Manager, SAP Basis

Who We Are:

Kontoor Brands, Inc. (KTB) is the parent company of Wrangler, Lee and Rock & Republic, with owned manufacturing facilities in Mexico and Nicaragua. Kontoor also owns and operates over 140 retail stores across the globe. Our global company employs more than 15,000 people in 65 countries, with world headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, and regional headquarters in Geneva and Hong Kong.

Job Posting:

Manager, SAP Basis

Job Summary

Manager, SAP Basis is a key member of a high performance Kontoor Global Infrastructure Services leadership team, leading and managing global technical SAP Basis team to enable and empower Kontoor's business capabilities with future SAP technical design strategy, enhancing systems performance, maintaining and delivering optimal operational efficiency and ensure services availability of Kontoor's global SAP landscape environments to support Kontoor global business operations.

SAP Basis Manager is a technical hand-on position demanding extensive experience with all aspect of SAP systems, components and related technologies that include both on-premises and cloud-based SAP environment. This role supervises and manage a team of Kontoor employees (geo-located) and may include contractors and\or managed services provider resources to delivering 24x7 global support services with pro-active monitoring and managing Kontoor's global SAP systems landscape including overseeing planning, design, installation, configuration, patching, transporting, upgrading, systems refresh, client copy, and maintaining currency of Kontoor's entire SAP technologies stack and its tightly integrated systems and infrastructure.

With your extensive leadership and deep technical expertise in SAP landscape, technical architecture design, and strong understanding of worldclass global IT operations and services; you will help drive, interact, and collaborate closely with various technical infrastructure service teams, network services, IDAM, application development/integration, application support workstreams, and Information Security to guide and support project planning, prioritization, troubleshooting and resolution of complex SAP technical issues.

You will set strategic direction, define roadmaps, and identify opportunities for performance tuning, systems optimization, automation and develop automated solution to improve operational efficiency, reduces manual efforts, and enhancing systems reliability and consistency to support and evolve Kontoor's Global SAP environment.

Since this role is part of Kontoor's Global Information Technology (IT) Infrastructure Services and Operations team, you will be required to manage the On-call schedule/follow the sun shift-support model for the Global SAP Basis team, participate and lead major incident response service restoration activities and frequent interaction with application team, other global IT domain areas, vendors and third-party service providers.

Responsibilities

Management and Leadership:

• Supervises and manage a team of employees (geo-located) and may include contractors and\or managed services provider resources to delivering day-to-day 24x7 global support administration function with pro-active monitoring and managing Kontoor's global SAP systems landscape including overseeing planning, design, installation, configuration, patching, transporting, upgrading, systems refresh, client copy, and maintaining currency of Kontoor's entire SAP technologies stack and its tightly integrated systems and infrastructure
• Lead SAP Basis related projects, change control, incident response, and testing processes for SAP system changes or problems resolution across the Kontoor SAP global landscape
• Manage On-call & Shift work: Flexibility to work on shifts based on the operational needs. May require participating in some On-call support and/or Follow-the-Sun Support model. The shift schedule may rotate between Shift-1, Shift-2 and Shift-3 every 4-6 months.

Engineering and Operations:

• System Monitoring & Performance Optimization: Ensuring smooth operations, continuous monitoring, and optimization of SAP environments.
• Incident Management & Troubleshooting: Quickly addressing and resolving technical issues across SAP systems and databases.
• Configuration & Maintenance: Overseeing the configuration of SAP Solution Manager, TMS, and SAP parameters.
• Database Management: Managing SAP HANA databases, applying patches and upgrades, ensuring backups, and optimizing performance.
• Cloud and Integration Management: Ensuring seamless integration of on-premises systems with SaaS and cloud platforms like Azure.
• SAP Vertex Integration: Supporting the configuration, maintenance, and integration of SAP Vertex for tax calculations, reporting, and compliance.SAP PI/PO Configuration & Management: Overseeing SAP PI/PO integrations, ensuring efficient data exchange, and troubleshooting integration issues between SAP and non-SAP systems.

