Location: London/ Hybrid
Salary: £55,000
About the role
The Application Specialist will work as part of the Application Services team, which is a newly created function within the IT Operations team this year. This team is responsible for managing third party applications including supplier management, incident and problem management of application issues, updates/upgrades/patching/configuration changes, version control, licence, budget management, and the evaluation and selection of new applications and suppliers through an appropriate procurement process (e.g. RFI/RFP).
The Application Specialist will assist with supporting, maintaining, and optimising all third-party software applications used by the organisation. This role involves troubleshooting issues, providing user support, and ensuring applications meet the requirements of the business teams.
They will be expected to build relationships with internal and external stakeholders, have some exposure to insurance industry applications - ideally within the London Market - and a technical background, being able to recreate issues, create documentation, configure applications and have some exposure to SQL.
The Application Specialist will act as an escalation point for the service desk in relation to incidents and requests and will be responsible for working with the third-party support and the Business IT team to a successful resolution. They will also assist the service desk with fulfilling service requests, and other incidents as required.
As an Application Specialist, your key responsibilities will involve
- Liaising with business users to understand, troubleshoot and resolve second line IT related incidents and services relating to applications.
- Analyse the impact of issues on business processes to support issue triaging and escalation.
- Liaise with software vendors for advanced troubleshooting and support.
- Working with the Application Services Manager, monitor and report on 3rd party SLAs or service-related contract terms to support the development and measurement of KPIs to appropriately summarise supplier performance.
- Work with the Service Desk team to provide clear and effective communication to the business team(s) about issues/upcoming changes.
- Contributing information to the team about known errors and workarounds relating to incidents and problems.
- Establish strong business and supplier relationships to drive application and business change to maximise benefit and improve processes.
- Assist in all aspects of application changes and fixes, from scope design, testing and release to production.
- Provide guidance and consultation on applications and related services to other departments, this may include reviewing/creating system documentation feasibility, design, testing, licensing, and implementation.
- Work in a proactive way to improve the IT processes, including escalating any problems to your manager.
- Work alongside other areas of IT to ensure collaboration, knowledge share and standardisation.
- Undertake any other related duties as may be reasonably required.
- Minimum of 3-5 years of experience in software application support or a similar role.
- Insurance experience (London Market) strongly preferred.
- Microsoft Office Suite and Windows knowledge.
- Experience of Incident Management, Service Transition, Change & Problem Management, with Vendor Management preferred.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, comfortable communicating across all levels of the organisation and able to translate technical resolutions to the business.
- Excellent customer service and business stakeholder management skills.
- Extensive experience utilising service desk tools to track issues/problems/etc.
- Ability to produce and maintain necessary documentation.
- Possess strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to work within a team or on their own initiative.
- Deal competently with pressure and able to prioritise workloads.
- Desirable:
- Proficiency in SQL
- Understanding of software development processes
- Experience in administering or managing SharePoint
- ITIL v3 or v4 qualification
- Any other relevant professional qualification
- Working for a regulated Company, you will be expected to perform your duties to the highest of standards, in accordance with the following Conduct Rules as specified by the FCA:
- You must act with integrity;
- You must act with due care, skill and diligence;
- You must be open and co-operative with the FCA, PRA and other regulators.