Woodie’s is Ireland’s market-leading DIY, Home and Garden omnichannel retailer, with 36 stores nationwide and a growing digital presence. We are proud to be recognised as Ireland’s Top Retailer by Great Place to Work, an official Best Workplace for Women, one of Europe’s Best Large Workplaces, and a gold-standard Investor in Diversity accredited by the Irish Centre for Diversity and Inclusion.
We are seeking an experienced, commercially minded and forward-thinking Service Delivery Manager to join our IT leadership team. This is a key people-leadership and operational role at an important stage in Woodie’s technology journey, as we continue to modernise our systems, strengthen service resilience, and support business growth through digital transformation.
The successful candidate will be accountable for the effective delivery, governance and continuous improvement of IT services across Woodie’s stores, support office and digital channels. The role will require strong leadership, excellent stakeholder engagement, disciplined vendor management, and a practical understanding of service management frameworks such as ITIL 4 and ISO/IEC 20000-1, together with sound awareness of cyber risk management principles such as those described in the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.
Our ideal candidate will demonstrate:
People leadership:* Proven ability to lead, coach and develop a high-performing, engaged and accountable service delivery team. For example, the successful candidate will set clear team priorities, run effective one-to-ones, support development plans, and create a culture where service ownership, communication and follow-through are consistently expected.
Stakeholder management:* Strong relationship-building skills with the ability to engage confidently across IT, departmental leaders, store managers and colleagues, regional teams and support office colleagues. The role requires a visible, service-led approach, including structured store visits, regular business engagement sessions, and clear communication of service performance, risks and improvement actions.
Service management expertise:* Deep knowledge of application support, service operations and IT service management, ideally in a retail environment and preferably with experience of Business Central, LS Retail or similar enterprise systems. The candidate does not need to be the deepest technical expert in every area, but must have enough technical and operational understanding to ask the right questions, challenge assumptions and drive effective outcomes.
Vendor and supplier management:* Demonstrable experience managing third-party suppliers against agreed service levels, contractual obligations and business outcomes. This includes maintaining constructive partnerships while also challenging suppliers on performance, root-cause analysis, continuous improvement and value for money.
ITIL and service process maturity:* Good working knowledge of ITIL practices such as incident management, problem management, change enablement, service request management, service level management and continual improvement. The candidate should be able to evolve these practices pragmatically, aligning the level of process maturity to the scale, risk and needs of Woodie’s.
Standards-based approach:* Awareness of recognised service management standards such as ISO/IEC 20000-1, which emphasises the planning, design, transition, delivery and continual improvement of services through a structured service management system. The successful candidate will apply these principles practically, for example by ensuring services have clear ownership, documented support models, measurable service levels and regular performance reviews.
Continuous improvement mindset:* A strong bias for improving how services are delivered, measured and experienced. Examples include reducing repeat incidents through problem management, improving knowledge articles, simplifying hand-offs between teams, strengthening service reporting and using trend data to identify recurring pain points.
Collaboration and communication:* Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate technical topics into clear, business-relevant language. The role will require close collaboration with infrastructure, applications, cyber security, project delivery, store operations, finance and external vendors.
Budget management:* Experience managing operating budgets, supplier costs and service-related expenditure. The successful candidate will track spend, identify risks or variances early, and keep relevant stakeholders appropriately informed.
Attention to detail and governance:* A disciplined approach to documentation, process adherence, audit readiness and quality of communication. Examples include maintaining accurate service records, ensuring support procedures are current, documenting key decisions, and preparing clear service review materials.
Cyber security awareness:* A strong understanding of the operational role service delivery plays in cyber resilience. While the role is not a specialist cyber security position, the successful candidate will help ensure compliance with network, application and housekeeping standards, supporting areas such as asset hygiene, access control, patching, monitoring, incident escalation and evidence-based control operation. This aligns with the governance, identify, protect, detect, respond and recover principles set out in the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.
Values and cultural alignment:* A genuine commitment to Woodie’s values and culture. The successful candidate will actively promote inclusion, collaboration, accountability and customer focus within the IT team and across the wider organisation.
Key responsibilities:
- Take hands-on accountability for the quality, consistency and responsiveness of IT service delivery to all Woodie’s colleagues across stores, support office and digital operations.
- Lead the day-to-day operation and ongoing improvement of business-as-usual service delivery, ensuring that incidents, service requests, problems and changes are managed through clear, proportionate and measurable processes.
- Own and improve service reporting, including performance against service levels, major incident trends, recurring issues, supplier performance, customer experience feedback, key risks and continuous improvement activity.
- Manage and develop strategic vendor relationships, ensuring suppliers are held accountable for agreed outcomes, service levels, improvement plans, governance meetings and commercial performance.
- Act as a key service management stakeholder in IT projects and programmes, ensuring that new or changed services are transitioned safely into live support with clear support models, knowledge transfer, operational readiness, ownership, monitoring and service acceptance criteria.
- Drive structured problem management by identifying repeat incidents, coordinating root-cause analysis, tracking corrective actions and reducing avoidable service disruption over time.
- Support cyber and operational resilience by ensuring service management processes reinforce good IT housekeeping, including asset accuracy, access control discipline, patching follow-up, vulnerability remediation coordination, backup and recovery awareness, and effective escalation of security-related service events.
- Maintain clear and current documentation, including process guides, support procedures, service maps, escalation paths, vendor contact models, knowledge articles and service review materials.
- Communicate technical issues, service risks and improvement plans in a way that is understandable and relevant to different audiences, from technical teams to senior business stakeholders and store leadership.
- Build a culture of accountability, professionalism and continuous improvement within the Service Delivery Team, ensuring that the team is customer-focused, commercially aware and aligned with Woodie’s values.
Examples of success in this role:
- A recurring store system issue is identified through incident trends, escalated into problem management, root cause is agreed with the relevant vendor, and a permanent fix is delivered and communicated.
- A new business application goes live with a complete service transition pack, including support model, monitoring approach, escalation route, vendor responsibilities, known errors, training materials and service acceptance sign-off.
- Monthly service reviews provide stakeholders with a clear view of service performance, risks, improvement actions, supplier performance and decisions required.
- Audit or compliance reviews can be supported with clear evidence of process operation, ownership, approvals, service records and control follow-up.
Our benefits:
- Annual Bonus
- Company Pension
- Company-funded healthcare
- Hybrid working
- Colleague Discount
- Wellness Initiatives
- Educational Assistance
- Paid Parental & Maternity leave
- Sick-pay
- Flexi-Wage - Choose how to budget your own pay!
Woodie’s is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity, inclusion and belonging. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability status. We will provide reasonable accommodation where required to support candidates through the application and interview process, to enable colleagues to perform critical job functions, and to access the benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us if you require accommodation.
