Supplier Manager

Position Summary

The Supplier Manager is a key role responsible for the strategic and governance-level management of external managed service providers. The role ensures that providers deliver services in alignment with contractual commitments, quality and within the agreed costs. Ensuring that suppliers adhere to the IT governance structures agreed is also a key responsibility. The Supplier Manager will act as the primary point of contact and accountability for provider performance, escalations, cross-provider coordination at governance level, and continual supplier improvement initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

• Govern overall performance of assigned service providers, ensuring SLA/KPI and contractual compliance.
• Lead and manage supplier-related escalations, including SLA breaches, major incidents, and systemic performance issues
• Maintain effective working relationships with suppliers , addressing behavioral, collaboration and performance issues impacting service delivery
• Act as first point of escalation for performance or operational issues
• Conduct performance reviews, compare outcomes against contractual obligations, and ensure implementation of corrective actions and improvement initiatives and provide periodic reporting to Senior Management
• Participate in and contribute to SIAM (Service Integration and Management) strategic, tactical, and operational governance boards.
• Oversee onboarding and offboarding of suppliers, ensuring alignment with governance, service readiness, and contractual frameworks.
• Identify and escalate strategic risks and systemic cross-provider issues, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture, risk, and compliance requirements.
• Support commercial and contractual discussions in partnership with Indirect Procurement (without owning contracts).
• Support financial transparency by validating provider service consumption and contribution to billing accuracy reviews
• Ensure that provider scorecards, reporting, and KPIs are delivered to the required quality and cadence.
• Conduct on-site and virtual supplier audits to ensure compliance with relevance quality standards
  
  
  

• 8-12 years of experience in Supplier Management, with emphasis on handling multiple Indian IT Vendors, operating in a global context
• Proven experience in multi-provider environments, ideally following SIAM or other managed services governance models.
• Strong understanding of ITIL processes (Incident, Major Incident, Problem, Change, Service Level, Supplier Management).
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex provider ecosystems, including coordination across multiple vendors and service lines.
• Experience in contract interpretation, SLA/KPI management, and structured supplier performance assessments.
• Financial knowledge with ability to understand service consumption, billing structures and cost drivers
• Excellent stakeholder management, negotiation & Conflict Resolution skills at operational, tactical, and executive levels.
• Strong analytical skills for SLA/KPI trending, performance reporting, and identifying systemic improvements.
• Strong interpersonal skills and Ability to work effectively with roles like Client Relationship Managers, Operations Managers and Project Managers, as well as Service Owners, Product Owners, and Indirect Procurement.
• High resilience, communication strength, and ability to navigate cross-cultural, global delivery environments.
• Ideally previous exposure to the SIAM Body of Knowledge framework