DC LLE Strategic Sourcing Manager

Overview

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.  

Microsoft Cloud Operations and Innovation (CO&I) is the team behind the cloud. Within CO&I, the Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) team is responsible for delivering core datacenter infrastructure for Microsoft’s cloud business. The MS portfolio consists of complex, multi-disciplinary, large scale, multi-year datacenter construction and lease projects. We are looking for a passionate, high-energy individual to help build the cloud datacenters that power the world’s largest online services. In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.  

Responsibilities

Responsibilities:

• The Strategic LLE Category Manager maintains and executes sourcing strategies for complex projects and/or purchasing opportunities.  

• Integrates business specifications for complex purchasing areas into request for information and/or request for proposal processes.  

• Leads contract negotiations for several purchasing categories cross-functionally and ensures that price, capacity, and strategic business needs are met.  

• Applies an understanding of procurement policies.  

• Ensures adherence to policy, educates stakeholders and suppliers on policy compliance, and drives the remediation and resolution of sourcing issues.  

• Collaborates with senior Procurement stakeholders to ensure awareness of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and/or defined milestones and deliverables, and to drive timeliness and consistency across supply chain requests.  

• Identifies issues related to procurement requests and collaborates with business and engineering partners.  

• Creates contract execution plans, defining control processes and approaches.  

• Develops and leads pricing and negotiation strategies for several complex purchasing categories and gains C-suite support for strategies both internally and externally.  

• Drives early business engagements for highly complex business areas or purchasing categories.  

• Manages supplier activity and progress across multiple accounts and complex purchasing categories, developing and executing supplier account plans detailing mutual priorities and focus for the supplier relationship for the upcoming period.  

• Collaborates with senior Procurement stakeholders to ensure awareness of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and/or defined milestones and deliverables, and to drive timeliness, accuracy, quality, and consistency across supply chain requests.  

• Serves as subject matter expert on the SLA, milestones, and/or deliverables, and manages any escalations related to policy non-compliance.  

• Leverages data to anticipate and mitigate risk and negative business impacts by ensuring compliance with agreed-upon terms, communicating delay potential to stakeholders, and driving the execution of contingency plans cross-functionally and/or cross-regionally as needed.  

• Applies an end-to-end understanding of procurement processes and policies, and the tradeoffs between Microsoft and key suppliers to drive business impact by applying market intelligence to define, develop, and influence the adoption of channel strategies cross-functionally and/or cross-regionally that enable scalable execution with consistency, accuracy, quality, and timeliness of delivery.  

• Leads decision making around the execution and evolution of various workstream processes, identifies and seeks solutions to compliance areas/gaps, and influences leadership to drive change internally and/or externally.  

• Ensures adherence to policy, educates stakeholders and suppliers on policy compliance, and drives the remediation and resolution of sourcing issues.  

• Influences current and future policy direction as needed to mitigate risks across business units and enable suppliers to meet business requirements.  

• Creates, maintains, and executes multi-year sourcing strategy for several complex projects and/or purchasing opportunities, optimizing costs, ensuring continuity of supply and/or services, and driving benchmarking and alignment across Microsoft.  

• Works cross functionally with senior stakeholders and consults with other industry experts to inform strategy with a global view.  

• Leverages end-to-end sourcing and procurement expertise and benchmark data to identify, revise, and influence the definition of business requirements, manage conflicting priorities and tradeoffs, and resolve escalations to execute on sourcing strategies and solutions.  

• Integrates business specifications and sourcing strategies for several complex purchasing areas into request for information (RFI) and/or request for proposal (RFP) processes, models operationally efficient supplier management practices, and is accountable for strategic oversight of multi-tier supplier selection.  

• Manages, and improves upon supplier evaluation frameworks, identifies gaps or trends across supplier strategic business and performance reviews, and drives corrective actions.  

• Partners with suppliers to drive innovation and improvement, transform operational capabilities, and proactively identify and manage risk.

• Evaluates procedural, operational, and/or environmental factors across categories, accounting for key stakeholder relationships and dependencies, analyzing root causes of issues, linking insights to improvement strategies, and influencing the adoption of needed improvements.  

• Leads contract and price negotiation activities for one or more purchasing categories cross-functionally and ensures that price, capacity, and strategic business needs are met, while also reflecting Microsoft's cross-functional engagements with suppliers.  

• Identifies systematic and long-term cost reduction opportunities and works across stakeholder teams to drive cost competitiveness.  

Qualifications

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, Management, Supply Chain or related field and 10+ years’ experience in Project Management, Supply Chain and Operations.  

• Strong commercial understanding of Product & Capital Equipment procurement  

• Extensive experience in sourcing, procurement and supplier management is an essential requirement for this role.

• Experience in industry like Data Center / Infrastructure / Power / Oil & Gas industry managing large capital projects with Contractors & Equipment supplier management.  

• Experience in Supply Chain Management, Commercial Negotiations/Contracting and external Supplier/contractor Management across multiple projects spread across different locations.  

• Experience with Equipment manufacturing processes and assembly, Technology transfer and proven projects execution. 

• Knowledge of Mechanical and Electrical Long Lead Equipment 

Background Check Requirements: 

Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: 

• Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

#COICareers | #EPCCareers | #DCDCareers

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

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Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.