Energy & Natural Resources · Procurement Platform Deployment · Shell
Procurement Platform Deployment Project Manager Simulation — Shell
Coordinate three vendors — Accenture, Coupa Professional Services, and Infosys — who were hired independently with misaligned contracts, incompatible timelines, and zero coordination mechanisms. Shell's $16M Coupa procurement platform deployment has stalled because nobody thought to align the SOWs. Your job is to build a governance model where none exists, resolve integration failures between Coupa and SAP S/4HANA, migrate 50,000+ supplier records with 23% data quality failures, and deliver a unified P2P platform to 40,000 users — all while three vendors point fingers at each other. Gain hands-on project management experience over 27 days of real decisions, stakeholders, and PMO deliverables — no prior experience required.
The scenario
Shell plc — $380B in annual revenue, 80,000+ employees, operations in 70+ countries — is deploying Coupa's Procure-to-Pay suite to replace SAP SRM and a patchwork of regional procurement tools across its Downstream and Corporate divisions. The project covers procurement, invoicing, supplier management, and spend analytics for 40,000+ users and 50,000+ suppliers. Integration with Shell's SAP S/4HANA ERP landscape is the critical technical challenge. The project is structurally broken. Three vendors were engaged independently: Accenture ($9M) for SAP S/4HANA integration and core system configuration, Coupa Professional Services ($3.5M) for platform deployment and API development, and Infosys ($3.5M) for supplier onboarding, catalog management, and testing. Each contract was negotiated by a different Shell procurement manager. The SOWs have incompatible milestones, conflicting responsibility assignments for integration work, and no cross-vendor coordination mechanisms. Six months in, no integrated plan exists. Each vendor is operating on their own timeline and blaming the others for delays. You have been brought in specifically for your multi-vendor coordination experience. Roel Cazemier, VP IT Procurement & Supply Chain Systems, hired you after watching two previous PMs fail to bring the vendors together. The CFO, Sinead Gorman, approved the $16M business case based on projected savings of $200M annually through procurement consolidation. She wants results, not vendor management drama.
What you'll do as the project manager
- →Deploy Coupa P2P suite across Shell Downstream and Corporate divisions — 40,000+ users across 70+ countries
- →Migrate and onboard 50,000+ suppliers from SAP SRM and regional tools to Coupa Supplier Portal with validated master data
- →Deliver real-time SAP S/4HANA integration for purchase orders, goods receipts, invoices, and payments across 47 custom procurement interfaces
- →Achieve $200M annual procurement savings through consolidated spend visibility, automated approval workflows, and contract compliance enforcement
- →Establish multi-vendor governance model as a reusable Shell standard for future enterprise deployments
Project management skills you'll build
The challenges you'll navigate
- •Three vendor contracts written independently with no cross-vendor dependency mapping — integration responsibility is a contractual gap between Accenture and Coupa PS
- •SAP S/4HANA has 47 custom procurement interfaces that were undocumented during vendor scoping — integration complexity significantly underestimated
- •Supplier master data quality unknown — 50,000+ records from multiple source systems have never been audited for migration readiness
- •No integrated delivery plan exists — each vendor has their own timeline with different go-live dates
- •Accenture's account management priorities may conflict with project delivery — Shell Trading is a larger account and may pull resources
Technology & stakeholders
You'll manage 7 stakeholders, including Sinead Gorman (Chief Financial Officer, Shell plc), Roel Cazemier (VP IT, Procurement & Supply Chain Systems), Peter Costello (VP Global Procurement), and more.
What you'll walk away with
A verified, shareable record of a completed enterprise project — plus the PMO deliverables you produced along the way (charter, project plan, SteerCo deck, closure document). It's real, demonstrable project management experience you can put on your resume and speak to in interviews.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need project management experience to start?
No. This simulation is built for aspiring and practicing project managers alike — you learn by doing. You make real decisions and get feedback, with no PMP or prior PM job required.
How long does this simulation take?
It runs over 27 days, roughly 23 minutes per day, covering the full project lifecycle from initiation to closure.
What will I learn?
You practice the core of project management — stakeholder management, budget and schedule control, risk, scope, and PMO governance — in the context of procurement platform deployment in energy & natural resources.
Is this based on the real Shell?
It's a realistic scenario inspired by Shell and the Energy & Natural Resources sector. Details and names are fictionalized for training — it's a simulation, not a record of any actual project.
What do I get at the end?
A verified project completion plus the PMO deliverables you produced (charter, plan, SteerCo deck, closure) — proof of hands-on experience you can show employers.
Ready to gain real PM experience?
Run Shell's procurement platform deployment and 48+ more enterprise simulations.
See plans & start