SAP Cutover Lead

NTT DATA BUSINESS SOLUTIONS; Hyderabad; On-site; INR 3,500,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

NTT DATA BUSINESS SOLUTIONS in Hyderabad, India seeks a SAP Cutover Lead to drive enterprise-wide cutover strategy for global SAP S/4HANA programs. You will govern, plan, and execute deployments across Americas, EMEA, APAC, and LATAM with executive oversight and cross-functional collaboration.

The role requires 15+ years of SAP enterprise transformation experience, strong leadership, and a proven track record in complex multi-country go-lives. Travel may be required to support global deployments.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in information technology, engineering, computer science or related field.
• MBA or equivalent is preferred for senior leadership roles.
• 15+ years SAP implementation and enterprise transformation experience.

Responsibilities

• Develop and own the enterprise-wide SAP S/4HANA Cutover Strategy.
• Establish global cutover governance, policies, standards, and methodology.
• Lead global cutover activities across multiple implementation waves.
• Coordinate deployment activities across countries, regions, and business units.
• Manage regional Cutover Managers and cross-functional partners.
• Present deployment readiness and risk mitigation to executives.

Skills

SAP Cutover

Executive leadership

Program governance

Global deployment

Education

Bachelor's degree in IT/Engineering

MBA preferred

Tools

SAP Solution Manager

S/4HANA

SAP Activate Methodology

Data Migration

Job description

We are currently seeking a SAP Cutover Lead to join our team in Hyderabad, Telangana (IN-TG), India (IN). The Director Global SAP S/4HANA Cutover Deployment is responsible for leading the enterprise-wide cutover strategy, governance, and execution for global SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA transformation programs. This executive leadership role oversees the planning and execution of all deployment activities across multiple countries, regions, business units, and legal entities while ensuring business continuity, operational readiness, and successful go-live outcomes. The Director partners with executive leadership, PMO, Enterprise Architecture, Business Transformation, Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Data Migration, Application Development, Change Management, and System Integration partners to orchestrate complex deployments across global operations. This role is accountable for establishing the enterprise cutover methodology, directing regional cutover teams, managing deployment risks, and ensuring standardized execution across all implementation waves.

