Sr Project Manager, Vendor Management at EBSCO Industries Inc. in Ipswich, Massachusetts

Job Description:

EBSCO Information Services (EIS) provides a complete and optimized research solution comprised of e-journals, e-books, and research databases - all combined with the most powerful discovery service to support the information needs and maximize the research experience of our end-users. Headquartered in Ipswich, MA, EIS employs more than 3,300 people worldwide. We are the leader in our field due to our cutting-edge technology, forward-thinking philosophy, and top-notch workforce. EIS, a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., based in Birmingham, AL, is ranked in the top 200 of the nation's largest, privately held corporations according to Forbes magazine. EBSCO is a company that will motivate you, inspire you, and allow you to grow. We are looking for the best. If you are too, we encourage you to explore our unique opportunities.

Mission

This hands-on, ‘roll up your sleeves’ role will be responsible for the coordination, completion and solving of business problems that live within our family of vendors, partners and internal customers.

It is expected that these projects will be completed on time and within budget and scope.  This includes reviewing and understanding technical and business requirements, setting deadlines, assigning responsibilities, monitoring and summarizing the progress and preparing status reports for upper management. 

In addition, this role will provide oversight of relationships with all new and existing external partners to ensure continuous service delivery and internal/external customer satisfaction. This means acting in accordance with best practices, committing to be a leader among service providers, striving to supply innovative, high-quality and cost-effective approaches to meeting and exceeding our internal and external customers' expectations in support of EIS’s strategic vision.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Partner with key stakeholders in Content Management on prioritized projects/initiatives, collaborating in the review of technical requirements to ensure there is alignment and coordination with all external partnerships.  


• Drive change and propose solutions to any technical constraints or challenges using your business and technical expertise and experience.  


• Manage the day to day relationships with vendors and business partners to ensure that SLA’s are being met. 


• The development and tracking of financial metrics including key KPI’s and staffing models across all external partners.  To ensure that financial cost savings are being measured, tracked and meet the needs of the business.


• Works across teams to ensure the biggest ROI from the intended solution, using business analytics and data analysis to make fact-based decisions.


• Management of the offsite financial review of costs for currency processing and projects to include reviewing monthly costs comparisons, explanation of variances and the forecasting of projections for year-end results.


• The evaluation of the current marketplace, gaining a thorough understanding of the industry with a goal to present new technologies and processing advancement that would lead to improvements, faster lead times and reduced costs.


• Collaborate with key stakeholders to provide technical thought leadership to projects, including the identification and potential application of emerging technologies and methodologies.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Data Analytics, Data Operations or a similar complimentary field of study.  


• 4-6 years’ experience successfully managing complex, multi-faceted projects with knowledge of Vendor Operations and IT. 


• Solid analytical and strategic capabilities, business and technical acumen along with demonstrated work ethic, integrity, and professional conduct and appearance.


• Experience working in Agile and Lean environments.   


• Sound technical aptitude and proven ability to grasp general knowledge of multiple disciplines and technologies with proficient computer usage skills.


• Exceptional interpersonal and leadership skills to effectively communicate and build relationships with a broad spectrum of audiences at all organizational levels.

Role Based Competencies:

• 
  Passion for Lean - Appreciates the depths of Lean practices and principles and helps individuals, teams and managers of all levels within the organization appreciate them too.


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  Continuous Leadership - Understands the team's place in the organization's goals, serves as a single point of leadership (for the team) and accountability (to stakeholders), builds a "safe container" for the team to work within, grows trust and respect between team and stakeholders, and continuously improves team cohesion.


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  Continuous Planning & Execution - Keeps focus of team on continuous flow. Manages daily meetings in front of the boards. Ensures that the team becomes increasingly capable of meeting their own established commitments, ensures everything remains visible, manages metrics, Monitors/manages team velocity/throughput.


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  Continuous Improvement - Drives the team to identify and execute continuous improvement opportunities. Draws the team’s attention to performance breakdowns, facilitates team improvements in the right areas, and helps the team learn emerging practices from outside itself.


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  Change Agent - Adept at facilitation, coaching, conflict management, meditation, and more, to help the team become a high-performance team.

Cultural Competencies:

EBSCO has identified Guiding Principles that define who we are as a company and how we do what we do. They are central to our success and drive all business decisions that pertain to strategy, execution and expectations.

• Commit to Sustained Profit Growth                                                        


• Insist on Quality


• Have a Defined Vision and Operate with a Bias for Action              


• Do What You Say You Will Do


• Be Customer Focused and Sales Driven                                                 


• Cultivate Passion


• Recognize That You Can’t Manage What Isn’t Measured


• Realize that Business is a Long-Run Game


• Foster Creativity and Continuous Improvement                                


• Be Humble

Corporate success is dependent on employee success. We expect the following from our team members:

• 
  Drive: Cares intensely about EBSCO’s success, is tenacious and will not be denied success, finishes and persists until the task is complete, gives 100% and doesn’t cut corners, inspires others with thirst for excellence.


• 
  Positive Attitude: Displays a ‘can do’ attitude, sees ‘bad news’ and problems as opportunities to improve, doesn’t tolerate negativity, doesn’t complain but provides constructive criticism, sees the glass ‘half full.’


• 
  Good Judgement: Makes wise decisions despite ambiguity, identifies root causes and gets beyond treating symptoms, separates what must be done well now and what can be improved later, displays solid logic and common sense, focuses on long term consequences and not just the short term


• 
  Open Communication: Communicates directly with fact-based positions while avoiding unnecessary confrontation, willing to tell people what they need to hear in a respectful way, is concise and articulate in speech and writing, treats people with respect, maintains calm poise in stressful situations, says what you think in a professional manner, even if controversial, listens well to better understand.


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  Collaboration: Collaborates with others to help maximize work accomplished by the group, embraces individual’s different styles, realizes that seeking and listening to the opinion of others gains insight and builds team accountability, demonstrates diplomacy and only says things about fellow employees that would be said to them in person.


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  Desire to Make an Impact: Accomplishes amazing amounts of important work, demonstrates consistently strong performance that employees rely on, exhibits bias for action and avoids analysis paralysis, works smart in addition to working hard, focuses on important items and avoids getting caught in the minutiae.


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  Eager to Understand: Learns rapidly and eagerly, seeks to understand our strategy, markets, customers and suppliers, is broadly knowledgeable about business and strategy, contributes effectively outside of specialty, understands how things work and how they can be improved, understands how work relates to company goals to make improvements consistent with these goals, follows facts and draws logical conclusions even if those conclusions differ from the status quo.


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  Accountability: Self-motivated, self-aware, self-disciplined and self-improving, proactively does what needs to be done, acknowledges problems, takes responsibility, determines what can be done to solve the problem, acts and demonstrates the ‘See It, Own It, Solve It and Do It” characteristics described in The Oz Principle.

EBSCO Industries, Inc.is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. EBSCO strictly prohibits and does not tolerate discrimination against employees, applicants, or any other covered persons because of race, color, sex (including pregnancy), age, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, religion, creed, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, training, promotion, discipline, compensation, benefits, and termination of employment.

EBSCO complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), as amended by the ADA Amendments Act, and all applicable state or local law.

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