SAP Ariba Lead

Job description

Bristlecone is a supply chain and business analytics advisor, serving customers across a wide range of industries. Rated by Gartner as among the top ten system integrators in the supply chain space, we are uniquely positioned to solve contemporary business problems, with supply chain and analytics focus as our advantage. We have been a trusted partner and advisor to many leading, globally recognized companies such as Applied Materials, Exxon Mobil, Flextronics, LSI Logic, Mahindra, Motorola, Nestle, Palm, Qatar Petroleum, Ranbaxy, Unilever and Whirlpool and many others

ROLE OVERVIEW

We are seeking a Principal / Lead who has personally designed and configured end-to-end procurement solutions on SAP S/4HANA and SAP Ariba — from sourcing strategy through touchless PO processing and freight settlement — in a CPG beverage environment with a heavy co-manufacturing / co-packer / bottler footprint, commodity-linked direct material spend, and a broad indirect and POS / marketing-asset procurement portfolio. This individual must be an authority on procurement process excellence, not just SAP functionality: they know what best-in-class procure-to-pay looks like in CPG and they know how to close the gap between a client's current state and that benchmark. They will lead the Procurement workstream on a large-scale, multi-region S/4 transformation while engaging CPOs, CFOs, and VP Procurement stakeholders as trusted advisors.

BEST-IN-CLASS PROCUREMENT PROCESS — WHAT YOU MUST KNOW

Top-quartile procurement performance in CPG beverage is defined by:

Spend Under Management : best-in-class organizations manage >80% of addressable spend under formal contract or catalog — know how Ariba Contracts and Guided Buying drive this

Contract Cycle Time : top quartile: Savings Realized vs. Identified : benchmark: >85% of negotiated savings flow through to actuals — understand why savings leak (maverick buying, contract non-compliance, price creep) and how S/4 and Ariba prevent it

Supplier Concentration & Risk : CPG benchmark: top 5 suppliers should represent Purchase Order Automation Rate : top quartile: >75% of POs generated without human intervention (catalog, contract release, scheduling agreement, or auto-PO from MRP) — know how to design the S/4 and Ariba configuration to achieve this

Invoice Touchless Processing Rate : best-in-class: >60% of invoices processed without manual intervention; understand EDI INVOIC, OCR, PO-flip, and three-way match tolerance configuration

Invoice Processing Cost : APQC benchmark: top quartile Payment Terms Compliance : best-in-class capture >95% of available early payment discounts; understand dynamic discounting and supply chain finance integration with Ariba

Procurement Cycle Time (Req-to-PO) : benchmark: CPG Beverage Procurement Complexity

Co-Manufacturing, Co-Packing & Bottling : subcontracting PO design for co-mans / co-packers / bottlers — BOM-based component supply, 541 movement reconciliation, subcontracting stock monitoring at the co-man, co-man performance management, and the integration with finance for settlement

Direct Material & Commodity Management : ingredient procurement (caffeine, taurine, flavorings, sweeteners, juice concentrates) and packaging (aluminum cans, PET, closures, labels, secondary packaging) — commodity-linked pricing in S/4 (condition-based with commodity index), forward buying logic, and price-risk-hedging integration

Packaging & Specification Management : tight linkage between packaging procurement, BOM, and quality specifications; supplier qualification flows for primary packaging; and the change-control discipline that prevents specification drift

POS / Marketing-Asset Procurement : procurement of coolers, racks, signage, and other POS materials — typically a different category structure, supplier base, and lead-time profile than ingredients / packaging, often with direct-to-distributor or direct-to-retail shipment

Promotional & Innovation Procurement : seasonal demand spikes, short lead-time POs for promotional packaging, NPI / new flavor launches with multi-level BOM explosion, and supplier collaboration on promotional calendars via Ariba

S&OP-to-Procurement Handoff : the integration from IBP demand and supply output into PR generation across the direct-material supplier base

Multi-Region Rollout : experience templating P2P design across NORAM, EMEA, LATAM, Brazil, and APAC rollouts — with localization for tax, e-invoicing (CT-e in Brazil, CFDI in Mexico, EU mandates), and supplier-base structure

TECHNOLOGY DEPTH — NON-NEGOTIABLE

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

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)

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

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

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

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Worksite address

california, MO, 65018, US

Who can apply

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