HEMANTH VOLIKATLA
ATLANTA
Summary
Senior SAP and enterprise cloud leader with 20+ years of experience spanning customer success, people leadership, global service delivery, SAP Basis architecture, cloud transformation, and mission-critical operations. Currently serves as a Senior Technical Service Manager within SAP Enterprise Cloud Services, acting as a trusted advisor for strategic North American customers and leading executive governance, complex escalations, service improvement, disaster recovery, modernization programs, and cross-functional delivery across SAP organizations. Brings formal management experience from CenterPoint Energy and Hewlett Packard Enterprise/DXC, including direct-report leadership, hiring, coaching, performance management, work allocation, onshore/offshore coordination, and delivery governance. Combines executive-level customer communication with deep technical credibility across SAP RISE, Private Cloud, HANA, S/4HANA, Azure, AWS, GCP, high availability, data-center migrations, upgrades, and operational resilience.
Diligent Technical Leader with proven track record in managing technical services and leading high-performing teams. Successfully oversaw complex projects and implemented solutions that enhanced operational efficiency. Demonstrated expertise in strategic planning and problem-solving, ensuring seamless service delivery and customer satisfaction.
Senior technical professional with strong background in managing and optimizing technical service operations. Skilled in team collaboration, problem-solving, and adapting to evolving requirements. Proven expertise in IT infrastructure, systems integration, and customer support. Known for delivering results and driving continuous improvement.
Overview
20
20
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
2
2
Languages
Work History
Senior Technical Service Manager - Enterprise Cloud Services
SAP America Inc.
United States
05.2023 - Current
- Own strategic technical relationships for enterprise customers across the SAP ECS lifecycle, serving as the primary advisor for service health, transformation planning, risk, operational priorities and executive escalations.
- Served as the executive point of contact for strategic Fortune 500 customers, driving customer success, executive governance, and long-term cloud transformation initiatives.
- Led globally distributed cross-functional teams across Engineering, Product Support, Cloud Infrastructure, Security, Customer Success, and Delivery organizations to successfully execute enterprise initiatives.
- Developed strategic roadmaps supporting long-term customer success, enterprise cloud transformation, operational resilience, and continuous service improvement.
- Aligned technology strategy with business objectives to deliver measurable customer value and sustainable operational outcomes.
- Built strong collaboration across multiple technical and business organizations, enabling faster decision-making and improved customer outcomes.
- Led executive governance through Monthly Business Reviews (MBRs), Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs), and steering committee meetings, aligning business priorities with SAP Enterprise Cloud Services delivery.
- Established trusted advisor relationships with customer executives by providing strategic guidance on cloud operations, risk management, business continuity, and SAP technology roadmaps.
- Demonstrated executive leadership by driving strategic customer engagements, executive governance, and business-critical decision-making across complex SAP Enterprise Cloud Services environments.
- Drove operational excellence through proactive governance, continuous service improvement, risk management, capacity planning, and lifecycle management initiatives.
- Established governance practices that improved service quality, executive visibility, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction.
- Successfully influenced executive stakeholders by translating complex technical challenges into business-focused strategies and actionable recommendations.
- Built trusted advisor relationships with customer executives through proactive engagement, transparency, and strategic guidance.
- Successfully led executive escalations and major production incidents by coordinating globally distributed teams, maintaining executive communication, and driving timely business recovery.
- Directed crisis management activities by balancing customer expectations, operational risks, technical constraints, and business continuity objectives.
- Established structured communication and governance during critical incidents, ensuring executive visibility, timely decision-making, and customer confidence.
- Led delivery governance across complex SAP Enterprise Cloud Services engagements, ensuring operational excellence, SLA compliance, customer satisfaction, and successful business outcomes.
- Directed cross-functional delivery teams to achieve project milestones, operational objectives, and strategic customer commitments.
- Successfully managed competing priorities across multiple enterprise initiatives while maintaining delivery quality and operational stability.
