Officer, Business Applications Support

Important note: “This is a national staff position open to nationals and others who are legally eligible to work in countries where IFRC has legal presence within the Americas:  Buenos Aires (Argentina), San José (Costa Rica), Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), Guatemala City (Guatemala), Tegucigalpa (Honduras), Kingston (Jamaica), Managua (Nicaragua), Panama City (Panama), Lima (Peru), or Port of Spain (Trinidad and Tobago). Candidates must be able to provide proof of their eligibility to work in those countries during application phase” 

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world's largest humanitarian network, reaching 150 million people each year through its 192-member National Societies. We act before, during and after disasters and health emergences to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people.

The IFRC is served by a Secretariat based in Geneva, with regional and country offices throughout the world. The Secretariat is led by the IFRC Secretary General and he provides the central capacity of the IFRC to serve, connect, and represent National Societies. The Secretariat’s focus includes providing support to the IFRC governance mechanisms; setting norms and standards; directing and coordinating international relief operations, resource mobilization, technical support including providing guidance; ensuring consistency, coordination and accountability for performance; knowledge sharing; promoting collaboration within and respect for the RCRC Movement; and expanding engagement with partners. The Secretariat’s headquarters is organized in three main business groups: (i) Partnerships, including Movement and Membership; (ii) Programmes and Operations; and (iii) Management.

The newly founded ERP Global Excellence Center has the main role of providing second and third-level support to the IFRC Dynamics 365 (D365) users around the world. It will be using the same ticketing system the ITD support team is using and will have as a purpose to enable the geographically distributed D365 users of the secretariat to function effectively and efficiently. The Team provides D365 support services for the Secretariat with staff based in Geneva, Budapest and at important locations worldwide. Increasingly the ERP Global Excellence Center facilitates the development and sharing of best practices in the D365 environment and contributes to the development, strengthening and capacity building. 

The IFRC has established a Global Services Centre (GSC) in Budapest, Hungary and various support services have moved there (fully or partially), as the global shared service component. The ERP Global Excellence Center, as part of GSC, is led by the ERP Program Manager.

The Officer, Business Applications Support (Microsoft Dynamics 365 – F&O Specialist) will be based in any of the countries, in the Americas Region, where the IFRC has legal presence and reports to the ERP Support Lead.

The position holder is a specialist in Information Systems used by Enterprise Resource Planning solutions notably the Finance & Operation platform of the D365 suite of products.

The purpose of the job is to:

• Deliver a high quality F&O business applications support services, including Finance and Logistics and Project Management;
• Guarantee data information security, availability and integrity through strong operational competencies using the ITIL framework;
• Provide specific business applications support to professional users in various departments
• Ensure all systems meet business expectations, maintain the respective systems up-to-date by undertaking proactive systems maintenance, and participate in projects towards new systems implementation;

Develop operational procedures aligned with the support activities requirement, maintain them up to date and provide structured support recommendation to the various IFRC stakeholders and end users.

• Ensure service quality and security, while respecting operating methods defined by quality standards.
• Manage the implementation, support and evolution of ERP components (D365 F&O) and environments applying the standard operational procedures in force within the IT Department.
• Manage operational tools (monitoring and management) to ensure sustainability of F&O systems and dependant services for the various IFRC business units and at end user level.
• Maintain the operational knowledge base in the service management tool, record incident, provide quality resolution advises.
• Establish and update operational procedures to warranty ERP services availability in accordance with operational level agreements (OLA).
• Identify, review and participate in the development of D365 F&O training solutions to deliver appropriate, cost effective trainings in F&O topics for users while promoting on-line training opportunities.
• Support key-users in system integration acceptance testing
• Train key-users and/or end-users
• Collaborate with technical resources around the definition and implementation of system integrations 
• Participate in all activities related to providing adequate and stable ERP systems and services to all IFRC stakeholders distributed across 5 regions.
• Contribute actively to the overall satisfaction level of IFRC end users while develop and promote effective working relationship within the ERP Team, the wider IFRC and the RCRC movements including ICRC.
• Manage personal knowledge and continuously update your skillset on various systems and applications used at IFRC.
• Adhere to staff regulation of the IFRC Budapest Global Service Center regulations and to the IT security rules at all the times.
• Communicate effectively with the various IFRC stakeholders, including those within the IT sector, share knowledge and be subject matter expert.

