Category Sourcing Consultant, Senior - Remote - CSAA Insurance Group : Job Details

External candidates: In order for your application to be correctly processed please sign-in before you applyInternal candidates: Please go to Workday and click Find Jobs link under CareerThank you for considering opportunities with us!Job TitleCategory Sourcing Consultant, Senior - RemoteRequisition NumberR6984 Category Sourcing Consultant, Senior - Remote (Open)LocationArizona - Home TeleworkersAdditional LocationsAlabama - Home Teleworkers, Alabama - Home Teleworkers, Arkansas - Home Teleworkers, California - Home Teleworkers, Colorado - Home Teleworkers, Connecticut - Home Teleworkers, Delaware - Home Teleworker, District of Columbia - Home Teleworkers, Florida - Home Teleworkers, Georgia - Home Teleworkers, Idaho - Home Teleworkers, Illinois - Home Teleworkers, Indiana - Home Teleworkers, Iowa - Home Teleworkers, Kansas - Home Teleworker, Kentucky - Home Teleworkers, Louisiana - Home Teleworkers, Maine Home Teleworkers, Maryland - Home Teleworkers, Massachusetts - Home Teleworkers, Michigan - Home Teleworkers, Minnesota - Home Teleworkers, Mississippi - Home Teleworker, Missouri - Home Teleworker, Montana - Home Teleworkers {+ 20 more}Job InformationCSAA Insurance Group (CSAA IG), a AAA insurer, is one of the top personal lines property and casualty insurance groups in the U.S. Our employees proudly live our core beliefs and fulfill our enduring purpose to help members prevent, prepare for and recover from life's uncertainties, and we're proud of the culture we create together. As we commit to progress over perfection, we recognize that every day is an opportunity to be innovative and adaptable. At CSAA IG, we hire good people for a brighter tomorrow. We are actively hiring for a Strategic Sourcing Consultant, Senior. Join us and support CSAA IG in achieving our goals. Your Role: The Strategic Sourcing Consultant, Senior is responsible for developing, executing, and advancing sourcing strategies for various business needs, primarily within IT Software, IT Hardware, and IT Services. This role works independently with the Line of Business (LOB) to develop, source, and negotiate highly complex contracts, plan and lead complex sourcing events, and manage post-award and lifecycle activities of associated contracts. The position requires strong legal and business clause acumen, as well as expertise in business and category management. The Strategic Sourcing Consultant, Senior collaborates with their team, Strategic Sourcing Management, and LOB stakeholders and leaders to create strategic category management and sourcing plans that optimize cost savings, mitigate risk, provide service excellence, and drive operational efficiencies. Your work:

• Applies considerable category breadth and depth of experience and expertise related to IT Software (including SaaS), IT Hardware and IT Services (including Business Consulting and Managed Services) category management and sourcing.
• Excels in interpersonal communications and facilitating group discussions
• Communicates effectively both horizontally and vertically
• Effectively copes with competing priorities, capably prioritizes the demands of multiple superiors
• Writing ability - convert complex information into simple, readable form for Execs and lay persons
• Builds and manages relationships with internal clients and Suppliers. Collaborates to understand business and functional requirements and devise optimal sourcing strategies. Acts as a trusted business partner to educate, enable and influence project teams to achieve optimal contracted outcomes timely and which meet client requirements and cost objectives.
• Interfaces with and presents sourcing strategies and contract recommendations to senior leadership.
• Prepares and manages highly visible and complex strategic sourcing projects and supplier contracts, including competitive bidding where appropriate , contract negotiations, prepare packages and communications for contract approval routing, execution and hand-off to the business.

Contracts:

• Develops Master Agreements, Statements of Work, Software Licenses/Cloud Agreements, amendments, renewals and extensions for complex suppliers and situations;
• Keeps abreast of IT category contracting trends and best practices.
• Identifies issues and applies appropriate level of risk mitigation
• Elicits thorough business/technical requirements from the LOB and effectively incorporates them into agreements
• Leads contract modification efforts timely and collaboratively with clients and other stakeholders
• Prepares and manages contract approval routing, execution and hand-off to the clients

Negotiations:

• Develops and proposes effective negotiation strategies which include educating and preparing the internal team to deal with supplier negotiation tactics.
• Effectively leads team of stakeholders to build consensus on contract negotiation objectives
• Responsible for running and managing negotiation sessions with clients, other internal stakeholders, and suppliers.
• Influences and persuades clients and suppliers toward creative solutions in the event of an impasse.
• Identifies risks associated with contract terms and develops strategy to effectively mitigate impact to the company.

Strategic Sourcing:

• Advanced knowledge of market conditions and sourcing best practices (seven step process) and how they are effectively applied.
• Advises clients and business leaders to support effective application of sourcing processes
• Ensures compliance with company sourcing and contract policies
• Possesses significant breadth and depth of subject matter expertise in the lines of business and categories they support, particularly IT Software (including SaaS), IT Hardware, and IT Services (including Managed Services).
• Understands market conditions and performs market analysis that may influence the direction or strategy for the process
• Develops complex and higher risk RFP's, RFI's and RFQ's, integrating requirements from business and technical clients, including functional and operational requirements
• Leads complex RFx events, complete with cross functional team involvement, as well as forecasted and managed timelines
• Ensures team maintains integrity of competitive bid process
• Leads development of scoring methodology and process with multiple business units/cross-functional stakeholders
• Effectively manages supplier selection process , and facilitates selection of suppliers who deliver the best service and product value to the company
• Incorporates consideration of supplier diversity, sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and innovation into the competitive bid process where possible

Managing Relationships:

