SAP Ariba Lead

About Company: :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 OVERVIEWROLE OVERVIEWWe 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 KNOWTop-quartile procurement performance in CPG beverage is defined by: Source-to-Contract Benchmarks 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: 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 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