Senior Procurement Specialist

In the role of Assistant Sourcing Manager (12-Month FTT), you will be stationed at our Petaling Jaya office. This position requires you to advance beyond fundamental administrative tasks and embrace the role of a strategic commercial advisor. You will lead sourcing workstreams, develop cost models that inform decision-making, and gain proficiency in utilizing AI and low-code tools to enhance your analytical capabilities and automate routine processes. The organization will rely on your ability to address misalignments proactively, clarify constraints, and prepare negotiation alternatives that empower senior leadership for success.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead Sourcing Initiatives: Manage medium-complexity sourcing workstreams with well-defined plans, sequencing, and milestones.
• Facilitate Clarity & Alignment: Proactively manage misalignment through direct engagement with stakeholders. Clarify requirements, scope, constraints, and success metrics effectively.
• Analyze & Develop Strategies: Perform spend analysis, supplier profiling, and opportunity mapping. Create business cases and sourcing strategies.
• Oversee Go-to-Market Processes: Design RFQs/RFPs (including questions, evaluation criteria, timelines, and governance structures). Develop cost models, quote comparisons, and what-if scenarios that support informed decision-making.
• Negotiate & Record: Prepare negotiation strategies and trade-offs for senior management. Accurately document decisions, highlighting risks, trade-offs, and the rationale behind them.
• Coordinate with Subject Matter Experts: Ensure timely contributions from Legal, Compliance, VenSec, and other relevant experts.
• Embrace Technology & Automation: Actively seek to learn and implement low-code/no-code tools and AI technologies to optimize your category workflows (such as simplifying contract reviews or speeding up data analysis).

Your Qualifications:

• Commercial Strategy & Value Generation: You possess a deep understanding of how Procurement adds value beyond mere pricing. You create structured business cases, articulate cost drivers, and connect options to business priorities. You apply modern negotiation principles (such as developing plans, BATNAs, and red lines) and establish post-award success metrics.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Communication: You articulate problems clearly and guide stakeholders from facts to insights to recommendations. You manage expectations with tact and influence stakeholders who seek consensus but require clarity.
• Operational Excellence: You execute work with precision, identify risks early, and propose actionable mitigation strategies.
• Technological Proficiency & AI Utilization: You transcend basic data presentation to provide meaningful insights. Your curiosity drives you to acquire 'citizen developer' skills, leveraging low-code/no-code platforms and AI tools to enhance efficiency and minimize manual tasks while applying human judgment to verify outputs.
• Risk Management, Controls & Ethical Procurement: You understand the rationale behind controls and suggest appropriate measures (avoiding unnecessary friction), knowing when to engage SMEs early in the process.
• Supplier Relations & Contractual Outcomes: You provide guidance on suitable contract frameworks and identify critical commercial clauses that affect delivery outcomes.
• Adaptability & Continuous Learning: You take ownership of outcomes within your area of responsibility and can effectively influence others without formal authority.