Hiring the cross functional team that turns scattered ERP data into one trusted source

This manufacturer had grown through acquisitions and new regions. The result was a mix of SAP and non SAP ERP systems, inconsistent master data and different definitions for customers, materials, inventory and financial numbers.

The company wanted to consolidate ERP data into a cloud platform to improve reporting and get ready for analytics and AI. Big consolidations like this can support inventory, pricing, supply chain and production work, but only when the technical integration comes with real business ownership.

The first plan was to hire data engineers. That covers moving and transforming data. It does not cover ERP process meaning, source system controls, master data, reconciliation or getting functions to agree.

The company needed people who could work across SAP, cloud data platforms, finance, supply chain and manufacturing. Almost no one has every one of those skills, so the answer was a team built to complement each other.

We ran role calibration across the CIO, data, ERP and business teams. We broke the work into transformation leadership, ERP architecture, integration engineering, master data management, reconciliation and domain ownership.

We also talked the client out of the "unicorn" job description that tried to pack SAP architecture, cloud engineering, data modeling, governance and business change into one hire.

Leadership:

• ERP and Data Transformation Director
• Owns the roadmap, governance, business alignment, implementation partners and value delivered

Architects:

• SAP Data Architect
• Enterprise Integration Architect
• Cloud Data Architect
• Master Data Architect

Builders:

• SAP Data and Integration Engineers
• CDC and Pipeline Engineers
• Cloud Data Engineers
• MDM Engineers
• Data Modelers
• Reconciliation and Data Quality Engineers

Domain and adoption:

• Finance Data Product Owner
• Supply Chain Data Product Owner
• Manufacturing Data Product Owner
• Business Data Stewards

We assessed people on:

• SAP ECC, S/4HANA, SAP BW or comparable ERP knowledge
• FI/CO, SD, MM, PP, QM, EWM or other relevant process areas
• ERP extraction with CDS, ODP, APIs, CDC or specialist replication tools
• Source to target mapping and canonical data models
• Master data harmonization
• Financial and operational reconciliation
• Security, separation of duties and audit requirements
• Experience working with finance, supply chain and plant stakeholders

We judged candidates as a team, not one by one. A strong SAP functional architect did not have to be the strongest cloud engineer if the platform architect and engineers covered that. The point was full coverage across the group, with clear ownership and no gaps.

We also checked both directions. Did the technical people understand what the ERP data meant to the business? And could the business leaders hold their own with architects and engineers?

This one needed advisors on both the ERP side and the data side. SAP and master data veterans vetted the functional and integration candidates. Cloud data leaders checked the platform and engineering hires. We sourced through our SAP, data integration and master data communities, which is where the people who have actually done multi ERP consolidation tend to be.

A realistic hiring plan that did not overload one or two roles. Hiring managers could compare candidates against clear accountabilities and build a balanced internal team alongside their implementation partners.

The manufacturer built real knowledge of its own ERP data, business rules and master data model. That carried forward into future S/4HANA migration, reporting work, acquisitions and AI, without having to relearn how the business runs each time.