- Balanced customer expectations, operational priorities, technical risks, and business objectives to deliver sustainable enterprise outcomes.
- Collaborated with Customer Success, Sales, Engineering, and Delivery leadership to strengthen customer relationships and support long-term business growth.
- Contributed to customer retention and strategic account growth through trusted advisory services, operational excellence, and proactive customer engagement.
- Led monthly and quarterly business reviews, operational governance, capacity reviews, landscape health discussions, EarlyWatch Alert follow-ups, top issue management, and service-improvement roadmaps to enhance service delivery.
- Leveraged Artificial Intelligence and modern productivity platforms including ChatGPT, Claude Code, Hyperspace AI and Microsoft Copilot to enhance executive communications, automate documentation, integrated Jira and determine the solution, played a key role in CI Coach Wave 3, improve RCA preparation, generate customer-ready presentations, accelerate knowledge management, streamline reporting, and improve decision-making. Applied AI-assisted analysis to identify operational risks, optimize service governance, improve process efficiency, and reduce manual effort, enabling faster execution, higher productivity, and improved customer experience while maintaining appropriate human review and accountability for business-critical decisions.
- Coordinate global teams across Customer Engagement & Advisory, Product Support, Cloud Infrastructure, Engineering, Network Operations, Technical Operations, Customer Success and Sales to deliver accountable outcomes.
- Translated complex technical conditions into business-relevant risk assessments, decision options, implementation priorities, and executive communications to align technical strategies with business objectives.
- Led and governed disaster-recovery exercises, zonal and storage migrations, upgrades, patching, high-availability events, security remediation, connectivity programs and critical production incident recovery.
- Directed enterprise upgrade programs while balancing customer priorities, technical risk, and business continuity.
- Led executive RCA governance and preventive action planning to improve operational resilience.
- Reviewed root-cause analyses for technical quality, customer clarity, and actionable prevention; ensured follow-through on corrective actions and sustained operational improvements to enhance service reliability.
- Supported renewal readiness by demonstrating service value, addressing systemic risk, conducting capacity and landscape reviews, and strengthening trusted-advisor relationships.
- Introduced automation and AI-assisted working methods to improve operational reporting, analysis, communication and recurring delivery activities.
- Strategic customers include CVS Pharmacy, Birkenstock, Incyte, Stanley Black & Decker, NBA Properties and other enterprise accounts
- Led cross-functional teams to enhance customer satisfaction and service delivery efficiency.
- Developed and implemented technical service strategies aligning with organizational goals.
- Mentored junior staff on best practices in technical support and customer engagement.
- Streamlined workflows through process improvement initiatives, reducing response times significantly.
- Led collaboration across Product Support, Engineering, Cloud Infrastructure, Customer Success, and Customer Leadership to drive timely business outcomes.
Manager / Project Lead
URSI / Wisemen - CenterPoint Energy
United States
01.2023 - 04.2023
- Led onsite, onshore and offshore SAP Basis teams supporting a complex, business-critical utility landscape and 24x7 operational model.
- Managed full suite of team functions, including interviewing, hiring, onboarding, training, assigning work, appraising performance, recognizing achievements, addressing corrective actions, scheduling, handling complaints, and resolving problems.
- Partnered with PMO and business stakeholders to design upgrade, refresh, maintenance and kernel-patching schedules while balancing operational risk and business availability.
- Supported customer renewal readiness and long-term account growth by delivering consistent operational excellence and strengthening executive customer relationships.
- Partnered with customer-facing organizations to maximize customer value through proactive governance, service improvement initiatives, and strategic planning.
- Supported hiring, onboarding, work allocation, resource planning, and professional development to strengthen overall team capability and delivery excellence.
- Guided team members in developing leadership, customer engagement, and operational management skills.
- Mentored and coached technical consultants, Managers, and project teams by providing leadership, technical guidance, customer engagement best practices, and career development support.
- Managed landscape strategy, refresh cadence, data sets, system performance, Solution Manager, ChaRM, CTS+, ServiceNow processes and primary on-call governance.
