Specialist, Procurement Professional Services

If you’re passionate about innovation and love working in an environment where you can constantly improve and adopt new technologies to drive business results, then Nationwide’s Information Technology team could be the place for you! At Nationwide®, “on your side” goes beyond just words. Our customers are at the center of everything we do and we’re looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.

The selected candidate will support the IT Consulting (NF Technology) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) category strategies for business stakeholders within the enterprise.

The ideal candidate will have experience executing against a category strategy developed by the category manager.

Compensation grade F3

Nationwide will consider hybrid/remote for the right candidate.

Job Description Summary

Procuring goods and services necessary to successfully run and grow our business is critical. Whether working to enable the processes that support buying decisions or finding the best supplier, price or contract terms, we bring expertise, skill and talent to the task. If you are collaborative, a top-level communicator, highly ethical and have the ability to manage key relationships by providing outstanding service, we want to know more about you!

As a Specialist, you'll be responsible for the procurement and acquisition of goods and services for Nationwide that deliver near-term sourcing value and work to enhance processes and drive efficiency. We'll count on you to collaborate with and advise business units on the acquisition of goods and services of basic to moderate complexity across one or multiple categories. You'll also work with multiple business partners to ensure business plans are executed against sourcing strategy.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities: 

• Partners and collaborates with Business Partners, Finance, Technology and other Procurement team members to manage new sourcing requests, current contract pipelines for multimillion dollar categories, and vendor agreements.  Works with reporting teams to develop data analytics.

• Provides industry research and benchmark analysis within a defined spend category. Establishes a category strategy for assigned domains, monitors purchasing trends and identifies top suppliers and innovations within the category.

• Works with Business Partners to manage Business Unit and Procurement relationship by building forecasts of demand, service levels requirements, Total Cost of Ownership models, contractual and other risk requirements (by category domain, actual and forecasted spend), identifying cost reduction opportunities, and developing recommendations. Acts as a Project Manager with business partners, Finance, Technology as needed. 

• Facilitates basic to moderately complex competitive bid activity, including requests for proposal (RFP), quote (RFQ) or information (RFI), where applicable. Negotiates the terms of the contract, including conditions, clauses, and service level agreements.  Documents achieved savings for Finance approval.

• Assesses supplier risk prior to contract and collaborates with applicable risk partners, including Information Risk Management, Technology Review Boards, Privacy etc., for additional specialized assessments or necessary contract provisions.

• Analyzes and aligns Category goals and objectives to maximize usage of Diverse Suppliers and best practices in Sustainability.

May perform other responsibilities as assigned.

Reporting Relationships:  Reports to Procurement Manager. Individual contributor; may serve in a lead capacity with business partners.

Typical Skills and Experiences: 

Education:  Undergraduate degree in supply chain, procurement, business, finance, accounting, management information systems, economics or related fields preferred.

License/Certification/Designation: Procurement, purchasing, or project management designations, as applicable.

Experience:  Typically, five or more years of experience in all aspects of supply chain management, including relationship management, or equivalent professional experience in other closely related industries.

Knowledge, Abilities and Skills: