Senior Solution Architect - Delivery Management-

Candidates must demonstrate hands-on, current configuration proficiency — not project management oversight.

SAP S/4HANA Sourcing & Procurement — Core

• Organizational structure: purchasing organization, purchasing group, plant assignment, and company code interaction — including multi-company and shared-service procurement models across regions

• Purchasing info record (PIR): info category design (standard, subcontracting, consignment, pipeline), price conditions, commodity-linked condition records, and validity period management

• Source list and quota arrangement: source list maintenance, source determination logic, and quota-based supplier split configuration — critical for multi-source ingredients and packaging

• Purchase requisition: document type configuration, release strategy design (characteristic-based multi-level), PR-to-PO conversion rules, and workflow escalation

• Purchase order: document type design, item category configuration (standard, subcontracting, third-party, consignment, blanket), and PO output management

• Outline agreements: scheduling agreements (SA) with delivery schedule generation — a workhorse for repetitive ingredient and packaging supply — contract management, and value / quantity contract release order creation

• Subcontracting: BOM explosion for subcontracting components, 541 movement reconciliation, subcontracting stock monitoring at co-packer / bottler sites, and the integration into FI for settlement

• Goods receipt and invoice verification: GR-based IV, tolerance groups, stochastic blocking, automatic account determination

• Supplier evaluation: scoring criteria configuration, automatic evaluation via GR and QM integration, and weighted scoring design

• Consignment and pipeline: consignment info records, periodic settlement, and pipeline procurement for utilities / continuous-flow materials

SAP Ariba Platform

• Ariba Sourcing: event creation (RFP, RFQ, reverse auction), supplier invitation, scoring, award, and contract handoff — full cycle hands-on configuration

• Ariba Contracts: contract workspaces, clause libraries, approval workflow, compliance controls, and S/4 integration for release order creation

• Ariba Buying & Invoicing: requisition configuration, catalog management (PunchOut, hosted catalogs), approval workflows, and invoice automation (PO-flip, OCR, EDI)

• Ariba Supplier Lifecycle & Performance (SLP): supplier registration, qualification questionnaires (including food-grade / packaging qualification), segmentation, and performance scorecards

• SAP Business Network: supplier connectivity for co-packers / bottlers / ingredient and packaging suppliers, order collaboration, ship notice (ASN) management, and invoice submission — know the difference between Standard and Enterprise supplier accounts

Supplier Forecast Collaboration via SAP Business Network

• Forecast data extraction from S/4 / IBP to the Business Network — design of the key figures published to suppliers, forecast horizon, and forecast version management

• Supplier forecast commit workflow: full commit, partial commit, alternate-quantity proposal, and exception capture

• Rescheduling, shortage, and exception management: in-system reschedule rules, exception routing to category buyers and planners, and the operating model around chronic non-commit

• Closed-loop integration back into MRP and supplier scorecards — translating commit reliability into adjustments to source list, quota arrangement, and segmentation tier

Ariba Guided Buying — Advanced Configuration

• Master data and catalog enablement (CEME): supplier enablement, catalog content management, and the supplier-load vs. buyer-load decisions per category

• Catalog management depth: PunchOut catalogs, hosted catalogs, CIF (Catalog Interchange Format) file management; UNSPSC mapping; price tolerance and unit-of-measure validation; multi-language and multi-currency design for global rollouts

• Approval framework: Delegation of Authority (DoA) modelling, approval limits by role and amount band, multi-level approval flows, and the filter / edit rules that gate user behavior at the requisition line level

• User profile and catalog visibility: catalog filtering by role, department, and ship-to; managing the user experience across regions and business units

• Advanced Guided Buying features: Real-Time Budget Check (RTBC), Total Landed Cost (TLC), Demand Aggregation, and Purchasing Unit (PU) configuration

• Operational features: ad-hoc ship-to, "Delay Purchase Until" date logic, and "Suppress Orders" handling for backorder or supplier-issue scenarios

• Spot Buy enablement: design of when Spot Buy is the right path vs. catalog vs. sourcing event

• PO management and receiving in Ariba: PO acknowledgement, change orders, receiving against catalog and non-catalog items, and goods-return processing

