SAP Ariba Lead

Bristlecone; California (MO); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Bristlecone is a premier provider of supply chain and analytics advisory services. We are seeking a Principal / Lead who has designed and configured end-to-end procurement solutions on SAP S/4HANA and SAP Ariba for a CPG beverage environment with heavy co-manufacturing and packaging needs.

You will lead the Procurement workstream on large-scale S/4 transformations, engaging senior stakeholders and driving best-in-class procure-to-pay outcomes across NORAM, EMEA, LATAM, and APAC regions.

Qualifications

• Experience designing end-to-end procurement solutions on SAP S/4HANA and SAP Ariba in a CPG beverage environment.
• Hands-on configuration proficiency in SAP S/4HANA and Ariba, not just project management oversight.
• Ability to lead the Procurement workstream across multi-region S/4 transformations and engage senior stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Procurement workstream on large-scale, multi-region S/4HANA transformation.
• Configure end-to-end P2P processes including sourcing, contracts, supplier management, and invoicing.
• Align procurement design with best-in-class benchmarks for CPG beverage and co-manufacturing models.
• Collaborate with CPOs, CFOs, and VP Procurement to close gaps between current state and target benchmarks.
• Mentor and guide client teams on Ariba and S/4HANA best practices.

Skills

Procurement transformation

SAP S/4HANA

SAP Ariba

P2P process excellence

Cross-regional rollout

Stakeholder engagement

Tools

Ariba Contracts

Ariba Sourcing

Ariba Buying & Invoicing

S/4HANA Purchasing

Contract management

Job description

Bristlecone is a supply chain and business analytics advisor, serving customers across a wide range of industries. Rated by Gartner as among the top ten system integrators in the supply chain space, we are uniquely positioned to solve contemporary business problems, with supply chain and analytics focus as our advantage. We have been a trusted partner and advisor to many leading, globally recognized companies such as Applied Materials, Exxon Mobil, Flextronics, LSI Logic, Mahindra, Motorola, Nestle, Palm, Qatar Petroleum, Ranbaxy, Unilever and Whirlpool and many others

ROLE OVERVIEW

We are seeking a Principal / Lead who has personally designed and configured end-to-end procurement solutions on SAP S/4HANA and SAP Ariba — from sourcing strategy through touchless PO processing and freight settlement — in a CPG beverage environment with a heavy co-manufacturing / co-packer / bottler footprint, commodity-linked direct material spend, and a broad indirect and POS / marketing-asset procurement portfolio. This individual must be an authority on procurement process excellence, not just SAP functionality: they know what best-in-class procure-to-pay looks like in CPG and they know how to close the gap between a client's current state and that benchmark. They will lead the Procurement workstream on a large-scale, multi-region S/4 transformation while engaging CPOs, CFOs, and VP Procurement stakeholders as trusted advisors.

BEST-IN-CLASS PROCUREMENT PROCESS — WHAT YOU MUST KNOW

Top-quartile procurement performance in CPG beverage is defined by:

• Spend Under Management: best-in-class organizations manage >80% of addressable spend under formal contract or catalog — know how Ariba Contracts and Guided Buying drive this
• Contract Cycle Time: top quartile: <10 days for standard contracts; understand how Ariba Sourcing, automated approval workflows, and clause libraries compress cycle time
• Savings Realized vs. Identified: benchmark: >85% of negotiated savings flow through to actuals — understand why savings leak (maverick buying, contract non-compliance, price creep) and how S/4 and Ariba prevent it
• Supplier Concentration & Risk: CPG benchmark: top 5 suppliers should represent <40% of critical direct spend; understand how supplier segmentation in Ariba SLP and S/4 informs sourcing strategy, with particular attention to single-source ingredients and packaging suppliers
• Purchase Order Automation Rate: top quartile: >75% of POs generated without human intervention (catalog, contract release, scheduling agreement, or auto-PO from MRP) — know how to design the S/4 and Ariba configuration to achieve this
• Invoice Touchless Processing Rate: best-in-class: >60% of invoices processed without manual intervention; understand EDI INVOIC, OCR, PO-flip, and three-way match tolerance configuration
• Invoice Processing Cost: APQC benchmark: top quartile <$2.50 per invoice vs. median $8–12; understand how automation, EDI, and supplier portal adoption drive this
• Payment Terms Compliance: best-in-class capture >95% of available early payment discounts; understand dynamic discounting and supply chain finance integration with Ariba
• Procurement Cycle Time (Req-to-PO): benchmark: <4 hours for catalog items, <2 days for contract releases; know what process and system design achieves this

