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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for IT Service Delivery Manager

💰 $90,000 - $150,000

ITService DeliveryManagementOperations

🎯 Role Definition

The IT Service Delivery Manager is responsible for the end-to-end delivery and operational excellence of IT services across the organization. This role owns day-to-day service operations, enforces and improves SLA/KPI performance, manages the service desk and technical support teams, coordinates multi-vendor ecosystems, and partners with business stakeholders to ensure services meet evolving business needs. The manager drives ITIL-aligned processes (incident, problem, change, request, and service-level management), reporting and governance, continuous improvement initiatives, and service transitions for projects and cloud migrations.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior IT Support / Service Desk Manager
  • IT Operations Lead / Technical Operations Manager
  • Technical Account Manager
  • Senior Systems / Network Engineer with customer-facing responsibilities

Advancement To:

  • Head of Service Delivery
  • Director of IT Operations
  • VP of IT / VP of Technology Services
  • Global Service Delivery Lead

Lateral Moves:

  • Program / Project Manager (IT)
  • Product Manager (Infrastructure & Platforms)
  • Vendor / Supplier Relationship Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Own and deliver all assigned IT service portfolios, ensuring 24x7 service availability and performance in line with agreed SLAs and OLAs; proactively monitor KPI dashboards and take corrective action to meet or exceed targets.
  • Lead incident management for high-severity incidents, orchestrate cross-functional incident response, run war rooms, provide timely stakeholder communications, and drive root-cause problem investigations to closure.
  • Establish, maintain, and continuously improve problem management processes to reduce incident recurrence by identifying root causes, documenting workarounds, and sponsoring permanent fixes.
  • Govern change management processes, chair the Change Advisory Board (CAB) when required, verify change readiness, and minimize service disruption while enabling business change and innovation.
  • Manage the service desk / SOC teams, including recruitment, performance management, capacity planning, scheduling, and career development to ensure consistent, customer-focused front-line support.
  • Define and manage service level agreements (SLAs), operational level agreements (OLAs), and service catalog entries; review and renegotiate service commitments based on demand and capability.
  • Own vendor and third-party supplier relationships for managed services and cloud providers: negotiate contracts, drive vendor performance improvement plans, enforce SLAs, and manage escalations to resolution.
  • Lead service transition activities for new services and major releases—develop runbooks, operational playbooks, test and validation plans, and ensure knowledge transfer to operations teams.
  • Design and maintain end-to-end operational runbooks, run-state dashboards, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) to ensure consistent, auditable delivery practices.
  • Implement and manage ITSM tooling (e.g., ServiceNow, BMC Remedy) and ensure accurate ticketing workflows, CMDB integrity, automated alerts, and analytics-driven continuous improvement.
  • Drive capacity, availability, and performance management strategies and partner with engineering to forecast growth, plan upgrades, and avoid service degradation.
  • Oversee backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity plans for services under management; coordinate DR tests and ensure RTO/RPO objectives are met.
  • Provide regular service performance reporting and executive-level dashboards with actionable insights, trend analysis, and remediation plans for senior leadership and business stakeholders.
  • Lead vendor selection, RFPs, onboarding, and contract renewal discussions with a focus on cost optimization, risk mitigation, and scalable service models.
  • Partner with Security and Compliance teams to ensure operations meet regulatory requirements and security standards; integrate security monitoring into service operations.
  • Own the budgeting and cost management for service delivery operations: forecast spend, control OPEX, identify savings opportunities, and justify investments in automation and tooling.
  • Drive automation initiatives (ITSM automation, runbook automation, self-service portals) to improve MTTR, reduce manual toil, and increase user satisfaction.
  • Facilitate regular service review meetings (SLA reviews, QBRs) with business stakeholders and customers to align expectations, roadmap priorities, and delivery timelines.
  • Champion continuous improvement programs (Lean, Six Sigma or Kaizen initiatives) to optimize processes, reduce handoffs, and increase first-call resolution rates.
  • Mentor and develop team leads and technical staff, create individual development plans, run performance reviews, and build bench strength for critical operational roles.
  • Manage cross-functional delivery for hybrid cloud, on-premises and SaaS services; coordinate infrastructure, application, and network teams to ensure integrated service health.
  • Ensure accurate configuration management and CMDB hygiene; validate CI relationships and integrations for reliable incident impact analysis and change planning.
  • Coordinate post-incident reviews (PIRs) and publish transparent RCA documents with timelines, corrective actions, and verification steps to stakeholders.
  • Enforce and improve service catalogue and request fulfillment processes, driving self-service adoption and reducing manual fulfillment work.
  • Participate in strategic IT planning to align operational capabilities to business strategy, contribute to roadmaps for service modernization, and quantify operational impacts of transformations.

