SUMMARY:

• I have been into Strategic IT Consulting for several years, managing large Business Transformation programs covering Business Cases, Roadmap, Organization preparedness, Business IT alignment, Technology Development, Delivery & Maintenance; and implement, upgrade, migrate SAP ERPs, for several Fortune 1000 companies, around the world.
• My specialization in the enterprise applications is - Financial & Operational Planning & Optimization, Cost Management, Supply chain planning & Optimization and CX.
• Over 25 years of SAP Project Management experience implementing scores of SAP projects for several Fortune 1000 companies.
• Successfully implemented 3 SAP S/4 HANA greenfield and brownfield projects for past 5 years.
• Partner with CXO, Business Operations and IT stakeholders to conduct discovery workshops and impact analysis to develop business case, architecture and deployment roadmaps focused on next generation technologies.
• Provide advisory and assessment services to customers for their S/4HANA journey.
• Hands on experience with SAP ASAP & ACTIVATE implementation frameworks & tools.
• Adapt pre-configured solution based on industry standards and conduct show & tell workshops with customers.
• Engage with business users during requirement analysis, fit-gap analysis, and solution design.
• Co-ordinate with business users and product owners during solution acceptance with focus on finance transformation and supply chain processes.
• Support and provide inputs for cutover, migration, testing, related strategies.
• Manage any interdependencies with contributing technology/non-technology teams (operations, sales, Business, settlement etc.) and any third-party vendors or clients.
• Conduct ‘scrum of scrum’ retrospectives or lessons learned with associated teams.
• Understand well the LOBs, workstreams, deliverables.
• Collaborate and co-ordinate with the teams engaged on Impact Analysis, Detailed Design & Build, Quality Testing, Data Migration, OCM,, Cutover & Hypercare.
• Cross-functional stakeholders management.
• SAP IBP (S&OP, DP, Supply Planning, & Control Tower), SAP SCM (APO- DP, SNP, GATP, PP/DS, SNC), & SAP ECC (PP, MM, SD, PP-PI).
• Lean, Six Sigma & SAFe.
• Enterprise Architecture TOGAF/Service Oriented SOA/Microservices, Open Shift and Cloud implementations.
• Set & Measure KPIs, Performance Dashboards, and timely project status reports on budget, timeliness and quality to the Finance and cross-functional stakeholders.,
• Including:
• Project Governance Compliance.
• Controlling Time Management.
• Estimating cost and developing the budget.
• Ensuring the Satisfaction of the End-User through Quality Adherence.
• Analyzing and managing the Project Risks.
• Organizing and Motivating the Project team.

WORK EXPERIENCE:

Confidential

Consulting Partner & Co-Promoter

Responsibilities:

• SAP and BPC Projects for Finance, Tax, SAP HANA S/4 transition, and assessment for on-premise implementation.
• Participate and have a voice in program strategy discussions with leaders across the enterprise as a representative of Operations.
• Global Template and regional roll outs with local customer specifics and regulatory compliances.
• Take the responsibility for all aspects of designated projects or programs, including control of scope, schedule, and commitments on behalf of the impacted business and Operations teams. Scrutinize and speak to development requirements from both an operational and technical perspective.
• Identify Stakeholders and ensure all stakeholders and pertinent leaders are reliably and appropriately informed of project or program status, issues, risks and meeting outcomes.
• Identify risks and issues, raising and escalating in a timely fashion to enable the organization to overcome roadblocks and to work cooperatively to a successful outcome.
• Perform architecture, business Process review & validation, Impact analysis, solution review, and approach for the SAP BI BW, SAP BPC, Business Process, and Finance transition.
• Manage development and support for various systems testing for different unit components, functional, and integration testing for multiple business streams.
• Develop a business impact, transition, and migration path. Perform Finance and Enterprise level transformation analysis using: EPM tools, analyze and research pain points, develop a high-level solution.
• Work on specific flows of the RTR process, including integrations with Order to Cash (OTC), Procure to Pay (PTP).
• Oversee and manage various S/4 HANA conversion activities like Project Mobilization, Readiness Check, system study assessment with customer code, delta configuration, CVI etc., Fit Gap & Design, Build & Unit Test, Integration Testing, Cutover Planning & Go Live.

