Senior SAP Business Objects Reporting Lead

WPP is the creative transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients, and communities.

Working at WPP means being part of a global network of more than 115,000 accomplished people in 110 countries. WPP has headquarters in New York, London and Singapore and a corporate presence in major markets worldwide.

We create transformative ideas and outcomes for our clients through an integrated offer of communications, experience, commerce, and technology.

WPP and our award-winning agencies work with most of the world's biggest companies and organisations – from Ford, Unilever and P&G to Google, HSBC, and the UN. Our clients include 61 of the FTSE 100, 307 of the Fortune Global 500, all 30 of the Dow Jones 30 and 62 of the NASDAQ 100. WPP are the leader in the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index and 20th in the FTSE 100 rankings for Women on Boards.

Why we're hiring:

At WPP, technology is at the heart of everything we do, and it is WPP IT’s mission to enable everyone to collaborate, create and thrive. WPP IT is undergoing a significant transformation to modernize ways of working, shift to cloud and micro-service-based architectures, drive automation, digitize colleague and client experiences and deliver insight from WPP’s petabytes of data.

As we continue this journey, there is a need for a Senior Business Objects Reporting Lead to support the Maconomy Global ERP rollout programmes along with resolving BAU reporting issues and requests.

This is a hands-on leadership role, where you will actively contribute to report design and development while ensuring your team delivers on time and to the highest standards.

What you'll be doing:

Key Responsibilities:

• Leadership & Mentoring: Lead, mentor, and manage a team of SAP Business Objects analysts & developers. Provide hands-on training, technical guidance, and support to ensure the successful execution of their tasks. Set clear objectives for the team and monitor progress against project timelines.
• Report Design & Development: Design, develop and enhance complex reports, drawing data from multiple data sources including Maconomy (Core and Legacy) and conforming to WPP standards.
• Requirements Gathering & Analysis: Collaborate with various business stakeholders to understand their reporting needs. Translate these needs into detailed technical specifications for the reporting team.
• Data Modelling & Universe Design: Contribute to the design and development of SAP Business Objects universes, ensuring data consistency and integrity. Work closely with the Maconomy implementation team to understand the underlying data structure and map it to reporting requirements.
• Data Warehouse: Lead the implementation of a data warehouse to provide a greater reporting offering.
• Testing & Quality Assurance: Create and execute detailed test plans to ensure report accuracy and reliability. Conduct unit, integration, and user acceptance testing, promptly resolving any identified defects.
• Deployment & Support: Work with the Release Management Workstream to manage the deployment of reports to Test and Production environments. Provide ongoing support and maintenance, including troubleshooting issues and addressing user requests.
• Documentation: Maintain comprehensive documentation for all reports (new and existing), including technical specifications, user guides, training materials, and a clear audit trail.
• Performance Optimization: Monitor report performance and identify areas for optimization. Implement strategies to improve report execution times and reduce system load.
• Best Practices & Standards: Promote and enforce best practices and standards for Business Objects development within the team. Stay updated with the latest SAP Business Objects features and functionalities.

What you'll need:

Skill Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Finance, or a related field.
• Experience of Finance ERP solutions and data structures.
• Experience with Maconomy ERP and a solid understanding of project accounting and financial General Ledger (GL) ledgers including AP, AR, FA, HR will be highly beneficial.
• SAP Business Objects /suite including report design and universe design. Administration, setup, installation. SAP Business Objects certification is preferred but not mandatory
• Database, MS SQL*SERVER, SQL, PL/SQL
• Data Warehouse, ETL, Pentaho
• An understanding of the Software development lifecycle
• Understanding of Business Intelligence requirements

Personal Attributes:

• Strong leadership and mentoring abilities, with a patient and supportive approach to developing junior team members.
• Meticulous attention to detail and a passion for delivering high-quality work.
• Proactive and results-oriented, with the ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously.
• Clear and confident communicator, skilled at presenting ideas and solutions to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Adaptable and resilient, able to navigate challenges and changes in a dynamic project environment.

Who you are:

You're open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are accepting: of new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.

You're optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.

You're extraordinary: we are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we provide extraordinary every day.

 

What we'll give you:

Passionate, inspired people – We promote a culture of people that do extraordinary work.

Scale and opportunity – We offer the opportunity to create, influence and complete projects at a scale that is unparalleled in the industry.

Challenging and stimulating work – Unique work and the opportunity to join a group of creative problem solvers. Are you up for the challenge?

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WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, age, national origin, citizenship status, marital status, military/veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical or mental disability. We believe in creating a dynamic work environment that values diversity and inclusion and strives to recruit a diverse slate of candidates to help us achieve that goal.

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