Senior Manager, ERP & Business Applications

Washington Penn•Washington, PA

About The Position

The Senior Manager, ERP & Enterprise Applications provides strategic leadership and accountability for the organization's ERP platform, and related modernization initiatives. This role is responsible for defining and executing the strategy and roadmap for the ERP while ensuring operational reliability, security, scalability, and alignment with the organization's long-term business objectives. The Senior Manager will lead the modernization of legacy ERP capabilities and associated business processes, balancing the need to maintain stable day-to-day operations with the transformation required to support future growth. The role serves as a strategic partner to business and technology leadership, translating organizational priorities into technology investments, application roadmaps, and measurable business outcomes. This position provides leadership for ERP application development, business application support, integrations, and SQL database administration, while establishing effective governance, portfolio prioritization, delivery practices, and vendor partnerships.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
10+ years of progressive experience in ERP, enterprise applications, software engineering, or business systems leadership.
5+ years of experience leading technical, application, development, or enterprise technology teams.
Demonstrated experience leading major ERP implementations, upgrades, modernization programs, or enterprise application transformations.
Experience supporting complex ERP environments within manufacturing, industrial, supply chain, or other operationally intensive organizations.
Strong understanding of enterprise business processes, including manufacturing, supply chain, procurement, inventory, finance, and related operations.
Experience with application development, integrations, enterprise architecture, vendor management, and technology portfolio management.
Working knowledge of SQL Server and database administration, including performance, high availability, backup and recovery, disaster recovery, and security.
Demonstrated ability to develop technology strategies, manage significant investments, and communicate effectively with executive leadership.
Strong leadership, organizational change, stakeholder management, financial management, and problem-solving skills.

Nice To Haves

Experience modernizing a legacy, custom-developed, or highly customized ERP platform.
Experience leading complex transformation programs involving multiple business functions and geographic locations.
Experience with manufacturing systems, MES, quality systems, supply chain technologies, or plant-floor integrations.
Experience establishing application governance, product management, or modern software delivery practices.

Responsibilities

Define and execute the enterprise applications and ERP strategy, roadmap, and multi-year modernization plan.
Lead the evaluation and modernization of legacy ERP capabilities, applications, integrations, and supporting technologies.
Develop business cases, investment recommendations, and implementation strategies for major ERP and enterprise application initiatives.
Balance operational stability, technical debt reduction, business demand, and long-term transformation priorities.
Identify opportunities to simplify and standardize business processes, improve data quality, increase automation, and reduce manual or redundant activities.
Evaluate emerging technologies, automation, and analytics, to improve business capabilities and operational performance.
Serve as a strategic partner to business leaders across manufacturing, supply chain, procurement, finance, quality, and other functional areas.
Establish strong relationships with stakeholders and ensure technology investments are aligned with enterprise priorities.
Lead cross-functional discussions to resolve competing priorities, clarify ownership, and drive alignment on major initiatives.
Translate business strategy and operational requirements into actionable technology strategies and investment plans.
Communicate application strategy, modernization progress, risks, dependencies, and investment needs to executive leadership.
Provide overall leadership for the ERP and enterprise applications portfolio, including application development, support, integrations, and modernization initiatives.
Establish portfolio governance processes to evaluate, prioritize, fund, and sequence technology investments.
Ensure effective management of application demand, project portfolios, development backlogs, resource capacity, and delivery commitments.
Establish consistent practices for requirements management, solution design, development, testing, release management, change management, and production support.
Monitor delivery performance and establish corrective actions when projects, programs, or operational services are at risk.
Lead and develop teams responsible for ERP development, application support, business analysis, integrations, and SQL database administration.
Establish clear accountability between business application teams, software engineering, database administration, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and data teams.
Partner with technical leaders to establish appropriate application architecture, engineering standards, integration strategies, and modernization practices.
Drive the reduction of technical debt and improve application scalability, maintainability, performance, and resiliency.
Develop organizational capabilities needed to support future ERP and enterprise application requirements.
Provide leadership and management oversight for SQL database administration supporting ERP and critical business applications.
Ensure appropriate strategies and operational practices for database availability, performance, capacity, maintenance, security, backup, recovery, and disaster recovery.
Establish accountability for testing and validating restoration, recovery, and business continuity capabilities.
Partner with Infrastructure and Cybersecurity leadership to manage platform dependencies, vulnerabilities, patching, access controls, and operational risks.
Ensure significant application and database incidents are effectively managed, root causes are addressed, and recurring issues are systematically eliminated.
Establish governance structures for ERP and enterprise application decisions, including prioritization, architecture, investments, risk, and modernization.
Identify and manage technology, operational, cybersecurity, vendor, and implementation risks.
Develop and manage budgets, resource plans, and investment proposals for enterprise applications and modernization initiatives.
Manage strategic relationships with ERP vendors, system integrators, consultants, and other technology partners.
Ensure external partners are accountable for delivery quality, knowledge transfer, and achievement of expected business outcomes.
Support audit, compliance, cybersecurity, and business continuity requirements related to enterprise applications and data.