SAP S/4HANA Global Lead Innovation Incubation for Industries

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Position Overview:

We seek a highly experienced industry expert in Innovation, including SAP Business AI & Generative AI, to join our Cloud ERP IE CoE team. With our mandate for Cloud ERP to infuse Innovation & Business AI adoption across our customers globally, you will support us in driving key strategic Innovation Incubation & Evangelism topics.

This role involves helping customers understand and devise an innovation strategy, including AI, for business transformation and benefits and working with C-level customers and industry leaders.  The candidate will have extensive experience in the usage and execution of strategic Innovation programs, including Business AI, Generative AI, and Innovation adoption strategies, with a proven track record of over 20 years across different business and industry domains on a global scale.

What you will do:

1. Regional Customer Nominations & CXO Engagement: You will play a crucial role in dealing with regional customer nominations and engaging with CXOs  to drive Innovation & AI adoption
    
2. Incubating new/upcoming and on-the-horizon Innovation technologies including Business AI, Agentic AI, etc. and infusing them with Industry Business Processes for building our Innovation Strategy for customer adoption.
   1. You will promote Innovation, Agentic AI, and other upcoming technologies across the organisation and among customers by demonstrating their value and potential impact on Business. This will involve building the first MVP concepts and working with the product teams to identify and define their usage for SAP S/4HANA customers.
       
3. Engaging with industry forums, conferences, and thought leadership platforms to share insights and advancements in upcoming Innovation & Business AI / Gen AI technologies, e.g Knowledge Graphs, Agentic AI and Data oriented tech through a cross-over with Industries & loB Business processes
    
4. Define and invent industry-first solutions with Innovation, Gen AI / Business AI across the SAP domain, including migrations.
    
5. The candidate will collaborate with cross-functional teams, including software engineers, and business stakeholders, to align Innovation initiatives with organisational goals.

This pivotal role involves helping customers understand and devise an Innovation strategy incl AI for business transformation and benefits. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in the usage and execution of Innovation strategies, generative AI strategies, with a proven track record of over 20 years across different business and industry domains on a global scale.

The candidate will lead the design and implementation of our group’s Innovation & artificial intelligence strategies and solutions. As an Innovation Leader, you will define the overall Innovation architecture, frameworks, and methodologies to drive innovation and solve complex business challenges specific to Innovation & AI for Industries.  You will collaborate with cross-functional teams, including data scientists, software engineers, and business stakeholders, to align AI initiatives with organisational goals. The ideal candidate is a strategic thinker with deep technical expertise in AI, excellent leadership skills

Key Responsibilities:

Innovation Strategy Development:

• Collaborate with customers to understand their business needs and develop tailored Innovation strategies for business transformation.
• Provide expert guidance on implementing generative AI technologies to enhance business processes and outcomes.
• Stay abreast of the latest trends and advancements in AI to ensure our strategies remain cutting-edge.

Technology Evaluation:

• Evaluate emerging technologies, frameworks, and tools to assess their suitability and potential impact on the group’s Innovation & AI capabilities.

Innovation Solution Design:

• Collaborate with data scientists, software engineers, and domain experts to design end-to-end AI solutions that align with business requirements, ensuring scalability, performance, and maintainability.

Data Architecture:

• Define the data architecture, pipelines, and integration strategies required to support AI initiatives, including data ingestion, storage, transformation, and retrieval.

• goals and meet performance, accuracy, and interpretability requirements.

Team Leadership and Collaboration:

• Support a team of Techno-functional Industry experts and engineers, providing technical guidance, mentorship, and fostering collaboration across teams to achieve successful AI solution deployments.

Industry Knowledge and Innovation:

• Stay abreast of the latest trends, advancements, and best practices in AI, actively seeking opportunities to drive innovation and introduce new AI capabilities to the organization.
• Represent the company as an industry thought leader at conferences, webinars, and industry events.
• Contribute to the development of white papers, case studies, and other thought leadership content.
• Drive innovation by identifying new Innovation use cases and opportunities for business transformation.

Qualifications:

Extensive experience in designing and architecting techno-functional solutions in AI, Innovation, and upcoming technologies, with a strong understanding of machine learning, deep learning, and data analytics techniques.

·  Experience: Minimum of 20+ years of experience in various business and industry domains at a global level, with a strong focus on Innovation, AI and digital transformation.

·  Expertise: Deep understanding of upcoming & new technologies and their application in business contexts, including AI & Gen AI

·  Education: Advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business Administration, or a related field. Ph.D. preferred.

·  Skills:

• Strong strategic thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication and presentation abilities.
• Proven ability to build and execute complex AI strategies.
• Experience in developing and managing industry-specific GTM and portfolio strategies.
• Strong relationship-building and customer engagement skills.

·  Leadership: Demonstrated leadership experience with the ability to influence and drive change across organisations.

​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
For SAP employees: Only permanent roles are eligible for the SAP Employee Referral Program, according to the eligibility rules set in the SAP Referral Policy. Specific conditions may apply for roles in Vocational Training.

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: 415168  | Work Area: Consulting and Professional Services  | Expected Travel: 0 - 10%  | Career Status: Professional  | Employment Type: Regular Full Time   | Additional Locations: #LI-Hybrid.