Reporting to the Director, Strategic Sourcing & Vendor Management, the Contract Advisor leads and supports activities related to the negotiation of strategic agreements.  This includes supporting the Director, Strategic Sourcing & Vendor Management in the negotiation of strategic agreements, actively negotiating services within strategic agreements, providing oversight to the Request for Proposal/Request for Services (RFP/RFS) scoring processes, and conducting process improvement (focused on vendor management processes and agreements). The Contract Advisor conducts industry research into contractual best practices which allows them to evaluate and recommend optimal terms and conditions, and performs contract analysis which assesses factors such as cost, benefits, and risks over different time horizons.

The Contract Advisor works with the Director, Strategic Sourcing & Vendor Management and key stakeholders to facilitate contractual discussions between the vendor, other strategic vendors, and corporate departments which result in effective, sustainable agreements related to . The Advisor also participates in contract negotiations, assessment of service level agreements (SLAs) and contract health assessments, and partners with Project Managers to ensure successful vendor delivery of agreed-to project services.

• Actively negotiate pricing, services, and standards within strategic agreements on behalf of projects and departments.
• Actively negotiate pricing and services with non-strategic vendors as part of RFS/RFP processes.
• Facilitate conversations between the vendor, other strategic vendors, and MPI departments (e.g. Legal, Purchasing, Enterprise Risk Management, Enterprise Architecture, Operational Business Champions, Project/Delivery teams, etc.) as required to actively support contract negotiations.
• Lead and coordinate activities related to complex changes required to support business objectives, including drafting and reviewing RFS documents, requirements and conditions included in the RFP process, RFP scoring activities (to ensure integrity of scoring), and contract change order and amendment proposals.
• Resolve service delivery and contract performance issues by working collaboratively with the business and external vendors using leading escalation management practices.
• Conduct analysis and research required to support the Director, Strategic Sourcing & Vendor Management in the negotiation and evaluation of strategic agreements.
• Develop financial models detailing the impacts of people and technology resource growth and manages contract budget requests.
• Manage approved contract budget consumption and ensures that Service Level Agreement credits are applied to future external vendor invoices.
• Develop extensive knowledge and understanding of contract details including terms and conditions, services, and the practical implications.
• Manage contractual milestones, identifying and recommending the people and technology resources required for MPI to meet its responsibilities while identifying and collaborating with provider teams on external vendor responsibilities.

Education:

• Degree in in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Business, Law (Commercial / Contract) Applied Science, or a related discipline, with a record of continuing education in Information Technology, Business, or Legal fields.

Experience:

• Seven years of related experience negotiating agreements and amendments in the IT Industry, including four years related to infrastructure and technology managed services.
• Experience managing multiple service providers, including integration, service delivery, project delivery, and monitoring performance.

Technical Knowledge and Skills:

• Ability to manage multiple activities with a high degree of risk and work within deadlines.
• Ability to quickly form professional relationships built on trust and respect.
• Ability to negotiate and support agreements.
• Project and process management and facilitation skills.
• Advanced written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present information effectively to various audiences.
• Working knowledge of the following systems is an asset:
  • Medium-sized managed services systems environment including, network, server, storage, operations, database, systems management and data centres
  • Complex, multi-platform environments including technologies such as Wintel, Unix, Cisco, VMware / virtualized server environments
  • Enterprise Applications relevant to a mid-sized Insurance provider (policy, billing, claims, security solutions, financial systems, HR systems, line of business specific applications, unified communications and collaboration)
  • Contingent workforce services (e.g. System integrators for Enterprise Applications)
  • Information frameworks, such as the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), application delivery frameworks (Agile), and security frameworks (NIST, COBIT, ISO).

Health benefits

We offer a comprehensive health benefits program that includes:

• flexible health, dental and vision plans
• health spending account
• travel health coverage
• other extended health benefits such as ambulance, massage and physiotherapy

Financial security

In an effort to support financial security, we offer:

• registered pension plan
• group, dependent, and optional life insurance coverage
• sick leave to cover short-term disability
• long-term disability

Wellness

We offer programs that focus on how to better achieve a balance between work and personal commitments, as well as maintain a healthy workplace culture. This includes:

• vacation entitlement
• maternity, parental and adoptive leaves
• bereavement and family responsibility leaves
• employee and family assistance program
• mental-health programming
• onsite employee gym facility (Cityplace)
• discounted gym memberships
• wellness account

Diversity and inclusion

Manitoba Public Insurance believes that diversity and inclusion strengthens us. We consider ourselves to be a barrier-free organization where individual values, beliefs and practices are respected and appreciated for the diversity they bring to our work life.

Employee recognition

It’s important to recognize our employees for their contributions. Not only do we recognize employees as they achieve milestone years in their careers, we also have several outlets for leaders and peers to reward each other for work well done.

Professional development

We want our employees to grow, which is why we offer support in keeping their skills up to date. We offer in-house training, professional development and an educational assistance program.

Safety and health

In an effort to encourage a safe and healthy work environment, we offer various safety, health and workplace policies and programs along with technical expertise and assistance to support employee activities in safety and health.