Project Execution and Delivery:

• Participate in and Lead in some case with project technical design sessions analyzing business and technical infrastructure & cloud requirements, processes, integrate solutions of new and existing infrastructure and continuous improvement of standards, processes, procedure across the function area of responsibility related to Global SAP environment.
• Lead Peer Review, validate, develop technical designs, prototypes, process designs, testing, training, and definition of support procedures for systems deployment in Cloud/On-Prem infrastructure(s)
• Lead, develop and maintain appropriate detailed system documentation for global SAP environment, instances, interfaces, platforms, and relevant solutions - including architecture, design, integration flows, implementation, standard operating procedures, and testing lifecycle activities.
• As required, prepare formal project documentation, including specifications, requirements summaries, high-level design, low-level logical system design documents, state diagrams, automation integration flow, and test scripts.

Internal Stakeholder and Vendor Management:

• Build, develop, and grow business relationships with users within Kontoor Global IT Infrastructure/Network/Application/Security and with key partners and vendors. This includes working with internal and external Infrastructure, application, security, and Networking teams to maintain and advance support for both current and future SAP landscapes.
• Provide regular communication to Kontoor Senior IT Leadership team on internal team initiatives, global IT Automation journey goals/objectives, Infrastructure/automation related projects, and other work assignments.

Leadership

• Supervise and manage a team of Kontoor employees (geo-located) and may include contractors and\or managed services provider resources. Will need to perform various HR responsibilities related to managing a team; including but not limited to evaluating employee performances, providing mentorship, cross-training, planning and leading day-to-day activities, projects, as well as setting strategic directions and guide other technical SAP and infrastructure team members on relevant topics and technical domains

Require you to provide thought leadership and strategies to evolve Global SAP technical landscape, pro-actively contributing to infrastructure and application availability and resiliency through performance tuning, continuous optimization of Kontoor global SAP environment including identify and driving opportunities to advance infrastructure as code automation for SAP environment, working closely with Infrastructure Automation team.

Architecture Standards and Strategy: Experience providing thoughts leadership, strategies, and design as well as leading technical teams, managing incidents, and coordinating project tasks

Experience with lead technical discussion, design workshop and contribute to identifying areas of improvement and assist in setting strategic direction as required

Require excellent problem-solving skill

Operate professionally and thieve efficiently with minimal supervision in a remote work setting environment

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Software Development/Engineering, Infrastructure Technology Automation/Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Management Information Systems, or related field preferred, or a 15+ years combination of equivalent education and relevant experience

• Overall SAP Experience:
  • 15+ yearsof total experience in SAP Basis and related technologies, with a deep understanding of SAP landscapes and architecture.
  • Extensive experience working on large-scale SAP projects, including at least 7+ years inSAP S/4HANA,SAP BTP Cloud,SAP CAR,SAP Fiori,SAP SLT,SAP GRC, andSolution Managerimplementations and support.

• Leadership, Team, & Project Management:
  • 8+ Years of progressive experience in directly managing a high-performance technical team across multiple geo-regions of the world.
  • 8+ Years of progressive experience with overseeing and managing multiple complex technology projects
  • 8+ Years of progressive experience with maintaining roadmap, strategy, standards, and delivering technology on-going projects in support of the business, strategic roadmap and standards.

• SAP Technical Expertise:
  • SAP S/4HANA: At least 7+ years of hands-on experience in SAP S/4HANA.
  • SAP BTP Cloud: Proficiency in SAP Business Technology Platform, including cloud integrations.
  • SAP CAR (Customer Activity Repository): Experience in implementing and maintaining SAP CAR.
  • SAP Fiori: Expertise in Fiori app implementation, configuration, and troubleshooting.
  • SAP SLT (SAP Landscape Transformation): Knowledge of real-time data replication and integration using SAP SLT.
  • SAP GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance): Experience in implementing and managing SAP GRC systems.
  • SAP Solution Manager: Experience in configuring and maintaining SAP Solution Manager, including basic and advanced configurations.
  • SAP Vertex: Experience in integrating and maintainingSAP Vertex(Tax automation solution) with SAP ERP and S/4HANA environments.
  • SAP PI/PO (Process Integration/Process Orchestration): Expertise in configuring, managing, and troubleshootingSAP PI/POfor seamless integration between various SAP and non-SAP systems.

