Contract Operations Manager Jobs in Minnesota (NOW HIRING)

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ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES:

STAFF RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Delivery team consisting of approximately 64 staff.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES:

Operational Leadership & Accountability

• Provide overall leadership and direction for IT operations teams
• Own day-to-day operational performance across all IT service towers
• Act as the senior escalation point for major incidents and service failures
• Effectively deal with escalations resulting in changing the situation into a positive outcome
• Ensure consistent service delivery aligned to SLAs and business priorities

Service Availability, Stability & Performance

• Ensure high availability of critical IT services and platforms
• Oversee monitoring, event management, and proactive issue resolution
• Minimise unplanned outages and service disruptions
• Drive continuous improvement in operational stability

Incident, Problem & Change Governance

• Provide executive oversight of:
  • Major Incident Management
  • Problem Management (root cause elimination)
  • Change Enablement (risk-based control)
• Ensure changes are planned, tested, and executed with minimal business impact
• Attend CAB and post-incident reviews

Team Leadership & People Management

• Lead and mentor operational managers and technical leads
• Build high-performing, accountable teams
• Manage capacity, workload, and skills development
• Foster a culture of ownership, collaboration, and service excellence
• Close collaboration with peers to ensure that knowledge, experience and skills are shared to the benefit of the wider Remote Service Teams and customer population.
• Introducing the right level of energy to the business that will create the necessary visibility and a presence required to inspire others
• Assist the Team Leader to manage the resources within the team in order to optimise productivity and quality standards and meet contractual obligations. Review productivity and resource planning data to identify resource requirements and assist in recruitment and assessment centres.
• Ensure Team Leaders carry out day to day running of teams to their specific objectives and to SLA/KPI targets and expected quality
• Formal and informal training / mentoring sessions with Team Leaders
• Quality check Team Leaders' reporting output, service reports etc.
• Liaise with the Team Leaders in planning and implementing effective training and development activities to meet contractual and business objectives.
• Identify profiles within the team and work with individuals to agree and maintain personal development plans which achieve business and personal goals.
• Be available to help address staff issues ensuring all Corporate policies are understood, implemented, complied with and regularly reviewed.
• Set the context and manage the conditions for a learning and empowered environment where personal skills development is encouraged and valued.
• Set and manage personal and team standards of behaviour at work, to define the triggers for disciplinary action.
• Initiate and manage motivation and reward and recognition processes which deliver staff satisfaction.

Vendor & Managed Services Oversight Pertaining to Contracted Services

• Oversee third-party vendors and managed service providers
• Ensure vendors meet contractual and SLA obligations
• Drive accountability and performance improvements
• Support contract renewals, transitions, and service onboarding

Service Delivery, Contract Management & Governance

• Ensure ITIL-aligned service management processes are followed
• Drive standardisation and consistency across operational teams
• Establish operational governance forums and cadence
• Ensure accurate reporting and performance visibility
• Understanding and management of service level agreements (SLA's) related to contracted services within own area. Ensure SLAs are achieved, and client expectations are met (or exceeded).
• Know your contract
• Participation in renewal discussions with all stake holders
• Daily dashboard checks, provide RCA for SLA/KPI missed
• Customer Satisfaction of 8 and more for your service lines / customers - Contractual Services

Financial & Resource Management

• Manage operational budgets and cost optimisation initiatives
• Ensure effective resource allocation across teams
• Look at team productivity / capacity and adjust where required to save money or negotiate additional resource with the Customer where team is overutilized.
• Monthly spot checks on time-logging extracts for time/hours claimed, correct claim or project codes used by teams as well as time sheet capturing
• Balance cost efficiency with service quality and risk
• Consider the costs and effort of CSIP - doing it right first time thus eliminating unnecessary activities and cost
• Support forecasting and capacity planning

Risk, Security & Compliance

• Identify and manage operational and cyber risks
• Ensure compliance with security standards and regulatory requirements for services contracted
• Support audits and risk assessments
• Ensure business continuity and disaster recovery readiness

Stakeholder & Executive Engagement

• Act as a trusted advisor to business and IT leadership where required
• Communicate operational risks, performance, and improvement plans
• Align IT operations with business strategy and objectives
• Manage stakeholder expectations during incidents and changes
• Create opportunities to network with service delivery managers & customer. Reach out to keep communications flowing and create confidence in your service delivery thus driving a culture of visibility and involvement by choice.
• Work in partnership with Logicalis Account Teams and the customer in regularly reviewing customer service and defining/implementing service enhancement opportunities.
• Attend client service review meetings; areas covered will include performance reports, service improvements, quality and processes.
• Delivering on deadlines and promises/commitments and being very responsive to customer requests and concerns raised
• Taking ownership of queries and managing through to a prompt resolution
• Building and maintaining effective working relationships
• Gaining credibility and adding value from providing appropriate support

Continual Service Improvement & Modernisation

• Drive continuous improvement initiatives across operations
• Introduction of new ideas and service improvements to improve our Service Desk as a whole
• Utilizes customer satisfaction survey feedback, to drive service improvement activity
• Promote automation, monitoring, and tooling enhancements
• Reduce technical debt and operational inefficiencies
• Support digital transformation initiatives

What Success Looks Like

• Stable, reliable IT and OT service delivery supporting production and business objectives
• Highly motivated, skilled, and accountable operational teams
• Strong governance and vendor accountability for responsible areas
• Continuous improvement embedded in operations
• Trusted partnership with business and operational leadership
• Actively playing a role and ownership of initiatives (instead of being assigned tasks) and driving them through to implementation
• Transparency - actively communicating on your actions and deliverables thus demonstrating value add
• Position the Logicalis/customer relationship as a partnership, demonstrating an in-depth understanding of the business requirements and customer's expectations and taking ownership of customer operational issues through to resolution.
• Work as part of the operations teams to integrate new services & demonstrate ownership by playing an active role in the success of implementation by means of support to your team and raising any risks to the relevant forum and managing these by finding mitigations where possible

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

• Service availability and uptime across IT & OT systems
• Reduction in major incidents
• SLA and XLA compliance
• Mean Time to Restore (MTTR) SLA's
• Change success rate
• Vendor performance and compliance
• Operational cost optimization
• Stakeholder satisfaction
• Operational cost optimization

ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE / SKILLS:

• Strong leadership and decision-making skills
• Proven skills in people management of large teams
• Excellent stakeholder and vendor management relationship building
• Deep understanding of IT operations, ITSM, and ITIL practices
• Strategic thinking with operational execution capability
• Risk-based and compliance-oriented decision-making
• Excellent communication, report writing, and presentation skills
• Demonstrable experience of working in an IT Service Management capacity.
• 6 + years' experience in leading big IT Service Delivery teams. Thorough knowledge of the operations of remote support services in a centralized environment
• Must be a detail oriented, analytical and an independent thinker
• Understanding of Corporate IT Environments and their relationship to users of the IT Infrastructure.
• General awareness of developments in the IT industry.
• Demonstrable building/maintaining relationships at all levels
• Influencing & negotiation skills
• Excellent decision making/problem solving skills
• Ability to implement and manage change

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Preferable IT related Degree or Diploma or qualification by experience in similar role
• ITIL V3 or V4 certification and/or ITIL Specialisation
• 10+ years' experience in IT operations or IT service management
• Proven leadership in multi-team, multi-vendor environments
• Experience in industrial, mining, or safety-critical environments preferred
• Experience with ITSM tools such as ManageEngine