Sourcing Manager

About the role

The Infrastructure Sourcing Manager provides leadership to the people, processes, and systems supporting North American sourcing for IEWC’s Infrastructure Division. This position is responsible for ensuring that quality products and services are secured at the best total value to support our customer and manufacturing supply needs across the Infrastructure business.

Responsibilities

The Infrastructure Sourcing Manager will partner with suppliers to deliver cost savings, supply assurance, and innovation, while developing and nurturing healthy, vibrant, value-added partnerships over time. The role will maintain a close working relationship with the Materials Management, Commercial, Finance, and Operations teams to ensure their supply needs are being met and that sourcing strategies are aligned with business objectives.

• Continually monitor and assess trends affecting IEWC’s Infrastructure sourcing strategies and benchmark against the best companies in the industry.
• Provide thought leadership in bringing solutions through process improvement, best practices, tools, and technology that will continue to set IEWC apart from its competition and identify new business opportunities.
• Champion process excellence, continuous improvement, and identify best practices, ensuring cross-sharing across the broader Sourcing organization.
• Create a sound North American Infrastructure sourcing strategic plan that supports market vertical business plans.
• Develop sound policies and processes to ensure consistent practices across the Infrastructure division.
• Work collaboratively with all Divisions and Functions to ensure their business success.
• Drive a customer-focused culture by partnering with sales, improving response times, and offering strategic alternatives and supplier capabilities with a “win” mentality.
• Serve as a role model for the Company’s Values and Core Leadership Competencies.

Leadership

The Infrastructure Sourcing Manager will provide leadership, coaching, guidance, and direct daily operations of the North American Infrastructure Sourcing team to achieve work objectives and improve performance and skills.

• Empower team members to resolve issues by delegating tasks to the appropriate level.
• Communicate a clear vision and achieve a shared understanding of the day-to-day operational activities that support a high-functioning matrix structure.
• Foster high performance teamwork and balance empowerment of all employees with appropriate controls.
• Prioritize the activities and the allocation of resources, balancing the short-term interests and the long-term interests of the business.
• Participate in or lead cross-functional teams to ensure the continuous, ongoing improvement of process, methods, productivity, and quality, while reducing costs.

Supplier Relationship Management

The Infrastructure Sourcing Manager will foster and develop supplier relationships to ensure IEWC is in preferred status with key Infrastructure suppliers.

• Oversee the negotiation of material prices, terms of supply, and cooperative programs to meet IEWC’s plans.
• Partner with suppliers and internal teams to develop joint business plans and identify innovation opportunities.
• Drive strategic supplier positioning by identifying consolidation opportunities that increase IEWC’s volume leverage, simplify the supply base, and improve commercial competitiveness.
• Engage suppliers in discussions on their target markets, product roadmaps, capacity strategies, and new product introductions to align IEWC’s sourcing strategy with emerging technologies and growth opportunities.

Cross-Functional Support

The Infrastructure Sourcing Manager will serve as the knowledge expert on assigned product categories, guiding the organization on product usage and specifications.

• Ensure the build and maintenance of should-cost libraries, rebate/price governance tools, and sourcing dashboards.
• Support the Commercial team in shaping price strategy and aligning sourcing execution.
• Analyze cost savings opportunities and implement changes through sourcing initiatives.
• Work with the Commercial and Materials Management teams in solving supply issues impacting markets or customers.
• Work with Product Development and the Commercial teams on New Product Introduction.

Market Intelligence/Continuous Improvement

The Infrastructure Sourcing Manager will leverage Qlik, Rubicon, SAP, and BI tools to deliver accurate, actionable reporting and sourcing analytics.

• Oversee the development of dashboards to monitor supplier performance, pricing trends, and sourcing KPIs.
• Provide insight-driven recommendations to leadership for cost reduction and margin improvement.
• Perform market and capacity analysis to identify risks, trends, and opportunities for supplier alignment.
• Effectively create and support process enhancement initiatives to maintain an environment of continuous improvement throughout the organization.
• Improve sourcing cycle time and win rate through data-driven process enhancements.
• Lead automation and analytics projects that scale sourcing performance.

Qualifications

A bachelor’s degree and 5+ years of progressively responsible related experience; or a combination of education and experience.

• Certificates, Licenses, and/or Registrations: A valid driver’s license and an ability to obtain a valid passport.
• Reasoning Ability: Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts and draw valid conclusions.
• Computer Applications Skills: Ability to work in a Windows environment. Possess advanced skills in Microsoft Excel—Pivot Tables and formula calculations, PowerPoint and Word.
• Experience with AI interfaces (Claude, ChatGPT) and writing prompts to assist in CI and expediting tasks. SAP experience is preferred.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.

• Movement: Frequently required to use hands to finger, handle or feel. Regularly required to sit and talk or hear. Occasionally required to stand and walk. Occasionally required to reach above shoulders, stoop, kneel or crouch.
• Vision: Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision and ability to adjust focus.
• Work Environment: Occasionally is exposed to a Distribution Center or manufacturing environment and outside weather conditions. Occasionally is exposed to fumes and airborne particles. Occasionally is exposed to a noise level ranging from moderate to high. Occasionally is exposed to risk of electrical shock.
• Travel: Occasionally required to perform work related travel.