscape Management
• Financial ownership and management

Key Accountabilities

Application Support/Service Delivery

• Ensure that the Service Providers deliver IT services (Application Maintenance) in accordance with the agreed scope & service level agreement (SLA), in accordance with all applicable performance metrics, including OTDs, KPIs, operating level agreements and underpinning contracts. 
• Ensure that Service Providers resolve incidents and issues in an efficient and effective manner, and that the root cause analysis studies are conducted, and clear improvement plans are identified
• Ensure that service requests (SRs) are implemented according to the agreed SLA
• Establishes problem resolution procedures and defines consequences of non-compliance
• Works with cross functional teams during issue escalation for coordination, planning and reviews
• Work with Service Providers to plan for progressively reducing incidents, improving availability of services and thereby increasing user/client satisfaction.
• Responsible for maintaining and enhancing the live services through CR’s and small enhancements.

Vendor Management

• Engage with Third Party Vendor teams to deliver Service Levels and KPIs.
• Setting up and managing the governance mechanisms for vendor delivery including periodic reviews and meetings as per the defined governance mechanism.
• Analyse and monitor suppliers’ performance against agreed service levels, publish the results, initiate remedial action
• Partner with Suppliers to implement service improvement actions for continuous improvement of service and proactive actions.

Resilience and Availability

• Bring in or operate pro-active measures to measure service performance.
• Plan for and ensure Proactive Application maintenance to prevent unplanned disruption due to incompatibility of software versions & incomplete/untested release packages
• Ensure high availability of Applications to the Unilever business by designing and deploying high quality maintenance plans, covering backup, archiving, housekeeping, health checks, job runs, administration, etc. 

• Help build and retain functional and technical knowledge in house

Stakeholder Management

• Setting up and managing service governance mechanisms and reviews with business stakeholders.
• Act as the first point of escalation for any issues or problems raised by users. Resolve or escalate and arbitrate in situations of conflict.
• Review service level agreements and work with Customers to establish qualitative assessment of the service provision from the customers’ perspective. Investigate and implement actions to improve service levels, where appropriate.
• Negotiate with Customers, specialists, other staff and suppliers in respect of emergencies, withdrawal of services, routine and unscheduled maintenance, and the introduction of major amendments to the provision of services.

All About You

Essential Experience

• Knowledge of Service Management methodologies like ITIL and ITSM process
• Very strong Interpersonal skills and influencing ability; ability to impact and influence customer and stakeholders
• Very strong analytical skills which allows to evaluate problems, attention to detail, critical thinking ability in order to analyse problem and reach solution and take informed decisions.
• Experience of managing multiple Applications: Tasks, Risks and Stakeholder management skills
• Experience in working with geographically diverse team
• Ability to prioritize own work (and the work of others), multi-task, and meet deadlines
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Pro-active in identifying issues and proposing service improvements to address the gaps
• Business awareness, understanding the broader context in which IT delivery has an impact on overall business performance 
• Should have completed Uniops Finance License to operate training, is able to understand finance related to service set up , run and decom as well as new business case
• Not limited to current skillset and willing to learn new tech

Desirable Experience

• Experience in BI and Data Warehousing
• Knowledge of Unilever financial processes
• IT background, esp. Cloud concepts
• Excellent documentation and process review skills with a keen eye for detail
• SC and Fin Functional process knowledge

Key Skills Required

Professional Skills (foundation/practitioner/mentor)

• Power BI - Practitioner
• Data Warehousing - Practitioner
• Service management - Practitioner
• Data & Analytics Strategy – Practitioner
• Analytics Solution Design - Practitioner
• Data lifecycle management – Foundation

Leadership Skills

• Demonstrates strong Inner game:

Strong Design Thinking/Agility and innovation mindset – intellectually curious, constantly looking to develop, embraces change with sense of urgency and enjoys positively challenging status quo

Personal drive and ability to inspire and engage others towards action

• Personal mastery –emotionally resilient; always bringing the best of themselves

• Demonstrates great Outer game:
• Credible business acumen – shows understanding of business, commercials and performance metrics. Has gravitas to effectively influence senior stakeholder within a functional and business context
• Encourages experimentation, bringing the outside in, and intelligent risk taking
• Brings the voice of the consumer and internal customer into everything they do
• Passion for high performance – creating motivation and focus to drive execution at speed
• A talent catalyst – encouraging collaboration and inclusivity, empowering teams to be their best