Service Management Manager

**FUNCTION**

**The Service Management Manager ensures effective delivery, assurance, and end-to-end lifecycle management of Vodacom Business services across diverse technologies and customer segments. This role leads a team of Service Managers to achieve operational excellence, meet or exceed SLA commitments, and deliver superior customer experience. All activities are executed in alignment with telecommunications industry standards and best practices, including ITIL, eTOM, and TM Forum frameworks.**

**ROLE OVERVIEW**

The Service Management Manager is responsible for leading a team of Service Managers to deliver best-in-class service performance, customer experience, and operational excellence across Vodacom Business. The role ensures that services are provisioned, assured, and managed in line with contractual SLAs and telecom industry standards. While programme management skills are required, they are applied primarily to support service readiness, continuous improvement, and transformation initiatives. The focus is on ensuring customers receive reliable, high-quality services while driving operational efficiency and retention.

**KEY RESPONSIBILITIES** People Leadership & Team Development**
- Lead, coach, and develop a team of Service Managers to deliver outstanding performance.
- Build a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation, and customer obsession.
- Ensure workforce capability development in line with emerging telecom technologies, digital transformation trends, and AI-driven service management frameworks.
- Champion continuous learning and adoption of automation, analytics, and digital tools to enhance service operations and decision-making.

**Service Delivery & Assurance**
- Oversee end-to-end service delivery and assurance for Vodacom Business customers across multiple technologies (fibre, SD-WAN, MPLS, LTE, Internet, mobile, cloud, and converged services).
- Ensure SLA compliance and manage proactive service assurance, incident, problem, and change processes in line with ITIL and eTOM standards.
- Oversee root cause analysis and implementation of corrective and preventative measures to ensure high service availability and reliability.
- Ensure seamless service activation, handover, and lifecycle management across OSS/BSS systems.
- Leverage AI, automation, and predictive analytics to enhance monitoring, fault detection, and service restoration efficiency.

**Customer Experience & Relationship Management**
- Act as senior escalation point for service-related issues and customer concerns.
- Drive continuous improvement of customer experience metrics (NPS, surveys, churn drivers) through data-driven insights and process enhancements.
- Engage regularly with enterprise customers, sales teams, vendors, and partners to strengthen trust, manage expectations, and ensure service excellence.
- Promote digital engagement and self-service capabilitiesto improve responsiveness and customer satisfaction.

**Operational & Strategic Accountability**
- Align service management practices with business objectives, regulatory obligations, and customer commitments.
- Provide service performance reporting and insights to senior stakeholders, highlighting SLA compliance, risks, and trends.
- Manage vendor and partner performance to ensure contractual and service obligations are consistently met.
- Drive service improvement and digital transformation initiatives to enhance operational efficiency, agility, and customer outcomes.
- Integrate AI-driven insights and automation into operational decision-making and service optimization strategies.

**Programme & Change Enablement**
- Support service-related programmes, including new service introductions, migrations, and operational readiness.
- Ensure programme outcomes are integrated into ongoing service delivery operations.
- Champion technology transformation programmes leveraging AI, automation, and digital platforms to modernize service management and enable smarter operations.

**PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCIES**
- Deep expertise in service provisioning, activation, assurance, and lifecycle management, with a focus on automation and digital optimisation.
- Strong knowledge of SLA compliance, penalty mitigation, and service quality frameworks, supported by data analytics and AI-driven insights.
- Hands-on experience with observability, incident, problem, and change management (aligned to ITIL/eTOM), including the use of predictive analytics and AIOps platforms for proactive assurance.
- Solid understanding of IP networking, fibre, SD-WAN, MPLS, LTE, Internet, and mobile solutions, and how these integrate within digital and cloud ecosystems.
- Awareness of emerging technologies such as cloud, IoT, edge computing, AI, and converged services, and their evolving service and commercial models.
- Familiarity with OSS/BSS systems and digital enablement platforms, including the use of automation and data intelligence to enhance service delivery.
- Skilled at managing