Application Support Manager

Position Summary:

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced IT Application Support Manager to lead and manage our application support team. This role involves providing leadership in supporting enterprise applications, ensuring seamless service delivery, and optimizing application performance. The ideal candidate will be responsible for overseeing application support operations, collaborating with business units to align IT services with organizational needs, managing vendor relationships, and driving continuous improvements to ensure high availability, reliability, and security of applications.

The  Application Support Manager will work with the other leaders across the technology organization including Business Relationship Management (BRM), Infrastructure, Other Applications, Office of the CIO, Project Management, and Information Security in designing best practices, external 3rd party technical support partners and end users within the Ventura Foods organization.

The ideal candidate will have at least 5 - 7 years of experience and a proven track record that combines technical leadership with active participation in development and operational tasks.

Major Duties and Responsibilities:

• Team Leadership & Management: Lead and mentor the IT Application Support team, developing strategies, policies, and procedures that align with company objectives. Monitor team performance, set clear goals, and foster continuous improvement through regular evaluations and development initiatives. Help the team with priorities and remove roadblocks to make sure technical have sufficient testing coverage.
• Application Support & Performance: Oversee the support and maintenance of business-critical applications, ensuring timely resolution of issues, service optimization, and effective problem-solving. Coordinate with cross-functional teams to address application-related incidents and service requests. Solid understanding of incendent reporting principles and technologies and experience managing and supporting large scale implementations. Oversight of a variety of application support activities, including Tier 1 Support (Incidents, Escalation of Level 2/Level 3 support issues, Service Desk Operations, After-Hours Support and Disaster Recovery). 
• Collaboration with Business Units: Work closely with business units to understand their application needs and provide tailored IT solutions that enhance productivity. Act as a liaison between technical teams, Business Relationship Managers (BRMs), and business stakeholders to ensure alignment of IT services with organizational goals. Lead incident response efforts, including Root Cause Analysis (RCA), and implement post-incident solutions to prevent recurring problems.Collaborate with leadership to manage budgets, vendor relationships, compliance tasks, and other strategic responsibilities related to IT operations.
• Change & Release Management: Manage and enforce change management processes for application upgrades, patches, and new releases. Ensure adherence to governance standards, risk mitigation, and proper testing before production deployment. Maintain a service catalog with controlled versioning and manage emergency changes as needed. Continuously monitor metrics and leverage feedback to drive continuous improvement of service practices.
• Vendor & Third-Party Management: Oversee relationships with external vendors and service providers, ensuring SLAs and KPIs are met. Coordinate with third-party teams to resolve escalated issues and support the deployment of new application features. Metrics & Reporting: Utilize reporting tools and data analysis to track application performance, service delivery metrics, and incident trends. Develop and present regular reports to leadership, highlighting service achievements and areas for improvement.

Education and Experience:

• Education: B.S./B.A. in IT, Computer Science, Business, or related fields (or equivalent experience)
• Experience: 5+ years of experience in IT application support or service management, with 5+ years in a management role overseeing application support teams
• Certifications: ITIL v3/v4 Foundation or higher certification preferred
• Technical Skills: Proficient in supporting and troubleshooting enterprise applications, with strong knowledge of application performance monitoring and diagnostic tools
• Tools: Experience with ITSM tools (e.g., ServiceNow, Zendesk) and application monitoring platforms
• Vendor Management: Demonstrated ability to manage relationships with external vendors and third-party service providers
• Security Awareness: Knowledge of security protocols and experience ensuring application compliance with regulatory standards
• Process Improvement: Strong background in process improvement methodologies, including Change Management, Incident Management, and Problem Management
• 5+ years of experience in supporting enterprise systems like ERP, CRM, HCM etc.
• At least 3+ years of experience in Integrations with 3rd party providers using EDI

Knowledge and Skills:

• Project Management: Experience managing application support projects or upgrades, including overseeing timelines, budgets, and stakeholder communication.
• Cloud Platforms & SaaS: Familiarity with cloud-based applications and SaaS platforms, including AWS, Azure, or similar technologies.
• Performance Metrics & Reporting: Ability to develop and implement comprehensive reporting dashboards and tools to monitor application performance and service delivery.
• Global Experience: Experience managing application support teams across multiple regions or time zones, including outsourcing or offshoring models         
• Business knowledge both verbally and in writing, strong time and work management skills and the ability to resolve critical project issues 
• Strong problem-solving skills with attention to detail.
• Manage daily, weekly communication on testing status to internal and external project stakeholders
• Experience in project planning and control with strong planning and organizational skills
• Must work well under pressure, meeting multiple and sometimes conflicting deadlines. 
• Motivational and dynamic leader, driven individual, strong work ethic 
• Thorough knowledge of and understanding business principles and business processes
• Excellent interpersonal skills at all levels
• Ability to effectively work with the IT management team towards the common goals of the department
• Excellent understanding of Enterprise Systems and experience providing production support for ERP (Oracle, JDE etc.), Trade Promotion Systems, CRM (SalesForce), HCM (SuccessFactors, Oracle HCM etc.)
• Must have experience and expertise with EDI Transactions. Ability to monitor and support with sense of urgency is critical.
• Knowledge of legacy AS400, JDE ERP is desired.