Balasubramanya Basuvaraj

IT Service Management * Project Management * Program Management

Summary

Result-driven and customer-oriented professional having over 10+ years of experience as a Subject Matter Expert in Incident, Change, Release and Configuration Management in various IT disciplines.
Experienced Service Management professional managing service relationships with multiple vendors including SLA management, reporting KPls, Resourcing and Project Management using Scrum/Agile Methodology.
Prince2 practitioner aiming to leverage considerable experience and efficiency expertise into project manager role. Excel at liaising between business and technical areas to achieve on-time, on-budget and on-spec project completions.
Quality focused and practical team leader able to manage customer and user needs with business requirements, budgetary challenges and resource constraints to meet project deliverables.
More than 5 years of experience in leading team with track record for identifying opportunities to improve and deliver results in fast paced large-scale organization.
A Leader with motivational management style, inspired by the business vision with a reputation for building teams and retaining talent.

Projects and Process Improvements

Redeﬁned Change Process for Handling Request for Simcorp Dimension Conﬁguration Changes

Reduced the time spent on change analysis by 50%
Eliminated additional resource requirement by 40%
Re-deﬁned the change delivery windows so as to better plan go live window

Simcorp Dimension Release Upgrade (Yearly Recurring Project from 2009 - 2016)

Prepared the end-to-end 'Go-Live' plan for the Release Upgrade including every step necessary and reported project status to management
Worked with Application, Infrastructure, Development, Testing and Operations teams to define individual tasks and responsibilities and document the same in the go-live plan
Prepared the 'Configuration Plan' including resourcing for the implementation of Configuration changes post technical upgrade
Tracked the completion of each milestone of the go-live plan and reported to Management
Acted as SPOC and escalated delays and issues arising out of upgrade immediately for resolution so as to resolve before start of business

Multiple Simcorp Dimension Projects from 2010 - 2016

DCF File installation Project on Simcorp Dimension (Recurring Project)
INS File installation Project on Simcorp Dimension (Recurring Project)

Key Deliverables as Incident/Change/Project Manager

Ensured that the incident management process is followed and that incident and problem records accurately reflect actions taken / changes implemented to restore service; and record changes to Configuration Items are recorded
Performed Post Incident Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for major incidents, including identifying the changes that may have caused them and recommend process and/or operational improvements
Provided Management reporting on Incident Metrics and Incident Management performance
Managed Incident Management bridge calls with all stakeholders including Application, Infrastructure, Development, Operations and Senior Management teams
Reviewed change requests on daily basis for impact to global AM IT business and/or other projects
24x7 on-call escalation manager for Release Upgrades and other major releases in Production Environment
Responsible to review incident and problem ticket trends and driving improvements to proactively identify trends and potential incidents
Responsible for identifying problems, analyze and recommend improvement plan with solutions obtained from technical teams
Point of Contact for Client Asset Management IT Department Lead to establish a formal procedure for reporting of incidents’ escalations to ensure SLA compliance
Compile and report metrics on Incidents arising out of implementation of changes to client senior management on monthly basis
Maintained a 100% SLA stability by resolving incidents and ensuring all changes required to resolve the incident are analyzed for impact, implemented and tested in test environments and rolling out in Production environments in time to prevent Business Impact
Prepared KeDB (Knowledge Error Database) documents for frequently occurring incidents for L1 support teams to enable them to proactively resolve minor incidents without escalating each time to second level support, thereby reducing Minor Incident resolution time by 80%
Reduced incidents arising out of change implementations by more that 80% over a 6-month period using service improvement techniques, analyzing root cause data and making changes in process, education and training of new joinees and implementing a continuous improvement feedback loop
Enhanced individual productivity by more than 50% and decreased duplication of efforts among team members by mentoring, training them to focus on critical team tasks and creating a Task Register to maintain day-to-day task list performed by individual team members
Analyzed risks related to monthly system maintenance, changes needed/ scheduled for a production environment, removal of services no longer required and installation of new services, fixes, patches, upgrades as needed or suggested by UNIX team or Network Services

Skills

IT Change Management
IT Release Management
IT Deployment Management
Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA)
ITIL
IT Service Management
IT Configuration Management
Project Managment
Problem Management
Incident Managment
Measurement and Reporting
Program Managment
Service Continuity Managment

Soft Skills

Leadership
Delegation
Conflict Resolution
Communication
Team Building
Coaching

Professional Certifications

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner from Amazon Web Services (AWS)
ITIL Managing Professional Transition Certificate from Axelos
Product Management Certificate from Cornell University
ITIL Intermediate Certificate in IT Continual Service Improvement from Axelos
ITIL Intermediate Certificate in IT Service Operation from Axelos
ITIL Intermediate Certificate in IT Service Transition from Axelos
ITIL Intermediate Certificate in IT Service Design from Axelos
ITIL Intermediate Certificate in IT Service Strategy from Axelos
ITIL Foundation Certificate in IT Service Managment from Axelos
Prince2 Practitioner Certificate from Axelos
Prince2 Foundation Certificate in Project Management from Axelos
AWS Fundamentals: Going Cloud-Native from Coursera
DevOps Culture and Mindset from Coursera
Simcorp Dimension Certificate from Simcorp Academy

Professional Courses

Cisco Certified Networking Associate (Trained)
Architecting on AWS Virtual Online Classroom Training from TLG Learning (AWS Training Partner)
AWS Technical Essentials Virtual Online Classroom Training from TLG Learning (AWS Training Partner)
AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials (Second Edition) Digital Training from AWS Training
AWS Fundamentals: Going Cloud-Native from Coursera
Learning Jira Software from LinkedIn Learning
Six Sigma Yellow Belt Specialization from Coursera
DevOps Culture and Mindset from Coursera
Simcorp Dimension Academy (Simcorp Dimension Version 4.3) from Simcorp Academy

Tools and Applications Used

Microsoft Office
Microsoft Visio
Microsoft Project
ServiceNow
Micro Focus Dimensions CM
BMC Remedy
Atlassian Jira
Atlassian Confluence
Simcorp Dimension

Professional Work Experience

EUMETSAT (Codifie UG), Darmstadt, Germany
Operations Configuration Management Support Specialist
Jun 2017 – Oct 2019

Individual Contributor in As-Built Operations Configuration Management (CM) team at EUMETSAT (European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) as an External Contractor on behalf of Codifie UG.

