Master Data Analyst, Vendors

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.

Position Overview
The Master Data Governance group's mission is to maintain and improve efficiency and lower business risks to Ralph Laurens business units by maintaining the companies vendor master data and the business processes they support while ensuring the highest quality data is delivered, managed and maintained via company-wide data governance strategy. The individual works with the business and application owners to determine the appropriate master data management inputs to enable business processes, ensuring the quality of data to mitigate risks while ensuring data is in conformance to our data governance policies and standards. The individual must possess and demonstrate strong business knowledge within the vendor data (Non-Merch) domain while also bridging and maintaining the technology solutions in place to maximize efficiencies and automation for sustainable repeatable processes. The Vendor Master Data Governance Analyst contributes to the daily operations of the Vendor Data Governance Stewardship Council in collaboration with the Manager/Director. This position will have tactical responsibility for Non-Merch vendor data maintenance, analysis, cleansing and the reporting/metrics that support these processes. The role will interface and work collaboratively with the business to define data standards leading to business rules development to enable the technology drivers to ensure the overall quality of requests leading to the creation of vendors with minimal business disruptions that could lead to operations, compliance and regulatory risks (cost). As the Finance Master Data Analyst, the primary role and responsibility of the position encompasses how data is created, maintained, monitored and governed globally and across multiple systems. This is a global position supporting NA & EMEA.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities
Vendor Master Data Analyst · Daily support of ongoing vendor master data requests to analyze and manage within source systems to support procurement processes within the PTP space · Evaluate and process/reject vendor master requests according to established policies and procedures, while ensuring the quality, integrity, consistency and confidentiality of vendor master information · Ensure the timeliness and accuracy of requests in accordance to our agreed upon SLA's to support business needs · Develop the key controls to ensure the accuracy of master data by the means of validations and Data Quality audits to avoid the duplication & proliferation of data to our source systems that could lead to operational inefficiencies and costs · Collaborate and work with key stakeholders in AP, Tax, Treasury, Procurement & Legal to govern regulatory compliance in accordance to our global procedures · Perform and query source systems to enable cleansing activities associated with the quality of data · Recommend and drive thru our governance council the adoption of data standards in support of ongoing business changes · Implement business rules associated with our data standards from a technology perspective with our IT organization to enable the quality and consistency of vendor creations and updates · Maintain the forms/solution and BOT for the creation and update of vendor records as a functional lead (SME) in driving the ongoing changes resulting from business needs · Ability to leverage and adopt other existing technologies if required such as Winshuttle to enable mass changes in support of vendor creates, updates and ongoing cleaning activities · Act as the primary liaison with the key stakeholders and IT in collaborating new or changed business processes to account for within the vendor master creation process · Good working knowledge of ETL practices and procedures to apply for this role in the extraction, transformation and load processes to source systems · Demonstrates and carries out the proper procedures (documentation & approvals) supporting SOX compliance audits · Communicates and disseminates vendor master data accordingly for consistency and usage in support of business transactions · Liaises with business users and downstream application owners to assist in I-doc interface errors & propose solutions · Assist in problem-solving all master data related issues affecting procurement transactions · Carry-out ad-hoc data analysis · Must possess a strong analytical mind to assess patterns of vendor master data thru the usage of ad-hoc analysis to enable accuracy & consistency · Create, maintain and support the ongoing documentation of vendor master data processes incorporating job aides, how to manuals to ensure knowledge transfer for the support model · Proper documentation of all master data governance procedures by data object including but not limited to policies and procedures, process flows, RASCI charts, standards, business rules and process · Strategy development and execution of master data projects in accordance to departmental goals and our governance council

Experience, Skills & Knowledge
· 3+ years of SAP knowledge and proficiency in relevant finance modules/transactions supporting master data · 3+ years of experience in Vendor Master Data, concepts and their relationship to business process and governance · Must have Good background and practices within PTP and RTR · Good to have Aravo experience a plus · Strong analytical skills to properly evaluate and vet master data requests to enable the appropriate management of information in SAP and downstream systems · Strong problem-solving skills based upon the audience · Ability to organize and prioritize workload in support of daily operations, projects and ad-hoc needs · Ability to accurately administer/enter master data requests · Strong oral & written communication skills · Ability to work in a collaborative environment · High attention to detail · Knowledge of how data is acquired, used and consumed within PTP space and its impact · Proficient in MS Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio & Project) · Ability to work independently