Service Delivery Manager (SDM)

SUMMARY:
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POSITION INFO:

We are seeking a Service Delivery Manager to lead and own end-to-end IT service delivery, ensuring SLA and OLA performance, contract compliance, and continual service improvement. You will serve as a trusted client partner, managing communication and relationships, while driving service performance through data insights, proactive risk reduction, and reporting. This role includes managing financials, budgets, and profitability, identifying opportunities for optimization, and providing leadership to cross-functional teams to foster accountability and operational excellence. You will also chair service reviews, escalations, and Change Advisory Boards to align with client priorities.

What you'll do:

• Service Management & Accountability:
  
  • Acts as the ultimate accountable owner for all service delivery outcomes across the full IT service landscape
  • Owns governance, SLAs, OLAs, service reporting, continual service improvement, contract management, and audit readiness
  • Chairs and governs service review forums, escalation reviews, and improvement initiatives
  • Owns contract governance including scope control, change management, commercial compliance, and risk management across the contract lifecycle
  • Identifies opportunities for automation, process improvement, and risk reduction
  • Aligns improvement initiatives with client business priorities.
  • Collaborate with internal teams to streamline processes, resolve challenges, and optimize service delivery efficiency.
  • Chairs or participates in CAB as accountable service owner.
  • Ensures structured planning, defined timelines, risk registers, and documented outcomes for projects
• Client Relationship Management:
  
  • Be a trusted partner to the client
  • Serves as the single point of accountability for client communication and relationship management
  • Maintains structured engagement at strategic, tactical, and operational levels
  • Leads service review meetings, escalation management discussions, and renewal conversations
  • Ensures timely, clear, and consistent communication during incidents, changes, and high?impact events
  • Act as a client advocate within the organization, ensuring their needs are understood and met across all service delivery functions.
• Service Performance & Reporting
  
  • Owns SLA performance, trend analysis, and corrective action plans
  • Ensures accurate, disciplined service reporting with actionable insights
  • Tracks incident, problem, change, and availability metrics to prevent repeat escalations
  • Uses data to drive service maturity and proactive risk reduction
  • Accountable for major incident governance, business communication, and post-incident reviews
  • Ensures escalation thresholds are managed proactively
• Financial Management:
  
  • Manage the financial aspects of client accounts, including budgeting, forecasting, invoicing, and financial reporting.
  • Manage and monitor revenue streams, profitability, and cost-effectiveness of service delivery efforts, ensuring financial objectives are met.
  • Ensures alignment between scope, effort, and revenue
  • Identifies opportunities for service optimisation, innovation, and value creation
• Leadership and Collaboration:
  
  • Provides clear leadership direction across all support to foster a culture of excellence, accountability, and continuous improvement.
  • Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams (e.g. sales, technical support, etc.) to align strategies, address client needs, and drive overall client success.
  • Sets expectations for discipline, documentation, and accountability
  • Provide input to clients’ IT strategies and budgets.
  • Conducts regular, documented one-on-one engagements with direct reports.
  • Work with internal delivery operations teams through OLAs to hold them accountable for efficiency targets and cost reduction.
• Contract Management and Governance:
  
  • In-depth understanding of contacting principles: Service Levels, Scope Definition, Contract Change Management and Contract commercial management i.e. cost to revenue ratio management
  • Deep knowledge of Operational Level Agreement, Subcontractor Agreements and Multi-BU collaboration agreements.
  • Conduct regular Contract reviews to assess delivery achievement against contracted targets and agree on changes to improve value for money through transformation and innovation.
  • Liaise with Contract Management and Legal on matters pertaining to breach incidents and/or Contract change incidents.
  • Understand how to define and manage risks to reduce impact and liability across the contracted term.

Your Expertise:

• Minimum 5 - 8 years experience in Managed Services or IT Service Delivery roles
• Proven experience managing complex enterprise environments
• Demonstrated capability in people leadership, service governance, and stakeholder management
• Strong commercial and contract management experience

Qualifications:

• ITIL certification
• Bachelor’s degree in IT, Business Management, or a related discipline (advantageous)
• Project Management certification (advantageous)

Success Measures (KPIs)

• SLA compliance and reduction in repeat incidents
• Reduction in client escalations
• Quality and timeliness of service reporting
• Client satisfaction and retention
• Internal delivery discipline and team accountability
• Contract profitability and service value growth