Service Manager - Relex

Role Context The Ultra Fresh team is implementing RELEX SaaS as the planning platform for ultra-fresh demand forecasting and replenishment across METRO. Ultra-fresh is a strategically important assortment area that requires accurate forecasting, reliable replenishment, strong data quality, operational discipline, and high service availability to improve product availability, inventory efficiency, and waste reduction. The initial implementation covers the pilot countries Germany, France, and Romania, with further global rollout waves planned afterwards. The solution is based on RELEX Forecasting & Replenishment capabilities and includes areas such as forecasting, replenishment, fresh optimization, intraday replenishment, promotions and events, purchase optimization, retail bill-of-materials, and weather-based forecasting. As Service Manager – RELEX, you will be part of the internal capability built in MD GSC India to support the transition from project delivery to stable run-mode operations and future rollout execution. You will be responsible for ensuring that the RELEX service is operated reliably, monitored effectively, governed properly, and continuously improved in line with business expectations and standards. You will act as the key service ownership interface between business stakeholders, product, engineering, country key users, RELEX, implementation partners, application managed services, and internal platform teams. Your focus will be on service quality, operational readiness, SLA adherence, incident and problem management, vendor coordination, governance, communication, and continuous service improvement. How You Will Make an Impact You will help METRO establish a reliable and scalable operating model for RELEX in Ultra Fresh, ensuring that the solution can support business-critical forecasting and replenishment processes across pilot countries and future rollout waves. You will contribute to stable application managed services, transparent service governance, faster incident resolution, stronger business confidence, and reduced dependency on external partners by building service management capability inside MD GSC India. Your Responsibilities Own and manage the RELEX service from an operational and service-management perspective, ensuring stable, reliable, and transparent service delivery for Ultra Fresh forecasting and replenishment. Define, maintain, and continuously improve the service model, support processes, governance routines, escalation paths, operational documentation, and communication channels for RELEX. Ensure that agreed service levels, operational KPIs, support expectations, and business-critical timelines are understood, monitored, reported, and acted upon. Coordinate incident, problem, service request, and escalation management across internal support teams, RELEX vendor support, implementation partners, engineering teams, and business stakeholders. Ensure timely response, impact assessment, prioritization, communication, mitigation, and resolution for RELEX-related incidents and operational issues. Drive problem management activities by identifying recurring issues, coordinating root-cause analysis, tracking corrective actions, and ensuring preventive measures are implemented. Support the transition from project delivery to application managed services and run-mode operations, including readiness assessments, hypercare setup, knowledge transfer, support handover, and operational stabilization. Coordinate go-live, rollout, and hypercare service activities for pilot and future rollout countries, ensuring service readiness and smooth transition into steady-state operations. Monitor service health, including data loads, interfaces, batch runs, operational outputs, support queues, incident trends, availability, and performance indicators. Work closely with Solution Experts, engineers, architects, product managers, country key users, and RELEX to ensure that functional, technical, and operational issues are properly understood and addressed. Manage the operational relationship with RELEX and other external partners, including service reviews, escalation follow-up, vendor performance tracking, issue prioritization, and continuous improvement discussions. Prepare and facilitate service review meetings, operational status updates, stakeholder briefings, post-incident reviews, and other governance ceremonies. Communicate actively and regularly on service status, incidents, risks, dependencies, support performance, and improvement actions through internal and external channels. Maintain transparency with business stakeholders and country organizations regarding service quality, known issues, planned changes, releases, upgrades, and operational risks. Ensure that change, release, and upgrade activities are assessed from a service-impact perspective and that required regression testing, business communication, support readiness, and fallback planning are coordinated. Support risk management, security, compliance, data protection, access management, and audit-related activities for the RELEX service in collaboration with the relevant teams. Maintain and improve operational documentation, support runbooks, known error databases, escalation matrices, service reports, SLAs, OLAs, and knowledge articles. Define and track service objectives and key results together with the squad, product, business, and support stakeholders. Use service metrics, incident trends, stakeholder feedback, and operational data to identify improvement opportunities and drive continuous service improvement. Promote a culture of ownership, collaboration, transparency, and customer focus across all teams involved in the RELEX service. Required Key Competencies and Qualifications 8 to 12 years of experience. Proven experience as a Service Manager, Application Service