Client: A leading Crop Chemical Manufacturing Company
Location: Mumbai
Reporting To: Chief Information Officer
About the Company
Our client is a Crop chemical manufacturing company committed to operational excellence, regulatory compliance, and efficient supply-chain and production processes. As they scale and modernize, we seek a senior leader to drive and govern their ERP (SAP) landscape - aligning SAP systems with manufacturing, procurement, finance, inventory, compliance, and other business-critical functions - ensuring robust, integrated, and streamlined operations.
Role Summary
The Head - SAP Applications will be responsible for the overall architecture, implementation, maintenance, optimization, and governance of SAP/ERP systems across the company. This role will ensure that SAP (S4 HANA) modules and processes support the company's business operations (manufacturing, materials, chemical compliance, procurement, finance, supply-chain) efficiently, reliably and in compliance with industry requirements. The incumbent will lead a cross-functional SAP team (and/or vendors), work closely with business heads (production, supply chain, finance, quality, compliance) to map business processes to HANA configuration, drive digitalization, and enable data-driven decision making.
Key Responsibilities
1. SAP Strategy & Governance
- Define the SAP/ERP roadmap aligned with business strategy, including upgrades (S/4HANA), module adoption, integrations, and future scalability.
- Establish governance, policies and best practices for all SAP application use, data integrity, access control, change management, and system security.
2. Implementation & Roll-out
- Lead end-to-end SAP implementations or upgrades, from blueprinting, requirement gathering, configuration, testing, deployment, to post-go-live support.
- Work with business process owners to translate operational requirements (manufacturing, procurement, inventory, quality, compliance) into SAP functional module design (e.g. MM, PP, QM, WM, FI/CO, etc.)
- Ensure SAP supports chemical-industry specific requirements: batch tracking, regulatory compliance, inventory & materials traceability, quality control integration, safety/chem compliance workflows (as per business need).
3. SAP Operations, Support & Maintenance
- Oversee daily SAP operations: user administration, authorizations, background jobs, performance tuning, system health, transport/change management, backups and disaster recovery readiness.
- Provide functional support to end-users across departments: procurement, production, inventory, finance, sales. Provide training and ensure high user adoption and compliance.
- Manage SAP application lifecycle, including patch management, upgrades, enhancements, integrations with other systems (MES, PLM, Quality, Compliance).
4. Integration & Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Collaborate with business heads (Production, Supply Chain, Quality, Finance, Compliance) to align business processes and SAP workflows.
- Lead cross-functional projects involving SAP - e.g. procurement-to-pay, production planning, inventory management, supply-chain/logistics, finance & cost controls, compliance reporting.
5. Team & Stakeholder Management
- Build and lead a team of SAP professionals (in-house / vendor / consultants) - functional, basis, support. Define roles, responsibilities, performance metrics.
- Manage relationships with SAP vendors, consultants, third-party service providers; ensure timely deliverables, quality, and vendor accountability.
6. Data & Reporting, Continuous Improvement
- Develop and maintain SAP-based reporting, dashboards, KPIs to support business decision-making (inventory levels, production planning, procurement efficiency, cost control, compliance tracking).
- Drive continuous improvement initiatives: standardization, automation, process optimization, system enhancements to improve operational efficiency, compliance, and scalability.
7. Risk, Compliance & Security
- Ensure SAP system complies with internal controls, audit, regulatory requirements (especially for chemical manufacturing, safety, environmental compliance, traceability).
- Ensure data security, user access control, change management policies, segregation of duties, system audit readiness.
Qualifications & Profile
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering / Information Technology / Computer Science / relevant discipline. Master's or MBA preferred (optional).
- 15+ years of progressive experience managing SAP/ERP applications - ideally in manufacturing / process industry / chemicals / heavy industry.
- Demonstrated track record of end-to-end SAP implementations and rollouts, preferably including SAP S/4HANA, MM, PP, QM/PM, WM, FI/CO.
- Strong understanding of manufacturing operations, supply-chain, procurement, inventory management, production planning, and regulatory/ compliance aspects relevant to chemical manufacturing.
- Experience in system governance, data integrity, user-authorizations, change management, and audit/compliance readiness.
- Excellent project management skills - able to manage multiple projects, deadlines, and stakeholders; comfortable with vendor / consultant coordination.
- Strong leadership, communication, stakeholder management, ability to engage with senior management and business heads.
- Analytical mindset with process orientation, problem-solving, ability to translate business requirements into SAP configurations, workflows, and business value.
- Preferably exposure to integrations (MES, Quality, PLM, plant-floor systems) and knowledge of SAP landscape beyond core ERP (interfaces, middleware, data flows).