• System Administration and Monitoring:
  • Operating System and Database Management: Experience with bothSUSE LinuxandWindowsoperating systems. Expertise inSAP/DB backup, restore, and recovery, server monitoring, performance optimization, and troubleshooting issues from the OS level.
  • SAP HANA Database: Deep knowledge of SAP HANA's core technology, architecture, landscape design, installation, upgrades, and performance tuning.
  • SAP ERP Systems: Administration and upgrade of SAP ERP systems, with specific experience in handling SAP ERP installations and MS SQL databases.
  • System Copy and Transport Management: Handling system copy tasks, managing transports, TMS configuration, and troubleshooting transport errors.

• Performance Optimization & Troubleshooting:
  • SQL Performance Analysis: Expertise in usingSQL tracesfor performance optimization and impact analysis.
  • Incident Management: Troubleshooting issues, including monitoring work processes, analyzing logs, and applying solutions based on OSS notes.
  • Root Cause Analysis (RCA): Ability to perform in-depth analysis and identify the root causes of performance issues or incidents.

• SAP System Maintenance:
  • Add-ons and Support Packages: Installation, upgrade, and troubleshooting of SAP add-ons and support packages.
  • Kernel Upgrades and Client Copies: Experience with SAP kernel upgrades and client copy/export-import tasks.
  • Spool Administration: Troubleshooting spool and printer-related issues.

• Cloud & Integration Knowledge:
  • SaaS Products & Integrations: Familiarity withSaaS productsand integrations, particularly with SAP solutions.
  • Cloud Environments: Experience working withAzureand managing cloud-based systems, including integration with on-premises SAP systems.
  • SAP PI/PO Integration: Experience with SAP PI/PO for seamless integration of SAP systems with other enterprise applications, handling data transformations, routing, and monitoring integration scenarios.
• Backup/Recovery & Disaster Recovery Strategy:
  • Experience indisaster recovery (DR) strategy, backup/recovery processes, and maintaining system availability.

• ITIL Certification and experience preferred

Strong People, Communication & Collaboration Skills: Promote and Foster positive relationships building and uses tact in sensitive situations. Maintain high-level professionalism and listens well to various points of view and relates well to others at all levels. Understands the importance of relationships to ensure team success. Demonstrates compassion and understanding and open to other viewpoints in the interest of achieving best possible outcomes

Demonstrate the ability to communicate and articulate complex ideas well and clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences at all levels

Action Orientation: Self-Driven, takes initiative and action with a drive to achieve and be successful with little supervision. Seeks out challenging situations. Encourages others with positive and energetic support and enthusiasm. Ability to prioritize time and tasks with little direction to complete work on schedule. Organized and efficient with ability to bring order to complex and competing demands.

Innovation: Demonstrates an analytical and creative approach to problem solving. Understands, adapts, and implements new approaches effectively and efficiently that resolve current and future challenges while providing unique solutions for the business. Ability to articulate new approaches such that others in the organization across different levels (from technical, Management, to business) can understand the value and solution.

Technical Expertise: Maintains technically relevant skills, industry trends, and demonstrates the ability to identify industry trend opportunity and apply technical skills in solving complex business/technical problems.

Results Focused: Creates visibility for management and other stakeholders around progress toward key milestones. Contingency plans to anticipate barriers or problems. Provides the necessary focus to accomplish tasks and puts in the necessary effort to ensure the job gets done on time. Pushes through challenges and obstacles to achieve results.

Why Kontoor Brands?

At Kontoor, we offer a comprehensive benefit package to fit your lifestyle. Our benefits are crafted with the same care as our products.

When our employees are healthy, secure, and well, they bring their best selves to work. Kontoor Brands supports you with a competitive benefits program that provides choice and flexibility to meet your and your family's needs - now and in the future. We offer resources to support your physical, emotional, social, and financial wellbeing, plus benefits like discounts on our apparel. Kontoor Brands also provides four weeks of Paid Parental Leave to eligible employees who are new parents, Flexible Fridays, and Tuition Reimbursement.

We are proud to offer a workplace culture centered on equitable opportunities and a sense of belonging for all team members. Here we have a global workforce of high-performing teams that both unlocks our individual uniqueness and harnesses our collaborative talents.