SAP Project Manager

SAP Project Manager
Location: Atlanta, GA (onsite)
Duration: 12+ months

Client is seeking an experienced SAP Project Manager with a strong background in the manufacturing industry to lead and coordinate SAP implementation, transformation, and enhancement projects. The candidate will be responsible for interacting directly with client Project Managers, business stakeholders, IT leadership, and SAP functional and technical teams to ensure successful project execution and delivery.

The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of managing SAP projects in manufacturing environments, coordinating multiple workstreams, managing project plans and dependencies, resolving delivery issues, and ensuring alignment between client expectations and project outcomes.

This role requires excellent client-facing communication, stakeholder management, project governance, risk management, and leadership skills, combined with a solid understanding of SAP solutions and manufacturing business processes.

Key Responsibilities

1. Client and Stakeholder Management

• Serve as the primary point of contact for client Project Managers, business stakeholders, IT teams, and other delivery partners for SAP projects.
• Lead regular client meetings, project status reviews, steering committee discussions, and delivery governance calls.
• Understand client expectations, business priorities, project scope, milestones, and success criteria.
• Communicate project progress, risks, issues, dependencies, and mitigation plans clearly to client stakeholders.
• Build strong working relationships with client Project Managers and ensure timely resolution of escalations.
• Coordinate with client teams to manage requirements, approvals, decisions, and project deliverables.
• Manage stakeholder expectations and ensure alignment between client objectives and delivery commitments.

2. SAP Project Planning and Delivery

• Lead end-to-end SAP project delivery, including planning, requirements gathering, solution design, build, testing, deployment, and post-go-live support.
• Develop and maintain project plans, schedules, milestones, resource plans, and delivery trackers.
• Coordinate SAP functional and technical workstreams across modules such as SAP S/4HANA, FICO, MM, SD, PP, WM/EWM, and other relevant modules.
• Monitor project progress against scope, schedule, budget, quality, and agreed deliverables.
• Ensure effective coordination between business teams, SAP consultants, technical teams, integration teams, and external vendors.
• Drive issue resolution and remove delivery blockers to keep projects on track.
• Ensure project documentation, status reports, action items, and decision logs are maintained accurately.

3. Manufacturing Industry Experience

• Manage SAP projects supporting manufacturing business operations and supply chain processes.
• Demonstrate a strong understanding of manufacturing processes, including production planning, procurement, inventory management, material requirements planning (MRP), warehouse operations, quality management, and order fulfillment.
• Coordinate SAP workstreams involving Production Planning (PP), Materials Management (MM), Sales and Distribution (SD), Finance and Controlling (FICO), and Warehouse Management (WM/EWM).
• Understand manufacturing master data, bills of materials (BOMs), routings, production orders, work centers, and material costing at a project management level.
• Support manufacturing transformation initiatives involving plant operations, supply chain optimization, inventory control, and production efficiency.
• Collaborate with client manufacturing and supply chain stakeholders to ensure SAP solutions meet operational requirements.

4. Project Governance, Risk, and Issue Management

• Establish and maintain project governance frameworks, reporting mechanisms, escalation paths, and delivery controls.
• Identify project risks, issues, assumptions, and dependencies; develop mitigation and contingency plans.
• Track project milestones, deliverables, resource utilization, and budget performance.
• Manage change requests, scope changes, and impacts on timelines and costs.
• Escalate critical delivery risks and provide clear recommendations to client and internal leadership.
• Ensure compliance with project management methodologies, quality standards, and client governance requirements.

5. Team and Resource Management

• Lead and coordinate SAP functional consultants, technical consultants, solution architects, business analysts, and testing teams.
• Work with resource management and leadership teams to ensure appropriate staffing and skill coverage.
• Manage resource allocation, utilization, delivery dependencies, and team performance.
• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration and ensure accountability for assigned deliverables.
• Support knowledge transfer, training, change management, and business readiness activities.

6. SAP Implementation and Transformation

• Manage SAP implementation, rollout, upgrade, migration, and enhancement programs.
• Demonstrate familiarity with SAP Activate or other structured SAP implementation methodologies.
• Oversee project phases such as Discover, Prepare, Explore, Realize, Deploy, and Run, as applicable.
• Coordinate fit-to-standard workshops, functional design reviews, integration testing, user acceptance testing, cutover planning, and go-live readiness.
• Support SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA transformation initiatives, including greenfield implementations and system conversions.
• Ensure smooth transition to support teams and effective post-go-live stabilization.

Required Qualifications

• 12–15+ years of overall IT project management experience, including substantial experience managing SAP projects.
• Proven experience as an SAP Project Manager, SAP Program Manager, or SAP Delivery Project Manager.
• Mandatory manufacturing industry experience managing SAP implementation, transformation, or enhancement projects.
• Demonstrated experience interacting directly with client Project Managers and senior business and IT stakeholders.
• Strong understanding of SAP implementation lifecycles and cross-functional SAP modules.
• Experience managing project scope, schedules, budgets, resources, risks, issues, and deliverables.
• Strong stakeholder communication, client relationship management, and escalation-handling skills.
• Experience coordinating geographically distributed teams and multiple SAP workstreams.
• Ability to translate business requirements into project plans, milestones, and actionable deliverables.
• Excellent verbal and written communication, presentation, negotiation, and problem-solving skills