Position Location: Lansing, MI Hybrid Remote The primary focus of the Procurement Specialist is to provide the day-to-day monitoring of relationships/partnerships to ensure the effectiveness of programs or services that are conducted by vendors. The Procurement Specialist also conducts due diligence on vendors by ensuring accuracy of the products/services delivered, monitoring performance and compliance with the contract terms, compiling scorecards, auditing and paying invoices and conducting performance evaluations. RESPONSIBILITIES/TASKS: * Monitor vendor performance standards and service level criteria. As needed, recommend refinements in performance metrics used to measure and reward success and improve customer satisfaction and service excellence. * Participate in the vendor selection process. Compares costs and evaluates the quality and suitability of supplies, materials and equipment. * Regularly coordinate with internal business partners to ensure for timely request or delivery of products or services from external vendors. Pro-actively troubleshoot, analyze and make recommendations to mitigate and improve delivery, fulfillment, and problems such as programming delays or poor quality of releases. * Assist in the development and implementation quality improvement and process changes to achieve greater efficiencies and workflows between internal business units and external partners. * Proactively identify potential threats or impacts to current internal operations or testing that need to be escalated to all parties including internal business units, vendor partners and oversight groups. * Proactively identify potential enhancements to current systems. Keep up on system changes and/or new releases that the vendor may have and recommend appropriate action. Maintain knowledge base of industry trends, market research and analytic tools. * Responsible for maintaining process documentation and coordinating compliance across all phases of the vendor lifecycle: Identification, selection, negotiation, contracting, approval and maintenance. * Assist in the effective and timely escalation of customer concerns with our vendor partners. * Analyze trends to monitor and report results. * Resolve business and contract issues such as contract discrepancies, risk assessment concerns, and pricing issues. * Ensure that process documents, contracts, policies and guidelines documents are stored and maintained in the records management repository. * Ensure compliance with corporate and regional policies associated with vendor agreements and purchases. * Provide consulting/mentoring to business partners on contract negotiation techniques and vendor performance management. * Perform dispute resolution, including research and coordination of internal fact finding relative to contract issues. * Assist in quarterly performance reviews to monitor vendor's performance. * Develop and maintain relationships with our key vendor partner contacts. * Reconcile vendor billing and follow up with account payable/vendors regarding vendor accounting issues. * Monitor customer satisfaction. * Develop and implement processes and tools for tracking and reporting contract management activities. * Independent judgment is used in all areas of responsibility, keeping the department and division priorities in mind. * Support internal audit process. * Other duties include ability to lead, oversee sourcing initiatives, implement new sources & metrics to measure outcomes, facilitate training, and provide overview and direction of projects. This position description identifies the responsibilities and tasks typically associated with the performance of the job. Other relevant essential functions may be required. EMPLOYMENT QUALIFICATIONS: EDUCATION OR EQUIVALENT EXPERIENCE: Bachelor's degree in business administration, insurance, computer science, finance or related field. An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered in lieu of degree. Accredit