Overview

Cloud Operations + Innovation (CO+I) is the engine that powers Microsoft’s core cloud platforms and services that millions of people use every day. With more than 95% of Fortune 500 business on Azure, 180+ million using Office 365, and millions using other services – all running on Microsoft's cloud infrastructure – CO+I builds and operates the foundation upon which Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and organization comes to life.

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 Global Supply Chain team is responsible for establishing a supply chain that can meet the ever-growing Microsoft Cloud for our customers. We support a portfolio of complex, multi-disciplinary, multi-billion, multi-year datacenter construction and lease projects and operations of those assets. We are looking to fill the critical role of Strategic Sourcing Principal.

“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.”

This role will be based at our office location in Dublin, Ireland or Reading or Paddington in the UK.

Responsibilities

Compliance

Negotiates and provides strategic oversight for improving existing, or establishing new, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and/or defined milestones and deliverables, holds accountability and ownership of SLAs with an end-to-end company-wide perspective, and ensures compliance is cascaded down to the business. Strategizes on and communicates SLA terms cross-functionally and/or cross-regionally to internal and external stakeholders. Serves as subject matter expert on the SLA and coaches team members to do the same, manages any escalations related to policy non-compliance, and manages the execution of contingency plans internally and externally as needed.

Leads partnerships with global stakeholders and suppliers to identify systematic business threats and determine which sustainable elements, alternative solutions, and/or policy changes would optimally mitigate risks at scale moving forward. Champions new policy direction and changes as needed to ensure systematic resolution and remediation of sourcing issues across Microsoft and its partners.

Drives business impact by establishing functional standards and performance expectations that define relevant process and compliance success metrics, while also identifying opportunities for improving process efficiency and policy compliance. Applies end-to-end expertise and leverages market intelligence to develop and influence Microsoft-wide channel strategies that optimize for value and enable execution with consistency, accuracy, quality, and timeliness. Leads decision making across organizations to determine optimum strategies for suppliers and partners to increase efficiency and manage costs, and drives accountability and governance for adopting workstream improvements and automation at scale to meet and surpass business expectations. Oversees periodic Microsoft-driven supplier audits to ensure compliance with policy/contractual requirements.

People Management

Managers deliver success through empowerment and accountability by modeling, coaching, and caring. Model: Live our culture. Embody our values. Practice our leadership principles. Coach: Define team objectives and outcomes. Enable success across boundaries. Help the team adapt and learn. Care: Attract and retain great people. Know each individual’s capabilities and aspirations. Invest in the growth of others.

Procurement and Contracts

Provides high-level negotiation and sets standards across organizations and company. Resolves high-impact escalations related to pricing and category management issues, and proactively develops strategies to evaluate and drive change in processes broadly across the organization, as needed to ensure teams and/or partners adopt processes that improve the pricing and procurement of goods and services across Microsoft. Oversees price and procurement requests and complex pricing issues across purchasing categories to ensure procedural compliance.

Provides guidance and clarification on contract execution processes for consistency, accuracy, and timeliness across Microsoft. Provides thought leadership and shares best practices on established methodologies to ensure they are aligned with and influence current and anticipated business outcomes, both internally and externally. Drives accountability for resolving escalated contract delivery issues and monitoring the impact of change orders on contracting, and delivers briefings to executive leadership detailing current and projected sourcing contract execution models, anticipated risks, impact models, and contingency plans. Leads enterprise-level claims resolution strategies in collaboration with Legal and executive stakeholders, ensuring systemic issues are addressed and lessons learned are integrated into future contracting practices. Guides supplier and contractor performance management, including safety deliverables, by overseeing internal and external stakeholders and providing timely guidance.

