Associate Director, Strategic Sourcing, Research Category Lead

Job Description
The Associate Director, Strategic Sourcing, Research Category Lead, will lead strategic sourcing efforts for key R&D categories including discovery research, preclinical studies, laboratory supplies and services, and scientific support services. This role plays a critical part in enabling innovation by securing high-performing suppliers and ensuring alignment between scientific objectives and sourcing strategies. The ideal candidate will bring strong sourcing expertise, deep category knowledge, and a collaborative approach to business partnering.  The ideal candidate will be able to translate the goals of their business partners to Sourcing objectives to provide a value-added service to the organization.

Job Description

The Associate Director, Strategic Sourcing, Research Category Lead, will execute on Sourcing strategies defined by R&D Sourcing leadership.  Responsibilities include the following areas:

Overall Responsibility

• At the direction of R&D Sourcing leadership:
  • Build relationships with R&D business partners to develop and enable sourcing strategies that align with the needs of the business while meeting financial, operational, risk, quality, regulatory, and assurance of supply/services control objectives.
  • Manage and identify key supplier relationships by enabling operational delivery, continuous improvement, and innovation through performance and relationship measurement, overall governance, supplier relationship development and alignment to business and corporate goals and objectives.
  • Be a champion for Sourcing by ensuring and monitoring compliance with sourcing policies and processes through stakeholder communication, training, and the identification and reporting of exceptions and deviations.
  • Identify and drive continuous improvement opportunities within the process area.
  • Drive 10-15% annual savings within in-scope spend areas.
  • Lead and execute significant, high value and high impact sourcing activities with cross-functional teams by assessing the category market, collecting business requirements, soliciting RFx’s, leading contractual and rate card negotiations and ensuring the strategic contractual infrastructure is in place to support business priorities
  • Ensure compliance with company policies, industry regulations, and ethical standards. Assess and mitigate supplier risks, driving quality and adhering to regulatory guidelines. 
  • Create excellence through consistent, high-quality outcomes.

Strategic Sourcing Vision, Strategy, and Objectives

• Execute against a common vision and strategy for Strategic Sourcing at Otsuka. Partners with Business leaders and other key stakeholders to gain their perspectives and endorsement of the vision and strategy.
• Produce measurements of success (KPIs) and appropriate processes to capture, consolidate and report on sourcing performance and outcome versus objectives to business partners.
• Provide regular reporting and tracking of overall sourcing initiatives and their progress, including issues, risks, and other important observations to ELT, Business Leaders, and Stakeholders.
• Provide category expertise to business partners regarding changes in the category supplier landscape including new and existing suppliers.

Strategic Sourcing Process and Policy

• Provides appropriate training across the organization on the importance of following Sourcing policies and processes.
• Ensures the appropriate controls are in place to meet regulatory requirements (i.e. J-sox, Third Party Risk Management, etc.).
• Ensures best practices in Sourcing including accurate spend analysis, usage of RFx tools and templates, contract management, establishment of Preferred Supplier Programs, and ensuring all sourcing savings are realized into the financials.
• Oversee key service provider relationships by participating in governance and business review meetings.
• Lead negotiations for Master Services Agreements and Amendments.
• Task Orders and change orders to ensure timely execution of contracts and budget alignment, where applicable.
• Enable the success of the MSP model by establishing R&D ways of working, category specific contract templates, and escalation pathways.

Strategic Sourcing Execution

• Perform daily activities related to sourcing projects including the development of RFx strategy and on-going contract negotiations.
• Develop operational metrics to ensure continuous monitoring and process improvement across all sourcing projects and report them to Sourcing leadership.
• Ensure all assigned sourcing projects have clear objectives including financial and operational benefits, aligned