Operations support

• Ensure the smooth operations (administration, patching, monitoring and optimization) of the IFRC D365 F&O systems and running services within IFRC quality standards.
• Perform functional analysis of the business requirements and determine best approach to support functional needs.
• Provide expertise and advises to business partner(s) on ERP best practices usage and workflow processes.
• Prototype, setup and adapt ERP components in alignment with operational standards and procedures and aligned with business needs and functional experts inputs.

• Guarantee established operational level agreements for all ERP based application systems, components and services in alignment of established operational procedures for IFRC worldwide.
• Develop rigorous operational procedures upon requirement and provide expected quality of support level in operations.
• Support the ERP F&O applications environments within the ITIL framework during incidents, configuration, problems, troubleshooting and resolution phases.
• Report on changes and events within the scope of support activities which could have and operational impact on the service availability.
• Provide valuable recommendations to the ERP Program Manager to enable fast and effective diagnostic, allowing resolution activities prioritization.
• Guarantee production systems availability while ensuring resolution time commitment (OLA/SLA) and prioritize high quality support services to the end users community.
• Make proposal for new tools or methods to improve solutions, applications and tasks undertaken by the business application support unit.
• Manage technologies to support information privacy, confidentiality, security, integrity and availability requirements.
• Follow and apply industry standards and best practices; implement external compliance requirements to ensure proper operations and standardization of operational environment.
• Be proactive in identifying and implementing opportunities to improve operation outcomes.
• Act as knowledge backup to other areas of expertise within the ERP Global Excellence unit.
• Ensure a good collaboration with all the IT support team involved in ERP support activities.

Reporting and Documentation

• Identify and complete documentation to maintain efficient operational level, anticipate needs and regularly update operational documentation.
• Create, maintain and improve the knowledge base and knowledge documentation managed through the Service Management Tool.
• Document incidents, problems, changes with relevant information to allow continuous improvement within the support team and the end user satisfaction level.
• Provide periodic reports upon request on D365 F&O applications and systems usages, performances, capacity and availability.
• Record and Treat operational information (general and specific) accurately and confidentially.

External Relation

• Maintain regular contact with end users within the Secretariat as required. Travelling to Geneva HQ may be occasionally required, in order for the knowledge handover from ERP Team.
• Maintain contacts with other support teams involved during the request resolution process.

Office Activities

• Adhere to all administrative procedures linked to his/her work.

• Bachelor’s degree in computer sciences discipline or related field 
• Certification or proven experience in D365 F&O module
• Business analyst or project management or SCRUM professional certification - Preferred

• Minimum 5 years of professional experience in business applications support
• Minimum 3 year of professional experience in roll-out, maintenance, upgrades and developing extensions/customisations for D365 F&O
• Minimum 5 year of professional experience in business requirements analysis

• Excellent knowledge of D365 F&O module
• Proven record of D365 F&O module implementation and/or support
• Proven record of business analysis and project implementation
• Experience of Microsoft Common Data Service and the Microsoft Power Platform - Preferred
• Proven team player, ability to adjust in different cultures and languages
• Adept at analysis, problem solving, solutions and end-user oriented
• Affinity for team work, collaborative attitude, open-minded and adaptable
• Well organized, able to work under pressure and manage emergencies
• Good analytical skills to interpret problems, identify solutions and possible side effects

Languages

• Fluently spoken and written English. 
• GooKnowledge of Hungarian is an asset.d command of another IFRC official language (French, Spanish or Arabic)

• Core Competencies: Communication, Collaboration and Teamwork, Judgement and Decision Making, National Society and Customer Relations, Creativity and Innovation, Building Trust
• Values: Respect for Diversity, Integrity, Professionalism, Accountability

Applicants will need to send their applications together with a letter of motivation no later than the closing date. In order for us to assure a proper comparative evaluation of your application for this vacancy and to enable us to consider your profile against other similar current and future vacancies, we ask that you submit your application taking into account the following:

• Please note that the selected candidate will be hired through a national contract  therefore only nationals of the country or those holding a valid work permit or legal status will be considered for the post;
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by Federation policies, procedures, plans and applicable national laws;
• The closing date is midnight Geneva time
• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted