Senior Finance Specialist

This is a remote position.

Localization Vendor Manager - Europe based - Contract

Job Overview

On behalf of our client, a well-established Language Service Provider, we are looking for an experienced Vendor Manager with previous experience as Vendor Manager, Senior Project Manager, or Business Unit Manager in the translation and localization industry. Our client's goal is to report performance and continuous improvement status, ensuring that our full-time Vendor Manager provides value for money.

Profile Requirements

• Minimum of 5 years of experience as a localisation provider or buyer.
• Minimum of 3 years of previous experience in resource management.
• Ideally managing or working with Translation Management Systems (administration, content, workflows, vendor portal).
• Excellent knowledge of Quality Management Systems (ISO, Six Sigma, etc.) and linguistic quality evaluation grids.
• Experience in negotiating rates with external providers to extract optimum value.
• Proven track record in delivering on project and planning expectations.
• Capable of tracking vendor rates per client/language, alongside word count volumes per project/vendor.
• Recognised experience in developing, monitoring, and reporting KPIs.
• Proven negotiation and reporting skills.

Role Description

• Drive corporate strategy to source, test, assess, and retain linguists according to company standards.
• Create in-depth monthly reports of vendor activity, detailing items such as onboarding, contracts, training, growth margins, savings, quality performance standards, time-to-delivery, linguistic assets, resource gaps, and external linguist recruitment needs.
• Design and maintain corporate linguistic quality expectations and control processes.
• Build and maintain key relationships with existing freelancers and vendor linguists and regularly communicate with them to align linguistic quality expectations.
• Merge, align, inform, and update freelance and vendor information within our TMS (contact information, language skills, specializations, vendor evaluation, and scorecards according to ISO 9001 standards).
• Support project managers and team leaders with the identification of qualified linguists or by setting up dedicated project teams to accelerate deliveries.
• Conduct regular key account reviews with Project Managers to ensure the availability and retention of key resources at competitive rates.
• Communicate effectively with localization project managers and other cross-functional teams to align with project/client requirements and quality standards.
• Coordinate the creation and maintenance of linguistic assets (TMs, glossaries, style guides, reference material) in collaboration with project teams.
• Maintain, monitor, update, and execute contracts (NDAs and General Terms and Conditions of Purchase) according to GDPR, IT security, fiscal regulations, ethics, and compliance.
• Ensure thorough collection and monitoring of fiscal residence certificates for external linguists and payment of withholding tax in compliance with French and EU tax regulations. Ensure that contracts are current, signed, and uploaded to our systems.
• Review and audit translation output from internal, freelancers, and vendor linguists for new and existing clients and perform regular quality checks.
• Evaluate post-release projects and vendor performance.
• Provide periodic feedback and ratings to translators and vendors on their performance according to quality standards, meeting deadlines, and pricing.
• Negotiate rates with external resources on a project and contract basis, and track average buy rates and gross profit margins. Work to percentage targets to reach business goals and identify solutions to achieve and exceed targets.
• Ensure timely review, verification, approvals, and payment of vendor and freelance invoices.
• Introduce new tools and technologies (CAT, TMS, LMS, eLearning platforms, etc.) and train key resources on projects and on a permanent basis in coordination with our project management teams.
• Perform yearly satisfaction surveys to evaluate vendor satisfaction with their collaboration with the company and design yearly improvement plans.
• Report performance and continuous improvement status ensuring that the full-time Vendor Management Position provides value for money for our two companies.