Job Description

Who are we

At Knight Frank, we work responsibly in partnership to enhance people's lives and environments. Founded in 1896 and headquartered in London, UK, Knight Frank is one of the world's leading independent real estate consultancies. After 128 years we are now located in over 50 Territories, 740+ Offices, 27,000+ People, with 1 Global Network.


At the heart of all we do are our Clients. A relationship built on trust is vital. As trusted partners in property, we act with integrity and care, understanding our clients' unique needs and consistently thinking about the bigger picture to provide personalised, clear and considered advice across all areas of property. Through our deep understanding of key markets and sectors - both emerging and established - we are dedicated to meeting and exceeding their property goals.


A true partnership is a balanced one, and our People are passionate about, and committed to, making our business inclusive and diverse. We give every individual the space and opportunity to perform at their best and be recognised for the immense value they bring. We empower everyone to have autonomy in their role and encourage them to use their voice in how we can make a positive impact as a firm and shape the future of real estate, the built environment and the impact on the communities we serve. Our collaborative and engaged teams provide excellent and dedicated client service. In our workplace, opinions are respected, everyone is invited to contribute to the success of our business and innovation, and new ideas are celebrated.


In 2021 we celebrated our 125th anniversary and set out Our Desired Future, cemented in three pillars: People Potential, Client Centricity and always Creating our Future, together.

About The Role

Scope

Established in 1896, Knight Frank is the leading independent property consultancy in the UK offering agency and professional advice across Commercial, Residential and Rural sectors. Headquartered in London, Knight Frank now comprises a global network of over 523 offices in 60 territories.


We are seeking a highly talented, motivated and experienced IT Service Operations Manager to support us on the evolution of our IT Transformation. This is a critical role within the Group IT department, responsible for defining service and owning our IT service operations, ensuring the successful, timely and secure delivery of all IT services across Knight Frank. As the Service Operations Manager, you will be the owner for our ITSM policies and processes, ensuring adherence, measurement and compliance for both internal and external resolver groups.


This role is a senior leadership position reporting directly to the Head of Technology Projects & Operations with overall responsibility for the delivery of the IT operations 'run' environment. The role ensures the strategic direction for the IT service operations team and ensures that the IT services that unpin our business remain highly available and reliable, meeting the needs of a constantly changing and growing business.


The IT Service Operations team consist of outsourced IT Service Desk, EUC Operations, Infrastructure and Information Security and in-house Application Support and Microsoft Power Platform support. The Service Operations Manager is responsible for process and service level management for all other technology resolver groups, both internal and external to Knight Frank. The IT Service Operations team is responsible for the ensuring the successful delivery of Incident, Problem, Change, Release, Request and Access Management and with such, the Service Operations Manager is the process owner for such ITIL processes and Product Owner for our ITSM platform, Halo ITSM.


Under the leadership of this role, the IT Service Operations team are responsible for ensuring end-to-end IT Service Delivery Policies, Processes and Procedures are well defined, integrated, maintained and continually improved within a complex multi-vendor support model. Includes responsibilities for education, training, communications, strategic vendor management, delivery to SLAs, OLAs and UPCs, operation of appropriate governance forums, day to day process outputs, complaints & operational reporting.

Responsibilities

Service Level Management - Ensure service levels are measured and adhered to, in alignment to contractual SLAs, internal OLAs and our business published service levels. Act as an escalation point for the business on the occasions these are not met and to monitor vendor adherence. Process Owner & Process Improvement - Process owner for our ITSM process across Knight Frank, ensuring all processes align to best practise, are continuously reviewed and improved and measuring performance and adherence in align to our overall IT controls. Team Management and Development - continuous development of the IT Service Operations teams to ensure the right technical and service management capability exists including succession planning across the team. Vendor Management - To build, manage and maintain strategic outsourcing vendor relationships and ensure service obligations and levels or performance are being met. Develop good relationships with existing and new suppliers. Reporting, Monitoring and Metrics - the ability to understand data is critical to developing tactical and strategic operational changes in IT Service Operations to respond to business needs. Creating key metrics around IT Services' performance will enable better decision making and resource allocation. ITSM Excellence - ensuring Knight Frank colleagues receive the best customer experience available. Achieving this through developing strong relationships with colleagues across the business to better understand their day-to-day IT challenges and ensure Knight Frank IT continuously strives to improve. Developing Standards for Working and Sharing Best Practice - sharing best practice for ITSM and IT operations management across the IT team. Understanding the Organisation - Knight Frank is complex, and changes frequently. Ability to understand the organisational structure, business and user requirements and key programmes will enable the Service Operations Manager to provide the best service. Processes and Tooling - IT Service Operations has responsibility to ensure products and applications are available to support the organisation, working with other teams within IT to ensure integrated solutions. This role is accountable for the processes the IT Service Operations team uses for ITSM to make best use of the people, systems and other resources available as part of the role.
- IT Operations Management - Create and execute ITIL based services with defined service support models for internal and external resolver groups, including an effective Incident, Problem, Change and Release Management function at the heart of this model. Act as a senior escalation and communication point for incidents, problems and changes, and communicating with senior stakeholders about progress.