- Advised leadership on SAP cloud strategy, asset utilization, license optimization, investment priorities and opportunities to better leverage SAP capabilities.
- Developed dashboards and weekly reports for leadership, highlighting technical performance, capacity, service quality, delivery status, and emerging risks.
- Collaborated with quality assurance, help desk, and cross-functional teams to enhance regression testing, documentation, production readiness, and service continuity.
- Enterprise utilities environment | Onsite, onshore and offshore delivery leadership
SAP Basis Lead Architect / Project Lead
URSI / NTT DATA
United States
06.2022 - 10.2022
- Led architecture and delivery for a new SAP ERP landscape supporting Russia operations, including design, build, configuration, mock execution, go-live and hypercare.
- Championed customer success by proactively identifying business risks, recommending strategic improvements, and ensuring successful execution of customer objectives.
- Built trusted partnerships through transparency, accountability, and proactive executive engagement.
- Established a culture of continuous improvement through governance reviews, automation, knowledge sharing, process optimization, and operational excellence initiatives.
- Improved organizational maturity by driving standardization, operational discipline, and service improvement programs.
- Directed a complex enterprise data-center and domain transition involving SAP BW on HANA, ECC, SCM/APO, Enterprise Portal, BOBJ, BODS, HANA DR, security, SSL/SAML, SNC, NFS and transport management.
- Coordinated application, database, operating-system, network and business teams to stabilize performance and resolve domain and HANA dependencies, ensuring production readiness.
- Delivered sizing, performance, memory-tuning, backup, continuity and operational recommendations for large SUN/Oracle and HANA environments to enhance operational effectiveness.
- Managed outage planning, technical validation, and post-go-live support, ensuring steady-state transition and stability of business-critical services.
- Customers: Sylvania and International Paper | Global landscape migration and Russia deployment
SAP Practice Lead / Technical Service Manager / Project Lead
TechSupport / Bristlecone / Future Focus Infotech
Global
03.2018 - 04.2022
- Served as Technical Service Manager for multiple SAP RISE customers, owning technical discussions, RCAs, EarlyWatch recommendations, capacity reviews, DR planning, escalation leadership and continuous service improvement.
- Led SAP practice delivery, customer engagement, service governance and technical leadership across cloud, managed-services and transformation programs.
- Guided customers in implementing greenfield and brownfield transformation strategies for S/4HANA and cloud solutions, ensuring effective integration across BTP, CPI, Ariba, SuccessFactors, Concur, and hyperscalers.
- Managed SAP platform engineering and Azure migration for Costco, coordinating activities across SAP BRIM, Convergent Charging, HANA, Data Services, BOBJ, Cloud Connector, networking, VPN, firewall, storage, and hybrid-cloud integration.
- Oversaw cross-functional delivery among service management, technical operations, network operations, database, security, and infrastructure teams to ensure cohesive project execution.
- Built practice capability through mentoring, solution reviews, presales support, delivery standards and technical governance.
- Customers included SAP RISE accounts, Costco, Etisalat and organizations across the United States, Middle East, Africa, India and Australia
Project Lead / SAP Basis Architect
Hewlett Packard Enterprise / DXC Technology
India & Global
09.2007 - 02.2018
- Progressed into project and architecture leadership roles within a Fortune 100 technology organization, combining direct team leadership, global delivery and deep SAP platform expertise.
- Managed a 15-member SAP team spanning BI/BW, SCM, ERP and SRM; led work allocation, coaching, delivery reviews, stakeholder communication and project execution.
- Fostered a high-performance culture through coaching, collaboration, accountability, and continuous professional development.
- Promoted organizational excellence by driving collaboration, accountability, process improvement, and operational discipline across geographically distributed delivery organizations.
- Influenced organizational success through strategic planning, governance, and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Built organizational capability by encouraging knowledge sharing, technical excellence, and continuous learning across global teams.
