Strategic Sourcing Manager, Corporate Travel

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We’re on a mission at Cohesity to drive operating efficiency through both procurement automation and strategic supplier management. With an expanding supply base across global categories of spend, including corporate travel, we are focused on optimizing Cohesity’s investment and advancing strategic partnerships with preferred suppliers.

HOW YOU’LL SPEND YOUR TIME HERE:

This sourcing professional will collaborate with a variety of business unit stakeholders to identify opportunity, develop strategy and execute on core initiatives for categories of spend within our corporate services pillar, with a focus on corporate travel (travel management, air, hotel, ground transportation and related T&E programs and technology). Experience sourcing and managing corporate travel providers is required. It will be important for the individual in this role to create balance between managing daily sourcing activity and delivering on higher priority initiatives. Unlike most indirect categories, travel spend is driven by thousands of individual traveler decisions, so results depend on influencing policy and behavior as much as on negotiating contracts. The role also contributes to the team’s coverage of urgent traveler needs, including leadership based on the West Coast.

Core responsibilities will include the following:

Sourcing Acumen:

• •Drive development and execution of high impact strategic sourcing projects and initiatives ensuring alignment with the overall priorities and objectives of Cohesity.
• •Gather and use data analytics, industry benchmarking and strategic sourcing methodologies to identify sourcing opportunity, develop and execute on sourcing strategies.
• •Develop and present annual category sourcing plans (assigned commodities and/or assigned scope) complete with savings target, benchmarking, evaluation metrics; and deliver on the same annually.
• •Develop and maintain a preferred supply base for commodities, including a global preferred travel program of travel management company (TMCs), airlines, hotels, car rental and ground transportation providers.
• •Lead negotiations with suppliers on a variety of contracts, working across functions to ensure maximum value and minimum risk to Cohesity.
• •Manage strategic supplier relationships with cross functional/cross business impact covering multiple geographies.
• •Contract negotiation - negotiate contractual terms for Cohesity’s commercial benefit while mitigating legal and contractual risk for the company
• •Actively monitor and evaluate savings targets with a focus on contributing to and delivering on category goals quarterly/annually.
• •Define, measure and report savings using a consistent, defensible methodology. Travel is a demand-driven category, so the approach will evolve and call for creativity, with hard savings delivered wherever they emerge.
• •Lead end-to-end sourcing of corporate travel providers (RFPs, supplier selection, negotiation and onboarding), including TMC, airline, hotel, car rental, ground transportation, and travel booking/expense technology.
• •Manage travel supplier performance through SLAs, KPIs, service levels and regular business reviews; drive supplier accountability, compliance and continuous improvement.
• •Monitor supplier financial health, capacity changes and market disruption; maintain contingency options for critical travel suppliers.
• •Negotiate and manage corporate airline, hotel and car rental agreements, including volume incentives, rate programs, fees and rebates, and monitor program compliance and leakage.
• •Evaluate where negotiated airline and hotel agreements add value versus relying on open-market availability, and secure them where they do, forecasting demand with Finance so any commitments are ones the business can realistically meet.
• •Partner with Finance, HR, Events and Travel Program leadership to optimize travel policy, spend visibility, traveler experience, duty of care and risk management, and sustainability objectives.

Business Acumen:

• •Maintain Cohesity training requirements; actively seek opportunity to know more.
• •Ensure knowledge of and compliance with Cohesity Sourcing, Procurement and Legal Policies
• •Deliver results with high degree of ethics; ensure work supports Cohesity’s RADIO values.
• •Demonstrate strong interpersonal communication skills; have a keen ability to navigate and accommodate a variety of personalities to develop effective working partnerships
• •Cultivate communication and collaboration within and across organizational boundaries
• •Cohesity is an AI-first company. We expect everyone to use AI tools to take routine analysis, reporting and administration off their plate so more of their time goes to negotiation, supplier relationships and strategy. You don’t need to be an expert, but curiosity and a willingness to experiment and share what works matter here.
• •Support the Team. If your mindset is, what is good for the team is good for me . . you’ll fit it well at Cohesity.
• •As a small team, we step in for each other during big projects, peak periods and absences. We’re looking for deep travel expertise alongside a genuine openness to learn and help across other categories.

Stakeholder Focus:

• •Using spend analytics, develop a stakeholder road map; and engagement plan for assigned categories of spend.
• •Serve as a trusted business advisor to business partners, providing premier technical consulting from a sourcing and external benchmark/industry perspective.
• •Educate stakeholders on sourcing discipline and demonstrate the value return.
• •Advise stakeholders on travel program strategy, policy and market trends, using travel spend data (booking, expense and supplier data) to identify savings and compliance opportunities.
• •Drive adoption of preferred suppliers and booking channels through policy, tool configuration, communications and change management, so negotiated value is realized and leakage is reduced.
• •Combine booking, card, expense and HR data to forecast travel demand, model scenarios and report on compliance and leakage.
• •Identify and develop collaborative partnerships with cross functional stakeholders, supporting multiple business units.
• •Develop effective business relationships and advance sourcing’s ability to influence strategic supplier selection and management forward.

Traveler and Event Support:

• •Serve as an escalation point for urgent traveler needs, including Cohesity’s leadership team, a number of whom are based on the West Coast. Flexibility to support Pacific time zone hours for urgent matters is important.
• •Share in team coverage to extend the span of hours the team can support travelers. Routine travel administration is not the focus of the role, but all team members help support our travelers.
• •Support Cohesity’s two large annual events, including coordinating travel logistics and suppliers and responding to urgent changes.
• •Travel as needed to serve as an on-site or on-call resource during major events or incidents.

WE’D LOVE TO TALK TO YOU IF YOU HAVE MANY OF THE FOLLOWING:

5+ years relevant strategic sourcing experience in the categories referenced above, including category-specific experience sourcing and managing corporate travel providers (e.g., TMCs, airlines, hotels, car rental, travel and expen