Solution Support Team Manager - TS Procurement (SAP Ariba)

We help the world run better

At SAP, we enable you to bring out your best. Our company culture is focused on collaboration and a shared passion to help the world run better. How? We focus every day on building the foundation for tomorrow and creating a workplace that embraces differences, values flexibility, and is aligned to our purpose-driven and future-focused work. We offer a highly collaborative, caring team environment with a strong focus on learning and development, recognition for your individual contributions, and a variety of benefit options for you to choose from.

The Support Team Manager (STM) is responsible for overseeing and managing the support operations. They manage a team of support engineers responsible for providing assistance to customers. This role is crucial in ensuring that customer issues are addressed efficiently and that the support team operates effectively. This role involves a combination of operations, people management, and leadership skills.

What you'll do

Strategic Responsibilities

1. Develop, coach, and mentor your direct team and empower them to understand and execute company strategy.
2. Be a change leader and drive the Support transformation forward by making it relevant for your team.
3. Build cross-functional relationships with Customer Success, Engineering, Product Success, and the broader Customer Services & Delivery (CS&D) organization.
4. Drive proactive, harmonized maintenance and sustenance across CS&D strategy.
5. Take over appropriate responsibility for customer issues, concerns, and complaints, and drive them to resolution.
6. Able to position complex CS&D initiatives beyond own area of responsibility and can resolve escalations.
7. Ensure efficient resource allocation within the currently responsible area.
8. Encourage appropriate risk-taking in team members in the pursuit of innovation.
9. Advise on established processes and tools and monitor that they are reviewed regularly for improvement potential and compliance with relevant standards, such as ISO certifications.
10. Lead strategic initiatives or projects successfully. Have a significant impact on the success of the broader team.
11. Engage with the Support Center Network (SCN) Leadership team and STM peers.
12. Build strategic partnerships with key decision-makers in customer & partner organizations.

Operational Responsibilities

1. Ensure achievement of both team Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), as well as overall TS - Procurement KPIs.
2. Ensure compliance with all mandatory SAP and TS processes and training requirements.
3. Ensure development plans are documented in SuccessFactors and regularly reviewed with your team members.
4. Follow up on low Support Interaction Survey (SIS) ratings within your product area and team.
5. Conduct regular performance evaluations for team members and implement performance improvement plans when necessary.

Customer Centricity

1. Provide end-users and customers with a technology-driven, industry-leading support experience.
2. Foster a culture of inclusion and leadership accountability.
3. Build a positive and collaborative employee experience that delivers customer success.
4. Define and drive operational excellence.

Accountability

1. Manage resources, ensuring business-critical and innovative results.
2. Build action plans and make operational decisions on policies, tactics, and resources critical to the function's business success to ensure delivery against strategy of the function or team.
3. Be accountable for annual goals established for the team or department.
4. Direct the activities of a team or department of professionals and support staff.
5. Engage in performance management.

Communication

1. Represent SAP to customers/partners.
2. Encourage and develop the team to cooperate and to freely express their opinions and formulate clear objectives, strategies, and assignments.
3. Lead with empathy.

What you bring

1. Extensive professional experience, including strong experience in customer support relevant roles.
2. Previous experience in a support role, preferably with experience in a supervisory or managerial capacity.
3. Familiarity with customer support tools and technologies.
4. Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
5. Strong experience in managing global teams to deliver customer outcomes and experiences.
6. Experience in working with senior management.
7. Experience in working with engineering and development is preferred.
8. Experience in handling customer issues and understanding the impact of the issues on the customer’s business.
9. Customer-centric mindset with a commitment to delivering exceptional support.
10. Demonstrates all management responsibilities: create the future; build a team; develop people; manage performance.
11. Proven ability to execute against a business strategy.
12. Managing and resolving conflicts within the team.
13. Agile, with strong change management skills.
14. Innovative thinking, experience in continuous improvement methodology.
15. Ability to manage customer escalations.

The Technical Support (TS) – Procurement team supports the SAP Intelligent Spend and Business Network (ISBN) product areas of SAP Business Network, SAP Ariba, and SAP Fieldglass within the Customer Support organization.

The SAP Fieldglass team provides global support services to customers using our market-leading vendor management solution to simplify the process of procuring, managing, and optimizing flexible workforces. Our support ensures customers can gain visibility to improve cost control and results, flexibility to increase speed and productivity, and confidence to manage compliance and security risks.

The SAP Business Network team provides customers and trading partners with a superior customer support experience delivered from a foundation of operational excellence and cross-functional collaboration. We engage with a sense of urgency and responsiveness with a focus on SAP and the customer experience. The product area comprises of SAP Business Network for Supply Chain, Logistics, Asset Management, and SAP Business Network for Procurement.

The SAP Ariba team provides global support for customers across the suite of procurement solutions within the categories of Procure to Order, Source to Contract, Supplier Management, and Cloud Integration. The Procurement Apps Support services ensure customers benefit from the deep product expertise within the team and cross-functional collaboration throughout their support experience.

Bring out your best

SAP innovations help more than four hundred thousand customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. Originally known for leadership in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, SAP has evolved to become a market leader in end-to-end business application software and related services for database, analytics, intelligent technologies, and experience management. As a cloud company with two hundred million users and more than one hundred thousand employees worldwide, we are purpose-driven and future-focused, with a highly collaborative team ethic and commitment to personal development. Whether connecting global industries, people, or platforms, we help ensure every challenge gets the solution it deserves. At SAP, you can bring out your best.

We win with inclusion

SAP’s culture of inclusion, focus on health and well-being, and flexible working models help ensure that everyone – regardless of background – feels included and can run at their best. At SAP, we believe we are made stronger by the unique capabilities and qualities that each person brings to our company, and we invest in our employees to inspire confidence and help everyone realize their full potential. We ultimately believe in unleashing all talent and creating a better and more equitable world.
SAP is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to the values of Equal Employment Opportunity and provide accessibility accommodations to applicants with physical and/or mental disabilities. If you are interested in applying for employment with SAP and are in need of accommodation or special assistance to navigate our website or to complete your application, please send an e-mail with your request to Recruiting Operations Team: Careers@sap.com.

EOE AA M/F/Vet/Disability:

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their age, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, age, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, et al), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or disability.
Successful candidates might be required to undergo a background verification with an external vendor.

Requisition ID: 419214 | Work Area: Customer Service and Support | Expected Travel: 0 - 10% | Career Status: Management | Employment Type: Regular Full Time | Additional Locations: #LI-Hybrid.