A Snapshot of Your Day
The SAP Service Operations Lead will be responsible for stable, compliant and business-aligned operation of the organization's SAP landscape, with primary focus on SAP ECC service continuity and readiness for future SAP S/4HANA transition.
A Snapshot of Your Day
The SAP Service Operations Lead will be responsible for stable, compliant and business-aligned operation of the organization's SAP landscape, with primary focus on SAP ECC service continuity and readiness for future SAP S/4HANA transition.
How You'll Make An Impact
- Own SAP service continuity for business-critical processes across Finance, Supply Chain, Projects and Manufacturing.
- Act as the primary business interface for SAP operational issues, change prioritization, enhancements, user support and stabilization needs.
- Govern SAP change, release, service performance, vendor delivery and knowledge continuity across the application lifecycle.
- Own SAP-related control execution and support audit readiness for ITGC, ICFR, SoD, access governance and license compliance.
- Govern ERP interfaces, master data quality and SAP-facing manufacturing/MES integration requirements without owning OT platforms.
- Build readiness for future SAP S/4HANA transition through documentation, process visibility, testing discipline, interface understanding and operational acceptance planning.
Key Responsibilities
Business Process & Stakeholder Partnership
- Act as the business interface for SAP support, enhancements, development requests, reporting needs and user escalations.
- Partner with business process owners and key users to understand SAP pain points, operational risks, improvement needs and change priorities.
- Support business users during critical cycles such as month-end, quarter-end, year-end, inventory activities, production cycles and statutory reporting dependencies.
- Ensure business impact, urgency and compliance relevance are reflected in SAP prioritization and escalation decisions.
- Coordinate end-user communication, change awareness and training support for SAP operational changes.
SAP ECC Service Operations
- Own day-to-day SAP ECC service operations, ensuring system stability, service continuity and business-critical process support.
- Coordinate support across core SAP areas such as Finance, Controlling, Materials Management, Sales and Distribution, Production Planning, Plant Maintenance, Quality Management, Project Systems and related processes, as applicable.
- Act as escalation point for SAP operational issues, recurring incidents, service risks and business-critical disruptions.
- Maintain SAP operational documentation, support model, ownership matrix, known-error records and escalation paths.
- Drive continuous improvement to reduce repeat incidents and strengthen process reliability.
ERP Interfaces, Master Data & Reporting Enablement
- Govern SAP interfaces and data exchange with interfacing applications, reporting platforms, manufacturing systems, middleware and external partners.
- Maintain visibility of critical interfaces, batch jobs, failure points, monitoring requirements and support ownership.
- Coordinate issue resolution for interface failures, batch health issues and cross-application incidents involving SAP.
- Govern SAP master data quality topics in coordination with process owners and support teams.
- Support business reporting, data extraction and analytics enablement where SAP data or process context is required.
Compliance, Audit & Control Governance
- Own SAP-related operational control execution and support audit, compliance and regulatory requirements including ITGC, ICFR and cybersecurity controls.
- Coordinate SAP access governance, SoD compliance oversight, license compliance, control documentation and evidence management with relevant control owners.
- Review and improve SAP processes supporting ITGC and ICFR compliance, including change controls, access reviews and operational control evidence.
- Support audit readiness for internal and external audits and track SAP-related observations, control gaps if any and remediation actions to closure.
- Collaborate with cybersecurity, identity, finance, application and business teams to ensure SAP services operate in line with security and compliance expectations.
MES, Manufacturing Systems & Factory Integration Coordination
- Act as the SAP-facing IT coordination point for MES, factory automation and manufacturing system integration requirements.
- Coordinate with manufacturing, plant engineering, OT, EHS and application teams for ERP-MES integration demand, issue resolution and rollout dependencies.
- Govern SAP-facing manufacturing data integration, including process touchpoints across production, quality, maintenance, inventory and reporting flows.
- Support deployment and stabilization of SAP-integrated manufacturing solutions while ensuring alignment with ERP process, control and support standards.
- Maintain clarity of ownership between SAP, MES, OT systems, infrastructure and business teams to ensure smooth operations and escalation handling.
SAP Change, Release & Service Governance
- Govern SAP change prioritization, release planning, UAT coordination, business sign-off and deployment readiness.
- Ensure SAP changes follow defined business approvals, impact assessment, documentation, testing and production release practices.
- Track SAP service performance, incident trends, enhancement pipeline, SLA/KPI performance and improvement actions through structured reviews.
- Chair or contribute to SAP operational review forums with business stakeholders, service providers and IT teams.
Vendor & Partner Management
- Manage SAP application support partners, implementation partners and specialist service providers for delivery quality and accountability.
- Monitor vendor performance against SLAs, support obligations, resolution quality and improvement commitments.
- Lead vendor escalations for critical incidents, chronic issues, delayed enhancements and quality concerns.
- Support budgeting, effort estimation, purchase planning, renewals and commercial discussions for SAP services and projects.
SAP Basis, Infrastructure & Availability Coordination
- Coordinate with SAP Basis, infrastructure, cloud, database and hosting teams for availability, performance, backup, monitoring, patching and disaster recovery dependencies.
- Review SAP system health, background jobs, transport movement, batch performance, capacity risks and operational alerts with relevant technical teams.
- Ensure SAP technical maintenance activities are planned with business impact assessment and communication.
- Support SAP disaster recovery planning, readiness reviews and recovery documentation.
S/4HANA Readiness & Strategic Projects
- Manage ongoing transformation projects involving SAP as one of the impacted or interfacing applications.
- Maintain visibility of current SAP processes, custom developments, interfaces, reports, forms, workflows, data dependencies and operational pain points that may impact future transformation.
- Build readiness for any future SAP S/4HANA transition without compromising current ECC operational stability.
- Support readiness activities such as process documentation, custom code rationalization inputs, interface inventory, data quality improvement, testing approach and cutover support planning.
- Ensure SAP projects and future transformation activities include clear operational acceptance criteria, support model, documentation, monitoring and business continuity requirements.
What You Bring
- Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science or a related discipline.
- SAP certification in one or more relevant functional or technical areas preferred.
- ITIL Foundation certification preferred.
- Exposure to SAP S/4HANA, SAP Activate, testing tools, Solution Manager or SAP transformation methodologies will be an added advantage.
Experience
- 12-15 years of overall SAP and IT experience, with significant exposure to SAP ECC operations and business process support.
- Minimum 5 years in a lead role managing SAP service operations, SAP support delivery, application governance or SAP project delivery.
- Understanding of SAP ECC business processes across finance, procurement, sales, manufacturing, plant maintenance, quality, projects or supply chain domains.
- Experience managing SAP incidents, enhancements, changes, releases, testing, business communication and vendor/service reviews.
- Exposure to SAP interfaces, master data, reporting dependencies and SAP integration with MES or manufacturing systems preferred.
- Exposure to ITGC, ICFR, SoD, access review, change control, audit evidence and compliance requirements in SAP environments.
- Working knowledge of SAP Basis, transports, batch jobs, monitoring, backup, DR and technical dependencies, without necessarily being a hands‑on Basis administrator.
- Exposure to SAP S/4HANA assessments, migrations, brownfield conversion, process harmonization or transformation programs will be preferred.
- Experience in manufacturing, energy, engineering, listed-company or large enterprise environments will be preferred.