Applications Support Manager

Job Description

Practice Group / Department: IT Regional - Application Management - EMEA Job Description Were Norton Rose Fulbright - a global law firm with over 50 offices and 7,000 employees worldwide. We provide the world’s preeminent corporations and financial institutions with a full business law service. As well as the relevant skills and experience, werelooking for people who are innovative, commercial and value the work that they do. To attract the best people, we strive to create a diverse and inclusive environment where everyone can bring their whole selves to work, have a sense of belonging, and realizetheir full career potential. We value difference and actively promote a culture of respect for each individual, encouraging and creating inclusion. Our new hybrid working model allows our people to have more flexibility in the way they choose to work fromboth the office and a remote location, while continuing to deliver the highest standards of service. We offer a range of family friendly and inclusive employment policies and provide access to programmes and services aimed at nurturing our people’s healthand overall wellbeing. Our Newcastle office is currently recruiting for Application Support Manager. As well as the relevant skills and experience, were looking for people who are innovative, commercial and value the work that they do. We celebrate multiple approachesand points of view and believe diversity drives innovation, so were building a culture where difference is valued.The TeamThe Application Support team provides second and third-line support across the entire EMEA Application estate at Norton Rose Fulbright. The team reporting into the Application Support Manager is responsible for all aspects pertaining to maintenance of theestate from ticket resolution to upgrades and patching. Quality of service delivery & support is key, as is a knowledge of application development / integration and an appreciation of infrastructure design within a legal framework / architecture. Strong problem-solvingskills, team management / coordination, customer engagement and a pragmatic approach will be required to be successful in this role. This a permanent role, within an area that requires day to day leadership, coordination, and forward thinking.Key Responsibilities

• Managing/working within the team to provide second and third line support and resolution for incidents and problems within an ITIL framework.

• Own, escalate and manage incidents/tickets within the team and with suppliers or other internal teams (including building effective service relations with suppliers and the broader internal IT community).
• Provide an internal escalation point for application issues.
• Monitor and maintain data processing and data feeds between systems.
• Assess, change, and establish best practice within the teams support processes.
• Asset Ownership – Catalogue, remediation, and maintenance of the assets (Test and Production) at an application and application related O/S Patching.
• Work closely with Architecture to facilitate future roadmaps per application.
• Knowledge articles – Ensure knowledge and support articles are created and maintained.
• System Ownership – Act as the service owner for all defined applications within the team’s area of accountability.
• Be available for escalation related standby and manage the teams out of hours responsibilities.
• Change Management – Represent the area in CAB meetings, assessing impacts of changes whilst owning the approval process.
• Meaningful reporting on the state of the support tickets whilst establishing strategies/execution plans for ticket management.
• Resource management and team management – oversee and plan for uplift of team capacity through partners by representing the team during project portfolio planning. Manage core teams training schedule to ensure continuous development.
• Monitor and report on team and system performance feeding into capacity planning and application development.
• Arrange team into optimal areas of system specialisation, whilst maintaining a broad and sustainable level of knowledge across the team and all applications.
• Collaborate with the application development/integrations/data teams to ensure supportable solution delivery and quality assure systems as they move from development into test and live.
• Oversee and manage third party contracts of applications/services under the team’s remit
• Work as part of a team to deliver projects to improve systems manageability & supportability (in house & 3rd party) within the Change Management delivery process.
• Collaborate with the project delivery team to ensure adequate support models are in place for new applications or products delivered.
• Facilitate the creation of technical documentation and of hand-over for small development projects.
• Participate in DR invocation and testing and provide maintenance and monitoring of DR / BCP readiness.

Skills and Experience Required

Experience in managing, supporting, and maintaining enterprise applications with a good appreciation of applications design & development including database and infrastructure technologies

Excellent troubleshooting, problem solving & delivery skills coupled with a good understanding of ITIL support processes

Excellent track record of people and team management

Experience in implementing, customising, and supporting third party systems including managing suppliers to delivery

Awareness of structured development, analysis & project management methods (SDLC, Prince, DSDM, UML etc)

Experience in supporting a combination of legacy (on-site or Cloud (Azure)) and SaaS based solutions

Ability to proactively recommend and implement alternative working practices

The ability to learn and support current and new systems quickly and effectively.

Excellent written and verbal communication.

Proactive and Flexible, team player.

Ability to organise and plan work independently.

Ability to work in a rapidly changing environment

A proactive outlook to problem solving.

Ideally, experience of managing, supporting, and enhancing software solutions in the legal sector.Ideally, experience of managing and supporting key technologies and critical systems:

Corporate document management systems: iManage

Corporate workflow solutions: IntApp Open / Flow / Integration Builder

Corporate user domain management: Active Directory

Secure Client collaboration: HighQSecure file transference: Kitewo