Head of Product Support

The Head of Product Support will establish and lead a global, standardised Product Support function within Enterprise IT, consolidating currently fragmented application support teams into a single accountable capability. This function will act as the first point of engagement for all product-related incidents and requests, ensuring effective triage, resolution, and routing across Product Support, Service Operations, and Product Engineering.

The role is critical to closing a structural gap in application-layer accountability, improving service clarity, and enabling a scalable, efficient global support model aligned to Enterprise IT strategy.

Operating Model Positioning

Product Support = First-line for application issues (incidents & requests)
Service Desk (Service Operations) = first-line for end-user IT issues
Service Operations = owns major incident management and infrastructure/platform recovery
Product Teams = own restoration of applications into functioning business services
Product Support = triage, coordination, and resolution at application layer (not engineering ownership)

1. Establish and Lead the Product Support Function
Consolidate all LoB application support teams into Enterprise IT
Build a globally consistent operating model across regions and divisions
Define roles, capability expectations, and team structures Lead a follow-the-sun support model (location strategy to be defined separately)

2. Own Application-Layer Triage and Routing
Ensure all product incidents and requests are routed through Product Support as the single entry point for applications
Drive consistent triage outcomes: o Resolved within Product Support o Escalated to Service Operations (infrastructure/platform) o Escalated to Product Engineering (defects / change backlog) Ensure high-quality classification of issues to reduce misrouting and delays

3. Standardise Processes, Tooling, and Ways of Working
Define and enforce standard triage, escalation, and problem management processes
Align all workflows to ServiceNow as the enterprise ITSM platform
Eliminate fragmented tooling and inconsistent practices across divisions
Establish standard: o SLAs and OLAs o Ticket taxonomy and categorisation o Knowledge capture and reuse

4. Drive End-to-End Visibility of Product Stability
Implement reporting across the full product support lifecycle: o Incident volumes and trends o Recurring defects and technical debt o Product-level stability and reliability o Recurring incident patterns and operational risks
Provide Enterprise IT leadership with clear insight into application health service stability, recurring incidents trends, and systemic issues

5. Enable Continuous Improvement via Product Feedback Loops
Ensure all recurring and material issues are translated into: o Product backlog items o Problem records and root cause analysis
Work with Product Teams to: o Reduce incident demand o Eliminate recurring defects o Improve product stability and service reliability
Drive shift from incident resolution → issue prevention

6. Lead Transformation and Optimisation
Assess existing teams across capability, scale, and duplication
Support identification of shadow IT operations and bring into scope of transformation and optimisation
Define and execute a future-state Product Support strategy, including: o Standardisation of roles and processes o Tooling convergence o Organisational optimisation o Automation and self-serve reduction
Deliver measurable improvements in: o Cost efficiency o Service quality o Scalability
Develop high-levels of automation to accelerate resolution times and reduce dependency on manual effort.
Develop and promote self-service capabilities for known incidents and requests.
Assess and plan the integration impact of M&A activity on Product Support capabilities, ensuring rapid alignment to the target operating model without service disruption.

7. Stakeholder and Executive Leadership
Act as a senior interface to: o Divisional CIOs o Business leadership o Product and Engineering teams
Manage transition to centralised model while maintaining business confidence and service continuity
Enforce standards with authority, in collaboration with Enterprise IT leadership

Essential

Proven leadership of application / product support at scale (multi-region preferred)
Strong understanding of: o Incident, request, and problem management (ITIL-aligned) o Triage models and escalation frameworks
Experience standardising fragmented support models across multiple teams
Experience implementing or operating ServiceNow (or equivalent ITSM platform)
Strong stakeholder management at senior and executive level Demonstrated ability to lead organisational consolidation and transformation

Desirable

Experience across both: o Infrastructure / Service Operations o Product / application support or engineering
Experience in federated organisations moving to centralised models
Exposure to global operating models and cost optimisation initiatives Leadership Profile
Strong ownership of end-to-end application service outcomes
Comfortable enforcing standards across diverse teams and regions Pragmatic and execution-focused (not theoretical transformation)
Data-driven, with focus on measurable improvement
High credibility across both technical and business stakeholders

Success Measures (Indicative KPIs)

% of product support teams consolidated under Enterprise IT
Reduction in duplicated tooling and processes
Improvement in: o First-time fix rate o SLA adherence o Time to triage and correct routing
Reduction in recurring incidents Improved product stability and up-time.
Increased visibility of product-level performance
Contribution to overall cost-to-serve reduction
% of automated (including self-service) incidents and requests
End user and business satisfaction, including CSAT