Head of Application IT Service Operations

Summary
The Head of Application IT Service Operations is responsible for the end-to-end stability, performance, and continuous improvement of the organization's business-critical applications in production. This role owns the operational lifecycle of applications post-go-live - incident, problem, and change management - ensuring service levels are met, risks are proactively managed, and the application landscape supports business objectives reliably and efficiently.

This is a senior leadership role that bridges business stakeholders, application development/vendor teams, and in frastructure operations to deliver a seamless, high-quality service experience.

Responsibilities

Service Operations & Delivery

. Own overall accountability for application availability, performance, and stability across the enterprise application portfolio (ERP, CRM, FP&A/CPM, and other line-of-business systems)

. Establish and manage IT Service Management (ITSM)processes: incident, problem, change, release, and configuration management ,aligned to ITIL best practices

. Define, track, and report on SLAs/OLAs/KPIs with application vendors, managed service providers, and internal teams

. Drive root-cause analysis and permanent resolution for recurring or high-severity incidents

Team & Vendor Leadership

. Build, lead, and develop a high-performing application support organization (internal staff and outsourced/managed service partners)

. Manage relationships with internal and external application vendors and system integrators, including contract performance, escalations, and roadmap alignment

. Establish an effective on-call/escalation model for24x7 critical application support where required

Governance, Risk & Compliance

. Ensure application operations comply with relevant regulatory, data residency, security, and audit requirements

. Own disaster recovery and business continuity planning for in-scope applications, including regular DR testing

. Maintain application support documentation, run books, and knowledge management standards

Continuous Improvement & Strategy

. Drive automation and self-service initiatives to reduce manual effort and improve mean-time-to-resolution (MTTR)

. Partner with Application Development/Delivery teams to ensure smooth transition of new releases and projects into steady-state operations (hypercare-to-BAU handover)

. Monitor emerging trends in AIOps, observability, and service management tooling, recommending adoption where it improves service quality

. Manage the application operations budget, including licensing, support contracts, and tooling costs

Stakeholder Management

. Act as the primary escalation point for business stakeholders on application service issues

. Provide regular service performance reporting to senior leadership (steering committees, IT leadership team)

. Chair or contribute to Change Advisory Board (CAB)meetings

Requirement

. Degree / Master in Information Technology, Computer Science, or related field

. 12+ years of progressive IT experience, with 5+ years in a leadership role managing application support/service operations teams

. Proven experience managing production support for large-scale enterprise applications (e.g., ERP such as SAP, CRM, financial planning/CPM platforms, or similar)

. Strong knowledge of ITIL framework (ITIL v4certification preferred)

. Demonstrated experience managing outsourced/managed service provider relationships and contracts

. Experience with ITSM tooling (ServiceNow, BMC Remedy, Jira Service Management, or similar)

. Track record of managing 24x7 support operations and major incident management

. Experience operating in a regulated or enterprise environment with data residency/compliance requirements is a plus

. Strong leadership and people management skills, with experience building and scaling teams

. Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, able to translate technical issues for business and executive audiences

. Vendor and contract management expertise

. Certifications: ITIL v4, PMP, or Six Sigma is a plus

. Experience with cloud-hosted and hybrid application environments is preferred

. Familiarity with AIOps/observability tools (Dynatrace, Splunk, Datadog, etc.) is an added advantage

. Experience in [industry-specific - e.g., financial services, manufacturing, retail] is advantageous

. Able to commute for work daily.

- Work Location: 60 Pioneer Road, Tuas

- Work Days & Time : Monday to Friday, 8am - 5.30pm

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