Vendor Management Manager

The Vendor Management Manager is responsible for driving key business relationships with critical business partners, managing global partner issues, and working with internal teams such as Sales and Marketing to ensure understanding of customer and business needs. This position will contribute to enhancing and optimizing the processes and workflows established between CareFirst and contracted vendors. In addition, the Vendor Management Manager will hold vendors accountable for contracted performance guarantees to ensure members receive the highest quality of service and ensure financial compliance to contracts.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS :

• Responsible for overseeing the vendor management process including supervision and monitoring of Division vendor performance. Responsible for ensuring processes are in place to monitor vendor performance against Service Level Agreements and key contract provisions; establish processes for vendor performance reporting and issue resolution. Review the status and performance of the vendor relationship and contract to determine overall effectiveness.
• Provide outsourcing expertise and represent the various Division Business Owners during the RFP process to ensure business goals are clearly identified and achieved. Responsible for working with the Purchasing and Legal Departments to ensure vendor procurement complies with Corporate Purchasing Policies. Responsible for facilitating the RFP process, which includes but is not limited to, requirements development, defining milestones, risk identification and mitigation and vendor selection. Work with Business Owners to develop and document Statements of Work (SOW) that support the outsourcing arrangement.
• Responsible for monitoring and evaluating vendor performance and compliance with service level agreements, contract guidelines, regulations, disaster recovery and business continuity protocols and requirements. Support the Business Owners through coordination of issue resolution. Responsible for providing reports on vendor performance including non-compliance and making recommendations for vendor performance improvement; conduct root cause analysis, determine appropriate corrective action and impose financial penalties of Division vendors. Oversee daily, weekly and quarterly progress updates as needed. Manages financial contract through tracking, monitoring reconciliations, and auditing payments.
• Responsible for interpreting existing and negotiating new contracts on behalf of each Division. Work with Business Owners to ensure service level agreements and contract guidelines are clearly defined and documented. Accountable for working with the Business Owners and other impacted areas to establish new internal workflow processes and procedures to manage vendor impact on the business area.
• Responsible for representing Business Owners on internal committees pertaining to corporate initiatives, legislative requirements and systems initiatives, which may impact assigned vendor(s). Clearly articulate these committee results with Division Management, Purchasing and others in the RFI / RFP and other communications.

QUALIFICATIONS :

Preferred Qualifications :

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSAs)