Supervisor - Vendor Management

This role is a part of the Global cost control and purchase to pay process (P2P) function supporting Hapag Lloyd’s Middle East region. As a process lead, you will play a key role in maintaining the master vendor data, work order creation, and ensuring standardization and compliance in the P2P lifecycle. You will ensure smooth onboarding of vendors, their validation and due diligence, risk checks, work order creation and approval process through a team of 8-10 reportees working with you. Your role is key to carrying out the initial stages of the P2P process which will eventually ensure the smooth operational execution of work, invoice processing, dispute resolution and finally payment processing. Additionally, you will play a key role in maintaining the single source of truth of vendor data and ensuring visibility of cost in advance to improve the transparency and speedy decision making.
Note: This role is a mix of individual contributor and managerial activities. You are expected to spend ~50% of the bandwidth on leading a team carrying out the master date maintenance and work order creation process, while for the rest 50%, you are expected to handle some of the team responsibilities on your own.

Key Responsibilities

1. Vendor Onboarding and Master Data Management

Govern and perform the high risk / escalated vendor onboarding activities, carrying due diligence, risk assessment and mitigation plan
Review and approve the complex vendor modifications, blocking / retirements and changes in approval limits.
Ensure alignment of all the onboarded vendors with the company and local policy and compliance guidelines.
Own the master vendor database, align with stakeholders and update the master data policies
Sponsor the cleanups, hygiene reviews and audit assistances for the master vendor and policy database
Ensure maintaining and updating accurate rates in TRACO (Transport Cost Maintenance) and TRACO4MT (Transport Cost Rates for Empty Containers) in collaboration with the headquarters and region offices
Ensure maintaining accurate base routes in FIS, update routes and new locations in FIS to enable new offerings to the customers

2. Work Order Creation and Management

Create a work order for critical / complex requisitions, update / edit the work orders basis requests and manage the approval policy
Submit the work orders to suppliers in line with the agreed service levels; follow up with the vendor in case of any discrepancies.
Own the records of issued work orders in the system, track exceptions, rejections, escalations and turnaround SLA for the work order processing
Resolve the queries raised by analysts in work order creation and handle critical / high value cases on your own

3. Stakeholder Management and Execution Support

Act as a senior SPOC for all the communications on behalf of team to stakeholders in procurement / operations / finance / other P2P teams
Be a single point of contact for all the vendor and work order related queries across the region, and with the headquarters
Take a lead in multiple periodic companywide events such as budget preparation, internal audits, ICCL checks, TCV calculations etc.
Handle work order related disputes in collaboration with operations / finance / other P2P teams.
Maintain daily / weekly reports on work order creation, policy updates, vendor onboarding and keep entire P2P team, operations, area and region teams updated with the reports
Actively collaborate with the stakeholders outside the team to take additional responsibilities for new processes, new projects as per management direction
Work with multiple stakeholders within and outside team to ensure we achieve the productivity targets around TATs for multiple processes, accuracy of the data and recovery of dispute amount impacting directly on the topline as well as bottom-line of the region and company globally.

4. Manage Compliance & Internal Controls

Ensure compliance of all the work order creations and data management with the company, local and regional regulations
Lead the changes as per communication from the company headquarters and changes in local laws to update the process and management controls.
Identify any non-compliance processes, disputes and risk associated with them, resolve them with the help of compliance and operational teams, and implement the new process in the team
Escalate the structural or process related issues to the cost control manager in timely manner basis the need
Contribute to development and refresh of SOPs, playbooks and training guides. Standardize the processes across teams to ensure minimal inaccuracies and maximum efficiency in execution
Take lead in automation and efficiency improvement initiatives through adoption of new technologies, new tools and learnings from other teams

5. Leadership and Team Development

Lead, allocate and govern daily work execution across a team of 8-10 analysts to ensure SLA adherence along with workload balancing for the team
Maintain team roaster, leave management, track performance of the team to ensure the seamless execution of the tasks as aligned
Set quality expectations with the team, set up periodic quality reviews, provide feedback and motivate team members to deliver in line with the expectations
Conduct 1:1s with the team members, build capability and chart a growth plan within and outside the team
Set up an internal onboarding process for new employees, training over processes and skill development activities
Take initiative in communicate the learnings from the P2P process from the region to other regional offices of Hapag Lloyd globally.

Education & Experience:

Bachelor’s degree in business, finance, economics, commerce or engineering.
4-6 years of experience in vendor management, work order creations or accounts payable activities
Exposure of leading a team of min 5-6 people in the past
Exposure to shipping and logistics is preferred, although experience in leading small teams sales team of startups / new growth organizations is preferred
Familiarity with ERP tools (SAP / FIS / TRACO) is preferred.

Key Competencies:

High accuracy and attention to detail
Leadership qualities – manage multiple reportees, take accountability of the work
Comfortable communicating with cross-functional teams and aligning diverse stakeholders.
High levels of energy and empathy with a can-do attitude
Structured in thinking and execution, and self-motivated to create impact
Passion for continuous improvement and process enhancement