SAP Center of Excellence (COE) Master Data Governance & Quality Analyst

• The Master Data Governance  & Quality Analyst is responsible for establishing, enforcing, and continuously improving data governance standards and data quality controls across enterprise systems (e.g., SAP S/4HANA and downstream platforms).

Goal of function:

1) Main tasks:

1. Data Governance Framework & Policies

• Support definition and implementation of:

  • Data governance policies

  • Data standards

  • Naming conventions

  • Data ownership and stewardship models

• Ensure data domains (e.g., Customer, Vendor, Material, Finance) have:

  • Defined owners

  • Clear business rules

  • Approval workflows

• Enforce governance processes for:

  • Data creation

  • Data change

  • Data deactivation

• Support implementation and ongoing maintenance of information governance tooling (e.g., Collibra or similar platforms), including:

  • Business glossaries and data definitions

  • Data domain, ownership, and stewardship metadata

  • Data policies, standards, and rule documentation

  • Lineage, classification, and critical data element (CDE) attributes (where applicable)

2. Data Quality Management

• Define and maintain data quality rules (accuracy, completeness, validity, timeliness).

• Perform regular:

  • Data profiling

  • Data validation

  • Reconciliation checks

• Identify:

  • Data defects

  • Root causes

  • Process gaps

• Drive corrective and preventive actions with IT and business teams.

3. Monitoring & Reporting

• Develop and maintain data quality dashboards and KPIs.

• Publish and maintain governance and data quality metrics, definitions, and ownership information within information governance platforms for leadership visibility and audit readiness.

• Report on:

  • Data quality trends

  • Compliance with standards

  • High-risk data issues

• Provide insights to leadership on:

  • Data risks

  • Improvement opportunities

4. Stakeholder Engagement

Internal:

• Business Data Owners

• Data Stewards

• SAP COE / IT

• Analytics & Reporting teams

• Risk, Audit, and Compliance teams

Responsibilities:

• Act as a trusted advisor on data quality and governance.

• Facilitate governance forums and working groups.

• Educate stakeholders on:

  • Data standards

  • Roles and responsibilities

  • Best practices

• Support and enable Data Owners and Data Stewards in using information governance tools by defining standards, templates, and usage guidelines.

5. Process & Control Integration

• Embed data governance into:

  • Business processes

  • System workflows

  • Change management

• Ensure data controls align with:

  • SOX

  • GDPR

  • Regulatory requirements

• Support audits and regulatory reviews related to data.

6. Continuous Improvement

• Identify opportunities to:

  • Automate data quality checks

  • Reduce manual data corrections

  • Improve data lifecycle management

• Support:

  • Master Data Governance (MDG) initiatives

  • Data transformation programs

  • S/4HANA or ERP modernization efforts

• Contribute to the evolution and adoption of information governance tooling capabilities in collaboration with Data Leads, IT, and tool vendors.

2) Stakeholder Engagement

• SAP Service Lead

• SAP Data Lead (future-state)

• SAP Functional Leads

• Business Process Owners

• GBS Operations teams

• Data Lead / Governance Lead

• AMS Partners

• System Integrators

• Data tool vendors (if applicable)

• Responsibilities:

Act as primary point of contact for data issues

• Communicate data risks and impacts to business

• Provide data quality and performance reporting

Key Performance Indicators

• Service availability and reliability

• Service Quality & performance

• Operational Excellence

• Risk & compliance

Qualifications and experience

1) Required training and education:

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Data Management or a related field.

2) Required professional experience (in years):

• 15+ years in SAP Master data management, specifically in S/4HANA implementation or support.

• Proven experience in SAP domains: Material Master, Business Partner (Customer/Vendor), or Finance

3) Important personal qualities:

• Strong stewardship mindset:  Acts as a custodian of enterprise data, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and adherence to governance standards.

• Analytical and detail-oriented: Demonstrates high rigor in defining, validating, and monitoring data quality rules, metrics, and controls.

• Structured and methodical: Applies disciplined approaches to data profiling, issue analysis, root cause identification, and documentation.

• Influence without authority: Effectively guides data owners, stewards, and stakeholders toward governance compliance through expertise and collaboration.

• Clear and precise communicator: Translates complex data concepts, rules, and quality findings into clear, actionable guidance for business and technical audiences.

• Policy- and control-conscious: Understands regulatory, audit, and compliance expectations and embeds them into governance practices and artifacts.

• Collaborative and facilitative: Works constructively across business, IT, and analytics teams to align definitions, standards, and quality outcomes.

• Tool- and process-oriented: Values structured use of governance and data quality tools and processes to ensure transparency and repeatability.

• Continuous improvement mindset: Proactively identifies opportunities to strengthen governance frameworks, data quality controls, and lifecycle management.

• Professional persistence: Demonstrates patience and consistency in enforcing standards and driving adoption in complex, matrixed environments.

4) Other specialized knowledge:

c) IT skills

• Strong hands-on experience in SAP Master data Management configuration, Business Partner (BP) setup, and Data Replication Framework (DRF).

• Experience with SAP Information Steward, SAP Data Services, or similar data profiling tools.

• Knowledge of SAP modules (MM, SD, FICO) and how master data impacts end-to-end business processes.Experience with Business Rules Framework Plus (BRF+) and workflow modelling.

• Hands-on experience with information governance or metadata management platforms (e.g., Collibra, Alation, Microsoft Purview, or similar).

• Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities, with high attention to detail, Effective communication skills for interacting with business stakeholders and technical teams, Ability to manage multiple tasks, tickets, and priorities in a fast-paced AMS environment and experience documenting data policies, functional specifications, and data dictionaries.

d) Product knowledge

Core SAP & Technical Skills

• Strong expertise in SAP S/4HANA Run Operations

• Solid understanding of:

  • SAP Finance (FI/CO)

  • SAP Logistics (MM, SD, PP, WM/EWM)

  • SAP Basis & Technical Operations

  • SAP Fiori, Authorizations, Interfaces

• Familiarity with SAP Solution Manager, Focused Run, ChaRM

• Understanding of SAP integrations (CPI, PI/PO, third-party systems)

SAP Products

• SAP S/4HANA

• SAP BW/4HANA / SAC

• SAP Solution Manager / Focused Run

• SAP Fiori & UI5

• SAP CPI / PI-PO

• Supporting Platforms

• ITSM tools (ServiceNow preferred)

• Monitoring tools (SAP ALM, APM, AIOps)

• Cloud platforms (AWS / Azure / GCP – SAP workloads)

5 ) Special personal requirements:

• Travel upto 20% can be expected

• Ability to support CET timezone (End state will include US as well, need to revisit this at a later time)