Confidential

Program Manager

Responsibilities:

• Guide the Client Management to understand the SAP product, project, methodology, and support in decision making during the project life cycle. Cutover and CoE management.
• Facilitate current business process review and project planning in detail, aligning customer expectations, project scope, cost budgets, and managing risk.
• Monitor multiple inter-dependent projects, identify risks and issues in advance, and initiate appropriate corrective and preventive actions ensuring performance as per project goals.
• Establish an effective project performance management system and necessary reporting and ensure execution across the projects.
• Manage external and internal stakeholders and guide the project teams to execute it effectively
• Provide expert support helping project managers to achieve, maintain, and improve the project performance.
• Act as senior management representative dealing with various matters with project teams, like periodic reviews, escalation management, and guiding on project execution.
• Ensure compliance with various project management and monitoring processes within the client organization and ensure compliance to project management principles, processes, and standards.
• Facilitate change management, guiding both customers and teams and initiating necessary support and resources.

Confidential

Program Manager

Responsibilities:

• Work with the business analysts and leads to define, map, and integrate the organization's business processes and technologies to ensure the transformation achieves the efficiencies required and deliver the program's strategic goals and business outcomes.
• Determine the necessary Business and IS Resources (people and funding) to execute the planned work; update and keep updated, appropriate resource plans and budgets and work with principal Business and IS stakeholders to secure resources and onboard them to the project.
• Drive Scope Definition with Business and IS (Information Services) stakeholders and System Integration partners, document to Client standards, obtain signoffs and utilize ERP change management procedures if scope (or budget) needs to be adjusted.
• Manage implementation phases, including design/build /test/deploy of S/4 Finance capabilities and Change Management and Process Transformation activities across the S/4 implementation (Finance, Order to Cash, Supply Chain).
• Utilize Microsoft Project, SharePoint, Clarity, and other tools that may be required by the Client.
• Drive and Communicate project expectations, assignments, and progress to Project Team members and stakeholders in timely and precise ways (team meetings & minutes, design reviews, stage-gate meetings, emails, calls, face-to-face, project documentation, etc.
• Team with HR and business leads to quantify the transformation’s impacts on the affected employees' job roles and job descriptions.
• Drive Risk and Issue Management; create and manage to resolution risks, issues, and dependencies and, when necessary, escalate conflicts to Finance team leads or the ERP Program Manager.
• Prepare status reports, submit to the ERP PMO weekly, or as specified and lead or co-lead with Business/IS conducts periodic Finance status or related meetings.
• Work with third-party providers as necessary to identify resourcing, obtain proposed Statements of Work (SOW), and move the SOWs through Client Sourcing and Contracts processes as required.
• Report on project success criteria results, metrics, test and deployment management activities.
• Create an analytical problem-solving environment demonstrating teamwork, innovation, and excellence.
• Participate in establishing practices, templates, policies, tools, and partnerships to expand and mature these capabilities for the client's PMO organization.
• Coach and mentor junior PMs and team members in project management planning and execution activities.
• Manage development teams both in the US and offshore for support and development for successful project execution.
• Enabled the client to achieve the expected tangible benefits from the project implementation.
• Guide Cutover teams in planning and execution of:
• System Build (Technical & Functional,
• Data Migration & Verification,
• Business Preparation,
• Legacy integration/shutdown
• Business startup activities, etc.