• Indirect procurement reporting: standard and custom reports for catalog adoption, supplier compliance, cycle times, and savings flow-through

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Supplier Lifecycle Management — End-to-End

• Business need identification and supplier request: design of the intake form, justification capture, and routing to category management for the sourcing-vs-existing-supplier decision

• Supplier registration: external registration questionnaire, document collection, tax and banking validation, sanctions and restricted-party screening (GTS or third-party integration)

• Supplier qualification: category-specific qualification questionnaires (food-safety, packaging spec, ESG, quality certifications), multi-stage approval workflow, and the gating between qualification status and the ability to transact

• Segmentation and Preferred Supplier Management: criteria-based segmentation, the operating model for strategic / preferred / approved / transactional tiers, and the enforcement of segmentation at the transactional layer via source list and quota arrangement

• Supplier offboarding and discontinuation: deactivation workflow, open-PO clean-up, contract close-out, and audit-trail / data-retention requirements

Sourcing & Contract Award

• Sourcing request intake and prioritization: design of the sourcing pipeline, request triage, and the link back to category strategy
• Sourcing strategy and plan development: market analysis, should-cost modelling, supplier shortlist development, and approach selection (RFP vs. RFQ vs. direct negotiation vs. existing-contract release)
• Supplier identification and prequalification: integration with SLP for qualified-supplier filtering, plus the ad-hoc prequalification path for net-new suppliers
• Event execution: RFP and RFQ event design, supplier invitation, content templates, sealed-bid configuration, and reverse-auction setup where appropriate
• Response evaluation and negotiation: weighted scoring methodology, total-cost-of-ownership comparison, and structured negotiation rounds
• Award and contract handoff: award decision logic, contract workspace creation, clause-library-driven contract authoring, and integration into S/4 — specifically the handoff to scheduling agreements with delivery-schedule generation for direct procurement, and to outline agreements / contracts for indirect

Workshop Design & Facilitation

• L3 Process Design Workshops: design and run L3 To-Be workshops across Source-to-Contract and Procure-to-Pay value streams — producing signed-off swimlane process flows, design decision logs, and configuration intent statements

• Spend Analysis Workshops: lead structured sessions to analyze a client's spend cube — by category, supplier, site, and business unit — before designing the procurement operating model

• Category Strategy Sessions: facilitate category management workshops with CPOs and category managers to define sourcing strategy — direct vs. indirect, strategic vs. tactical — and the implications for S/4 + Ariba design

• Co-Manufacturing / Co-Packer Design Sessions: lead workshops with co-man-facing stakeholders to design subcontracting PO flow, BOM-based component supply, 541 movement reconciliation, and settlement — spanning procurement, supply chain, and finance

• P2P Process Design Workshops: lead P2P process design sessions with procurement, AP, and finance teams simultaneously — managing the tension between procurement control and AP efficiency in real time

• Supplier Onboarding Design Sessions: design and facilitate workshops to define supplier segmentation, onboarding requirements, and Ariba Business Network connectivity strategy

• Maverick Spend & Compliance Gap Workshops: facilitate structured sessions to identify root causes of off-contract buying and design the S/4 / Ariba controls to eliminate it

• Multi-Region Rollout Workshops: design and run regional design / fit-gap sessions across NORAM, EMEA, LATAM, Brazil, and APAC — templating where it makes sense and localizing where it must

Executive & VP / C-Suite Engagement

• CPO / CFO Language: translate procurement design into the financial metrics executives care about: working capital impact, savings flow-through, cost-to-serve reduction, and risk exposure reduction

• Digital Procurement Roadmap: develop and present multi-year procurement transformation roadmaps that sequence S/4 core, Ariba adoption, supplier network expansion, and AI / automation integration across the global rollout

• Savings Business Case: build credible, defensible procurement savings cases — bottoms-up by category, with clear process changes as causal factors, not aspirational percentages

• Supplier Relationship Conversations: advise clients on strategic supplier relationship management — not just system design; know when to recommend a supplier summit vs. a contract renegotiation vs. a dual-source strategy, particularly across critical co-man and packaging relationships