Job Title: IT Service Manager Location: Midrand, Gauteng (hybrid as applicable) Duration: 12 months Job Summary The IT Service Manager is a key leadership role responsible for the end-to-end planning, delivery, performance, and continual improvement of IT services across the organisation. This position ensures that IT services are reliable, efficient, secure, and fully aligned with business objectives and user needs. Working closely with technical teams, business stakeholders, and external vendors, the IT Service Manager drives operational excellence, manages service levels (SLAs/OLAs), oversees incident/problem/change processes, and fosters a customer‑centric IT culture. The role has a strong emphasis on service strategy, operations, and continuous improvement. This is a strategic and hands‑on position that bridges technology and business, ensuring high availability, minimal downtime, and optimal value from IT investments. Key Responsibilities Service Strategy & Delivery Develop, implement, and maintain IT service strategies, policies, and processes. Design and improve services to meet evolving business requirements while aligning with organisational goals. Incident, Problem & Change Management Oversee the full lifecycle of incident, problem, request, and change management. Ensure timely resolution of issues, root cause analysis, and prevention of recurring problems to minimise business impact. Service Level Management Define, negotiate, monitor, and report on Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Operational Level Agreements (OLAs). Track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as uptime, Mean Time To Resolution (MTTR), customer satisfaction (CSAT), and service availability. Team Leadership & Development Lead, mentor, and develop IT support teams (including service desk, operations, and technical specialists). Manage staffing, training, performance, and resource allocation to maintain a high‑performing, customer‑focused team. Budget & Resource Management Manage IT service budgets, vendor contracts, and procurement. Optimise costs while ensuring quality service delivery and compliance with financial controls. Vendor & Stakeholder Management Build and maintain strong relationships with internal stakeholders, business units, and external service providers. Act as the primary point of escalation and ensure vendors meet contractual obligations. Continuous Service Improvement Identify opportunities for process optimisation, automation, and innovation. Implement improvements using ITIL practices to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and elevate service quality. Compliance, Security & Risk Ensure all IT services comply with relevant regulations (e.g., POPIA in South Africa), security standards, and organisational policies. Oversee data protection, risk management, and audit readiness. Service Catalogue & Knowledge Management Maintain an up‑to‑date service catalogue, knowledge base, and configuration management database (CMDB) to support efficient operations. Reporting & Communication Produce regular performance reports and dashboards for senior management. Communicate effectively with all levels of the organisation on IT service matters, changes, and improvements. Monitoring and Alerting Design, implement, and continuously improve proactive monitoring and alerting systems across the entire IT environment. Monitoring Details Deploy and manage enterprise monitoring tools for infrastructure, networks, servers, cloud services, applications, and end‑user experience. Establish real‑time alerting mechanisms (email, SMS, Teams/Slack, automated tickets) with appropriate thresholds and escalation paths. Ensure 24/7 monitoring coverage and rapid detection of performance degradation, outages, or anomalies. Integrate monitoring systems with the ITSM platform for automatic incident creation. Conduct regular reviews of monitoring effectiveness, reduce false positives, and drive proactive issue resolution. Support capacity planning, trend analysis, and performance reporting through monitoring data. Security and Vulnerability Management Own and drive the organisation's IT security posture within the service management framework. Security Details Lead vulnerability scanning, assessment, prioritisation, and remediation activities. Oversee patch management processes for servers, endpoints, applications, and network devices. Ensure timely mitigation of identified vulnerabilities and security risks. Coordinate with cybersecurity teams on threat intelligence, penetration testing, and security incident response. Embed security controls into service design, transition, and operation (Security by Design). Monitor and report on security compliance, vulnerability trends, and risk exposure to senior leadership. Qualifications & Experience Education Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Business Information Systems, or a related field. Experience Minimum 5–7 years of progressive experience in IT operations or service management, with at least 3 years in a leadership or managerial capacity. Experience in a multi‑vendor or enterprise environment is highly advantageous. Local context (South Africa): familiarity with regulatory requirements such as POPIA and cybersecurity frameworks, and experience in dynamic industries like finance and telecom is a plus. Essential Skills & Competencies Leadership & People Management Proven ability to lead, motivate, and develop high‑performing teams. Technical Knowledge Solid understanding of IT infrastructure, networks, cloud services, cybersecurity, and common ITSM tools (e.g., Jira, Remedy). Project Management Familiarity with project management principles (e.g., Agile, Prince2). Preferred Certifications ITIL 4 Foundation (or higher – e.g., ITIL 4 Managing Professional or Strategic Leader) Project Management Professional (PMP), CAPM, or PRINCE2. Certifications in security or risk (e.g., CISSP, CISM, CRISC). AWS. #J-18808-Ljbffr