| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Procurement and Purchase |
| Level | Mid level |
| Reports to | Sourcing Manager |
| Direct reports | None |
| Experience | 3 to 6 years in sourcing or procurement analysis |
Strategic Sourcing Specialist job description template
Copy this job description, replace the text in square brackets and post it on your careers page or a job portal.
Job title: Strategic Sourcing Specialist
Department: Procurement and Purchase
Reports to: Sourcing Manager
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
A Strategic Sourcing Specialist runs the analysis and structured events behind smart supplier selection. They study spend, model total cost and should cost, design requests for proposal, evaluate suppliers on more than price, and support the negotiation to award. The role reports to the Sourcing Manager. A good strategic sourcing specialist finds savings that simple quote comparison misses, builds fair, data backed evaluations, brings real competition into big buys, and gives the business supplier choices it can defend on cost, quality and risk together.
Key responsibilities
- Analyse spend by category and supplier to find sourcing opportunities and savings potential.
- Build total cost of ownership and should cost models to compare offers beyond the unit price.
- Design requests for proposal and information with clear scope, criteria and weightings.
- Research the supplier market and shortlist capable suppliers for each sourcing project.
- Evaluate offers on price, quality, capacity, service and risk using an agreed scorecard.
- Support negotiations with data on cost drivers, benchmarks and alternative offers.
- Run e-sourcing and e-auction events and keep the process fair and well recorded.
- Document sourcing decisions and award reasons so they are transparent and audit ready.
- Track savings delivered from projects against baseline and report the sourcing pipeline.
- Work with vendor development to qualify new suppliers before they enter an event.
Requirements
- Graduate in engineering, science or commerce
- MBA in supply chain or analytics is an advantage
- Knowledge of sourcing and cost methods
- 3 to 6 years in sourcing or procurement analysis
KRAs and KPIs for a Strategic Sourcing Specialist
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Savings identified | Sourcing savings potential found and converted to projects against target |
| Total cost modelling | Major offers compared on total cost of ownership, not price alone |
| Competition | Sourcing projects run with three or more comparable offers where possible |
| Evaluation quality | Awards backed by an agreed, documented scorecard every time |
| Project turnaround | Sourcing projects completed within the agreed cycle time |
| Savings delivery | Savings realised against baseline tracked and reported monthly |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: SAP Ariba, e-auction platforms, Advanced Excel, Spend analytics tools, Supplier databases.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Sourcing Manager, Category Manager, Head of Procurement
Interview questions for a Strategic Sourcing Specialist
- How do you build a total cost of ownership model for a services buy?
- Walk me through a should cost analysis and how you used it in a negotiation.
- How do you design an RFP scorecard that is fair and hard to game?
- How do you find sourcing opportunities from raw spend data?
- How do you keep an e-auction fair and defensible?
- How do you show that a saving you claimed was actually realised?
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What does a Strategic Sourcing Specialist do?
A Strategic Sourcing Specialist runs the analysis and structured events behind supplier selection. They study spend, model total and should cost, design requests for proposal, evaluate suppliers on cost, quality and risk, and support negotiation to award. Their job is data backed choices and savings that quote comparison alone would miss.
What is the difference between a Strategic Sourcing Specialist and a Buyer?
A Buyer places and follows up orders against chosen suppliers and prices. A Strategic Sourcing Specialist does the upstream work of analysing spend, modelling cost and running events to choose those suppliers in the first place. Sourcing decides the deal; buying executes it.
What skills does a Strategic Sourcing Specialist need?
The role needs strong spend and total cost analysis, should cost modelling and RFP design, plus advanced spreadsheet skills and comfort with e-sourcing tools. Add market research, fair bid evaluation and the ability to document decisions so awards are transparent and audit ready.