SAP Functional Analyst

Company / Location Information

Water technology is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. As a leading global water technology company, A. O. Smith Corporation (NYSE: AOS) is at the center of the trend. We are a $3.5 billion company with over 140 years of history and 12,000+ employees. Our emphasis is on hot water and clean water; we are one of the world’s largest manufacturers of residential and commercial water heating equipment as well as a supplier of water purification products in a number of emerging countries.

With manufacturing operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, India, and Europe, we have the reach to serve customers worldwide.

A.O. Smith is committed to continuous improvement and maintaining a culture that values and respects our employees.  Recognized by The Tennessean as one of the top Nashville area Workplaces, we have programs in place to help our team members achieve their potential. When you join our team, you will receive rewards and recognition for your contributions, training and professional development opportunities, as well as a variety of benefits to support you and your family's health, well-being, and financial future. If you are inspired to learn, take risks, and succeed as a team, you can build an amazing career at A. O. Smith.

This role is located in our modern Nashville Metro Center office, located just minutes from downtown with easy interstate access and free parking.

Primary Function

The Senior Functional Analyst, SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) will be a core member of the Business Applications Team within GBS/IT working closely with the central supply chain business organization to design and support Demand Planning process in the SAP IBP platform. This role will work closely with business groups to understand business challenges, issues, and gaps and will provide production support activities as well as new functional enhancements, also drive continuous improvement by developing timely and innovative solutions. The successful candidate will have experience implementing, supporting, and enhancing solutions in Demand Planning within IBP platform, Materials Management, Production Planning (end to end MRP execution), Inventory Management, and Procurement in the SAP ECC environment. Collaboration with other SAP functional and development teams to design, develop, test, and implement appropriate configuration within SAP IBP and SAP ECC, S/4 ERP solution platform. Drives the design and implementation of new business processes with organizational structure and perform required SAP configuration.  Supports the business by addressing issues reported via Service Now tickets, support tasks,.  Actively participate in the portfolio project implementation and support team, perform daily production support while also work on system enhancements to realize the value and optimize system performance.

Responsibilities

• Lead complex, cross-business unit, cross-platform programs and projects critical to business success from start to finish including scoping, solutioning, deployment, testing, training, change management, communication, and measuring business value
• Become a functional expert on A. O. Smith business processes and drive solutions to business problems through collaboration with analysts, architects, developers, and process experts from other process areas; bridge the gap between people, processes, and technology
• Participate in the full systems development lifecycle from requirements gathering through configuration with an architect, interaction with the development team, testing, training, deployment, and post launch support
• Gather and document systems and process requirements through meetings, workshops, site visits, and job shadowing; create and maintain documentation and process maps on customer engagement business processes and projects
• Develop a deep understanding of and help to shape A. O. Smith’s customer engagement vision and strategy through collaboration and regular engagement with key stakeholders and process owners; translate that vision into actionable technical requirements; and execute on those requirements  to meet the goals of the business
• Use continuous improvement skills such as process mapping, A3 development, and value stream mapping to drive for incremental improvements in all processes
• Critically evaluate information gathered from multiple sources, break high-level requirements into details, and distinguish user requests from underlying needs
• Advises on business requirements and solution options, bridging the gap between people, process, and technology
• Serve as the liaison between the internal and external customers and the technical teams
• Build strong relationships with business users and managers throughout the customer engagement organization – sales, order entry, warranty, marketing, trade compliance, after-sales support, and other groups as necessary
• Learn non-SAP business systems such as Salesforce and internal portals and their interaction with SAP; assist in the support and management of those systems as part of our overall solutions portfolio
• Collaborate with other functional architects and business analysts to ensure end-to-end process integration and consistency
• Manage incidents and enhancement requests and keep users up to date on status

Role Specific Responsibilities

• Will be a core member of the Business Applications Team within GBS/IT group working closely with the business organization to drive continuous improvement by developing timely and innovative solutions.
• This role will work closely with business groups to understand business problems, issues, and priorities and will provide production support activities as well as new functional enhancements and global project implementations
• The successful candidate will have experience implementing, supporting, and enhancing solutions in the Demand Planning application within Integrated Business Planning (IBP) platform and have deep experience in Materials Management, Production Planning, Inventory Management, and Procurement.
• Will be responsible for IBP software-specific design and realization, as well as conducting functional and integration testing, deployment, and support in SAP IBP platform specific to Demand Planning.
• Will be involved in designing end to end Demand Planning process solutions, work with business process owners to identify any gaps with Demand Planning in IBP platform, design functional specification (RICEF) documents, collaborating with software developers to translate business requirements into system enhancements, configuring Demand planning application in the IBP platform, conduct unit testing, collaborate with cross functional teams to perform integration testing. Work with business users for user acceptance testing, perform cutover tasks, identify master data and ongoing process impacts, and providing ongoing support.
• Identify integration points and work with other SAP Functional and Technical team members to ensure overall IBP solution success is a critical responsibility.
• Anticipate, manage stakeholder needs, discuss, and develop potential solutions to lead and support Supply Chain Integrated Business Planning areas.
• Support production planning master data improvement opportunities – work with cross functional teams and business partners to improve data quality.
• Develop and Manage business test cases, write test scripts and perform end to end testing in Panaya testing tool to support Demand Planning, Materials Management, Production Planning, and Procurement areas and provide support in defect resolution.
• Understand end users’ business needs, define requirements using existing SAP templates for SAP technologies/system enhancements, and communicate these to SAP functional teams.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• At least 2 life cycle implementations of SAP ECC and 1 life cycle implementation with SAP IBP.
• Experience supporting manufacturing plant personnel with day-to-day ERP system processes.
• Flexibility, adaptability, and process improvement approach.
• Technical proficiency in Microsoft Office.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong management skills and demonstrated abilities to develop talent

Education

Years of Experience

We Offer

Competitive compensation package and comprehensive benefits plans which include medical and dental insurance, company-sponsored life insurance, retirement security savings plan, short- and long-term disability programs and tuition assistance.