SAP S/4HANA Cutover Lead / Deployment & Go-Live Lead- Remote

Req ID: 397038

We are currently seeking a SAP S/4HANA Cutover Lead / Deployment & Go-Live Lead- Remote to join our team in Ottawa, Ontario (CA-ON), Canada (CA).

SAP S/4HANA Cutover Lead / Deployment & Go-Live Lead

Experience: 10+ years of overall IT/SAP experience
Role Type: Senior Lead
Start Date: ASAP

Position Overview

We are seeking an experienced SAP Cutover Lead to lead the end-to-end planning, coordination, and execution of cutover activities for a complex SAP transformation program.

In this role, you will oversee the transition from legacy systems to SAP, ensuring all business and technology activities are properly planned, coordinated, and executed for a successful go-live. This includes developing the cutover strategy, managing detailed execution runbooks, leading cutover rehearsals, coordinating production deployment, overseeing command-center activities, and supporting post-go-live stabilization.

You will work closely with business stakeholders, SAP functional and technical teams, data migration, integration, infrastructure, security, testing, reporting, change management, and third-party vendors to deliver a controlled and timely deployment while minimizing disruption to critical business operations.

The ideal candidate brings significant experience leading complex SAP deployments, with a strong understanding of SAP cutover planning, data migration, integrations, production readiness, go/no-go governance, and hypercare. Experience with SAP S/4HANA and large-scale, multi-site or multi-country implementations is highly desirable.

Key Responsibilities

1. Cutover Strategy & Planning

• Develop and maintain the overall SAP cutover strategy, integrated cutover plan, detailed schedule, and execution runbook.
• Translate deployment requirements into clearly defined cutover activities, including owners, timelines, dependencies, prerequisites, and completion criteria.
• Establish entry and exit criteria, decision points, escalation paths, rollback procedures, and contingency plans.
• Identify critical-path activities and ensure dependencies across business and technology workstreams are properly sequenced.
• Maintain an integrated view of all activities required before, during, and immediately following SAP go-live.

2. Cross-Functional Coordination

• Coordinate cutover activities across the following areas:
• SAP functional modules and workstreams
• Business functions
• Data migration and conversion
• Interfaces and integrations
• Infrastructure and environments
• Security and user access
• Reporting and analytics
• Testing and validation
• Batch jobs and scheduling
• Third-party applications and vendors
• Business readiness and operational support
• Work closely with the IT Technical Lead, SAP functional and technical leads, business stakeholders, project managers, and implementation partners.
• Ensure clear ownership and accountability for every cutover activity.

3. Cutover Rehearsals & Readiness

• Plan and lead cutover rehearsals, mock cutovers, dress rehearsals, and production-readiness exercises.
• Facilitate cutover planning workshops and readiness-review meetings.
• Document rehearsal results, identify gaps and bottlenecks, and incorporate lessons learned into subsequent cutover plans.
• Validate that critical activities can be completed within the required production cutover window.
• Lead readiness assessments and ensure outstanding issues are resolved or formally accepted before go-live.

4. Go-Live Governance

• Establish and manage go/no-go criteria and governance checkpoints.
• Facilitate go/no-go meetings with business and technology leadership.
• Ensure critical risks, dependencies, defects, data issues, infrastructure readiness, and support requirements are understood before production deployment.
• Maintain decision, action, risk, issue, and dependency logs.
• Provide concise status reporting and promptly escalate blockers and critical risks.

5. Production Cutover Execution

• Lead execution of the approved cutover plan during the production deployment window.
• Coordinate technical and business teams through each stage of the cutover.
• Track activities against the integrated cutover runbook in real time.
• Manage deviations from the approved plan and coordinate corrective actions.
• Facilitate command-center or war-room meetings during critical cutover periods.
• Ensure decisions, exceptions, issues, and resolutions are accurately documented.

6. Data Migration & Technical Coordination

• Coordinate data extraction, transformation, loading, reconciliation, and business validation activities.
• Ensure data migration activities are properly sequenced with SAP configuration, integrations, interfaces, and business processes.
• Coordinate system access, security provisioning, interface transitions, batch schedules, and technical validation.
• Ensure critical integrations and business processes are validated before and after go-live.
• Work closely with technical teams to resolve cutover-related defects and dependencies.

7. Post-Go-Live Stabilization & Hypercare

• Coordinate early-life support and hypercare activities following SAP go-live.
• Ensure incidents, defects, outstanding cutover activities, and operational issues have clearly assigned owners and resolution timelines.
• Monitor stabilization progress and escalate critical production issues.
• Coordinate the transition from the project/cutover organization to application support and operational teams.
• Ensure operational procedures, support coverage, documentation, and escalation processes are established.

8. Continuous Improvement

• Conduct post-cutover reviews and document lessons learned.
• Identify opportunities to improve cutover methodologies, governance, templates, controls, and execution practices.
• Develop reusable cutover frameworks and best practices for future SAP releases and deployments.

Required Qualifications & Experience

• 10+ years of overall IT/SAP experience, with significant experience in enterprise application deployment, cutover, or go-live management.
• 7+ years of proven experience as a Cutover Lead, Deployment Lead, Go-Live Lead, or in a similar role on complex SAP programs.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience supporting SAP implementations, upgrades, migrations, or major releases.
• Strong experience developing and managing detailed cutover plans, schedules, runbooks, dependency maps, and readiness checklists.
• Demonstrated experience leading cutover rehearsals, production deployments, command centers, go/no-go meetings, and hypercare activities.
• Strong understanding of:
• SAP implementation lifecycle
• Data migration and reconciliation
• Enterprise integrations and interfaces
• Testing and validation
• Infrastructure and production environments
• Security and access management
• Change management
• Production support and hypercare
• Proven ability to coordinate complex activities across business teams, IT, implementation partners, and third-party vendors.
• Strong RAID management, governance, and executive-status reporting capabilities.
• Excellent facilitation, communication, organizational, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Ability to make sound decisions, manage escalations, and coordinate large teams under significant time pressure.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with SAP S/4HANA implementations or migrations.
• Experience leading multiple mock cutovers or cutover rehearsals ahead of production deployment.
• Experience with large-scale multi-site, multi-country, or global SAP deployments.
• Experience coordinating SAP deployments involving multiple legacy applications and complex integration landscapes.
• Experience working with geographically distributed business and technology teams.
• Experience in highly regulated or complex enterprise environments is an advantage.

Key Skills & Competencies

SAP Cutover Management | SAP S/4HANA | Deployment Planning | Go-Live Management | Cutover Runbook | Cutover Rehearsals | Mock Cutover | Data Migration | Data Reconciliation | SAP Integrations | Production Readiness | Go/No-Go Governance | Command Center | Hypercare | RAID Management | Dependency Management | Business Readiness | Stakeholder Management | Production Support

Pay Transparency

Where required by law, NTT DATA provides a reasonable range of compensation for specific roles. The starting pay range for this remote role is $84,360-$122,100. This range reflects the minimum and maximum target compensation for the position across all US locations. Actual compensation will depend on a number of factors, including the candidate's actual work location, relevant experience, technical skills, and other qualifications.

This position is eligible for company benefits including medical, dental, and vision insurance with an employer contribution, flexible spending or health savings account, life and AD&D insurance, short- and long-term disability coverage, paid time off, employee assistance, participation in a 401k program with company match, and additional voluntary or legally-required benefits.

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