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Microsoft Cloud Operations and Innovation (CO+I) is the team behind the cloud. We are responsible for delivering over 200 Microsoft web portals, Live and Online Services around the world including infrastructure, security and compliance, operations, globalization, and manageability. Our focus is on smart growth, high efficiency, and delivering a trusted experience to customers and partners worldwide. We are looking for a passionate, high-energy individual to help build the network that powers the world’s largest online services.

Within CO+I, the Contracts Management team is responsible for establishing a construction services supply chain that can meet and deliver services to support the ever-growing growth of the Cloud and our customers. We support a portfolio of complex, multi-disciplinary, multi-billion, multi-year datacenter construction projects.

We are looking to fill a critical role of Architect Engineer (AE) Regional Sourcing Manager to lead the sourcing and category management for construction consultancy services as we continue to develop our build program across the Europe Middle East Africa (EMEA) region.

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.

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.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities:

The role of the Sourcing and Category Manager will focus on the following key areas:

• Developing sourcing strategies for several key construction professional services categories, such as Architect / Engineer, Commissioning Agents, Project Management, Cost Management, Environmental Consultants, etc.

• Establishment of appropriate sourcing strategies alongside relevant internal stakeholders to drive long term goals of Continuity of Supply, Cost, Quality, Safety, Diversity & Inclusion and Sustainability.

• Manage the sourcing, assessment, and onboarding of potential new suppliers.

• Own the RFI / RFP process for the establishment of regional framework agreements to drive appropriate competition and reduce procurement timelines at the project execution stage.

• Oversee supplier performance and compliance including the development of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in collaboration with key stakeholders.

• Conduct quarterly business reviews.

• Develop and maintain category management and allocation plans for the planned portfolio of construction projects across the region.

• Manage the drafting, negotiation, and execution of contracts.

• Collate data and report to our Leadership Team on key performance metrics and category health.

Category Experience:

• Deep Construction Experience in Supply Chain and Contracts Management is an absolute requirement for this role.

• Experience in key construction categories including Architect / Engineering consultancy, Infrastructure Equipment and construction services would be of benefit too.

• Experience on large-scale mission critical construction projects is an absolute requirement - sourcing, managing, and administering contracts over USD $100M.

• The ability to develop sourcing strategies for specific services and products including the knowledge of the development of requests for information (RFIs) and requests for proposals (RFPs) and the ability to incorporate necessary technical requirements into contracts.

• Experience overseeing supplier performance and compliance including the development of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in collaboration with key stakeholders and conducting quarterly business reviews with our supply chain.

Behavioral Attributes:

• Can create clarity, generate energy, and deliver success; always be planning for the future.

• Have high integrity – must be ethical and strong value-based individual focused on fairness and maintaining confidentiality.

• Bring high energy – a drive to achieve results in midst of ambiguity and a matrix organization.

• Be a high performer – be able to fit the Microsoft “culture” by effectively multi-tasking and managing priorities; have a “sense of urgency” regarding issue resolution.

• Understand the importance of relationships inside the company and with our supply chain partners.

Compliance

• Applies an end-to-end understanding of the tradeoffs between Microsoft and key suppliers to drive business impact by influencing senior managers cross-functionally, or cross-regionally to apply market intelligence and adopt practices that enable execution with consistency, accuracy, quality, and timeliness of delivery. Manages supplier scorecard process, leads strategic business reviews, educates stakeholders on policy compliance, analyzes root causes of issues, and influences change internally and/or externally to addresses issues.

• Ensures adherence to policy, educates stakeholders and suppliers on policy compliance, and manages the remediation and resolution of sourcing issues. Identifies opportunities to adapt policy as needed to mitigate risk and better enable suppliers to meet business requirements.

• Ensures consistency, timeliness, quality, and accuracy of deliverables, and ensures Procurement stakeholders are aware of Service Level Agreement (SLA) and/or defined milestones and deliverables terms. Communicates delay to Procurement stakeholders, and independently proposes and executes contingency measures.

