Category Manager for IT Outsourced Services

In a typical day as a Category Manager for IT Outsourced Services, you would:

• Own a subset of spend with third parties and is responsible for delivering P&L cost reduction from it.
• Apply strategic levers to optimize the commercial and contract terms with the suppliers.
• Own strategic relationship with suppliers and is responsible to driving objectives that can unlock value for the company.
• Deliver market perspectives, action plan, negotiation strategies, intelligence and overall options to drive decision-making.
• Identify opportunities for process improvement and leads/develops recommendations and provides insight for management.
• Independently execute complex demanding activities, connecting planning to execution, and identifying issues and their impact.
• Work cross-functionally to drive decisions and influence the outcome of the deals.
• Partner with global business units and finance to interlock budget plan and cost reduction targets and results.
• Lead cross-functional regional and global business unit planning teams to resolve different procurement needs.
• Define and reviews performance metrics on a regular basis, identifying opportunities for improvement actions to address.
• Contribute to priority projects by adding creative insights and developing recommendations.
• Communicate requirements and guidelines to the regional and global business unit planning teams.
• Mentor junior-level staff and establishes guidelines for the mentorship programs.
• Lead and manage a regulatory and compliance local programs and apply them as needed to their contracts.

• First level university degree or equivalent experience; advanced university degree preferred.
• Typically 6-10 years of experience in a supply chain function.
• Experience in more than one supply chain function.
• Broker's license and/or 6-10 years of experience in a customs/global trade function.
• Excellent understanding of strategic procurement processes.
• Solid gravitas to influence internal stakeholders and external stakeholders.
• Ability to command. Take-charge individual, strong presence and ability to take control of the situation and make-decisions.
• Good at confronting people. Natural ability to be comfortable  in the face of resistance. Ability to debate and build strong arguments. Can easily separate people's emotions focusing on a situation conflict. Strong ability to deliberate with data to make decisions. Having an understanding on getting to yes.
• Analytical skills, make sense out of data. Demonstrate good judgment, think about reasons and causes and enable factual based decision making.
• Strategic mindset. Ability to spot relevant patterns and issues. Anticipate obstacles and results and plan for multiple options (play with what if scenarios).
• Restorative: Disputes resolution abilities.
• Oriented to results. Activator, turn thoughts into action, follow-through and make corrections as needed.
• Problem solving abilities. Adept at dealing with problems of any complexity, good at figuring out what is wrong and resolving them.
• Self-driven. It's expected that candidates have clarity on intrinsic motivation. The individual is accountable for own decisions and results.
•  Intellectual curiosity, self-research, self-training. Curios for market, suppliers and industry. Have a craving to know more. Appreciate intellectual discussions. Ensure you know your business, you are the go-to person
• Learning agility and ability to turn mistakes into lessons learned and oriented actions to fix the gaps.
• Proactive, avoiding a transactional mind-set.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills; mastery in English and local language.
• Excellent internal and external relationship management skills.
• Extensive knowledge and understanding of how to analyze business problems, statistical analysis, and financial modeling.
• Very Strong project management skills, with capability to manage cross functional teams in multiple geographies.
• Strong business acumen and technical knowledge within area of responsibility.
• Strong leadership skills including team-building and conflict resolution and management