CPG Beverage Procurement Complexity

• Co-Manufacturing, Co-Packing & Bottling: subcontracting PO design for co-mans / co-packers / bottlers — BOM-based component supply, 541 movement reconciliation, subcontracting stock monitoring at the co-man, co-man performance management, and the integration with finance for settlement
• Direct Material & Commodity Management: ingredient procurement (caffeine, taurine, flavorings, sweeteners, juice concentrates) and packaging (aluminum cans, PET, closures, labels, secondary packaging) — commodity-linked pricing in S/4 (condition-based with commodity index), forward buying logic, and price-risk-hedging integration
• Packaging & Specification Management: tight linkage between packaging procurement, BOM, and quality specifications; supplier qualification flows for primary packaging; and the change-control discipline that prevents specification drift
• POS / Marketing-Asset Procurement: procurement of coolers, racks, signage, and other POS materials — typically a different category structure, supplier base, and lead-time profile than ingredients / packaging, often with direct-to-distributor or direct-to-retail shipment
• Promotional & Innovation Procurement: seasonal demand spikes, short lead-time POs for promotional packaging, NPI / new flavor launches with multi-level BOM explosion, and supplier collaboration on promotional calendars via Ariba
• S&OP-to-Procurement Handoff: the integration from IBP demand and supply output into PR generation across the direct-material supplier base
• Multi-Region Rollout: experience templating P2P design across NORAM, EMEA, LATAM, Brazil, and APAC rollouts — with localization for tax, e-invoicing (CT-e in Brazil, CFDI in Mexico, EU mandates), and supplier-base structure

TECHNOLOGY DEPTH — NON-NEGOTIABLE

Candidates must demonstrate hands-on, current configuration proficiency — not project management oversight.

SAP S/4HANA Sourcing & Procurement — Core

• Organizational structure: purchasing organization, purchasing group, plant assignment, and company code interaction — including multi-company and shared-service procurement models across regions
• Purchasing info record (PIR): info category design (standard, subcontracting, consignment, pipeline), price conditions, commodity-linked condition records, and validity period management
• Source list and quota arrangement: source list maintenance, source determination logic, and quota-based supplier split configuration — critical for multi-source ingredients and packaging
• Purchase requisition: document type configuration, release strategy design (characteristic-based multi-level), PR-to-PO conversion rules, and workflow escalation
• Purchase order: document type design, item category configuration (standard, subcontracting, third-party, consignment, blanket), and PO output management
• Outline agreements: scheduling agreements (SA) with delivery schedule generation — a workhorse for repetitive ingredient and packaging supply — contract management, and value / quantity contract release order creation

SAP Ariba Platform

• Ariba Sourcing: event creation (RFP, RFQ, reverse auction), supplier invitation, scoring, award, and contract handoff — full cycle hands-on configuration
• Ariba Contracts: contract workspaces, clause libraries, approval workflow, compliance controls, and S/4 integration for release order creation
• Ariba Buying & Invoicing: requisition configuration, catalog management (PunchOut, hosted catalogs), approval workflows, and invoice automation (PO-flip, OCR, EDI)

Supplier Forecast Collaboration via SAP Business Network

• Forecast data extraction from S/4 / IBP to the Business Network — design of the key figures published to suppliers, forecast horizon, and forecast version management
• Supplier forecast commit workflow: full commit, partial commit, alternate-quantity proposal, and exception capture
• Rescheduling, shortage, and exception management: in-system reschedule rules, exception routing to category buyers and planners, and the operating model around chronic non-commit
• Closed-loop integration back into MRP and supplier scorecards — translating commit reliability into adjustments to source list, quota arrangement, and segmentation tier

Ariba Guided Buying — Advanced Configuration

• Master data and catalog enablement (CEME): supplier enablement, catalog content management, and the supplier-load vs. buyer-load decisions per category
• Catalog management depth: PunchOut catalogs, hosted catalogs, CIF (Catalog Interchange Format) file management; UNSPSC mapping; price tolerance and unit-of-measure validation; multi-language and multi-currency design for global rollouts
• Approval framework: Delegation of Authority (DoA) modelling, approval limits by role and amount band, multi-level approval flows, and the filter / edit rules that gate user behavior at the requisition line level
• User profile and catalog visibility: catalog filtering by role, department, and ship-to; managing the user experience across regions and business units
• Advanced Guided Buying features: Real-Time Budget Check (RTBC), Total Landed Cost (TLC), Demand Aggregation, and Purchasing Unit (PU) configuration
• Operational features: ad-hoc ship-to, "Delay Purchase Until" date logic, and "Suppress Orders" handling for backorder or supplier-issue scenarios

• Business need identification and supplier request: design of the intake form, justification capture, and routing to category management for the sourcing-vs-existing-supplier decision
• Supplier registration: external registration questionnaire, document collection, tax and banking validation, sanctions and restricted-party screening (GTS or third-party integration)
• Supplier qualification: category-specific qualification questionnaires (food-safety, packaging spec, ESG, quality certifications), multi-stage approval workflow, and the gating between qualification status and the ability to transact

Sourcing & Contract Award

• Sourcing request intake and prioritization: design of the sourcing pipeline, request triage, and the link back to category strategy
• Sourcing strategy and plan development: market analysis, should-cost modelling, supplier shortlist development, and approach selection (RFP vs. RFQ vs. direct negotiation vs. existing-contract release)
• Supplier identification and prequalification: integration with SLP for qualified-supplier filtering, plus the ad-hoc prequalification path for net-new suppliers