• Builds and facilitates thorough contract hand-off debrief with stakeholders and supplier
• Supports customers with supplier management effort for effective and strategic supplier relationship
• Facilitates complex escalations and problem resolution between internal stakeholders and suppliers
• Understands, anticipates, and co-defines customer needs and/or strategies
• Understands stakeholder's goals and objectives, as well as their specific needs and preferences.
• Serves as a thought leader and is viewed as a trusted advisor and subject matter expert capable of offering value added solutions
• Capable of assessing complex problems and defining solutions for customer's needs, taking into account restrictions, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

Analysis:

• Develops financial modeling and pricing comparison models and forecasts involved in Strategic Sourcing, sometimes in collaboration with Finance and the LOB, incorporating growth and usage projections
• Applies advanced understanding of supplier pricing methodologies to financial modeling

Required Experience, Education and Skills

• Bachelor's degree in Business Management, Finance or related field.
• 6 years of experience in Strategic Sourcing or Category Management, which includes having led cross functional teams through highly visible complex sourcing projects and contract negotiations.

• Breadth of experience in leading multiple projects or programs for complex IT Software, Hardware and Service categories in a highly matrixed organization
• Experienced with Sourcing and IT advisors, including ClearEdge and Gartner.

• Ability to evaluate business problems and understand business needs within insurance industry framework, critically assess proposed solutions, and provide added value to business as a consultant
• Ability to effectively lead complex cross-functional teams and projects, with competing objectives and diverse personalities and skillsets
• Positive attitude and solution oriented. Demonstrated ability to identify and resolve complex problems and implementation barriers
• Proven leadership skills
• Adept at building cooperative client relationships and influencing business partners and key stakeholder's decision making and strategy
• Embraces and professional navigates ambiguity. Naturally curious and balances self-autonomy and self-accountability with the ability to seek out knowledge or help when needed.
• Critical thinking and investigation skills; selectively and diplomatically questions status quo and offers relevant valuable creative points of view and solution ideas both within and outside of the Strategic Sourcing team
• Handles all ranges of difficulty, from strategic sourcing to detailed contract executional tasks with the same competency and enthusiasm.
• Consistently pursues workload efficiency. Manages priorities with proper and adaptive sense of urgency, moving briskly wherever possible and creating a way forward when faced with barriers to progress. Balances level of effort against relative risks- applies thoughtful and thorough due diligence to strategic projects and avoids overworking low risk projects.
• Advocates for contract and sourcing process consistency and improvement where possible.
• Excellent adaptive professional verbal and written communication skills. Able to summarize key messaging to executives and educate internal clients on sourcing and contracting best practices and pitfalls to avoid. Able to run working sessions and act as a facilitator. Adept messaging form in all communication tools, including email, instant messaging, presentation materials, verbal presentations, online meetings and in person meetings. Demonstrates thought leadership by consistently making valuable and relevant contributions in all communications.
• Advanced contract redlining skills in MS Word.
• Must be a self-starter, innovator, ambitious, driven, internally motivated, and results oriented.

• Able to demonstrate critical thinking and ability to execute strategies while demonstrating outstanding planning, problem solving and decision-making skills.

What would make us excited about you?

• MBA preferred.
• Advanced experience with Sourcing, Contracting and Procurement management applications. Experience with Coupa a plus.

• Actively shapes our company culture (e.g., supporting employee resource groups, mentoring employees, volunteering, joining cross-functional projects)
• Champions our cultural norms (e.g., willing to have cameras when it matters: helping onboard new team members, building relationships, etc.)
• Demonstrates a company ownership mindset, thinking beyond boundaries of their own area
• Travels as needed for role, including divisional / team meetings and other in-person meetings
• Fulfills business needs, which may include investing extra time, helping other teams, etc

CSAA IG Careers At CSAA IG, we're proudly devoted to protecting our customers, our employees, our communities, and the world at large. We are on a climate journey to continue to do better for our people, our business, and our planet. Taking bold action and leading by example. We are citizens for a changing world, and we continually change to meet it. Join us if you...

• BELIEVE in a mission focused on building a community of service, rooted in inclusion and belonging.

• COMMIT to being there for our customers and employees.
• CREATE a sense of purpose that serves the greater good through innovation.

Recognition: We offer a total compensation package, performance bonus, 401(k) with a company match, and so much more! Read more about what we offer and what it is like to be a part of our dynamic team at In most cases, you will have the opportunity to choose your preferred working location from the following options when you join CSAA IG: remote, hybrid, or in-person. Submit your application to be considered. We communicate via email, so check your inbox and/or your spam folder to ensure you don't miss important updates from us.If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please contact [email protected]. As part of our values, we are committed to supporting inclusion and diversity at CSAA IG. We actively celebrate colleagues' different abilities, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and gender. Everyone is welcome and supported in their development at all stages in their journey with us. We are always recruiting, retaining, and promoting a diverse mix of colleagues who are representative of the U.S. workforce. The diversity of our team fosters a broad range of ideas and enables us to design and deliver a wide array of products to meet customers' evolving needs. CSAA Insurance Group is an equal opportunity employer. The national average salary range for this position is $136,000 - $152,000. However, we have a location-based compensation structure. Our salary ranges vary and are calculated based on county of residence. The full salary range for this position across all the states we hire in is $123,000 - $182,000. This role also includes an opportunity for a company-wide annual discretionary bonus, through our Annual Incentive Plan (AIP), of up to 15% of eligible pay. If you apply and are selected to continue in the recruiting process, we will schedule a preliminary call with you to discuss the role and will disclose during that call the available salary/hourly rate range based on your location. Factors used to determine the actual salary offered may include location, experience, or education. Must have authorization to work indefinitely in the US. Please note we are hiring for this role remote anywhere in the United States with the following exceptions: Hawaii and Alaska.#LI-JR1