Category Specialist – IT

Category Specialist – IT

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree
• 1-3 years working experience (internships, part time or full time roles)
• Comfortable working across geographically dispersed teams.
• Ability to work well under pressure, handle multiple projects simultaneously, and meet deadlines.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office applications: Excel, Word, PowerPoint.
• Strong project management, organizational, and analytical skills.
• Excellent team facilitation and presentation skills.
• Effective verbal and written communication in English.

Responsibilities

• Promote strong relationships with suppliers and liaise with cross-functional leads, serving as the procurement ambassador for internal stakeholders.
• Exercise independent judgment within defined practices and procedures, developing negotiation strategies, advising on contract terms, monitoring contract compliance, and validating or improving pricing.
• Triage and assign incoming sourcing requests, and negotiate IT contracts for software licensing, cloud subscriptions, telecom, hardware, and related maintenance for geographically dispersed teams.
• Work with various business lines to identify and qualify new or existing suppliers, initiate requests for proposals or quotations (RFx), and advise stakeholders with respect to contract terms and conditions.
• Alongside cross functional teams, participate in the selection process that critically evaluates suppliers, supplier proposals, and their expected outcomes in accordance with company policies.
• Evaluate single sourcing requests and ensure competitiveness.
• Analyze total costs, assist business functions with ROI analysis, price or rate benchmarking, and negotiate favorable business terms to leverage company purchasing power.
• Consume market intelligence to understand cost drivers and current trends.
• Deliver accurate forecasting of demand and adjusting stakeholder predictions, if necessary.
• Remain actively engaged with technology or related commodities and confidently consult internal stakeholders around industry trends, benchmarking, or best practices.
• Participate in cross-functional meetings and keeping internal stakeholders informed around our procurement processes, supplier strategy, and governing policies.
• Manage supplier relationships with focus on risk management and cost management.
• Mediate supplier issues and resolve customer/supplier disputes, if necessary.
• Participate in quarterly business reviews with key vendors to review performance and support mutually agreed upon improvement programs as required.
• Support ad-hoc reporting needs; including, supplier scorecards, contracting or proposal pipelines, and other IT related reporting used for non-speculative decisions.
• Participate in supplier rationalization (SBR) activities for the ongoing simplification and rationalization of the PTC supplier base.
• Ensure pricing and deliverables as negotiated are memorialized in contract; coordinate comparisons of proposals and final contract terms.
• Act as liaison between Legal teams, Suppliers, and Business Stakeholders.
• Ensure contract execution and retention, through an electronic signature process.
• Provide timely updates, support management with quarterly reporting and address any issues quickly, efficiently, and diplomatically.

Preferred Qualifications

• Skills in contract negotiation, vendor management, and influencing.
• Experience with financial modeling in Excel