Responsible for Configuration Management of Configuration Items (Hardware, Software and Documentation) of specific Operation Facilities to administer and perform an end-to end tracking of Change Requests, Proposals and Configuration Items identified for responsible facilities.
Keep up to date the database in the CM Tool Micro Focus Dimensions, recording the mapping between Changes and Configuration Items, and the mapping of Software items onto Hardware items.
Prepare, administrate and provide Configuration Management insight into planned changes and identified anomalies in daily Change Control Board(s) and Anomaly Review Board(s) meetings.
Manage and support the As-Built changes (Engineering Change Requests and Proposals) on responsible facilities and administer the Engineering Change Review Board in rotation.
Prepare and publish CM metrics and KPIs.
Perform CM inspections and audits to monitor and track configuration changes as and when required by Management.
Support Operational teams by providing CSARs (Configuration Status Accounting Reports) as and when requested for Test Readiness Review Boards and Operation Readiness Review Boards.
Actively contribute to the definition, implementation and continuous improvements of the Configuration Management processes documents including Guides and Manuals owned by the CM team.
Provide diligent support to CM Processes and Tool users/stakeholders (first level support, workshops, training sessions).
Actively participate in the testing of the new releases of the CM tool as and when required.
Support the delivery of outgoing Media items containing Software and Documentation to contracted parties after configuration control as defined in delivery specification documentation.
Support and train business stakeholders on the proper use of Micro Focus Dimensions (CMDB)
Mentor and train new team members on processes and provide on the job training to bring them on par with existing team members

HCL GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Senior Business Analyst (Onsite Team Lead)
May 2009 – Dec 2016

Senior onsite team-lead managing the Release and Deployment function for the Simcorp Dimension (SCD) application at Deutsche Bank, client of HCL Technologies Ltd.

Achieved a 100% success rate in delivering releases on time as per business requirements whether they are Normal, Exceptional or Emergency changes.
Responsible for managing changes by defining scope, identifying dependencies and risks and scheduling changes by coordinating and negotiating with cross-functional internal and external teams including Vendor, Network/Server/Infrastructure, Engineering, Data, Business and Senior Management teams on the Application (Simcorp Dimension), and its related CIs including Hardware, Network and Infrastructure (Wintel and Oracle Database Environment), from the Controlled Test Environment, through to SCD Production Environment.
Creating and reporting KPIs and metrics in monthly/quarterly reports for Senior Management review in Customer Satisfaction Reports as well as for analyzing team performance.
Collaborating with the client managers to set up the new workflow for the Business Continuity Management (BCM) adhering to latest standards and meeting Audit Requirements.
Managed and coordinated multiple projects in Simcorp Dimension including Release Upgrades, Wintel and Oracle Data Center Operations support and migration of interfaces from Simcorp Dimension to BlackRock Aladdin, etc.
Facilitated the consistent operation of Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings including representation of changes and addressing any concerns of CAB approvers.
Utilized IT Service Management principles and Project Management ideologies to develop a Process for the effective handling of Change Requests for the SCD Production Application starting from delivery of change requests by the developers, testing of the developed change, analysis of the change and finally the rollout of the change in Production to improve productivity by 50%.
Managed Incidents resulting out of change implementation activities end-to-end and facilitated the sessions with SME’s to troubleshoot and identify root causes (RCA) as part of Problem Management and build up Knowledge Base for User Support team.
Trained and mentored new recruits on the change, release and deployment management processes followed within the team and provided on the job training by shadow and reverse shadow process.
Provided on-call support during off business hours and acted as a Single Point of Contact for escalations and emergency changes.
Performed User Acceptance Testing (UAT) on the organization wide implementation of ServiceNow tool to replace BMC Remedy for IT Service Management. Learnt basics of configuring ServiceNow to adapt it to our Change and Release Management Processes.

HCL Technologies Ltd., Bangalore, India
Business Analyst

Jan 2009 – May 2009

Part of the Manual Regression Testing team for Deutsche Bank, client of HCL Technologies Ltd. Executed Regression test cases for the various applications under the Market Risk IT domain and worked on defining new test cases for the applications.

May 2008 – Jan 2009

Part of the Simcorp Dimension Competency Center. Certified as a Simcorp Dimension Professional. Worked on preparing best practices lists by understanding the technical environment of Simcorp Dimension.

Jan 2007 – May 2008

Part of the Investment Banking Group within Business Solutions Group (pre-sales team) and responsible for opportunity management, bid management, responding to proposals, building collaterals, sales pitches, client visit management, etc. for domains and accounts identified for our group

Education

Cornell University, USA – Product Management Certificate
Balaji Institute of Modern Management, India – Post Graduate Diploma in Management (Finance)
Visveswaraya Technological University, India – Bachelor of Engineering (Telecommunications)

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