CS Vendor Manager

Wise•Austin, TX

4d•$103,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Outsourcing Vendor Manager is working directly with one of the vendors who is providing services to Wise. They are responsible for keeping the vendor accountable for providing services to Wise according to contractual agreements, at a high level. They also focus on the cost, vendor capacity, making sure the vendor hires according to the ramp plan and agent profile provided by Wise. The Vendor Managers are also responsible for vendor level performance, any shortcomings and actions to improve are voiced through Business Review calls and documented with the vendor. This role is a unique opportunity to make sure our customers get great support by helping our outsourcing partners with operational management. The Vendor Manager will be working on managing one of our locations, and working closely with team members in the Vendor Management team. We have a very impactful team, close-knit team. We are located across 4 offices - Singapore, Tallinn, Budapest, and Austin, and our stakeholders in Wise and our vendors are also spread across the globe. So the ability to juggle work across timezones is a necessary skill. It’s up to you to hold a healthy balance. We are all working on an agreement of honesty - we do what we promise, ask help when it’s needed, help others if help is asked. Every member of the team is crucial and has an effect on the rest of the team. That's why we’ve come up with this mutual agreement. We operate globally in Wise, which means that CS Vendor Management works cross-timezone, and can have stakeholders in any part of the world. At Wise, customer satisfaction is the most important part of what we do. As a Vendor Manager, you could have around 300 agents in your vendor, as well as a dedicated CS Coordinator working under you. We share performance responsibility with CS operations, however we are providing a service and CS Operations own the performance.