Problem Management - Leading IT Service Operations team to ensure identification and effective man-agement of recurring IT problems is a key requirement for this role. Performing proactive trend analysis and post Incident review to prevent future problems, eliminate recurring or unnecessary incidents and to minimise the impact of incidents that cannot be prevented. Incident Management - Responsible for ensuring timely identification and effective resolution manage-ment of Incidents including consistent, informative and high-quality communication, especially during Ma-jor Incidents. Change Management - Responsible for the IT Change Management process, ensuring IT changes are con-trolled and managed in alignment to our IT Change controls. Ensuring live service is protected for potential change related issues, ensuring service stability and availability through gracefully managed IT change. Commercial and Contractual Management - a deep understanding of the commercial and contractual aspects of vendor contracts that provide IT services and products to Knight Frank is essential to this role. Understanding the scope and boundaries of a contract and maximising the value for Knight Frank. Senior Management Team - be part of the IT Service Operations management team, contribute and challenge ideas in a constructive and progressive manner. Risk Management - Support the adherence to the IT risk management framework and approach to man-aging risks & issues for IT and ensure that mitigation plans are clearly articulated to the appropriate entity ITSC & BCP - Responsible for ensuring IT Service Continuity plans exist for all critical and high-priority ser-vices, ensuring that they are tested and improved. Responsible for the BCP for IT Service Operations, ensuring in the event of a business continuity situation, IT Service Operations can continue to support the Knight Frank business.
- Financial Management - Ensure total cost of ownership for each IT service is known, managed, and tracked. Support the financial analysis and appraisal of solutions and alignment into budget planning activities. Regularly review IT costs and cost structures for services and products so that the financial implications of projects/product and BAU activities are communicated to the relevant stakeholders.


Service Catalogue - Responsible for the management of the IT Service Catalogue.

Skills

Strong leadership and coaching with evidence of inspiring and maturing a IT service Operations team consisting of a mix of internal colleagues and external vendor colleagues. Strong knowledge of IT infrastructure and a general interest in technology and future trends and opportunities. Talent in building long-term relationships with internal colleagues across the business from junior to C-Suite. Understanding of Critical Service Levels and Key Measures along with the associated KPIs that underpin them Ability to own activities, initiatives and issues and work independently and take decisions where necessary to resolver and/or deliver. Track record of successful delivery against commitments and deadlines. Promotes and supports standardisation and continuous improvement. Presentation and Reporting skills to demonstrate process performance in Service reports to the SIAM Eco-system and management Financial management including forecasting and budget management. Excellent communication skills (written and oral), with experience interacting with all levels of management both within Company and Client organisations. Ability to create a collaborative environment, highly developed stakeholder management Ability to work effectively under pressure and manage multiple priorities. Commercially aware, forward-looking, and attention to detail. Strategic thinking and problem-solving skills. Strong analytical and reporting capabilities. Willingness to take charge and provide direction.

Knowledge

An ITIL expert, with experience taking strategic responsibility for designing, delivering, managing and improving all aspects of IT operations in a hybrid support environment (insourced/outsourced). Excellent technical knowledge in Networks, Infrastructure, Applications and Information Security. Expert understanding of running an IT Service Operations 'run' environment with a minimum of 10 years' experience managing IT operations teams across Incident, Problem, Release and Change management.
- An understanding of compliance and governance - ISO's, Data Protection, GDPR etc.


An understanding of Cloud and Digital Transformation technologies and experience of transitioning to such services and service design around cloud and digital technologies. An understanding of data, data integration, data governance and the operational management of data. Strong knowledge of Information Security Knowledge of vendor procurement (RFI/RFP), team management and recruitment, training and motiva-tion. Practical knowledge and experience of Service Design, Transition and Continual Service Improvement Able to manage customer and SIAM Ecosystem relationship Knowledge of IT control frameworks and their implementation, e.g. COBIT, ITIL, ISO27001 etc. Knowledge of commercial and financial management techniques and tools. Knowledge of business continuity planning and IT service continuity planning techniques and tools. Ability for proactive risk and issue identification and mitigation and resolution Excellent oral and written communication skills, including the ability to explain technology solutions in business terms, establish rapport and persuade others. Strong understanding of regulatory and legislative landscape, macroeconomic environment, and broader data governance landscape and key technologies.

Qualifications

Masters/Bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems, computer engineering, or a closely related specialist field
s ITIL V3/4 qualified - Service Operations and Service Transition as a minimum.


s Professional certifications such as COBIT, Prince II, Lean, Six Sigma desirable

Experience

Minimum of 10 years of experience in IT Service Management. Energetic, enthusiastic, and proactive and high degree of initiative. Experience in the support and provision of IT Service infrastructure, EUC services and application and product support
- Experience in people management with strong interpersonal and leadership skills - leadership, collaboration, facilitation, and negotiation skills.


Experience of vendor management and management of the service delivery of outsource partners ensuring the best business value Knight Frank is provided Experience in the service level management, reporting performance to stakeholders through SLA's, KPI's, service reviews etc Experience of stakeholder management in a complex partner-based organisation. Evidence of setting up and maintaining budgets and resource plans. Previous experience of successfully embedding, validating and testing the SIAM operating model to en-hance service integration and management processes. Property business knowledge and understanding Up to date and highly specialist knowledge and experience across the full range of activities and areas un-dertaken by the post holder Advanced theoretical and practical knowledge of methods that evaluate and improve information man-agement and technology Significant proven experience and knowledge of strategy and finance in a maj or organisation Confidence to successfully explain and guide people through the process and handle any low-level process issues Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment.
Competitive salary


Please note: this is a Direct Search led by Knight Frank. Applications from recruitment agencies will not be accepted nor will fees be paid for unsolicited CVs, even if provided by PSL agencies.