Lead, Release & Cutover Management

For over seven decades, Chalhoub Group has been a partner and creator of luxury experiences in the Middle East. In its pursuit to excel as a hybrid luxury retailer, the Group has curated a portfolio of over 10 owned brands and strengthened its distribution and marketing expertise for over 400 international names across luxury fashion, beauty, jewellery, watches, eyewear, and art de vivre categories.Role OverviewYou will be responsible for providing technical leadership and ensuring the successful implementation of the Release Management, Cutover and Environment Management horizontal stream of the Transformation program. You will take the lead on planning, execution, and governance of all ERP system releases, ensuring smooth deployment across SAP environments and minimizing business disruption. In this role, the Lead will work with our System Integrator to develop and execute a detailed cutover plan, managing the transition from legacy systems to SAP ERP, including dry runs, mock cutovers, and go-live activities.What You'll Be DoingRelease Planning & StrategyDevelop and manage a comprehensive release strategy and schedule for the ERP transformation, ensuring alignment with project timelines and business objectives.Coordinate with horizontal streams teams (e.g., integration, testing) as well as functional streams to plan, scope, and prioritize releases effectively.Develop and manage a strategy for handling SAP transports across different system layers (Development, Quality Assurance, Production) to ensure smooth migration of configuration changes, code updates, and other objects.Release & Transport Planning & GovernanceEstablish and maintain governance processes for managing releases, ensuring that all changes, updates, and deployments follow approved procedures and meet quality standards.Ensure that release risks are identified, documented, and mitigated, including potential impacts on business operations.Define clear processes for transport requests, approvals, and tracking to ensure that all transports are controlled and properly documented.Coordinate with SAP functional and technical teams to ensure the timely and accurate movement of transports between the various SAP environments.Work closely with SAP Basis teams to schedule and manage transport imports, ensuring minimal disruption to ongoing operations or testing activities.Release Execution & CoordinationOversee the execution of all ERP system releases, from development to production, ensuring smooth and timely delivery.Ensure all transport requests are properly tested in non-production environments before being promoted to production, minimizing risks of errors or system disruptions.Collaborate with functional leads to validate that the content of each transport aligns with business requirements and does not negatively impact other system components.Collaborate with business and IT stakeholders to coordinate the release of new functionality, system upgrades, and patches.Post-Release Support & MonitoringEnsure effective post-release monitoring and support, identifying and resolving any issues that arise post-deployment.Maintain oversight of transport logs and system alerts to proactively identify and address any issues that arise during transport movements.Provide regular reporting on transport activities, including success rates, errors, and potential risks, to project leadership and stakeholders.Work with technical teams to implement roll-back strategies if needed, minimizing disruption to the business.Cutover Strategy DevelopmentLead the development of a detailed cutover plan to transition from legacy systems to the new SAP ERP system.Define clear roles, responsibilities, and timelines for all stakeholders involved in the cutover process.Cross-System CoordinationCollaborate with functional leads, IT teams, and external vendors to ensure that all systems and data are properly aligned during the cutover.Ensure that key integration points between legacy and SAP systems are identified and effectively managed.Testing & SimulationManage dry runs and mock cutovers to validate the cutover plan, ensuring the team is prepared for the live cutover.Identify potential risks or issues during testing and work with relevant teams to implement solutions ahead of the actual cutover.Go-Live Cutover ExecutionOversee the live cutover process, ensuring that all systems are transitioned smoothly with minimal disruption to business operations.Coordinate with data migration teams, technical teams, and business units to ensure data integrity and system functionality during and after the cutover.Environment Strategy & PlanningDevelop and maintain an environment management strategy, ensuring that all system environments (e.g., development, testing, staging, production) are properly managed and aligned with the project timeline.Plan and manage the provisioning, configuration, and maintenance of environments required for the ERP system.Environment Setup & ConfigurationOversee t