Application Support Analyst at Absa Group

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time.   With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.   My Career Development Portal: Wherever you are in your career, we are here for you. Design your future. Discover leading-edge guidance, tools and support to unlock your potential. You are Absa. You are possibility.     Job Summary • To manage the implementation, maintenance, and enhancement of all Applications systems to enable the use of appropriate platform technology, as an integral and reliable component of business process within country. • Drive convergence of technologies, ensure delivery of technology projects associated with Applications and liaise and negotiate with internal customers and technology vendors. • He/she will have a mentality of continuous improvement and strong analytical and interpersonal skills. He/she will enjoy working in a delivery focused, agile environment. • It is a standalone role, which entails having the maturity to work independently on a day-to-day basis and have the wisdom to know when to collaborate, delegate and/or escalate.     Job Description     Accountability:  Service Application availability: – (60%)   Outputs: The prime responsibility is for maintaining the availability and reliability of applications to ensure that IT can effectively meet service targets in accordance with planned business objectives.   Key Activities: ·       Provide a range of application availability reporting to ensure that agreed levels of availability, reliability and maintainability are measured and monitored on an ongoing basis ·       Successfully facilitate delivery of changes to reports needed by the business and ensure that reports and their dependencies are made available for the business. ·       Provide holistic support of application availability to Business Users ·       Take actions to achieve reductions in frequency and duration of incidents that impact application availability ·       Ensure shortfalls in application availability are recognized and appropriate corrective actions are identified and progressed ·       Take action on agreed appropriate actions with Line Management to maintain or improve application availability levels ·       Initiate and coordinate actions required to maintain or improve availability of applications ·       Act as a coordination point for changes to applications when needed ·       Maintain an awareness of technology advancements and best practices that support application availability Accountability: Test Management (15%) Outputs: Responsibility is to ensure that proper testing occurs for all Application changes released into the production environments as assigned to you by Line Management.   ·       Work closely with Release Analysts ·       Review releases and assign appropriate release testing tasks ·       Compile and review the Testing Deliverables ·       Conduct installation procedure tests ·       Participate in functional, performance, and integration testing results ·       Coordinate user acceptance testing ·       Coordinate back out testing ·       Conduct supporting documentation review ·       Compile test results ·       Conduct release test review ·       Coordinate post release testing ·       Validate and communicate results of testing activities Accountability:  Risk Management and Building a Performance Focused Culture (15%) Outputs: ·       Build relationship with country IT Risk and Governance team and provide support wherever required. ·       Contribute and deliver to the improvement of the risk profile by delivering improved governance, risk management, controls and compliance requirements. ·       Work with delivery teams throughout lifecycle of programs to ensure that the right KPIs and targets have been set. ·       Making sure that a focus on outcomes and performance are integrated into everything we do. ·       Participate in meetings, present information on program/project status. ·       Support team members and work collaboratively to achieve business outcomes. ·       Complete work tasks to agreed budgets, timeframes, and standards. ·       Take the initiative to progress and deliver own and team/unit work. ·       Contribute to allocation of responsibilities and resources to ensure achievement of team/unit goals.       Accountability: People Management: – (10%) Outputs:   ·       Responsible for driving own Performance Development, collating relevant documentation, preparing for and arranging reviews. ·       By utilizing skills matrix, identify training and development requirements, formulating own plan to be agreed with team leader. Responsible for ensuring own plan is completed within agreed timescales. ·       Undertake all necessary training in order to perform the role to the required standards, including gaining accreditation where appropriate. ·       Pursue your own development to increase personal effectiveness, acknowledging strengths and areas of development.   Risk and Control Objective   Ensure that all activities and duties are carried out in full compliance with regulatory requirements, Absa Operational Risk Framework and internal Absa Policies and Policy Standards Understand and manage risks and risk events (incidents) relevant to the role.   Our champion for data-driven decision making and high-quality reporting, building a performance focused culture through collaboration and passion in bringing our KPIs to life.   Education   Further Education and Training Certificate (FETC): Physical, Mathematical, Computer and Life Sciences (Required)