SAP Technical Lead - Integrated Business Planning (IBP)

SAP Technical Lead - Integrated Business Planning
London

The SIE IT – Corporate Applications department implements, enhances, and supports products and services that underpin PlayStation’s Sales, Finance and Operations business processes. SAP is the strategic solution in this space: the estate currently comprising SAP ERP, BW, and SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP). We are looking for an experienced SAP Technical Lead - Integrated Business Planning (IBP) to take on responsibility for the delivery of SAP IBP solutions in the Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) module, and other integrated modules as required.

You will help us in our mission to establish within SAP IBP a best-in-class Sales & Operations Planning process globally. You will do this by working with business and technical teams to understand Supply Chain and Sales & Operations Planning processes (including production planning and scheduling) and by designing and overseeing the delivery of secure, high-performance technical solutions that meet these requirements by fully leveraging SAP product capabilities.

You have previously led strong technical teams in the successful delivery of large-scale, complex IBP solutions and have demonstrable experience in SAP package solution implementation tools and methodologies. 

You will act as a mentor and guide to the team and will foster a culture of sharing and learning across the business and technology teams that you engage with, whilst encouraging autonomy and ownership within the team. You will lead and inspire internal and external team members to achieve outstanding results in a fast-paced environment.

What you’ll be doing:

Technical leadership in the continued implementation and development of SIE’s SAP IBP platform, including but not limited to:

• Being responsible for the SAP IBP technical solution globally and overseeing delivery to ensure it meets business goals by
  • Providing direction and governance for the implementation of all key functional and non-functional requirements on the IBP platform;
  • Own and maintain the solutions roadmap and phased implementation approach to achieve strategic business objectives;
  • Running a technical design authority for the solution design for all proposed new features and changes on the platform;
  • Setting priorities for and allocating work to developers;
  • Assuring the quality of the solution;
  • Validating the approach for the release of system changes to ensure proper testing and documentation is completed;
  • Develop and own an operating model for the management of the IBP environments, dependencies and deployment;
  • Taking on planning and delivery actions to resolve systems and infrastructure ‘blockers’;
    
    
• Translating business strategy into product strategy by:
  • Identifying business stakeholders and engaging with them to discover, understand and define business problems and opportunities;
  • Understanding existing business processes, mapping out process flows and identifying areas for improvement;
  • Contributing to interface design, and co-ordinating and assisting with integration testing as required;
  • Providing guidance and recommendations to business stakeholders, driving standardisation and adoption of SAP best practices globally whenever possible;

• As required, working closely with internal and third-party technical teams to analyse, troubleshoot, and resolve production issues (including performance) issues:
  • Triaging user tickets and assigning calls to the correct resolver group;
  • Identifying technical issues and reviewing with business and technical teams;
  • Implementing, and co-ordinating the testing and release of fixes;
    
    
• Reviewing Quarterly SAP IBP Upgrades and assessing impact on the platform;
  • Identifying opportunities for how new features can be capitalised on;

What we are looking for:

At PlayStation we are driven by the desire to ensure that PlayStation remains the best place to play and the best place to work. This drive is fuelled by our core values: we are looking for people to join us who are passionate, trailblazers and have a one team mindset.

These values and behaviours are evident throughout your previous experience:

• Technical leadership experience in architecting and collaborating with business process architect groups to develop efficient technical solutions in the areas of IBP and S&OP;
• Demonstrable experience in managing supply chain planning applications using SAP IBP, Hana DB and SAP Cloud Platform, including design and development experience in S&OP, Demand Planning, Inventory Planning and Replenishment modules;
• Working successfully across the full lifecycle of technology-enabled change: from requirements definition through solution design, build, testing to transition to live operation;
• Leadership in development,, implementation and support of global initiatives across various time zones.
• Broad and sound understanding of one or more of the following areas is desirable:
  • Demand / Supply / Production / Logistics Planning in a Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) environment;
  • Product data management including Bill of Materials;
  • Data interfaces and system integration;
  • Financial reporting and reconciliation;
• Working effectively with off shore / near shore service providers
• Working with ITIL, Prince2 & Agile methodologies;
• Working with a diverse range of stakeholders and audiences within a matrix organisation;
• Excellent at influencing and negotiation, comfortable dealing with senior stakeholders and willing to challenge them based on sound reasoning;
• Excellent written, verbal, social and decision-making skills,
• Self-motivated, highly organised, working well under pressure, remaining focused and calm in the face of distractions and changing priorities;
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills;
• Working with the following tools (or similar):       
  • Issue Tracking (e.g. JIRA, Service Now)
  • Collaboration (e.g. Confluence, Trello)
  • Communication (e.g. Slack, Webex, Skype for Business)
• Working within controlled/compliance-based environments (particularly Sarbanes Oxley) would be beneficial;

Your technical development and support competencies will include the following:

• SAP IBP S&OP, Demand Planning, Response & Supply, Inventory and/or DDMRP as well as Production Planning Optimisation
• Experience with inbound/outbound data integration using CPI-DS and other integration solutions;
• Experience with Excel and Web UI to perform the planning activities.
• BW and S4 functional areas such as MDG, MM, SD and PP (beneficial)
• ABAP (beneficial)