VARAPRASAD KUMAR
Chennai
Summary
IT Experience : Seasoned IT Service Delivery Manager with over 7 years of experience in managing IT support teams, ensuring high-quality service delivery, and improving customer satisfaction. Skilled in team leadership, project management, and with a strong background in applying Kaizen principles to drive continuous improvement, optimize processes, and enhance team performance
BPO Experience : Accomplished Manager at Hapag Lloyd GCC with over 11 years of experience, adapting Customer Service and Team Leadership, significantly improved Canada Export Documentation accuracy to 98%. Spearheaded major projects, enhancing process efficiency and fostering a high-performance culture. Expert in SLA Management, Customer Relationship, driving substantial business impacts and nurturing talent.
Overview
18
18
years of professional experience
Work History
Asst. Delivery Manager
Hapag Lloyd Technology Center
Chennai
04.2024 - 12.2024
- Same roles & responsibilities as mentioned below since it's a change of employer from Solverminds (External service provider) to Hapag Lloyd Technology Center (Internal or captive Service Center).
Asst. Delivery Manager
Solverminds solutions & technologies private limited (Client working for : Hapag Lloyd AG)
Chennai
06.2018 - 03.2024
- Core Responsibility: Managed a team of 60 plus Level 2 support professionals (with different skillsets FIS Application, COMPASS & WebFOCUS, SAP, QlikView & Escalation Management) ensuring timely and effective resolution of both Application & Technical issues.
- Oversee the delivery of IT services to customers, maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction.
- Develop and implement IT service management processes and best practices.
- Accountability: My team (IT Service Center) is an owner for all the IT tickets created around the globe by HL end users in Jira where we not only carry the responsibility for resolving L2 Incidents & Service Requests as we are equally responsible for the closure of tickets escalated to L3 teams (Technical) located in Hamburg & Gdansk.
- Volume Capacity: Handled approx. of 900 plus tickets for a week including both Incident & SR.
- Implemented Kaizen Principles: Led continuous improvement initiatives, resulting in a 20% increase in team productivity and a 15% reduction in response times.
- Kaizen Leader: Spearheaded Kaizen projects that improved service delivery and customer satisfaction across IT Service Center teams.
- Process Optimization: Applied Kaizen methodologies to streamline support processes, enhancing overall service efficiency.
- Change Management: Skilled in managing change initiatives and fostering a culture of Kaizen.
- Training and Development: Conducted regular Kaizen workshops for team members to foster a culture of continuous improvement in terms of process as well as developed training programs with the help of L&D team to enhance the individual skill set of IT support staff.
- Industrial Standards (Best Practices): Implemented ITIL-based processes to improve service delivery and efficiency.
- Lead incident (Identifying, Logging, Categorizing, Prioritizing & Resolving) and problem management (Detection, Logging, Categorization, Investigation, Diagnosis & Resolution) processes to minimize service disruptions & eradicate recurring incidents or known issues.
- Reduced Incident Resolution Time by 30% using GAP analysis.
- Enhanced Quality of Service Delivery by CSAT Survey and thru internal Cross Functional Audits where the accuracy % was sustained at 99.50% for the last 6 months (July to Dec'24).
- Monitor and report on service delivery performance against SLAs.
Analyzed support metrics to identify trends and areas for improvement. - Involved in the testing and implementation of Jira Software & Jira Service Management.
- Resource Allocation: Ensuring that the right resources are assigned to each task & managing workload.
- Strategic Planning: Developing effective plans for resource allocation, task assignments & project execution.
- Knowledge Base: Team is responsible for creating knowledge-based trouble shooting articles & business know-how articles in Confluence which shall be validated from my end prior passing it on to L3 seeking approval for further use & action.
- Approx. of 1500 articles has been created in the span of 2 years which eventually resulted in the increase of IT Service Center Resolution % by 40%.
- In-house Jira expert including creation of SLA & Performance monitoring dashboards.
- Communication: Acting as a bridge between L3 (Technical teams) and Business teams including other stakeholders, facilitating communication and reducing fallacies to ensure timely resolution of the tickets reported. Coordinate with other IT teams to resolve complex technical issues in order to ensure seamless delivery of services.
- Conducting Weekly & Monthly calls with IT Director at Hamburg presenting the SLA metrics of IT Service Center.
- Steering MoME & other quality related calls as part of escalation management driving the long pending tickets towards the closure.