- Served as SAP Project Lead and Solution Owner for enterprise applications supporting 200+ business users and large global SAP landscapes.
- Led engagements ranging from approximately 10 to 30 consultants across multiple geographies and time zones; coordinated partner teams, application teams, infrastructure groups and customer leadership.
- Co-chaired SAP practice governance board for Procter & Gamble; reviewed 20+ Basis initiatives over multiple years, enhancing solution quality and standards compliance.
- Contributed to the establishment of SAP Basis Center of Excellence, supporting presales, solutioning, architecture assessments, and practice development.
- Earned HP's technical assessment level, identified in the source resume as the highest tier/top 5% of associates, reflecting recognized technical and architectural leadership.
- Led governance of HANA, BW/BI, BOBJ, SAC, SRM, CRM, Vora/Hadoop, identity management, cloud migration, data-center transformation, upgrades, and performance programs.
- Authored and executed SAP/HP technical guidance for an interoperable SAP NetWeaver Services Registry and HP SOA Governance scenario.
- Major customers included Procter & Gamble, Coach, P&G Chemicals, Clorox, Wella, Alcatel-Lucent and other global enterprises
SAP Basis Consultant
Optimal Solutions / Accenture
India
10.2006 - 09.2007
- Administered SAP Basis operations including upgrades, system copies, transports, security, GRC, NetWeaver, and database activities, ensuring seamless production support for enterprise clients.
- Developed expertise in system stability and authorization governance, enhancing customer support and facilitating effective change execution and SAP printing/spool management.
- Administered SAP landscape, ensuring optimal performance and reliability across multiple environments.
- Led migration projects to SAP S/4HANA, enhancing system efficiency and user experience.
- Implemented system upgrades and patches, maintaining compliance with industry standards and security protocols.
SAP Basis Consultant
Magna Infotech / IBM - Ericsson
India
04.2006 - 09.2006
- Supported global production operations by analyzing workloads, managing database growth, optimizing SQL performance, and troubleshooting incidents to ensure system stability.
- Collaborated with business and support teams on security reviews and GRC reporting, while coordinating access management and risk mitigation strategies for planned downtimes.
- Led SAP system installations and upgrades, ensuring optimal performance and minimal downtime.
- Managed user access and security protocols within SAP environments to protect sensitive data.
- Developed and executed backup and recovery strategies to safeguard critical business information.
Education
Master of Science - Information Systems
KAKATIYA UNIVERSITY
India2023
Skills
- Strategic stakeholder engagement
- Team management and coaching
- Global team orchestration
- Operational excellence
- Customer lifecycle management
- SAP ECS, RISE with SAP and Private Cloud
- SAP S/4HANA, HANA, BW/4HANA and enterprise platforms
- Azure, AWS, GCP and hybrid-cloud migration
- Disaster recovery, high availability and business continuity
- Architecture, sizing, upgrades, migrations and performance
- People Leadership
- Customer Success
- Executive Governance
- Escalation Management
- Delivery Governance
- Operational Excellence
- Talent Development
- Risk Management
- Cross-Functional Leadership
- Customer Lifecycle
- Service Improvement
- Strategic Planning
- Cloud Transformation
- Renewal Support
- Business Continuity
- Global Delivery
- SAP platform expertise
- Cloud infrastructure management
- Cloud transformation
- Database management
- Security integration
- Cross-functional team coordination
- Incident management
- Staff development
- Operational performance review
- ITIL framework
- Service delivery management
- SLA management
- Technical leadership
- Client relationship building
- Cloud networking
- Stakeholder communication
- Strategic planning
- Service application management
- Customer requirement analysis
- Project leadership
- Business analysis
- Data analysis
- Project planning
- Technical support
- Internal communications
- Performance analysis
Accomplishments
- Successfully managed high-pressure executive escalations for Fortune 500 customers by leading cross-functional global teams and restoring business-critical services.
- Led delivery governance for mission-critical SAP Enterprise Cloud Services engagements, ensuring SLA compliance, operational excellence, and customer success.
