Costco Wholesale hiring IT Vendor Manager in Seattle, WA | LinkedIn (2024)

Costco IT is responsible for the technical future of Costco Wholesale, the third largest retailer in the world with wholesale operations in fourteen countries. Despite our size and explosive international expansion, we continue to provide a family, employee centric atmosphere in which our employees thrive and succeed. As proof, Costco ranks eighth in Forbes “World’s Best Employers”.This is an environment unlike anything in the high-tech world and the secret of Costco’s success is its culture. The value Costco puts on its employees is well documented in articles from a variety of publishers including Bloomberg and Forbes. Our employees and our members come FIRST. Costco is well known for its generosity and community service and has won many awards for its philanthropy. The company joins with its employees to take an active role in volunteering by sponsoring many opportunities to help others.

Come join the Costco Wholesale IT family. Costco IT is a dynamic, fast-paced environment, working through exciting transformation efforts. We are building the next generation retail environment where you will be surrounded by dedicated and highly professional employees.

Vendor managers identify, classify, assess, procure, evaluate, negotiate, and manage relationships/contracts with vendors. Vendor Managers conduct analyses to compare and track performance/production, identify trends, and create consistency in evaluations, negotiations, and service level agreements.

An IT Vendor Manager is responsible for executing the supplier management and contract lifecycle. The manager will identify, classify, risk assess, procure, evaluate, and renew/decommission suppliers. Vendor management creates consistency in evaluation, negotiations, and SLAs with supplier solutions and services rendered. Vendor managers are in charge of supplier metrics, performance metrics, cost savings evaluations, and contract re-negotiations where consolidation is recommended globally. Vendor management serves as the primary internal liaison between legal, procurement, operations, security, accounts payable, project leads, management, and other key stakeholders throughout the lifecycle. Vendor managers align supplier compliance with department needs and ensure all contractual obligations are covered with all IT suppliers. The selected candidate will create, influence, and evolve the processes for supplier management and quality assurance.

If you want to be a part of one of the worldwide BEST companies “to work for”, simply apply and let your career be reimagined.

ROLE

• Engages and collaborates with a variety of internal departments and external organizations, to: manage the governance of the company’s vendor management organization; ensure consistency across contracts and vendors; determine business needs and requirements; and support efforts where Costco does business.
• Initiates contract negotiations, changes, compliance, reviews, renewals, terminations, and also solicits ongoing value from the vendor.
• Drafts, negotiates, and manages vendor contracts based on the identified business objectives/needs.
• Assesses the organization's ability to meet objectives and achieve the desired expectations.
• Analyzes and reports out on data regarding vendor alignment to business operatives, productivity, quality, efficiency, and satisfaction.
• Identifies and resolves problems often anticipating issues before they occur or before they grow; develops and evaluates options and implements solutions.
• Assists and makes recommendations with contract terms and conditions.
• Manages supplier spend and performance (SLAs, OLAs, KPIs)
• Serves as the contact between other departments/stakeholders (i.e. legal, operations, security, management, accounts payable, etc.)
• Evaluates and monitors contracts to ensure vendors comply with business needs and all contractual terms and conditions.
• Initiates and leads meetings with vendors, executives, governance/compliance teams, and all other stakeholders to discuss data sets and ensures effective preparation, briefing, alignment, and execution of the disbursem*nt of data.
• Analyzes, manages, and provides update status on all contract, renewals and service level performance.
• Engages key stakeholders to review operational progress throughout the contract.
• Creates and maintains vendor relationships to ensure that the agreements made are mutually beneficial for both parties.
• Negotiates, supports and processes SOWs, Exhibits, Amendments, Addendums, MSAs, MSLAs etc.
• Prepares, files, maintains, and documents all necessary paperwork.
• Identifies opportunities for streamlining and increasing effectiveness through continuous process improvement.
• Implements practices, processes, and procedures consistent with Costco's information security policy and IT standards.
• Oversees the evaluation and selection of suppliers as well as the negotiation of contracts or service agreements. Ensures supplier's contractual compliance.
• Establishes consistent standards for supplier contract templates and processes by producing and managing the contract in a manner that complies with regulatory guidance and optimizes strategic results.
• Performs appropriate clinical, administrative, and operational research to support proposal and contract development.
• Works with the corporate legal, compliance, and tax departments to assure accuracy of contract text and attachments.Reviews all legal contracts and documents.
• Develops and analyzes scorecards and reports on supplier spending, work, and hours; reviews quality assurance and overall satisfaction. Revises documents as necessary to improve performance. Conducts meetings and presentations on scorecard data with suppliers and all stakeholders.
• Facilitates and supports top-to-top meetings ensuring the preparation, briefing, alignment, and execution. Provides key information for executive meetings and updates.
• Works with governance lead to manage the governance of the company's supplier management organization.
• Schedules and participates in supplier governance meetings (weekly, monthly and quarterly).
• Manages and tracks supplier spend and performance (SLAs, KPIs). Oversees all aspects of a project to ensure it is completed on-time and within budget.
• Assesses the organization's ability to meet objectives and achieve commercial expectations based on strategy discussions and senior management input.
• Works with IT business owners on new contract requests, revisions, extensions, and to resolve issues. Leads the investigation process with issues, identifying causes and winning business outcomes.
• Provides contract knowledge and drives ongoing value from the supplier through contract negotiations, changes, reviews, and terminations.

Required

• Minimum of 3 years’ experience in supplier management or a related field.
• 2+ years’ IT work experience: The role requires a broad technical skill set - a balance between a very strong overall understanding of enterprise IT applications and infrastructure.
• Experience with negotiating and managing supplier contracts.
• Experience with including structure of contracts and contract life-cycle management.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and a team player.
• Demonstrated clarity in written and spoken expression.
• Organizational skills and attention to detail required in handling diverse and concurrent assignments.
• Able to change direction quickly, focus without distraction, and meet deliverable dates/timelines.
• Extremely responsive; able to work under pressure with a strong sense of urgency.
• Demonstrated leadership skills and a positive attitude and excellent interpersonal and diplomatic skills.
• Strong communication and networking skills including multi-level presentation skills.
• Able to work independently and as a team.

Recommended

• Experience with supplier contracts and/or supplier management is a plus.
• Experience about laws and regulations applicable to global contracts.
• Experience with Contract Law.
• Understanding of Agile contracts.

Required Documents

• Cover Letter
• Resume

California applicants, please click here to review the Costco Applicant Privacy Notice.

Pay RangesLevel 1 - $70,000 - $95,000

Level 2 - $90,000 - $120,000

Level 3 - $110,000 - $145,000

Level 4 - $135,000 - $170,000

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off, health benefits - medical/dental/vision/hearing aid/pharmacy/behavioral health/employee assistance, health care reimbursem*nt account, dependent care assistance plan, short-term disability and long-term disability insurance, AD&D insurance, life insurance, 401(k), stock purchase plan to eligible employees.

Costco is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Costco is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or any other legally protected status. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request to IT-Recruiting@costco.com

If hired, you will be required to provide proof of authorization to work in the United States. Applicants and employees for this position will not be sponsored for work authorization, including, but not limited to H1-B visas.