Cloud Services Delivery Manager

Role: Cloud Services Delivery Manager

SAS Job Family: Information Technology (IT), Cloud Services

Are you a problem solver, explorer, and knowledge seeker – always asking, “What if?” 

If so, then you may be the new team member we’re looking for. Because at SAS, your curiosity matters – whether you’re developing algorithms, creating customer experiences or answering critical questions. Curiosity is our code, and the opportunities here are endless. 

What we do  

We’re the leader in analytics. Through our software and services, we inspire customers around the world to transform data into intelligence. Our curiosity fuels innovation, pushing boundaries, challenging the status quo, and changing the way we live. 

 About the job

We’re looking for a Cloud Service Delivery Manager (CSDM), which is part of a team of specialized SAS Cloud professionals who work with customers to ensure that the SAS solutions and services meet and evolve with their business needs. CSDMs possess knowledge of the unique technical environments, industry best practices, current and future SAS solutions and work closely with an extended network of SAS professionals in Product Management, Research and Development, Technical Support, SAS Cloud, and Professional Services in support of their customers. CSDMs own SAS Cloud Customer Experience and are responsible for ensuring that customers can achieve their desired business outcomes from their SAS investment.

As a CSDM, Primary Responsibilities:

Cloud Services Delivery Manager owns operational outcomes from handoff through steady‑state service and is the customer’s primary contact and trusted advisor at SAS. They ensure reliable and secure operations, consistent Service Level Agreement performance, proactive management of risk and service lifecycle activities, and sustained value from Managed Cloud Services. Success for an MCS Cloud Services Delivery Manager is defined by stable operations, proactive lifecycle governance, trusted customer relationships, and effective coordination across SAS teams to deliver long‑term customer value. 

• Ensures excellent service by establishing strong, long-lasting customer relationships built on trust and transparency.

• Champions and advocates for the customer experience (voice of the customer).

• Ensures timely delivery of customer ecosystems by effectively driving delivery projects.

• Validates and confirms customer requirements and prerequisites for cloud services.

• Leads and/- or coordinates customer facing engagements via project planning, resourcing, staffing, progress reporting, troubleshooting, and critical task management.

• Communicate and tracks regularly on the status of project goals by ensuring project results meet requirements regarding quality, reliability, schedule, and cost. 

• Report on progress of projects to all stakeholders by presenting reports defining project progress, problems, and solutions.

• Successfully manage relationships with the client and all stakeholders. Establishes and maintains relationships with third parties/ vendors.

• Validates and confirms customer requirements and prerequisites for cloud services.

• Accountable for customer Service Level Agreements, including critical situation management which may occur outside of normal business hours.

• Manages a highly complex and varied portfolio of solutions and managed application services that may have a global footprint and require engagement outside of normal business hours.

• Conducts regular managed application service health checkpoints with the customer to ensure that customers are achieving their desired outcomes.

• Proactively provides attention and escalation for urgent issues or concerns during the customer lifecycle with SAS.

• Provides expertise and may be certified in ITSM processes to manage customer service delivery and support.

• Applies critical thinking on service issues to drive issue resolution, ensuring root cause analysis and corrective action are taken with the appropriate teams.

• Accountable for contractual budget management, ensuring profitability.

• Provides real-time management of assigned enterprise accounts to ensure customers can meet their business goals by leveraging SAS technologies and managed application services.

• Accountable for customer Service Level Agreements, including critical situation management which may occur outside of normal business hours.

• Manages a highly complex and varied portfolio of solutions and managed application services that may have a global footprint and require engagement outside of normal business hours.

• Conducts regular managed application service health checkpoints with the customer to ensure that customers are achieving their desired outcomes.

• Provides relevant input and feedback about products, performance, costs and customer experience on a regular basis to ensure continual service improvement and to inform renewal contracts.

• Identifies and implements process improvements based on a data driven approach.

• Tracks all outstanding customer pre and post-delivery issues and provides status updates to clients as necessary.

• Communicates with internal stakeholders creating awareness and visibility into issues impacting customer health.

• Ensures all applicable security policies and processes are followed to support the organization's secure software development goals.

• Embrace curiosity, passion, authenticity and accountability. These are our values and influence everything we do.

Client Specific Responsibilities – Mandatory:

• Availability for Weekly Change Window (Green zone) support/execution of Changes.