- Built trusted executive partnerships through proactive governance, transparent communication, and strategic advisory services.
- Directed major incident response and crisis management activities while maintaining executive confidence and business continuity.
- Mentored Technical Service Managers, consultants, and technical teams through coaching, knowledge sharing, and leadership development.
- Championed customer success by proactively identifying business risks and driving continuous service improvement initiatives.
- Successfully balanced customer expectations, operational priorities, technical risks, and business objectives to deliver sustainable enterprise outcomes.
- Led globally distributed cross-functional teams across Engineering, Product Support, Infrastructure, Security, Customer Success, Sales, and Delivery organizations.
- Drove operational excellence through governance, proactive risk management, lifecycle planning, and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Championed responsible adoption of AI and automation to improve executive reporting, customer communication, documentation quality, and operational productivity.
Certification
Certifications
- Certified SAP Technology Architect – SAP HANA & Cloud Solutions
- ITIL® V3 Foundation Certified
Hyperscaler Certifications
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
SAP Certifications
- Hana Database Certification
SAP Certified Associate - Database Administrator - SAP
HANA
- SAP BASIS Certification
SAP Certified Specialist - SAP S/4HANA Conversion
and SAP System Upgrade
- SAP Strategy Certification
Exploring SAP's Strategy for 2025
- SAP Business AI - Certification
Positioning SAP Business AI
Languages
Hindi
Native or Bilingual
English
Native or Bilingual
Timeline
Senior Technical Service Manager - Enterprise Cloud Services
SAP America Inc.
05.2023 - Current
Manager / Project Lead
URSI / Wisemen - CenterPoint Energy
01.2023 - 04.2023
SAP Basis Lead Architect / Project Lead
URSI / NTT DATA
06.2022 - 10.2022
SAP Practice Lead / Technical Service Manager / Project Lead
TechSupport / Bristlecone / Future Focus Infotech
03.2018 - 04.2022
Project Lead / SAP Basis Architect
Hewlett Packard Enterprise / DXC Technology
09.2007 - 02.2018
SAP Basis Consultant
Optimal Solutions / Accenture
10.2006 - 09.2007
SAP Basis Consultant
Magna Infotech / IBM - Ericsson
04.2006 - 09.2006
Master of Science - Information Systems
KAKATIYA UNIVERSITY
SELECTED EXECUTIVE THEMES
- Customer Advocacy - Brings customer priorities into the organization while maintaining clear accountability, realistic commitments and disciplined follow-through.
- Operational Discipline - Uses dashboards, governance cadences, RCAs, capacity reviews, risk registers and action tracking to improve predictability and service quality.
- Talent & Culture - Believes in coaching, recognition, knowledge sharing and assigning work according to strengths while setting clear performance expectations.
- Continuous Improvement - Looks beyond incident closure to identify systemic prevention, process simplification, automation and scalable service improvements.
- Business-Aware Technology - Connects architecture and operations decisions to availability, cost, customer experience, risk, compliance and long-term investment value.
TARGET LEADERSHIP ROLES
- SAP ECS TSM Manager
- Senior Service Delivery Manager
- Cloud Operations Leader
- Customer Success & Transformation Leader
EXECUTIVE POSITIONING
A customer-centric people leader with the technical depth to guide complex SAP cloud delivery at scale.
LEADERSHIP NARRATIVE FOR SAP ECS MANAGEMENT
- Hemanth's career demonstrates a consistent progression from hands-on SAP Basis operations to architecture, project leadership, practice leadership, formal people management and strategic customer leadership within SAP Enterprise Cloud Services. His differentiator is the ability to connect three perspectives that are often separated: the customer's business priorities, the manager's responsibility for people and execution, and the architect's understanding of technical risk.
- Lead People: Managed direct reports and distributed teams; handled hiring, training, work allocation, performance appraisal, recognition, corrective action, scheduling, conflict resolution and mentoring.
