Application Support Analyst – Business and Data Support recruitment

Job Specification

Job Reference:

 

Business Group:

Application Support, Group IT Production

Location:

London - UK

Job Title:

Application Support Analyst – Business and Data Support  

Company Overview

Schroders is a global asset management company with £201.4 billion under management as at 31 March 2011. Our clients are major financial institutions including pension funds, banks and insurance companies, local and public authorities, governments, charities, high net worth individuals and retail investors.

We apply our specialist asset management skills in serving the needs of our clients worldwide. With one of the largest networks of offices of any dedicated asset management company, we employ over 2,500 people globally, 1,500 of whom are based in London.

With over 300 portfolio managers and analysts covering all the major investment markets, we offer our clients a comprehensive range of products and services.

Further information about Schroders can be found at www.schroders.com or on Schroders Talking Point http://talkingpoint.brighttalk.com/

Job Summary:

Required is a focused support professional with experience working with SQL Server and Oracle Databases in a financial institution. The primary responsibility of the application support analyst role is to maintain and support the business day applications across Trade management, Data Services, Finance and Reporting systems, therefore prior experience of the asset management sector is highly desirable. The successful applicant will be part of the Business and Data Support Team within Schroders and will initially focus on integration into the existing support model.  

The principle objectives of the Business and Data Support function are to:

The scope of the role includes

 

Key Responsibilities:

Reporting to the ‘Business and Data Support Team’ Leader within the IT Application Support function, the individual selected will, along with a team of Application Support Analysts, be responsible for all the business day applications that run across the Schroders platforms including Oracle, SQL Server, Business Objects and Third Party vendor applications.

Key areas of responsibility are:

• Proactive monitoring and management of business critical 24x7 real-time, legacy application, data handling and data delivery infrastructure to identify issues, trends and potential problem areas. Where required to rectify issues in a timeless fashion in order to restore application functionality.

• Application responsibilities will cover Application Infrastructure, Data Fixes, User Queries, User Education, Data Requests, Data Analysis and Incident Investigation.

• Focus on Data Quality and Business Functions. This will require a full understanding of the data flows in the relevant applications.

• Ensuring that incidents are correctly processed, assessing business and technical impact and severity.

• Interact with IT Delivery, Technical Support and IT Business Consultancy and external 3rd party vendors to trouble shoot and resolve complex technical and business data related problems.

• Taking ownership of 3rd line application incidents and ensuring that they are resolved, this includes retaining ownership of incidents that require IT Change activity to resolve.

• Working with the Support Team Leads and Support Manager, contribute to the continuous support improvement process.

• Creation of training and support packs for use within the team, documentation in the IT Wiki and known issues database.

• Implementation of Application configuration settings onto the Production environment.

• Support the existing reports and where necessary the data aspect to the result set being returned. Primary Business support contact and ensuring the communication to the business community remains active.

• Collect requirements, develop reports and create ad-hoc queries through the Business Object Application.

• Ability to deploy and support complex 3rd party developed applications

• Excellent problem solving, planning and organizing skills, a flexible approach with good verbal and written English communication skills

• Work to provide services to agreed Service Level Targets and Operating Level Agreements.

Person Profile:

• Ability to work under pressure and to deadlines.

• Good communication and interpersonal skills.

• Team player, flexibility and willingness to develop a broad business knowledge base.

• Ability to work independently and manage time effectively.

• To be part of the team rota with the variable start and finish times that this will require.

Experience and Skills:

It is expected with limited supervision the candidate will be able to deliver each of the key objectives of the role identified above. It is therefore expected that he or she will have:

• Expertise on SQL Server and Oracle.

• Strong knowledge of Client reporting tools used for valuation and investment reporting purposes.

• Demonstrable experience of problem solving and troubleshooting valuation data issues.

• Experience and a good working knowledge of application performance tuning, integration and testing.

• Essential: proven experience with:

• Vermillion Reporting Suite (v3.4) or similar Client reporting application

• Solid Oracle/SQL Server query experience.

• Remedy or equivalent Helpdesk support software.

• Strong analytical skills and problem solving experience in the IT financial services sector.

• Beneficial:

• ITIL certification

• Experience in the following applications: Eagle Pace / Dimension / Fundreports / CADIS / Business Objects XI