Role Overview
We are seeking an experienced SAP MM + SAP Ariba Consultant to support indirect procurement processes and SAP application landscape. The consultant will be responsible for production support, incident and problem management, procurement process optimization, and integration between SAP Materials Management (MM) and SAP Ariba.
The ideal candidate must have extensive SAP experience, strong SAP Retail domain knowledge, hands-on experience with SAP Ariba indirect procurement, and a proven track record supporting multiple AMS contracts.
Key Responsibilities
1. SAP MM – Functional Support
- Provide functional support for SAP Materials Management, including purchasing, purchase requisitions, purchase orders, goods receipts, invoice verification, and vendor-related procurement processes.
- Troubleshoot and resolve SAP MM incidents and service requests across P1, P2, and P3 priority levels.
- Support the complete procure-to-pay (P2P) lifecycle, from purchase requisition creation through purchase order processing, goods receipt, and invoice verification.
- Investigate issues related to purchase order creation, release strategies, approval workflows, account assignment, pricing, and goods movements.
- Support purchasing for indirect materials and services, including cost center, internal order, and other account-assigned procurement.
- Troubleshoot issues involving purchase order changes, blocked transactions, goods receipt reversals, and invoice mismatches.
- Perform root cause analysis and implement corrective actions to minimize recurring incidents.
- Support configuration changes, functional enhancements, regression testing, and production deployments.
- Collaborate with Finance, Accounts Payable, business users, and technical teams to resolve cross-functional issues.
2. SAP Ariba – Indirect Procurement
- Provide functional support for SAP Ariba solutions used for indirect procurement.
- Support relevant Ariba modules, such as Buying and Invoicing, Guided Buying, Sourcing, and Supplier Management, based on the client's deployed solution.
- Troubleshoot issues related to purchase requisitions, catalog and non-catalog purchases, shopping carts, purchase orders, and approval workflows.
- Support indirect procurement processes involving office supplies, services, facilities, IT purchases, and other non-resale business expenses.
- Investigate issues related to approval routing, purchasing policies, account assignments, cost centers, GL accounts, and budget-related validations.
- Support supplier onboarding and supplier data processes where applicable.
- Troubleshoot invoice processing and reconciliation issues within the deployed Ariba solution.
- Support procurement catalogs, supplier catalogs, purchasing forms, and guided buying configurations where applicable.
- Work with business stakeholders to resolve user access, transaction processing, and procurement policy compliance issues.
- Support Ariba configuration changes, testing, enhancements, and release management.
3. SAP MM–Ariba Integration
- Troubleshoot integration issues between SAP Ariba and the SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA backend.
- Support integrations involving purchase requisitions, purchase orders, suppliers, receipts, invoices, and accounting-related information, as applicable to the deployed architecture.
- Analyze failed interfaces, transaction errors, data mapping issues, and synchronization failures.
- Coordinate with SAP technical, middleware, integration, and Basis teams to resolve interface issues.
- Support integration testing and regression testing following configuration changes or system releases.
- Monitor recurring integration failures and recommend preventive measures to improve system stability.
4. AMS, Incident, and Problem Management
- Manage incidents, service requests, problems, and change requests in accordance with agreed AMS processes and SLAs.
- Prioritize and resolve P1, P2, and P3 tickets based on business impact, urgency, and contractual response and resolution targets.
- Perform root cause analysis for recurring procurement issues and document permanent corrective actions.
- Maintain ticket documentation, troubleshooting procedures, knowledge articles, and support handover materials.
- Identify opportunities to reduce ticket volumes through process improvements, automation, and preventive maintenance.
- Coordinate with offshore and onshore teams, business users, and other functional and technical support teams.
- Support release management, functional testing, user acceptance testing (UAT), and production deployment activities.
- Provide regular status updates on ticket progress, aging, SLA performance, and critical issues.
5. SAP Retail Domain Support
- Apply SAP Retail business process knowledge to support procurement operations in a multi-location retail environment.
- Understand the distinction between merchandise procurement for resale and indirect procurement for corporate and operational expenses.
- Support indirect procurement processes across stores, distribution centers, corporate offices, and other business locations, as applicable.
- Understand the dependencies between purchasing, inventory management, finance, vendor master data, and invoice processing.
- Work with business stakeholders to minimize disruption to retail operations and ensure timely resolution of business-critical issues.
Required Skills and Experience
- 10+ years of overall SAP experience in functional consulting, implementation, enhancement, and production support.
- At least 5 years of hands-on SAP Retail experience, preferably in a large-scale retail environment.
- Strong hands-on experience with SAP MM, including purchasing, purchase requisitions, purchase orders, goods receipts, account assignment, and invoice verification.
- Proven experience with SAP Ariba for indirect procurement, including hands-on functional support and troubleshooting.
- Experience with relevant SAP Ariba solutions, preferably Buying and Invoicing and Guided Buying, aligned with the client's deployed modules.
- Must have successfully worked on at least two SAP AMS contracts, with direct responsibility for production support, incident management, problem resolution, and SLA adherence.
- Strong understanding of the procure-to-pay lifecycle and indirect procurement processes.
- Experience troubleshooting SAP MM–Ariba integrations and coordinating with technical teams to resolve interface and data synchronization issues.
- Demonstrated experience managing P1, P2, and P3 incidents and performing root cause analysis.
- Experience with ticket management tools such as Jira or ServiceNow.
- Strong analytical, communication, documentation, and stakeholder management skills.
- Ability to work independently in a client-facing AMS environment and manage competing priorities.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with SAP S/4HANA and SAP Ariba integration.
- Experience with SAP Business Network and supplier collaboration, where applicable.
- Familiarity with SAP Integration Suite, Cloud Integration (CPI), or other middleware used in Ariba integrations.
- Experience with retail procurement, store operations, distribution centers, and corporate indirect purchasing.
- Experience supporting high-volume enterprise environments with formal SLA, change management, and release management processes.
- Exposure to automation and continuous improvement initiatives in SAP AMS operations.
Expected Outcomes
- Timely resolution of SAP MM and Ariba incidents within agreed SLAs.
- Stable and reliable indirect procurement operations.
- Reduced recurring incidents and improved integration reliability.
- Improved efficiency of purchase requisition, purchase order, approval, and invoice processing.
- Effective root cause analysis, knowledge management, and preventive problem management.
- Consistent support for business-critical retail and corporate procurement processes.