- Lead Delivery: Owned delivery planning, upgrades, migrations, disaster recovery, production stability, operational reviews, risk tracking, action closure and service improvement.
- Lead with Technical Credibility: Brings deep SAP Basis, HANA, S/4HANA, cloud, infrastructure and integration expertise, enabling sound decisions without losing executive-level focus.
- Lead Customers: Built trusted-advisor relationships, facilitated governance, represented the customer's voice, managed difficult conversations and aligned technical delivery with business priorities.
- Lead Across SAP: Worked across CE&A, Product Support, Engineering, Cloud Infrastructure, Technical Operations, Network Operations, Sales and Customer Success in a global matrix.
- Lead for Scale: Uses governance, standards, coaching, automation and continuous improvement to create repeatable outcomes rather than relying on individual heroics.
ENTERPRISE CUSTOMER & INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE
- Healthcare & Life Sciences: CVS Pharmacy, Incyte, Eris Lifesciences and Gulf Pharmaceutical Industries.
- Retail & Consumer: Costco, Birkenstock, Procter & Gamble, Coach, Clorox, Wella and Dr Pepper.
- Technology & Telecom: SAP, HPE/DXC, IBM, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and eBay.
- Utilities & Energy: CenterPoint Energy, Sempra Energy, Etihad Rail and infrastructure programs.
- Manufacturing & Materials: Stanley Black & Decker, Sylvamo, International Paper and industrial clients.
- Financial & Public Sector: 1NBANK, RedZed, Ras Al Khaimah e-Government and regulated enterprises.
CAREER PROGRESSION
- 2023-Present: SAP America - Senior Technical Service Manager - ECS
- 2023: CenterPoint Energy - SAP Basis Manager / Project Lead
- 2022: NTT DATA - SAP Basis Lead Architect / Project Lead
- 2018-2022: TechSupport / Partners - SAP Practice Lead / TSM / Project Lead
- 2007-2018: HPE / DXC - Project Lead / SAP Basis Architect
- 2006-2007: Optimal / Accenture - SAP Basis Consultant
- 2006: Magna / IBM - SAP Basis Consultant
SELECTED SAP ECS ACHIEVEMENTS
- Strategic Account Stabilization: Led high-visibility customer situations through disciplined governance, cross-functional coordination, RCA quality and executive communication, strengthening confidence in SAP ECS delivery.
- Customer Value: Delivered 360-degree analysis, operational health reviews, capacity guidance and service-improvement recommendations that converted technical findings into prioritized business actions.
- Transformation & Resilience: Governed upgrades, disaster recovery, zonal migration, storage modernization, HANA/BOBJ/SLT/Web Dispatcher activities and cloud connectivity programs with a focus on risk reduction.
- Recognition & Trust: Received strong customer and leadership appreciation for responsiveness, extended-hour coordination, technical depth, communication and ownership during critical initiatives.
SELECTED LEADERSHIP IMPACT
- Led governance and service-delivery strategy for strategic SAP ECS customers, translating technical risk into clear executive decisions and accountable action plans.
- Managed teams of up to 30+ professionals across multiple geographies and time zones; previously managed a 15-member SAP team and supported direct-report development.
- Co-chaired a SAP practice governance board and reviewed more than 20 Basis initiatives, strengthening quality, architecture discipline and delivery readiness.
- Directed cloud and data-center transformation programs spanning SAP HANA, S/4HANA, BW, BOBJ, SLT, connectivity, high availability and disaster recovery.
- Earned global professional recognition through Stevie and Globee awards, Forbes Technology Council membership and IEEE Senior Member status.
AWARDS, RECOGNITION & PROFESSIONAL STANDING
Stevie Awards: Lifetime Achievement recognition (2024), highlighting sustained technology leadership and professional impact., Globee Awards: IT Professional / Executive of the Year recognition (2024)., Forbes Technology Council: Member and contributor on enterprise technology, cloud and leadership topics., IEEE: Senior Member and recipient of Outstanding Engineer recognition through IEEE Atlanta.