Procurement and Contracts

• Processes or supports stakeholder procurement requests for complex purchasing categories via engagement and/or leveraging workflow process or technology, where applicable in support of product and service requirements. Manages the resolution of escalated pricing issues raised by other sourcing personnel.

• Executes contracts and complies with established control processes to ensure delivery and execution on contracts in alignment with business requirements. Identifies risks and roadblocks to contract execution and drives action internally and/or externally to resolve and/or escalate, as appropriate. Monitors the impact of change orders to the underlying business case, and partners cross-functionally to adjust impact models.

Sourcing

• Integrates business specifications for complex purchasing areas into request for information (RFI) and/or request for proposal (RFP) processes. Collaborates cross-functionally to define and manage supplier scorecard criteria (e.g., key performance indicators [KPIs], Service Level Agreements [SLAs]), coordinates supplier performance reviews, and drives corrective actions. Actively partners with suppliers to identify and drive continuous improvement and risk management opportunities by evaluating procedural, operational, and/or environmental factors, analyzing root causes of issues, sharing insights with key stakeholders, and influencing the adoption of needed improvements.

• Manages contract and price negotiation activities for a single purchasing category cross-functionally and ensures that both price and capacity needs are met while also reflecting Microsoft's cross functional engagements with suppliers. Identifies cost reduction opportunities and works closely with suppliers to drive cost competitiveness.

• Defines, maintains, and executes on sourcing strategies for one or more complex projects and/or purchasing opportunities to ensure optimal cost and sufficient continuity of supply and/or service, collects relevant internal and industry data to understand business requirements, benchmarks data against relevant markets, and shares industry and category expertise across stakeholder teams to develop and execute sourcing strategies.

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Develops pricing and negotiation strategies for one or more complex purchasing categories, ensures that strategies clearly articulate the trade-offs, roles, and responsibilities across parties, and gains senior executive support for strategies both internally and externally. Identifies negotiation setbacks and takes action to mitigate contract disagreements.

• Drives early business engagements for complex business areas or purchasing categories with cross-functional leadership including product design, quality, and business teams, to define and drive action on supply solutions and strategies, business requirements, optimal sourcing spend, and priorities. Shares expertise to advise cross-functional teams on sourcing decisions.

• Collaborates with suppliers and leads on-boarding, processes. Serves as contact point between suppliers and multiple Microsoft accounts across one or more complex purchasing categories, developing and executing supplier account plans detailing priorities and focus for the supplier relationship for the upcoming period.

Culture

• Embody Microsoft’s Culture (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/about/corporate-values) and Values (https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/culture) .

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Master's Degree OR Bachelor's Degree in Quantity Surveying, Engineering, Supply Chain, AND experience in Commercial / Contractual Construction Role, Project Management, Supply Chain.

• Experience working in a cross functional team environment on dynamic large scale capital programs

• Extensive experience with direct procurement in the construction industry

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong commercial understanding and experience of driving and developing key contractual components of categories (Architect / Engineer, Commissioning, Project Management, Cost Management and other construction services suppliers).

• Knowledge of construction projects and teams is a must. Datacenter industry preferable and / or mission critical experience managing a variety of project delivery methods – ability to collaborate with a project team in defining risk and developing the appropriate contracting and compensation approaches.

• Ability to work independently and within a matrixed environment; a self-starter and quick learner of Microsoft systems and processes.

• Take ownership and accountability for scope and closing out deliverables in required timelines.

• Technical ability to review contracts, ability to set up sourcing plans and negotiation strategies to execute them.

• High integrity – must be ethical and strong value based individual focused on fairness and maintaining confidentiality.

• Strong verbal and written communication skills for executive communication; ability to articulate points of view with executive management and stakeholders.

• Ability to implement new processes and get buy in from a cross functional team.

• Be a high performer – be able to fit the Microsoft “culture” by effectively multi-tasking and managing priorities; have a “sense of urgency” regarding issue resolution.

• Understand the importance of relationships inside the company and with our supply chain partners.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, 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 and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html) .