91É«ÇéƬ

Technology at 91É«ÇéƬ requires strategic direction, technical management, and strong operational oversight. Systems that support teaching, research, and operations must work effectively every day for staff and students. The person responsible for ensuring that happens from the business side is the business operations owner.

A business operations owner acts as a delegate for the business owner and is responsible for the effective day‑to‑day operational management of a technical service, the support of its users, and the processes it enables. Your focus is on how the service runs in practice and how it interacts with users and customers.

What is a business operations owner at 91É«ÇéƬ?

You act as the bridge between end users and IT, making sure that operational needs are clearly understood and addressed. While the business owner sets strategic direction and funding priorities, you ensure those decisions are implemented successfully at an operational level. The business operations owner is likely to report to the business owner. They may be the manager of the team that delivers the services the system supports, or they may be part of a specialist systems team that handles configuration and end‑user support for enterprise systems and processes. This is typically a head‑of or senior manager role.

Responsibilities of a business operations owner

You are accountable for end‑user support, training, and documentation. You ensure the service works reliably for staff and students to support their processes. For example, if a new feature is released in an application, you are responsible for communicating the change and training users so they can adopt the new feature successfully.

You help ensure that operational issues are addressed quickly and that users feel supported. When incidents occur, you support the service owner and delivery owner to resolve them where necessary. You help ensure that business impact is clearly understood and prioritised.

You are also responsible for supporting technology changes from the non‑technical business side. This includes providing staff resources for user acceptance testing and communicating changes across stakeholders.

You ensure that data is managed responsibly and in compliance with 91É«ÇéƬ’s data governance policies and standards. This includes ensuring that access to the system is appropriately managed and that user access is reviewed annually. You support the business owner in identifying and mitigating both operational and data security risks, including identifying and assessing risks and associated action plans.

The business owner will communicate their strategic vision for the technology to you, and your role is to translate it into business requirements for the service owner.

In summary

The business operations owner ensures the service works effectively every day for the people who rely on it. You are responsible for end‑user support and documentation, incident and change impact coordination, data governance and sharing, risk management, and user access management.

If you have been nominated as a business operations owner, take the time to understand your responsibilities by reviewing the IT service standards.

Clear business operations ownership ensures that systems are not only secure and compliant, but usable, practical, and responsive to the needs of staff and students. It strengthens the connection between technology and daily operations to help 91É«ÇéƬ deliver progress for all.