- Key Result Area: Responsible for yearly objectives & goal creation in MYPORT for IT Service Center team which shall be used as a bible to appraise the team and individual performances by end of each year.
Manager Customer Service
Hapag Lloyd Global Services Private Limited
Chennai
05.2016 - 11.2017
- Ensuring consistent service delivery in Exports & Imports processes as per SLAs
- Ensure that team delivers the KPIs and achieves the targets
- Engage Stakeholders actively in understanding expectations and drive delivery accordingly
- Internal and external performance reviews against agreed KPIs and SLAs
- Ensuring Capacity management basis the skill set required for the processes & also coaching & grooming
- Ensuring smooth transition (Process signed-off) of Rail Notification and DG Handling processes for Area North America
- Drive a culture of overall excellence, identify and capitalize on opportunities that create tangible business impact, define and establish value system, identify and nurture talent pool
- Process champion on identifying BCR required for service centers
- SPOC for driving 'Correction Audit' project across the service centers
- Improved the TAT of Correction process for Area Canada Export Documentation from from 38% to 98%
- Improved the Accuracy % for Area Canada Export Documentation from from 93% to 98% as per the SLA
- Identified the top error category and created a excel macro basis it which helped the end users to identify errors post their production on a day to day basis prior sending it out to customer
- FIS Expert (Super user): Actively involved in FIS testing for Chennai & Mumbai GSC and provide the test feedback to Regional Business Support Desk
- Played a key role on identifying BCRs for the new system development 'Work flow tool' under the organizational transformation program
- One of the key players on driving 'One way of working 'project across the service centers
- Ensuring high performance focus and high levels of morale in the team
- Conducting periodical performance reviews with the team and driving performance improvements
- Issuing and Monitoring Performance Improvement Plans (EPEPs) given to underperforming employees to help them scale up to meet performance expectations and effective loop closure in alignment with Reporting managers
- Ensuring proper shift planning to meet the agreed SLA's
- Providing EWS forecast to the reporting manager & HR every month to drive retention
Team Leader Customer Service
HAPAG LLOYD GLOBAL SERVICES
Chennai
02.2012 - 05.2016
- Responsibilities involved managing a team of 22 FTEs delivering on agreed KPIs - Export & Imports Documentation
- Handled Areas of South America (Argentina, Brazil & Chile : Export processes & North America processes :(Canada : Export & Import Documentation)
- Handled transmissions for the shipments destined to US and Mexico and having a full follow up of the same with the front office
Customer Service Coordinator
HAPAG LLOYD GLOBAL SERVICES
Chennai
06.2007 - 02.2012
- Handled Bill of lading, producing and releasing the same as per service level agreement
- Transmitted the Bills to Vessel Closure and to the Import Documentation
- Handled transmissions for the shipments destined to US, Mexico, Europe, China, Japan and having a full follow up of the same with the front office
Education
B.COM - Banking Management
D.G.Vaishnav College
04.2007
Skills
- IT Service Management
- IT Service Delivery
- Product Management
- Project Management
- Resource Management
- Workforce Management
- Transition Management
- Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management
- Incident & Problem Management
- Team Leadership & Development
- Process Improvement & Optimization
- Customer Relationship Management
Training Programs Attended
- Pursuing Cloud Architect Masters Program from Simplilearn.
- Ignite Leadership Program from HL Academy.
- Trained in ITIL framework internally by Solverminds.
- Trained in ChatGPT for Data Analytics from Simplilearn.
- Trained in Six Sigma Green Belt.
- Trained in First Time Managers by People Craft.
- Trained in Supervisor Grooming Plan by People Craft.
- Trained in CELC - Coaching & Grooming.
Personal Information
- Date of Birth : 12/15/86
- Gender : Male
- Nationality : Indian
- Marital Status : Married
Languages
- English
- Tamil
- Telugu
Timeline
Asst. Delivery Manager
Hapag Lloyd Technology Center
04.2024 - 12.2024
Asst. Delivery Manager
Solverminds solutions & technologies private limited (Client working for : Hapag Lloyd AG)
06.2018 - 03.2024
Manager Customer Service
Hapag Lloyd Global Services Private Limited
05.2016 - 11.2017
Team Leader Customer Service
HAPAG LLOYD GLOBAL SERVICES
02.2012 - 05.2016
Customer Service Coordinator
HAPAG LLOYD GLOBAL SERVICES
06.2007 - 02.2012
B.COM - Banking Management
D.G.Vaishnav College
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