Key Responsibilities

• Global Cutover Strategy Governance: Develop and own the enterprise-wide SAP S/4HANA Cutover Strategy.
• Global Cutover Strategy Governance: Establish global cutover governance, policies, standards, and deployment methodology.
• Global Cutover Strategy Governance: Define deployment principles for Greenfield, Brownfield, and Selective Data Transition programs.
• Global Cutover Strategy Governance: Create enterprise cutover playbooks, templates, quality gates, and governance frameworks.
• Global Cutover Strategy Governance: Establish executive-level deployment readiness criteria and go/no-go decision processes.
• Global Cutover Strategy Governance: Lead global deployment governance boards and executive steering committee reviews.
• Enterprise Program Leadership: Lead global cutover activities across multiple implementation waves.
• Enterprise Program Leadership: Manage regional Cutover Managers across Americas, EMEA, APAC, and LATAM.
• Enterprise Program Leadership: Coordinate deployment activities spanning multiple countries, business units, manufacturing sites, shared service centers, distribution centers, corporate functions, and joint ventures.
• Enterprise Program Leadership: Ensure standardized execution while accommodating regional business requirements.
• Enterprise Program Leadership: Drive alignment across multiple System Integrators and technology partners.
• Executive Stakeholder Management: Serve as the executive owner for deployment planning and production readiness.
• Executive Stakeholder Management: Present deployment readiness, risks, financial impacts, and mitigation plans to Executive Steering Committees.
• Executive Stakeholder Management: Lead executives go/no-go decision meetings.
• Global Deployment Planning: Oversee integrated deployment schedules across multiple workstreams.
• Global Deployment Planning: Direct planning for production migrations, SAP transports, data migration, infrastructure readiness, disaster recovery validation, security readiness, integration cutovers, business continuity activities, and hypercare planning.
• Global Deployment Planning: Ensure deployment activities align with enterprise release calendars and blackout periods.
• Multi-Country Deployment Management: Lead phased, regional, and simultaneous global go-live deployments.
• Multi-Country Deployment Management: Coordinate deployments across multiple time zones and regions.
• Multi-Country Deployment Management: Manage country-specific deployment requirements including regulatory compliance, localization, tax requirements, payroll, financial close, and language support.
• Multi-Country Deployment Management: Coordinate deployment sequencing across legal entities and shared service organizations.
• Enterprise Risk Management: Own the global deployment risk register.
• Enterprise Risk Management: Develop enterprise rollback and contingency strategies.
• Enterprise Risk Management: Lead executive risk assessments throughout deployment planning.
• Enterprise Risk Management: Coordinate business continuity and disaster recovery preparedness.
• Enterprise Risk Management: Manage cross-program dependencies and deployment conflicts.
• Data Migration Technical Readiness: Provide executive oversight for multiple mock conversions, dress rehearsals, data reconciliation, production migration, environment readiness, infrastructure scalability, performance validation, security readiness, disaster recovery testing, and production support readiness.
• Data Migration Technical Readiness: Collaborate closely with SAP Basis, Data Migration, Infrastructure, Cloud Operations, Cybersecurity, Network Operations, and SAP Technical Architecture.
• Business Readiness: Partner with Business Transformation leadership to ensure organizational readiness, end-user training completion, business process readiness, operational readiness, Help Desk readiness, command center preparation, executive communications, regional communications, and hypercare resource planning.
• Vendor Partner Management: Direct multiple System Integrators and consulting partners.
• Vendor Partner Management: Govern deployment deliverables across vendors.
• Vendor Partner Management: Ensure contractual deployment commitments are achieved.
• Vendor Partner Management: Coordinate offshore and global delivery teams.
• Vendor Partner Management: Manage third-party deployment dependencies.
• Financial Resource Management: Manage deployment budgets across global programs.
• Financial Resource Management: Optimize deployment resources across implementation waves.
• Financial Resource Management: Forecast deployment staffing requirements.
• Financial Resource Management: Manage deployment-related vendor costs.
• Financial Resource Management: Report deployment financial performance to executive leadership.
• Hypercare Operational Transition: Lead enterprise stabilization activities by establishing global Hypercare governance, directing Command Center operations, coordinating regional support organizations, managing executive incident escalations, transitioning programs to Application Management Services (AMS), and conducting post-go-live lessons learned and continuous improvement reviews.
• Organizational Leadership: Build and mentor a global Cutover Management organization.
• Organizational Leadership: Develop regional Cutover Leads and Program Managers.
• Organizational Leadership: Establish deployment Centers of Excellence (CoE).
• Organizational Leadership: Promote continuous improvement using deployment metrics and retrospectives.
• Organizational Leadership: Foster collaboration across global teams and business functions.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in information technology, Engineering, Computer Science, Business Administration, or a related field.
• Master's degree (MBA or equivalent) preferred.
• 15+ years of SAP implementation and enterprise transformation experience.
• 10+ years leading enterprise-scale SAP programs.
• 8+ years leading SAP Cutover, Deployment, or Release Management organizations.
• Experience leading at least three global SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA transformation programs.
• Demonstrated success delivering multi-country, multi-wave SAP deployments.

Required SAP Experience

• SAP ECC
• SAP s/4hana
• SAP Activate Methodology
• Brownfield, Greenfield, and Selective Data Transition approaches
• SAP Cloud ALM
• SAP Solution Manager
• SAP Basis
• SAP Landscape Management
• SAP Integration Suite
• SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP)
• SAP Fiori
• SAP Security and GRC
• Data Migration and Master Data Governance
• SAP Analytics and Reporting

Leadership Competencies

• Executive presence and influence
• Enterprise program leadership
• Strategic planning and execution
• Global stakeholder management
• Organizational transformation
• Cross-cultural leadership
• Decision-making under pressure
• Enterprise risk management
• Vendor and partner governance
• Financial and budget management
• Negotiation and conflict resolution
• Change leadership
• Talent development and coaching

Preferred Certifications

• SAP Certified Application Associate SAP S/4HANA
• SAP Activate Project Manager
• Project Management Professional (PMP)
• PgMP (Program Management Professional)
• PRINCE2 Practitioner
• ITIL Foundation or Managing Professional
• SAFe Program Consultant (SPC) or SAFe Agilist
• Prosci Change Management Certification

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• 100% successful execution of global cutover plans.
• On-time delivery of all implementation waves.
• Production deployments completed within approved downtime windows.
• Minimal business disruption during go-live.
• Successful completion of executive go/no-go readiness reviews.
• Achievement of Hypercare exit criteria within planned timelines.
• High deployment quality with reduced post-go-live incidents.
• Standardized cutover processes adopted across all regions.
• Effective budget management and resource utilization.
• Continuous improvement through deployment metrics and lessons learned.

Work Environment

• Executive leadership role supporting a global SAP transformation program.
• Requires coordination across multiple time zones with international teams.
• Ability to support critical cutover weekends, holiday deployments, and extended go-live windows.
• Willingness to travel internationally (up to 30-50%) based on deployment schedules.