Lead Consultant - Coupa and S/4HANA Procurement

Role Title: Lead Consultant - IT Business Analyst / Product Expert – Coupa and S/4HANA Procurement
Location: Chennai
We are one purpose-led global organisation. The enablers and innovators, ensuring that we can fulfil our mission to push the boundaries of science and discover and develop life-changing medicines. We take pride in working close to the cause, opening the locks to save lives, ultimately making a massive difference to the outside world.
AstraZeneca (AZ) is in a period of strong growth and our employees have a united purpose to make a difference to patients around the world who need both our medicines and the ongoing developments from our science. In this journey AZ must continue to work across borders and with partners and new colleagues in a fast and seamless way. The ambition, size and complexity of the organisation, coupled with the opportunities afforded by new technology, has led the Board to approve a large-scale transformation programme – Axial.
The Axial Programme will be powered by S/4HANA a new ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system which will be implemented right across the organisation and will provide our business with standardised processes, enhanced financial management, common data and real time reporting, transforming the way we work through our entire supply chain - from bench to patient.
The new system will be used by more than 20,000 employees daily, is foundational to all AZ entities and is central to most core business processes. This is a once in a generation programme for AstraZeneca and will shape our ways of working globally for many years to come.
The Axial programme needs the best talent to work in it. Whether it’s the technical skills, business understanding or change leadership, we want to ensure we have the strongest team deployed throughout. We are aiming to deliver a world class change programme that leaves all employees with a fuller understanding of their role in the end-to-end nature of our global company. This programme will provide AZ with a competitive edge, to the benefit of our employees, customers and patients.
The IT Business Analyst / Product Expert plays an important role within the Procurement and Materials Management Enterprise Business Partner (P&MM EBP) team, supporting the delivery, operation and continuous improvement of AstraZeneca’s global procurement technology landscape.
The role combines the responsibilities of an IT Business Analyst and a Coupa Product Expert, with a particular focus on Coupa Procure-to-Pay, supplier collaboration and integration with SAP S/4HANA Procurement and Accounts Payable. The role will support the definition and adoption of global standard processes, ensuring that business requirements are translated into practical, scalable and compliant technology solutions.
Working closely with Product Managers, Product Experts, Enterprise Business Partners, Procurement Operations, Finance and Accounts Payable teams, the role will analyse business needs, document functional requirements, support solution design and configuration, and coordinate testing, deployment and hypercare activities. The role will also act as a key domain expert for Coupa capabilities and their integration with S/4HANA and other applications across the Source-to-Pay landscape.
The role will contribute to AstraZeneca’s fit-to-standard principles by finding opportunities for process simplification, automation and harmonisation while ensuring that local requirements are appropriately assessed and handled.
The individual will support the ongoing product lifecycle, issue resolution and continuous improvement of Coupa and related procurement capabilities across AstraZeneca’s global operating environment.
What you’ll do
Gather, analyse and document business and functional requirements for Coupa, SAP S/4HANA Procurement and related Source-to-Pay capabilities.
Act as an expert for Coupa Procure-to-Pay, including requisitioning, catalogues, approvals, purchase orders, receipts, invoicing, supplier collaboration and associated reporting.
Support the definition and continuous improvement of global Purchase-to-Pay and Supplier Collaboration processes in alignment with AstraZeneca’s global standards and fit-to-standard principles.
Translate business requirements into clear functional specifications, process designs, user stories, acceptance criteria and supporting solution documentation.
Support the design, configuration and continuous improvement of Coupa capabilities, working with Product Experts, technical teams and implementation partners as appropriate.
Define and maintain the functional design for integrations between Coupa, SAP S/4HANA and associated applications, including master data synchronisation, supplier data, purchase orders, goods receipts, invoices, approvals and financial information.
Collaborate with integration and architecture teams to ensure that Coupa and S/4HANA solutions are aligned with AstraZeneca’s strategic application, data and integration standards.
Support SAP S/4HANA Procurement and Accounts Payable process activities, including requisitions, purchase orders, supplier collaboration, invoice processing and payment-related processes.
Analyse the impact of Coupa changes on S/4HANA, supplier management, Accounts Payable, reporting, master data and other connected applications.
Support the creation, validation and maintenance of procurement and supplier master data, including the definition of data requirements, data ownership and data quality controls.
Work with business and technical partners to assess process gaps, identify root causes and recommend improvements, automation opportunities or standard solutions.
Support system integration testing, user acceptance testing, regression testing and business readiness activities for Coupa, S/4HANA and related integrations.
Create test scenarios, test scripts, expected results and traceability documentation in accordance with AstraZeneca quality, compliance and validation standards.
Coordinate defect investigation and resolution, ensuring that defects are clearly documented, prioritised and tracked through to closure using appropriate delivery and service management tools.
Support release planning, change assessment, deployment preparation, cutover activities and post-deployment hypercare for Coupa and related procurement solutions.
Provide operational support and contribute to the resolution of incidents, service requests and capability issues across the Coupa and S/4HANA procurement landscape.
Maintain product, process, integration, configuration and support documentation to ensure that information remains accurate, accessible and aligned with governance requirements.
Work with Product Managers and Product Experts to maintain the Coupa capability roadmap, assess enhancement requests and support prioritisation based on business value, risk, compliance and technical feasibility.
Participate in governance forums and provide clear information on solution options, risks, issues, dependencies, decisions and delivery progress.
Support business change and adoption activities by contributing to communications, training materials, process guidance and partner engagement.
Collaborate with external technology vendors, Coupa, SAP, system integrators and service providers to support solution delivery and issue resolution.
Ensure that solutions and supporting documentation comply with AstraZeneca’s security, risk, data, quality, validation and governance standards.
Find opportunities to improve the user experience, reduce process complexity and increase adoption of standard Coupa and S/4HANA functionality.
Report progress, risks, issues and dependencies to project, product and P&MM leadership teams.
Essential for the Role
Experience as an IT Business Analyst, Product Expert, Functional Consultant or similar role supporting procurement, finance or supply chain processes, with good experience in Coupa Procure-to-Pay including requirements analysis, process design, configuration, administration and product support.
Experience working with SAP Procurement, SAP S/4HANA or ERP solutions, including Procure-to-Pay and Accounts Payable processes, and designing/supporting integrations between Coupa and SAP S/4HANA or other ERP back-end systems.
Solid understanding of end-to-end Source-to-Pay processes, including requisitioning, approvals, purchasing, supplier collaboration, goods receipt, invoicing and payment.
Experience gathering, analysing and documenting business and functional requirements, including creation of business requirements, functional specifications, process maps, user stories, acceptance criteria and solution documentation.
Experience supporting solution design, system testing, user acceptance testing, deployment, hypercare, defect management, incident management, enhancement requests and delivery activities using tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps, ServiceNow, Smartsheet or similar.
Solid understanding of Coupa Procure-to-Pay capabilities and supporting business processes, SAP S/4HANA Procurement and Accounts Payable concepts, master data concepts, and the ability to support or review Coupa configuration and assess downstream impacts on integrated systems.
Knowledge of Coupa and S/4HANA integration scenarios, data flows, interface dependencies, common integration patterns, APIs, middleware and integration concepts including interfaces, mappings, monitoring, error handling and data validation.
Knowledge of testing methodologies including system integration testing, UAT, regression testing and defect managemen