Product Manager - SAP SAC Functional Product Management

Being part of Air Canada is to become part of an iconic Canadian symbol, recently ranked the best Airline in North America. Let your career take flight by joining our diverse and vibrant team at the leading edge of passenger aviation.

This position sits within Air Canada’s ERP-SAP Product Management group on the Digital Product team to enable the evolution of finance and SAP products.

Air Canada seeks a highly motivated and experienced Product Manager to join the ERP Product team. This position will oversee both the strategy and execution of new and improved features for the SAP- SAC Functional Product Manager. This individual must have experience creating innovative, high-performance ERP solutions, and be customer-centric, data driven, and passionate about the travel industry. The ideal candidate thrives while operating in a collaborative, fast-paced, and high-energy continuous improvement delivery model.

Responsibilities

• Define, prioritize, and manage the product roadmap for SAP products.
• Support leadership to ensure the product roadmap aligns to strategic digital program objectives.
• Lead end-to-end implementation and support of SAP SAC Reporting and Planning modules.
• Collaborate with Solution Managers, System Architects, and Digital Platform teams to ensure functional capabilities and requirements are met.
• Analyze business requirements and design SAP financial solutions.
• Prepare functional specifications for technical developments.
• Serve as the primary SAC functional point of contact within the CoE, acting as the bridge between the business, the AMS provider, and other vendors for day-to-day sustainment and enhancement activities.
• Oversee and govern SAC Planning and Reporting environments post-go-live, ensuring system stability, performance, and alignment with business requirements.
• Review, prioritize, and manage enhancement requests and change requests in collaboration with the AMS provider, ensuring quality delivery within agreed timelines and budgets.
• Provide functional guidance and review on SAC configurations, model changes, story updates, and planning process adjustments executed by the AMS team or vendors.
• Act as the functional owner for SAC Reporting stories and Planning models, ensuring they continue to meet evolving business needs.
• Support and contribute to the evaluation and future implementation of SAC Dashboards, providing input on feasibility, design, and integration considerations.
• Collaborate with cross-functional business and IT teams to gather requirements for enhancements, translate them into functional specifications, and ensure proper handoff to the delivery team.
• Define and enforce scope control procedures for enhancements, managing functional scope and ensuring proper sign-off processes with client stakeholders.
• Manage and resolve issues escalated from the AMS provider; assist in identifying and mitigating risks to system stability and project delivery.
• Maintain strong relationships with business stakeholders, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and user adoption.
• Stay current with SAP SAC product updates, new features, and best practices, assessing their relevance and value for the client environment.
• Analyze market trends, customer feedback, and analytics data to drive product evolution
• Directly and/or indirectly lead and mentor a team of Product Owners.
• Communicate effectively with stakeholders and provide clear direction to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Actively participate in meetings across the organization to support the intake of new requirements and provide initial gap assessments as required.
• Prepare presentations to communicate the product vision, roadmap, new features, and data with business stakeholders.
• Understand and stay current on regulatory, and technology trends to understand their potential impact and apply these learnings within Air Canada.
• Remain accountable for requirements documentation to enable product and delivery teams.
• Perform detailed analysis of complex business process requirements and provide appropriate system solutions; identify, interpret, validate and document customer requirements.
• Facilitate workshops to collect business requirements.
• Map business requirements, processes and objectives; develops necessary product modifications to satisfy clients' needs.
• Identify gaps, issues and work around solutions.
• Document functional designs, test cases and results.
• Proactively identify and propose business process and/or system enhancements
• Provide consulting services on both new implementations and existing support projects
• Act as a liaison between the business functions and the technical team.
• Provide ad-hoc training and user support as required.
• Work self-directed and independently; may act as subject matter mentor to more junior members.

Qualifications

• At least 5+ years of experience in Information Technology, with a strong focus on SAP analytics, planning, and reporting solutions.
• Hands-on experience with SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), covering both Planning and Reporting/Stories capabilities.
• Experience operating in a post-go-live sustainment or AMS governance context, with a solid understanding of change management and enhancement lifecycle processes.
• Proven ability to coordinate deliverables across multiple vendors and internal teams, including AMS providers and system integrators.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to translate business needs into actionable functional requirements.
• Ability to manage expectations across all phases of the enhancement lifecycle, from intake through sign-off.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a high attention to detail and a solutions-oriented approach.
• Experience working with remote and global teams across different time zones.
• CPA certification is a plus.
• Bachelor’s in Finance is a plus.
• Ability to provide clear direction and effective communication both in technical and non-technical terms.
• Understanding of SAP Clean Core principles, design guidelines and their application to Financial Processes.
• Have directly or indirectly led a team of Product Owners, Business Analysts, or Product Designers.
• An ability to energize people in a fast-paced and dynamic environment.
• Experience leading or participating in product discovery sessions.
• Knowledge of core SAC Planning features: Dimensions, Planning Models, formulas, calculations, value driver trees, currency translation, validation rules, and calendar management.
• Experience with predictive planning features within SAC.
• Knowledge of SAP product release cycles and the ability to assess the impact of new SAC releases on the client landscape.
• SAP certification in SAC Planning or Analytics is an asset.
• Demonstrate punctuality and dependability to support overall team success in a fast-paced environment.
• Familiarity working in an agile methodology (e.g., SCRUM, SAFe, etc.), with scaled agile (SAFe) as a plus.
• Deep knowledge of financial processes and accounting principles.
• Experience with SAP configuration and integration.
• Be comfortable leading through influence to drive outcomes in a cross-functional team.
• Airline or Travel Industry experience a plus, but not required.

Technical Skills & Experience

• SAP Analytics Cloud - Reporting & Stories (live environment experience required).
• SAP Analytics Cloud - Planning (live environment experience required).
• SAP SAC Dashboards (awareness or experience is an asset, given potential future scope).
• SAP S/4HANA integration with SAC.
• Data modeling, data wrangling, and data visualization concepts.

Conditions of Employment:

Candidates must be eligible to work in the country of interest at the time any offer of employment is made and are responsible for obtaining any required work permits, visas, or other authorizations necessary for employment. Prior to their start date, candidates will also need to provide proof of their eligibility to work in the country of interest.

Linguistic Requirements

Based on equal qualifications, preference will be given to bilingual candidates.

Diversity and Inclusion

Air Canada is strongly committed to Diversity and Inclusion and aims to create a healthy, accessible and rewarding work environment which highlights employees’ unique contributions to our company’s success.

As an equal opportunity employer, we welcome applications from all to help us build a diverse workforce which reflects the diversity of our customers, and communities, in which we live and serve.

Air Canada thanks all candidates for their interest; however only those selected to continue in the process will be contacted.