Secondary Functions

  • Produce ad-hoc operational and financial reports to support leadership decision-making and audit requirements.
  • Support procurement and vendor onboarding activities, including contract reviews and supplier SLA alignment.
  • Assist in project delivery as an operational subject-matter expert during large-scale implementations and migrations.
  • Maintain and improve knowledge base content, runbooks, and operational documentation to accelerate onboarding and reduce errors.
  • Support internal and external audits (SOX, ISO, SOC) by providing evidence of operational controls, change logs, and performance data.
  • Drive user adoption of self-service portals, knowledge articles, and service catalogue items to improve customer experience and reduce tickets.
  • Facilitate workshops with business units to capture requirements, define service levels, and prioritize operational improvements.
  • Provide operational input to architecture and engineering teams for scalable, supportable design patterns.
  • Act as escalation point for customer and business stakeholder issues, negotiating outcomes and managing expectations to preserve business relationships.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • ITIL v3 / ITIL 4 process knowledge and practical experience across incident, problem, change, configuration, service-level and request fulfillment management.
  • Proven experience with enterprise ITSM platforms (ServiceNow, BMC Remedy, Cherwell) including administration, workflow design and reporting.
  • SLA, KPI and performance reporting expertise; ability to build and maintain executive dashboards (Power BI, Tableau, Splunk).
  • Cloud operations knowledge (AWS, Azure, GCP) and experience coordinating cloud service delivery, migrations, and hybrid architectures.
  • Strong vendor and third-party management skills: SOWs, SLAs, contract governance, and commercial negotiation.
  • Familiarity with monitoring, observability and APM tools (Datadog, New Relic, Nagios, SolarWinds) to triage and resolve service issues.
  • Change and release management tooling and practices; experience running CABs and release calendars.
  • CMDB, configuration management and service mapping skills to support impact analysis and RCA.
  • Knowledge of cybersecurity and compliance controls relevant to operations (IAM, firewall basics, patch management, SOC operations).
  • Scripting or automation experience (PowerShell, Python, Ansible) to drive operational automation and runbook execution.
  • IT financial management experience: budgeting, chargeback/showback models, cost optimization for cloud and managed services.
  • Project and program delivery familiarity (PMP, Prince2, Agile/DevOps interfacing) to coordinate cross-functional delivery.

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional stakeholder management and communications skills: able to present complex operational status to both technical teams and executives.
  • Strong leadership and people management: coaching, performance management, team building, and conflict resolution.
  • Customer-centric mindset with focus on service quality, user experience, and continuous improvement.
  • Analytical problem-solver who uses data to drive decisions, prioritize work, and measure outcomes.
  • Resilience and ability to perform in high-pressure incident situations while maintaining calm and clarity.
  • Negotiation and influencing skills for handling vendors, peers, and senior stakeholders.
  • Strategic thinker who can translate business needs into operational roadmaps and measurable deliverables.
  • Facilitator and mentor: able to lead post-incident reviews, process workshops, and training sessions.
  • Time management and prioritization skills to manage competing demands across multiple services and projects.
  • Adaptability and change leadership, able to lead teams through technology and process transformations.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Management Information Systems, or related technical/business field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree (MS/MA) in IT, MBA or relevant postgraduate degree.
  • Professional certifications: ITIL v4 Foundation / Practitioner, PMP or Prince2, Certified ServiceNow Administrator (or equivalent).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Technology / Systems
  • Management Information Systems
  • Business Administration (IT Management focus)
  • Telecommunications / Network Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 5–12 years of progressive IT operational experience, with at least 3–5 years in a service delivery or service management leadership role.

Preferred:

  • 7+ years managing enterprise service delivery in medium/large organizations, with demonstrable experience in multi-vendor environments, cloud operations, ITSM tool administration, and measurable improvements in SLA/KPI performance.
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