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.

The role will act as the business-facing SAP service owner, coordinating with business process owners, central SAP teams, application partners, infrastructure teams and manufacturing stakeholders to ensure SAP supports critical operations, regulatory controls, ERP integrations and future transformation needs.

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.