Procurement Advisory Consultant

Established in 1982, Bytes has grown rapidly and now employs over 800+ people across 6 locations in the UK and Ireland. Our turnover in Financial Year 2024 was in excess of £2bn. We work with SME’s, corporates and public sector organisations to modernise and digitally transform their IT infrastructures.

We invest in our employees through on-going support, training and advice to help them achieve their career aspirations, rewarding success both financially and personally. There is opportunity to grow and move internally which can be seen through our long-standing employees who have developed existing and new skills to move into senior positions in the organisation leaving space for new team members to begin their journey.

Your Future Starts Here

Why Bytes?

• Over 700 staff (plans to double in size over the next 5 years)
• Operating from modern, hybrid working environments with offices in Leatherhead, Reading, London, Manchester, Port Solent and Dublin.
• Winners of an array of industry awards
• Sunday Times Top 100 Best Places to Work
• Excellent training and career prospects offered
• Fantastic office with gym, canteen, open plan, smart casual dress code, regular incentives and company events
• Supporters of 85+ charities with strong commitment to diversity and sustainability

Bytes works with our customers to help them achieve their business outcomes through delivering a comprehensive range of technology-focussed support/professional/managed services. We actively seek to drive consumption, adoption, and customer satisfaction with the objective of tangibly contributing to customer success and growth.

The Procurement Advisory Consultant will join our growing diverse team of experienced IT procurement professionals to deliver commercial and procurement advisory, renewals management and transaction services for software assets by defining and implementing a professional, structured, and repeatable process resulting in optimal commercial routes for renewals and new purchases, based on existing and planned Customer strategies. These activities will be delivered to a portfolio of mid-size UK-based business through to global enterprises through a managed service framework.

The overarching function of the role is to drive savings into our customers by removing operational overhead and optimising spend.

The Consultant will also provide ad-hoc support to pre-sales/sales effort as an evangelist for the potential range of Procurement related services that may address a specific customer need.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Proactively review renewal and new-purchase transactions for Customers with a managed service to ensure that the activity results in the optimal financial and strategic outcome for the customer;

• Review existing software on the estate for functional overlaps with a view to discontinuation of one product thereby reducing volume of transactions,
• Consider alternative products, versions, editions, or suites where that would provide added value/reduced costs,
• Review software contracts for alignment with future strategy, engage with vendors and internal vendor specialists to secure competing quotations and demonstrate that the quotation offering greatest value is selected – through creation and update of tracker.
• Attempt to co-term to reduce volume of transactions and secure discounts based on larger single transactions.
• Analyse historic spend to identify opportunities for consolidation or shift in structured commercial agreements that would provide the customer with lowest costs and/or increased benefits.
• Create Service Review contributions demonstrating volume of activity and evidence of value delivered and suggest service improvements.
• Build and maintaining strong relationships with the procurement and SAM functions within the Customer business.
• Ensure timely delivery of a quality service as defined in the contract between Bytes and the customer meeting and exceeding SLAs.
• Provide ad-hoc procurement/commercial advise and services to individual customers.
• Maintain and continually develop knowledge of software contracts and vendors.
• Contribute to the delivery of related programs of change from an Asset Management perspective.
• Identify opportunities for Bytes where Bytes may propose new/additional Services.
• Escalate potential service issues within the business and to Bytes management.

Work Experience

• 4 to 7 years demonstrable experience of delivering Software Procurement/Contract Management services, specifically focussed on contract optimisation.
• Detailed and comprehensive exposure to legal and commercial negotiation of software contracts.
• Demonstrable experience in delivering Procurement services and delivering savings (cost avoidance and cost savings YoY against budget) within a complex organisation.
• Knowledge of key vendor licensing schemes and contract offerings/structures – Must include Microsoft and at least one of the following; Oracle, IBM, SAP, Adobe, RedHat, Veritas and Symantec.

CORE Competencies & SKILLS

• Able to demonstrate the ability to undertake the defined Key and Individual responsibilities for the role.
• Experience reviewing and negotiating software contracts, identifying, and understanding key clauses that would require negotiation on behalf of the customer.
• Extensive knowledge of licensing terms and metrics and IT markets.
• Experience of working with Tier 1 technology partners (Microsoft, Oracle, Citrix, Checkpoint, Adobe etc).
• Strong Stakeholder & Supplier Management.
• Experience of running both standard and complex contracting and sourcing strategies.
• Ability to manage RFI and RFPs and handle vendor negotiations.
• Advanced level of Microsoft Excel skill to facilitate analysis and presentation of data.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with excellent customer facing/customer service skills.
• Able to work under pressure and meet deadlines

Educational Qualifications:

• Minimum A-Level Certified
• Batchelor’s Degree in a relevant subject

Professional Qualifications

• CIPS Diploma (Standard, Advanced or Professional)
• ITAM/SAM Certification/Accreditation i.e., CSAM
• ILIL Foundation
• Project Management Accreditation i.e., PRINCE2