The Head of Application Operations is responsible for the day-to-day stability, support, and continuous service improvement of enterprise business applications across all domains ERP, Upstream, Downstream, Corporate Functions, and Platforms. This role ensures the effective execution of ITIL-based application service operations processes, focusing on incident resolution, service availability, change execution, and application monitoring.
Bapco Energies operates a portfolio spanning the entire energy value chain in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The portfolio includes wholly-owned subsidiaries and specialized operating companies. Together, these companies drive Bapco Energies' mission to power the next generation.
Responsibilities:
Key Result Areas:
1. Application Support Management: Oversee L2/L3 support activities for all business applications, ensuring timely incident resolution, service requests handling, and application availability.
2. Incident & Problem Management: Lead the triage, resolution, root cause analysis, and documentation of application incidents and recurring problems.
3. Change and Release Support: Execute production changes in line with ITIL controls, minimizing risk and ensuring change traceability and rollback plans.
4. Knowledge Management: Maintain operational documentation, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and knowledge base entries for supported systems.
5. Business Communication: Coordinate with business stakeholders on application service updates, planned outages, and escalated incidents.
6. Collaboration with Development Teams: Provide operational inputs during development lifecycle and receive handover of newly released systems.
7. Escalation Management & Vendor Coordination: Manage escalation paths with third-party vendors and ensure adherence to support SLAs.
8. Continuous Service Improvement: Identify recurring issues and lead initiatives to improve system reliability and user satisfaction.
9. Team Management: Lead and mentor application support specialists, scheduling coverage, and developing operational capabilities.
Qualifications:
Knowledge Skills and Experience:
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field.
• 7+ years of total work experience in enterprise IT environments with at least 5 years in a lead or senior role in application support operations.
• Certifications: ITIL 4 Managing Professional, SAP/Oracle application certifications, Microsoft Azure/AWS/Oracle Cloud.
• Strong knowledge of the ITIL service operations framework (incident, problem, change, release).
• Extensive hands-on experience with ERP systems (e.g. SAP or Oracle) supporting finance, HR, procurement, supply chain, and plant/asset management functions.
• Experience with application monitoring and performance management tools (e.g., Dynatrace, AppDynamics, New Relic), including proactive performance tuning for business-critical operations.