IBP-IT Applications Lead

Company Description

Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:

RL) is a global leader in the design, marketing and distribution of premium lifestyle products in five categories: apparel, accessories, home, fragrances, and hospitality. For more than 50 years, Ralph Lauren's reputation and distinctive image have been consistently developed across an expanding number of products, brands and international markets. The Company's brand names, which include Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren Collection, Ralph Lauren Purple Label, Polo Ralph Lauren, Double RL, Lauren Ralph Lauren, Polo Ralph Lauren Children, Chaps, among others, constitute one of the world's most widely recognized families of consumer brands.

At Ralph Lauren, we unite and inspire the communities within our company as well as those in which we serve by amplifying voices and perspectives to create a culture of belonging, ensuring inclusion, and fairness for all. We foster a culture of inclusion through:
Talent, Education & Communication, Employee Groups and Celebration.

Overview As a part of Ralph Lauren's Next Generation Transformation (NGT), the core operating systems of the company (SAP, Island Pacific and Microsoft D365) will be replaced with a common Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution enabling the Ralph Lauren team to continue delivering competitive advantages in our next great chapter and beyond. Along with ERP solution, as part of NGT, Ralph Lauren is also embarking on a transformational journey to standardize the process and implement a solution in the Integrated Business Planning (IBP) landscape.

Ralph Lauren is forming the Program Team to begin creating the transformation plan, defining how the company will operate going forward and how the implementation of the new systems will lead to a common way of working globally across the company. This new way of working impacts almost all of the business including Planning, Sourcing and Buying, Retail and Wholesale, Logistics and Distribution and Finance.

The purpose of this role is to be the representative of the IBP IT team in the ERP implementation project. The role will involve working with the ERP team closely to ensure that the two programs are tightly connected.

Program Leadership & Coordination

• Act as the primary liaison between ERP+ and IBP project teams
• Partner with the IBP workstream leads and ensure deliverables align with ERP program milestones (Design, Build, Test, Cutover, Go‑live)
• Manage dependencies between IBP systems (o9 and IA) and ERP+ especially around master data, product hierarchy, and PO creation
• Drive regular status updates, issue/risk management, and stakeholder communications to ensure transparency and alignment

Functional Solution Design (SAP‑o9 Integration)

• Collaborate with functional architects in ERP+ teams to design and validate integration flows between IBP system and SAP S/4
  
  HANA
• Oversee the functional specifications for interfaces and be the point of contact for the integration and application teams
• Ensure data mapping, transformation rules, and ownership are clearly defined between SAP, o9, and legacy systems

Testing & Validation

• Own the end‑to‑end test strategy for IBP and ERP+ integration points, covering both o9 and SAP integration touchpoints
• Lead UAT planning and execution, ensuring business teams validate all planning‑to‑execution scenarios
• Track, triage, and resolve defects and data mismatches between systems
• Support performance and regression testing of key integrations

Change Management & Training

• Partner with Organizational Change Management (OCM) to capture the changes in the workflow for the business users
• Drive adoption of new global planning standards, ensuring consistency across regions and brands

Cutover, Go‑Live, and Hypercare

• Partner with ERP+ and IBP teams to define cutover sequencing ensuring smooth synchronization of data across SAP and IBP applications
• Support dress rehearsals and readiness assessments for the IBP domain
• Manage post‑go‑live hyper‑care activities – monitoring data flows, resolving system integration issues, and stabilizing planning cycles

• Deep understanding of Product creation, Planning & Preproduction processes
• Familiarity with o9 and SAP Applications
• Experience in ERP or Planning system implementations
• Strong leadership and analysis skills