Service Delivery Manager

Job description

Location: Templecombe, United Kingdom

Thales people provide armed forces customers with operational advantage at every decisive moment throughout the mission. Defence and armed forces customers rely on us to deliver the full range of defence mission systems solutions at land, sea, and air. Our platforms extend across the battlespace including Above and Sonar, Electronic Combat, and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems.

Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us. At Thales UK, we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across five major industries; Aerospace, Defence, Ground Transportation, Security and Space. Your health and well-being matters to us and that's why we offer you the flexibility to do what's important to you; whether that's part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

Primary Purpose Of The Role :

The Service Delivery Manager (SDM) will be responsible for the successful project management execution of a number of Services contracts within the UWS Services Portfolio.

The SDM will play a critical role in the successful delivery performance of our services contracts through planning, executing, monitoring and controlling all aspects of the projects.

The SDM is accountable for the entire project scope, the project team and resources, the project budget, and the success or failure of the project. To succeed in their role, project managers must be adept at coordinating resources, managing budgets, measuring and tracking project progress, and communicating with team members and stakeholders. They also assess risks and resolve any issues that arise throughout a project's life cycle, often being called on to make difficult decisions regarding complex and competing priorities in an effort to achieve desired project outcomes. The

The successful candidate will have core experience in the execution of complex projects, ideally within military service contracts.

Key Responsibilities And Tasks:

• Take ownership for all aspects of the service defined against the contracted scope of work
• Accountable for the project delivery and its associated performance
• Deliver all project reporting aspects both internally and externally
• Own the project performance through on time delivery, achievement of customer performance, quality aspects and financial controls
• Demonstrate careful control and management of all financial aspects against resource labour and material requirements
• Execute project leadership and guidance to the project team to ensure successful delivery
• Own the project delivery dashboard and its associated metrics
• Execute performance against multi projects
• Understand the project complexity and implement plans to overcome issues
• Ownership for the successful delivery of all Service Level Agreement (SLA) and or Key Performance Indicators (KPI's)
• Maintain high levels of customer satisfaction in line with high customer demands and expectations
• Identify, Report and Manage all project risks and assigned mitigation plans
• Identify routes to optimise the delivery and performance of the projects identified through opportunities
• Execute where necessary lessons learnt activities
• Interact with multifunctional stakeholders both internally and externally
• Manage resources to ensure contract performance and escalate as needed
• Manage complexity of engineering related tasks and resourcing requirements
• Provide support and advise to all commercial related aspects
• Work with procurement and the supply chain to manage appropriate tasks
• Correlate, engage and support quality requirements defined by the quality team, Chorus 2 and our customer
• Manage and correct issues, and/or escalate them accordingly
• Provide support to bids, RFQ's and future prospects
• Create and maintain all required project plans in line with customer and Chorus 2 requirements
• Provide support to customer and internal audits
• Execute project tasks related to project management and SDM duties
• Understand, manage and maintain project activities in line with Chorus 2 requirements
• Ensure appropriate H&S aspects are understood and managed accordingly
• Monitor, track and achieve financial targets against MYB and Year end

Important Working Relationships:

• Core engagement with project delivery team and the Project Management Office
• Regular engagement with both internal and external stakeholders
• Manage the customer relationship to deliver contract performance when both positive and negative
• Escalate to the leadership team where help and support is required
• Present project performance both internally and externally
• Work across multiple functions

Supervision of People:

• This role has no direct Supervisory role

• The job also entails directing people working on the Project in their day to day activities
• Leading and mentoring the team to execute the project performance and Thales expected behaviours

About you:

Knowledge, Skills and Experience Required:

The successful candidate will have core experience in the execution of complex projects, ideally within military service contracts. A strong candidate should be able to demonstrate;

• Execute an In depth understanding of Project management principles and ideally APMP qualifications
• Experience in managing project complexity
• Strong business finance knowledge including being able to understand detailed project finance reports
• Demonstrate a good understanding of risk and opportunity management and execution
• Previous experience of managing project finances including active risk and opportunity management
• Demonstrate achieving customer performance and capturing feedback to execute improvements
• Demonstrate leadership behaviours to recover poor performing projects (quality, cost, schedule)
• Experience in understanding resourcing and schedule planning through tools such as Oracle and Primavera
• The ability to lead a successful team and manage resources and changes accordingly
• A strong ability to multitask whist under pressure
• Good experience in working with or within bids, RFQ's and SOW's
• Spot warning signs of things going wrong and provide a decisive response to significant delivery challenges
• Make clear, pragmatic and manageable plans for service / programme delivery using programme and project management disciplines
• Exemplify positive customer service behaviours and promote a culture focused on ensuring customer needs are met
• Establish how the business area compares to customer service expectations and industry best practice and identify necessary improvements in plans
• Review, challenge and adjust performance levels to ensure quality outcomes are delivered on time
• Deliver strong and efficient performance in difficult and challenging circumstances, encouraging others to do the same
• Be visible to staff and stakeholders and regularly undertake activities to engage and build trust with people involved in area of work
• Confidently engage with stakeholders and colleagues at all levels to generate commitment to goals
• Experience of working with defence organisations or military customers would be advantageous
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to work with people at all levels
• Ability to work well within a team environment and across international borders
• Broad commercial and financial awareness
• Able to operate effectively under project constraints and pressure and able to display sound judgement at all times
• Strong customer focus with the ability to build relationships
• Able to use initiative to solve problems as they arise and make difficult decisions when necessary
• Degree level qualification or equivalent qualification/experience in a technical or business subject
• Responsible for understanding project complexity and the ability to manage and escalate to resolve
• Managing multiple projects with different customers, project requirements and contract performance
• Careful management of workload, team priorities to deliver the service required

Values And Behaviours:

Meet the Thales LR grade leadership behaviour competency frame work:

• Think big:
  • Imagine the future
    • Sees ahead
    • Supports innovation
    • Deals with complexity
  • Inspires to engage
    • Shares compelling vision
    • Leads with integrity
    • Engages stakeholders
• Make it happen
  • Deliver user-centric solutions
    • Ensures accountability
    • Creates customer intimacy
    • Builds trust
  • Acts with agility
    • Challenges the status quo
    • Takes smart risks
    • Fosters continuous improvement
• Together
  • Grow others and self
    • Demonstrates self-awareness
    • Invests in the development of others
    • Encourages a culture of feedback
  • Includes others
    • Embraces diversity
    • Trusts and empowers
    • Promotes collaboration

• Must be detailed orientated and have a passion for achieving success
• A strong drive, energy, agility and resilience in achieving work-related goals
• The ability to travel to achieve project and customer performance (Expected 10% travel)

#LI-BA1

In line with Thales' Baseline Security requirements, candidates will be asked to provide evidence of identity, eligibility to work in the UK and employment and/or education history for up to three years. Some vacancies may require full Security Clearance which can require further evidence to be provided. For further details of the evidence required to apply for Baseline and Security Clearance please refer to the Defence Business Services National Security Vetting (DBS NSV) Agency.

At Thales we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working.

Thales UK is committed to providing an inclusive and barrier-free recruitment process. We will provide reasonable adjustments and support to ensure neuro-diverse applicants or those with a disability or long-term condition can be their best during the recruitment process. To request an adjustment, if you need this job advert in an alternative format or if you have any questions about the recruitment process, please contact Resourcing Ops for mid to senior roles, or the Early Careers Team for graduate and apprentice roles.

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