SAP Product Manager

Summary

Leadership. Clarity. Focus. The SAP Product Managers are senior leaders who deliver value to our business through the embodiment of these qualities. The J.R. Simplot Company is on an SAP S/4 HANA ERP global transformation journey. The Product Managers play a critical role in this transformation through envisioning, defining, deploying, and improving the SAP and SAP-adjacent products within Simplot.

The initial focus will be on the multi-year implementation and rollout of SAP S/4 and related products to the Simplot business units. As rollouts are completed, the product manager role will take on strategic planning for future needs, improvement of existing functionality, and ensuring value capture for the investment that has been made.

We are looking for the ideal candidate to fill our SAP Product Manager position that is focused on the Make-to-Deploy logistics space (MTD-Logistics). The product portfolio for MTD-Logistics includes: SAP S/4 modules for Transportation Management and Extended Warehouse Management; the Global Trade Services product and the Business Network for Logistics (BN4L) product. To be effective, the SAP Product Manager will have business knowledge and experience in warehousing and logistics (both Domestic and International) so they can communicate and partner with the business stakeholders on identifying needs and translating those to SAP product capabilities.

The SAP Product Manager will:

• Work with business owners and the SAP vendor product team to define and align on the product roadmap, epics, features, capabilities, and overall deployment approach
• Collaborate with business owners to understand future business needs and align those needs to the product roadmap
• Support the Agile delivery teams to prioritize, build, and deploy the roadmap
• Govern the solution globally as different business groups are on-boarded; provide guidance for identifying rational variation versus irrational variation in the solution
• Own the backlog for project work and enhancement work; includes prioritization and negotiation with the business
• Be the ultimate decision-maker/accountable person for the SAP products in their portfolio

Key Responsibilities

Envision and Plan It

• Set both the immediate and long-term vision for your product portfolio
• Communicate the vision to key stakeholders
• Be transparent about the “why” and “how” for decision-making
• Be able to say “no” or “not now” but explain why
• Have a passion for objective prioritization and know how to balance competing factors
  
  

Get it Built

• Support the delivery teams with continued prioritization, trade-off discussions, and roadblock removal
• Provide clarification related to Epics and/or Features
• Collaborate with the Program team to help set goals for each product increment
  
  

Make it Live

• Collaborate with the business owners, users, SMEs, cutover team, training team, and the OCM team to deploy product features into the business
• Support the team and business owners during the initial go-live events and provide leadership and focus on deployment issues or defects
  
  

Sustain and Improve It

• Collaborate with the delivery teams and the IT support team to ensure the products have a working support model
• Maintain close contact with the super-user network (SUN) to identify how the product is being used and where improvement to the product or process is necessary
• Collaborate with the SAP Principal Enterprise Architect and the vendor’s product team to monitor and plan for new capabilities, future enhancements, etc.
• Manage the cost of the solution and relationship with the vendor’s product team(s)
• Monitor the return on investment for the products in your portfolio

Sunset It

• Monitor the life of the product including vendor roadmaps and their end-of-life dates
• Plan for the replacement of the product if the functionality is still needed by the business

Typical Education

Bachelor’s degree (B.A. or B.S.) from 4 year college or university

Relevant Experience

8+ years related experience and/or training

Other Information

• Must be able to establish the trust of the business
• Ability to influence and drive consensus with stakeholders
• Must have excellent leadership and collaboration skills
• Deep knowledge of the warehousing and logistics space
• Deep knowledge of the systems/modules that are in the MTD-Logistics portfolio
• Must have excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to present effectively to all levels of audiences from Executives to boots-on-the-ground stakeholders
• Strong problem-solving and critical thinking skills
• Ability to take a complex solution or concept and explain it in a simple, easy to understand way