Confidential

SAP Project Manager

Platform: ECC 6, IS-Retail SD, MM, FICO, EWM, Project System and HP ALM Workflow

• Create and manage the Project Schedule/Charter in coordination with stakeholders.
• Manage communication and information flow between all teams involved in the project (Engg, QA, BA, SCM, and DBA).
• Lead Project planning and management activities on multi-million-dollar initiatives for tactical as well as strategic approaches.
• Responsible for estimation, scheduling, planning the deliverables for the release.
• Lead projects on multiple initiatives, including System Configuration, Enhancements, Testing, and Process Implementation on SAP IS Retail (ECC 6.0).
• Leading team of Functional Designers (Architects), Business Analyst, SAP technical (ABAP), Quality Assurance (onsite and offshore) testers, and Business Validations.
• Involved in project activities with SIs & SAP to provide technical architecture and implementation of the SAP solution.
• Managing project deliverables (RICEFW components) for the project and have them signed off with various stakeholders.
• Conduct daily/weekly meetings with respective stakeholders.
• Manage Checkbook in terms of hours consumed, remaining, and available resource capacity.
• Weekly budget tracking in terms of actual vs. planned efforts.
• Work with Resource Managers to secure resources (soft and hard scheduling).
• Leverage Project leads to produce the work breakdown structure for project schedules and to optimize resource allocations and leveling.
• Monitor and Evaluate progress and communicate the same via dashboards and reports to all project stakeholders and L1 Management as needed.
• Ensure project-related issues are worked to resolution with a proper plan.
• Manage change controls to the project and ensure any impacts are factored into the schedule, budget, and resourcing plan.
• Manage project risks through appropriate contingency, planning, forecasting & communications.
• Work with Sales Management to coordinate custom software modification (CSM) requests and Change Requests (CR).
• Provide performance feedback to Resource Managers regarding resource productivity and effectiveness.
• Manage Schedule and Cost variance. Metrics Management.
• Capacity planning for available resource bandwidth. Create and maintain Leave/Travel Plans.
• Manage Project Portfolio.
• Plan and Manage Post Delivery Support activities in co-ordination with Internal and External Stakeholders.

Confidential

Program Manager

Responsibilities:

• Activity-Based Costing (ABC) Rapid Prototyping, followed by iterative remodeling of each preceding ABC model as a preferred approach to calculating cost and profitability measures, and integration with the SAP ECC 6.0 ERP in usage.
• Worked directly with the CFO, CIO, CMO, and other LOBs to develop & build the prototype, fine-tune, execute and implement and integrate with the SAP FICO at the enterprise level.
• Acted as the change facilitator within the LOBs and worked closely with the stakeholders to design and implement solutions.
• Scheduled multi-project level meetings, tracked tasks, managed specific risks, issues, decisions, dependencies, and reported status to the internal-teams and stakeholders.
• Value realization: Over $20 million by the client.
• Worldwide Management Consultants
• Indian Institute of Technology Madras Alumni
• SAP Industry and Value Advisory
• Retail Management Executive Group
• IT Financial Management & Cost Analytics
• Business Consulting Group: Management & Strategic Consultants | Certified Business Consultant (CBC)
• Reviewed and re-defined the PMO strategy for the strategic IT projects, Processes, methodologies, standards and tools to enhance the efficiencies of the teams.
• Reviewed the PMO governance, reporting and review framework to provide a holistic view of all the enterprise projects activity.
• Revisited and optimized the processes that manage interdependencies and coordination across projects to ensure that information relating to project deliverables, risks and issues is effectively communicated between stakeholders and that key performance indicators are monitored and evaluated on a regular basis.
• Reviewed and optimized the knowledge management strategy and drive the creation and maintenance of process, procedure and governance workflows.
• Reviewed the portfolio dashboard and reporting mechanisms to track project health, adherence to reporting standards, and key risks.
• Also re-visited tooling and automation strategy leading efforts to identify requirements, evaluate vendors, develop business cases and lead implementation.
• Worked with the functional areas to conduct capacity planning and project assignments.
• Created a roadmap for continuous learning, facilitating lessons learned activities and updating methodologies accordingly.