Vendor Relationship Lead 4

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.