Category Specialist, Core and Network Cloud

Telenor Group is a leading telecommunications company across the Nordics and Asia with 172 million customers and annual sales of around NOK 110 billion (2021) We are committed to responsible business conduct and driven by the ambition of empowering societies. Connectivity has been Telenor’s domain for more than 160 years, and our purpose is to connect our customers to what matters most.

We have a leading Nordic position in mobile, broadband and TV services, as well as substantial activities in subsidiaries and joint venture operations, including mobile financial services and online classifieds in the Asia region. Worldwide, Telenor Group and our operations’ teams are 16,000 people strong.

Telenor Procurement Company (TPC), established in 2017 and headquartered in Singapore, operates as a subsidiary of the Telenor Group. We deliver Global Category Management as a service to the Telenor Business Units, taking full responsibility for the end-to-end Sourcing process and performance of global spend categories. Functioning as one Global Procurement team across all Telenor markets, we enable Telenor’s strategic ambitions by becoming a centre of expertise in the pursuit of efficient operations. TPC seeks qualified procurement professionals that are comfortable working in a global setup in the fast-paced Telecom field.

**About the Role**

As the Category Specialist, Core and Network Cloud, you will be part of the TPC Networks Sourcing team and will report to the Category Director, Core and Network Cloud. You will work closely with Telenor Group functions and all of the Business Units. The objective of this position is to perform analyses to support category strategy, demand management, managing the category target, analyzing data and proposing pricing strategy& use benchmarking tools actively to ensure category and business performance. Your role is pivotal in identifying and realizing cost saving initiatives that deliver real business value in the category across all of Telenor’s Business Units.

**Main tasks**
- Contribute to and support with market analysis and research E2E Category strategy development
- Understand supply market and perform thorough supplier prequalification for respective category
- Collaborate with user departments for preparing and executing the strategy, innovative analysis and proactively addressing procurement needs
- Identify, lead and execute cost saving initiatives that deliver value in the procurement of goods and services for the company
- Manage resources and stakeholders in a sourcing process
- Prepare and lead TCO analysis during procurement processes and participate in negotiations
- Perform supplier offer and pricebook analysis, perform benchmark across suppliers
- Implementation of category sourcing strategy and skilled approach to vendor management
- Ensure contract management, implementation and follow-up activities
- Support Sourcing Execution for Global Framework Agreements
- Post contract management activities
- Manage contracts and price book relevant to the category
- Handle dispute with global suppliers & stakeholder

**Profile**

To be successful in this role it is believed that you should be a professional eager to develop yourself within strategic sourcing. You should have an academic understanding of strategic sourcing and category management.

To enjoy this role and succeed in it you would need to be/have:

- Strong business knowledge in telecommunications landscape
- Foresee business risks related to role, highlighting to leadership and work towards mitigating risks in best manner
- Deep insight into end-to-end Sourcing process and strategies
- Strong ability to communicate and interact effectively (verbal, presentation, facilitation & listening modes of communication) across organizational and cultural boundaries, internal and external
- Result oriented, demonstrating excellent collaboration abilities
- Able to work with a high degree of execution power and passion
- Understand the vendor market
- Strong analytical, systems thinking and problem solving capabilities
- Be proficient in using analytical tools such as MS Excel, Power BI, MS Access etc. and be open minded to explore new tools and techniques
- Be fluent in preparing and presenting analysis and benchmarks in a crisp and understandable way
- Demonstrate commitment, maturity, flexibility and speed in response to business and challenges
- Possess Commercial and negotiation skills
- Highly creative and innovate mindset
- Knowledge of sourcing techniques and demand management & demand forecasting methods
- Familiar with contract setup activities such as specification definition, contract T&C setup
- High level of integrity and ethics

**Qualification and Experience Requirements**
- Bachelor degree in Technology, Finance or Business or equivalent.
- Minimum 2 years in a procurement / contract management / vendor management role preferably with experience in Networks area or an equivalent experience