Sourcing

Leads cross-functional contract and price negotiation activities across strategic purchasing categories to ensure contracts reflect Microsoft’s cross-functional engagements with suppliers, and establishes relevant enterprise-level best practices and standards. Identifies systematic, long-term, and scalable cost reduction opportunities to drive supplier cost competitiveness across Microsoft and champions efforts to realize those opportunities across organizations.
Establishes and leads the development of multi-year sourcing strategies and protocols at scale for complex projects and/or purchasing opportunities enterprise-wide, that are rooted in industry best practices and optimized for value, while ensuring continuity of supply and/or services. Defines the vision and priorities for the function aligned to the core business goals, drives cross-functional alignment, and connects key resources across Microsoft, while ensuring risk mitigation plans are in place and driving efficiencies in budgets, time, and resources across the organization. Ensures sourcing strategies incorporate relevant global perspectives by benchmarking data across markets, and sharing thought leadership with internal teams and executive leadership.

Leads the integration of business requirements and sourcing strategies into supplier selection processes for the most complex, undefined, and strategic purchasing categories. Leverages a company-wide, global end-to-end perspective on sourcing operations to define a vision, strategies, and priorities for process management to drive consistency, impact, and improvements in supplier management efforts and outcomes (e.g., risk, cost, time, technology adoption) using data-driven approaches. Validates proposed changes and holds teams accountable for developing and implementing improvement plans, sharing delivery best practices, and identifying insights and root causes of issues across procurement and sourcing processes.

Stakeholder Collaboration

Drives the execution of strategies for business and industry engagements between sourcing teams and cross-functional corporate leadership to determine supply strategy at scale. Defines multi-year strategies for mature business, identifies opportunities to meet agility requirements, and enables business beyond standard purchase categories and historical spend areas. Develops solutions for highly complex and undefined business areas and purchasing categories and adapts delivery plans with cross-functional leaders. Leads industry and ecosystem engagements, proactively defines communication strategies with leadership teams, articulates business cases to support recommendations, and influences leaders to buy in on sourcing decisions and optimizations that can be deployed at scale.
Oversees and leads the pricing and negotiation strategies for the most complex and strategic purchasing categories, develops business groups for optimal cross-functional stakeholder support and business assurance, and broadly fosters internal and external partnerships to negotiate strategic decisions and produce deliverables. Drives consensus in the goals and success criteria with stakeholders both internal and external to Microsoft, shares thought leadership and socializes best practices related to negotiation and collaboration to enable teams to execute negotiations with consistent success.

Directs supplier activity and progress across the most complex and strategic accounts and purchasing categories and leads executive engagements with regional and global suppliers. Leverages corporate strategies to define overall objectives and strategies for supplier management practices to ensure alignment to Microsoft-wide business goals, and shares thought leadership that affects supplier engagement protocols and processes company-wide. Considers broad enterprise engagement opportunities and future supplier and partner innovations, to further optimize for value. Leads Quarterly Business Reviews.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

Master's Degree in Engineering, Supply Chain, Data Analytics, Business, Finance, Quantity Surveying or related field AND Significant experience in data science/analytics, finance, project management, supply chain, and/or operation OR Bachelor's Degree in Engineering, Supply Chain, Data Analytics, Business, Finance, Quantity Surveying or related field AND Significant experience in data science/analytics, finance, project management, supply chain, and/or operation OR equivalent experience.
Experience sourcing, procuring, and managing contracts for capital equipment within construction projects.
Experience in Mechanical, Electrical, and/or Construction Services environments.

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.

While not required, we also look for the following Preferred Qualifications

Master's Degree in Engineering, Supply Chain, Data Analytics, Business, Finance, Quantity Surveying or related field AND Significant experience in data science/analytics, finance, project management, supply chain, and/or operation OR Bachelor's Degree in Engineering, Supply Chain, Data Analytics, Business, Finance, Quantity Surveying or related field AND Significant experience in data science/analytics, finance, project management, supply chain, and/or operation OR equivalent experience.
Extensive people management and team leadership experience.

#COICareers | #EPCCareers | #DCDCareers

Sourcing and Category Management M6 - The typical base pay range for this role across United Kingdom is £ 100,400.00 - £ 200,500.00 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.

Find Additional Benefits And Pay Information Here:

https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/corporate-pay/united-kingdom-corporate-pay.html

Sourcing and Category Management M6 - The typical base pay range for this role across Ireland is € 113,600.00 - € 213,700.00 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.

Find Additional Benefits And Pay Information Here:

https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/corporate-pay/ireland-corporate-pay.html

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

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.

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