Manager, IT Service Manager, Service Owner, Product Operations Manager, Application Support Lead, or similar role in a technology-driven environment. Experience managing enterprise applications, SaaS platforms, application managed services, or business-critical digital services. Good understanding of IT service management practices, including incident management, problem management, service request management, change enablement, release coordination, SLA management, escalation management, and service reporting. Experience working with vendors, implementation partners, managed service providers, or external SaaS providers in an operational or service-management context. Experience with retail, wholesale, supply chain, demand forecasting, replenishment, inventory management, enterprise planning systems, or business-critical operational platforms. Strong ability to structure complex operational topics, align multiple stakeholders, define clear next steps, and drive issues from identification to resolution. Strong communication skills, with the ability to provide clear updates to business stakeholders, technical teams, management, countries, and external partners. Ability to translate business impact into operational priorities and to explain service risks, dependencies, and decisions in a clear and pragmatic way. Experience with service reporting, KPI tracking, service review meetings, post-incident reviews, operational dashboards, or continuous improvement planning. Ability to work with data, understand operational monitoring, interpret incident trends, and collaborate with technical teams on data load, interface, or batch-related issues. Understanding of SaaS operating models, vendor support processes, release cycles, access management, and service continuity requirements. Experience with Jira, Confluence, ServiceNow, monitoring tools, or similar collaboration and ITSM platforms. Strong ownership mindset, structured way of working, attention to detail, and ability to work independently in a distributed international setup. Ability to communicate effectively in a challenging and complex environment involving multiple countries, external vendors, product teams, engineering teams, and business stakeholders. Very good fluency in English, both written and verbal. Nice to Have Experience with RELEX, RELEX Plan, RELEX Connect, Forecasting & Replenishment solutions, fresh optimization, or similar supply chain planning platforms. Experience supporting global or multi-country rollouts, including go-live, hypercare, stabilization, and transition into steady-state operations. ITIL certification or practical experience applying ITIL-based service management practices. Experience with application managed services, L2/L3 support models, vendor governance, operational readiness, or service transition. Understanding of data interfaces, master data, transactional data, batch monitoring, reprocessing, and operational housekeeping. Experience in retail or wholesale business processes, especially fresh / ultra-fresh forecasting and replenishment. Experience with risk management, security, access management, compliance, audit support, or data protection topics. Experience facilitating workshops, service reviews, stakeholder briefings, and cross-functional operational meetings. What We Offer at METRO Hybrid and agile work: Thrive in a flexible, multicultural environment with self-organizing teams. People development: Grow through individual and company-wide learning and development opportunities. Ownership and impact: Contribute to a strategic Ultra Fresh platform improving availability, efficiency, and waste reduction. International collaboration: Work with colleagues, business stakeholders, and partners across multiple countries and functions. Support with individual solutions: We care about people and support you throughout your professional journey. Established in 2011 and headquartered in Pune, METRO Global Solution Center (GSC) India is a strategic hub driving METRO’s global transformation. With 1,200+ professionals, we deliver specialized integrated expertise across Master Data Management, Information Technology, Cyber Security, Marketing & Design, Strategy, Finance & Accounting, controlling (FP&A), and People & Culture (HR) solutions that drive operational excellence and digital innovation. By supporting METRO’s sCore strategy, we enable sustainable growth and strengthen business processes. With a solutions-first mindset, we reduce complexity, accelerate transformation, and create measurable value for METRO businesses scaling up globally. METRO is a leading international food wholesaler operating in over 30 countries with a strong network of wholesale stores, digital marketplaces, and food service distribution. It supports businesses that keep the world running, from hotels, restaurants, and cafés to local retailers - offering quality, reliability, and smart solutions that help small and medium-sized businesses succeed. Headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany, METRO AG employs over 85,000 people worldwide and acts as the central management holding company of the group, driving strategic direction, and enabling consistent excellence across all markets. Around the world, METRO has approx. 15 million customers who benefit from the wholesale company’s unique multichannel mix: customers can purchase their goods in one of the large stores in their area as well as by delivery (Food Service Distribution, FSD) – all digitally supported and connected. In parallel, METRO MARKETS is being developed as an international online marketplace for professional customers, which has been growing and expanding continuously since 2019. Acting sustainably is one of the company principles of METRO, which has been listed in various sustainability indices and rankings, including MSCI, Sustainalytics and CDP.