Role Title
Vendor Relationship Lead IV
Department / Team
Vendor Management Office (VMO) · Delivery Governance
Reports To
Lead, Vendor Management Office
Location
Hyderabad, India · Hybrid
Working Hours
Standard IST business hours (10:00–19:00 IST)
Employment Type
Full-Time
ROLE OVERVIEW
Astreya is seeking a Vendor Relationship Lead IV to serve as the commercial and contractual anchor within our Vendor Management Office (VMO). In this role, you will own the day-to-day relationship with Tier-1 delivery partners, maintain the OLA framework and credit schedules that tie partner performance to client commitments, and establish commercial positions on attribution, rate cards, and change requests.
As a senior individual contributor within a collaborative team of five, you will review daily casework from Level I and Level II analysts, providing coaching on evidence standards and decision-making for complex cases. This role offers an excellent opportunity to drive vendor performance, maintain governance standards, and help shape our partner strategy.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Tier-1 Partner Relationship Ownership
- Act as the named relationship owner for the Tier-1 partners, running the weekly operational sync and preparing the monthly performance review with the Lead.
- Set expectations with partner account and delivery leads, and resolve open issues, jeopardy items and backlog through to closure.
- Escalate to the Lead with a recommended position, the evidence behind it and the commercial impact, never a relay of the partner's view.
2. OLA Framework, Contract & Credit Schedules
- Maintain the OLA register for each partner: decomposition of client SLAs and experience measures, response and resolution targets, coverage windows, escalation ladders and acceptance criteria.
- Review partner SLA, KPI and service-credit schedules against Astreya's own client commitments, and keep a contract gap log of every term that does not mirror the client contract.
- Prepare the requirement set for Procurement and Legal on new and amended partner agreements; drafting and signature stay with them.
3. Attribution, Penalty Flushback & Commercial Position
- Lead root-cause attribution on client-levied credits and major incidents, using the ticket trail, root-cause analysis and OLA clause mapping.
- Build the evidence pack and draft the chargeback notice for vendor-attributable breaches, for approval by the Lead.
- Own the rate-card register and change-request log, and decide whether a partner change request is in scope, out of scope or a chargeable change.
- Hold the line that Astreya-attributable credits are absorbed and logged for internal corrective action, so attribution stays accurate both ways.
4. Portfolio Strategy, Renewal & Rationalisation
- Own partner tiering and segmentation, and the data packs that feed the annual partner strategy.
- Own the renewal tracker, and prepare performance and spend packs that support renewal, re-scope or exit decisions.
- Benchmark partner rates against each other and against market data where available, and flag where Astreya pays above pattern.
5. Casework Review, Coaching & Improvement
- Review Level I and Level II casework daily, and sign off scorecards, invoice validations and evidence packs before they leave the team.
- Coach analysts on evidence standards, attribution judgement and partner communication, without line authority.
- Own the VMO standard operating procedures and templates, and the design of the partner scorecard.
- Identify automation candidates in scorecards, evidence packs and invoice checks, and carry them through to a working change.
PERFORMANCE & SERVICE LEVELS
Key performance indicators and success criteria for this role include:
- Attribution Timeliness: attribution and draft evidence pack completed within the agreed window for 100% of client-levied credits.
- Evidence Quality: chargeback notices issued with a complete evidence pack, and disputes resolved on the evidence.
- Contract Gap Log: every Tier-1 partner agreement reviewed against client commitments, with gaps logged and owned.
- Change Control: 100% of partner change requests logged and decided against the rate card and scope before work starts.
- Renewal Readiness: performance and spend pack ready at least 90 days before each Tier-1 renewal or notice date.
- Team Quality: Level I and Level II outputs reviewed before release, with quality findings trending down quarter on quarter.
TOOLS & SYSTEMS
- Ticketing & Evidence: enterprise ticketing (ITSM) incident, request and change records, used as the evidence trail for SLA, OLA and attribution work
- Contract & Commercial: contract repository and rate-card registers, change-request log and service-credit schedules
- Governance: partner scorecards, risk register, action and remediation trackers, QBR and MBR pack templates
- Finance Data: ERP purchase-order, goods-receipt and invoice data for pay-versus-charge reconciliation
- Reporting: BI dashboards and advanced spreadsheet modelling (pivot, lookup, scenario models)
REQUIRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE
Mandatory
- 6–9+ years in vendor management, supplier performance, contract management or commercial leadership in IT services, managed services or facilities.
- Hands-on experience with SLA and OLA frameworks, service-credit schedules and partner chargebacks.
- Strong commercial analysis: rate cards, change requests, invoice reconciliation and spend analysis.
- Ability to run a meeting with a partner's senior account team and hold a position on evidence.
- Advanced spreadsheet skills; comfortable building scorecards and models from raw ticket and invoice data.
- Clear written and spoken English, and comfort working EMEA-aligned hours.
Preferred
- Experience with AV integration, workplace technology, facilities or network service partners.
- Experience in a prime-contractor or service-integration (SIAM) environment.
- World Commerce & Contracting (CCMP), CIPS or ITIL 4 qualification.
- BI tooling and basic scripting for automated reporting.
CAREER GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT
- Opportunity to own commercial and contractual strategy for Tier-1 global partners while mentoring junior and mid-level analysts.
- Clear career path toward leadership through portfolio-wide ownership, leading Executive QBRs, and demonstrating team leadership.
