SDM or Service Delivery Manager, a position often mentioned but rarely explained is the job of one of our consultants: Loïc Mondija. For us, he talks about his functions, his role and his career.

Definition of the Service Delivery Manager position

The SDM (Service Delivery Manager) is a person who guarantees a contract between a service provider and an end customer. For example, if an IT services company (such as Blue Soft) signs a maintenance contract with an end customer (for example, a large bank), a Service Delivery Manager is positioned to manage the contract between the customer (in this case, the bank) and the service provider, in this case Blue Soft.

This person has a lot of responsibilities, as Loïc points out: "I take care of everything related to document management, team management, and I'm responsible for the service and all the indicators that go with it," and his indicators are numerous. He continues: "We have about 80 indicators that are diverse and varied. From the consideration of an incident to the resolution time". He currently manages a team in charge of managing incidents in his client's environment, with all the complexity that this implies: "For each incident, we have a resolution time and a response time. We have a lead time for all requests depending on the request in question, an addition of volume, from a few days to longer depending on what we are asked to do."

What is a typical day for the SDM position?

According to Loïc, there isn't really a typical day for Service Delivery Managers. He says: "I start by reading my emails, looking at the state of the infrastructure, taking stock with the teams, knowing what happened during the night, if there were any incidents, if the day is going to be calm or complicated..."

For the customer for whom our consultant works, two themes are addressed: backup and backup. For each client there can be different types of missions:

• Incident management: support tickets.
• Management of requests: setting up a backup, installing software, adding volume, replicating disks or other.
• Maintenance in Operational Condition or MCO: maintaining the infrastructure so that it functions properly.

In addition to these three "standard" services, additional requests were added over time (managed by our favorite SDM): system remediation and TVE infrastructure (virtualized) and backup of virtualized machines.

Why be a Service Delivery Manager?

Why become an SDM? First of all, the diversity of the job "You never do the same thing, every day is a new adventure", but also the opportunity to see a contractual facet hidden for most: "When I was a technician, I had an idea of things. When you go to the other side, you see that everything is not necessarily black and white. It's often in between. It's an interesting part, there's a kind of political game between the client, us and the employees. There's a certain amount of finesse that you have to have with the client, with the teams, you can't put anyone off."

What is the path to becoming an SDM?

A Blue Softeur for 15 years, Loïc did not start out as a Service Delivery Manager. Initially a technician, he gradually evolved into this role as he explains: "I did a project that consisted of completely replacing the infrastructure with new technologies. Afterwards, I installed the first full flash bays. I did data center moves, all in the expertise, only storage. Before gradually migrating to management, at some point, a career choice is made. Either you continue in the field of expertise, or you go into management. I admit that I wondered about this for a long time, but after various hesitations, I had the opportunity to become a technical coordinator, managing the team and not the contractual part completely, which allowed me to keep a foot in each. And then it was something that attracted me more and more. There was this opportunity at one point to do SDM, while staying with the same client, with always the option to go back. I always had the option of going back to the technical side. And in fact, it's something that I enjoyed and that I'm 100% dedicated to.

Would you also like to join our team as an SDM?