• Scope: Dev/UAT and COB-Disaster Recovery during Thursday-Friday.

• Thursday - Change window scope/plan review.

• Green zones change implementation with team.

• Documentation update on Jira and Confluence.

• Incident or change work for customer that does not require green zone. 

• Working Hours - US EST Time zone – 8 AM to 4 PM – (IST – 5.30 PM to 1.30 AM)

• Day light saving Changes to be observed as required.

• On call availability for weekends and public holidays.

Additional Responsibilities:

• Serves as the Cloud Service contact for multiple, concurrent, customer projects for various solutions.

• Provides input into the design and documentation of internal processes.

• Facilitates complex meetings with a broad range of customers, internal teams, and/or industry personnel.

• Prevents issues before they arise with proactive planning and regularly scheduled cloud service reviews.

• Anticipates areas of conflict, proactively manages customer to prevent or minimize escalations.

• Engages with customers to capture and document customer success criteria.

• Facilitates cross functional/divisional initiatives for continual service improvement

• Build relationships with clients that characterize partnership, cooperation and trust.

What we’re looking for:

• Bachelor's degree in a business, technical certification(s), marketing, or computer science-related field.

• Overall 10+ Years of Consulting, project management, account experience.

• Typically requires at least five years (5+ years) of service account management, customer success management, project management, consulting, or related role experience. Experience in at least one vertical market preferred

• Experience as a Cloud Services Delivery Manager role.

• Serves as the Cloud Service contact for multiple, concurrent, customer projects for various solutions.

• Facilitates complex meetings with a broad range of customers, internal teams, and/or industry personnel.

• Prevents issues before they arise with proactive planning and regularly scheduled cloud service reviews.

• Engages with customers to capture and document customer success criteria.

• Ability to work flexible business hours (especially EST hours) as required by global customer / business needs.

• Able to meet the associated challenges of different cultures, work practices and time zones.

Additional Skills and Abilities:

• Excellent communication skills

• Ability to work well under pressure

• Ability to establish and maintain strong customer relationships

• Ability to work independently and as part of a team

• Aptitude to learn and understand technical concepts, structures, requirements, environments, etc.

• Understanding of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) processes and principles

• Aptitude to learn and understand Extract, Transfer, Load (ETL) methodologies

• Experience with managing budgets and profitability margins.

• Skill in developing, tracking, and presenting customer experience metrics up to executive levels

• Excellent problem solving, organizational, decision-making written, oral and interpersonal skills

• Ability to conceptualize client needs and translate into specific activities and requirements

• Ability to plan and manage work effectively

• Ability to interpret and manage contractual terms and conditions to include change management

• Clear understanding of service models and strategies

• Negotiation skills to manage customer interactions

• Ability to effectively communicate with and present to C-level executives

• Understanding of managed service delivery models, SAS products, and applicable industry/verticals

• Demonstrated ability to influence, collaborate, and direct the work of other functional teams across organizational boundaries

• Ability to drive and lead team/service change

• Ability to communicate with global peers and management in a clear, straightforward and effective way.

• Travel as business needs dictate (up to 25%).

Preferences:

• Exceptional in managing Customer expectations, stable operations, proactive lifecycle governance, trusted customer relationships, and effective coordination across SAS teams to deliver long‑term customer value.

• Current PMP certification.

Equivalency:

• Equivalent combination of education, training, and relevant experience may be considered in place of the requirements stated above.

• The level of this position will be determined based on the applicant's education, skills and experience.

Why SAS

• We’re the leader in analytics. Through our software and services, we inspire customers around the world to transform data into intelligence. Our curiosity fuels innovation, pushing boundaries, challenging the status quo and changing the way we live. 

• We love living the #saslife and believe that happy, healthy people have a passion for life and bring that energy to work. No matter what your specialty or where you are in the world, your unique contributions will make a difference.   Our multi-dimensional culture blends our different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Here, it isn’t about fitting into our culture, it’s about adding to it - and we can’t wait to see what you’ll bring.

• SAS looks not only for the right skills, but also for a cultural fit. We seek colleagues who will contribute to the unique culture that makes SAS such a great place to work. We look for the total candidate: technical skills, culture fit, relationship skills, problem solvers, good communicators and, of course, innovators. Candidates must be ready to make an impact.