Requirements

Leading Coordinators
Partnership & Alignment: Cultivate a collaborative partnership with the outsourcing coordinator, ensuring continuous communication and alignment on priorities to achieve mutual team goals and objectives.
Cross-Team Collaboration: Encourage OSC to work in cross-team collaborations with other vendor managers and coordinators to learn and utilise their knowledge to implement different strategies for their specific vendor.
Growth & Autonomy: Support and coach OSC’s growth and self-development by providing space for autonomy to develop and execute plans that have a direct impact on vendor and lead performance.
Project Oversight: Manage the quantity of projects achieved within set deadlines for the Coordinator, reflecting their proficiency in project management and ability to drive initiatives forward.
Environment Building: Direct leading, building an inclusive and supportive environment that enables growth.
Performance Culture: Provide effective feedback via regular 1-1s and biannual GrowWise cycles; create a high-performance environment with a merit-based compensation system.
Team Rituals: Set the standard for team rituals by organising structured, documented, and delivery-oriented team meetings.
Resource Management: Ensure the team is equipped with necessary tools, training, and support. Communicate role expectations clearly and ensure the team's skillset matches expected service delivery.
Accountability: Support direct reports in creating personal goals to assure progression. Set a cadence of accountability through coaching where both lead and direct report are responsible for reaching set goals.
Problem Solving: Maintain a good overview of the main challenges and repeat issues in Vendor Management; hold direct reports accountable for working towards solutions.
Operational Support: Ensure the team's administrative needs are covered, and that approvals are assessed and responded to promptly.
Tool Proficiency: Mastery of team management tools and related processes, including WorkDay, WebExpenses, TravelPerk, and Jira.
Performance Oversight: Monitor and ensure that the vendor is performing according to expectations on a weekly/monthly basis. Ensure underperforming metrics have remediation plans set up by the coordinator, VM or vendor; review and provide feedback on vendor-initiated action plans.
Business Reviews: Organise, schedule, and own Business Reviews; hold vendors accountable for performance reporting cadences.
Relationship Viability: Assess the viability of vendor relationships in collaboration with leads based on performance data.
Metric Education: Educate the vendor on the specifics of Wise metrics and the product offering to ensure appropriate service delivery.
Strategy Alignment: Fully understand the Wise Servicing Strategy and how it relates to the specific VM team.
Recruitment Calibration: Own the hiring calibration process; ensure vendor recruitment aligns with Wise's needs and provide feedback on the hiring process. Responsible for informing regional lead and head of OS if calibration success rate is below target in order to change the course of action for headcount allocation if necessary. Supports the coordinator in hiring calibrations, ultimately owning the process while providing growth for the coordinator
Business Continuity: Initiate BCP as needed; ensure mitigation plans are communicated and implemented.
Incident Management: Report and manage incidents effectively; contribute to resolution reviews and vendor response management.
Governance & Policy: Is up to date with Third Party Policies and ensures that their vendor is managed in line with TPRM policies; maintain up-to-date documentation according to requirements.
Audit & Risk: Assist on relevant audits; conduct site audits according to internal guidance; report risks and work on risk-reduction projects.
Financial Management: Understand and follow the quarterly budgeting process; plan for service delivery costs and one-off expenses.
Cost Tracking: Track vendor costs and follow the monthly billing/approval flow; execute monthly invoice reconciliation.
Forecasting: Continually contribute to and improve the cost forecast to ensure ongoing accuracy.
Relationship Building: Cultivate a collaborative partnership with Vendor, ensuring continuous communication and alignment on priorities to achieve mutual team goals and objectives.
Capacity & Headcount: Ensure WFM headcount recommendations are built into ramp plans; manage support role staffing and training; making adjustments to agent staffing if necessary, and keeping the vendor accountable for delivering the headcount required; maintain proficiency in local labor laws for HC distribution.
Understanding needs: Understand the Wise product offering, enabling to make decisions on what is appropriate service delivery for Wise.
Access Management: Request and follow through on vendor platform accesses; mitigate access-related incidents and work with UT teams on fixes and addressing concerns.
Workflow Adaptation: Stay abreast of changes in workflows, processes, and tools to mitigate negative impacts on performance.
Tool Mastery: Understand contact handling tools (case routing logic) and workforce management tools (Calabrio) for capacity analysis. Capable of noticing inefficiencies in the tools and communicating findings to the relevant team. Capable of gathering data and assisting the relevant teams in finding fixes or workarounds.
Service Delivery Gates (SDG): Plan and deliver requirements for SDGs; collaborate with leadership on growth holds or cancellations if targets are missed.
Quality & Training: Stay on top of Check the Checker (CTC) results; hold QA teams accountable for developing initiatives that will support under performers; makes sure vendor is taking actions on QA analysts according to the guidance in the QA framework. Manages and ensures success of Certification needs for Trainers, and is aware of initiatives driven by Wise Training team and Vendor to help under-performers improve.
Accountability: Having a well documented overview of all promises and delivery from their vendor, which is accessible for relevant parties. Has a good overview of repeat issues with status of delivery.
Documentation Standards: Maintain rigorous standards by creating precise project pages in Confluence/Jira as a single source of truth.
Initiative Ownership: Work on OKRs and own initiatives; use Jira to track tasks and timelines efficiently; provides timely feedback to the VM team and any internal stakeholders.
Process Lifecycle: Own the bi-yearly update of process documentation; complete written retrospectives to quantify project impact.
Contract Knowledge: Know the location and content of MSA, DPA, SOW, and Exit Strategies; identify operationally relevant items within contracts.
Quantitative Analysis: Use Wise BI tools for deep dives to identify root causes and make data-driven decisions; guide coordinators in data usage.
Reporting Infrastructure: Work with reporting teams to ensure vendor access to data; identify missing KPIs and set up new reporting cadences.
Operational Benchmarking: Compare internal and external team performance to find opportunities or differences; giving feedback and sharing insight to Wise on operational metrics.
Stakeholder Management
Internal Stakeholders
Communication & Collaboration: Able to work with internal stakeholders effectively by serving the primary point of contact for communication, identifying areas for improvement, driving initiatives, and fostering collaboration between Wise and partner. Active cooperation with internal operational leadership to ensure vendor processes and expectations meet changing internal expectations while not compromising third party management integrity.
Internal Leadership: Is able to lead any internal stakeholder meetings and conversations, aiming to align all vendors rather than only their specific focus.
Relationship Building: Ability to build and maintain relationships and improve internal cooperation.
WFM & Capacity Cooperation: Strong cooperation with the Wise WFM teams to ensure a consistent and stable capacity governance procedures are adhered to from Vendor Management side. Manage capacity by planning ramp up, working closely with WFM for shift and schedule requirements. Keeps the vendor accountable for adjusting the daily/weekly schedules requested by intraday team.
Transparency: Capturing thorough records of every internal alignment and external vendor engagement, ensuring full transparency and accountability for all discussions.
External Stakeholders
Vendor Leadership Alignment: Work closely with vendor’s senior leadership to ensure effective implementation of action plans and continuous improvement initiatives for operations management.
Vendor Stakeholder Management: Maintains strong relationships with the appropriate stakeholders from the vendor side through consistent strategy oriented communication and site presence.
Ability to juggle work across timezones.
Honesty: do what we promise, ask help when it’s needed, help others if help is asked.
Establish a clear communication governance with the global way Wise works.
Drive change in Resolution Rate.
Facilitate improvement as a Vendor Manager in the Americas.
Avoid unconscious bias when it comes to feedback, grow wises, and salary reviews.
Create and maintain a supportive environment.
Ensure that your report is comfortable in providing you with feedback and voicing their own perspectives on issues.
Build teams that are diverse, equitable and inclusive.

Nice To Haves

Ability to juggle work across timezones.
Honesty: do what we promise, ask help when it’s needed, help others if help is asked.
Build teams that are diverse, equitable and inclusive.

Responsibilities

Keeping the vendor accountable for providing services to Wise according to contractual agreements, at a high level.
Focusing on cost and vendor capacity, ensuring the vendor hires according to the ramp plan and agent profile provided by Wise.
Managing vendor level performance, addressing shortcomings and implementing actions for improvement through Business Review calls and documentation.
Cultivating a collaborative partnership with the outsourcing coordinator, ensuring continuous communication and alignment on priorities.
Encouraging cross-team collaboration with other vendor managers and coordinators.
Supporting and coaching the growth and self-development of coordinators by providing space for autonomy.
Managing the quantity of projects achieved within set deadlines for the Coordinator.
Directing leading, building an inclusive and supportive environment that enables growth.
Providing effective feedback via regular 1-1s and biannual GrowWise cycles; creating a high-performance environment with a merit-based compensation system.
Setting the standard for team rituals by organizing structured, documented, and delivery-oriented team meetings.
Ensuring the team is equipped with necessary tools, training, and support.
Communicating role expectations clearly and ensuring the team's skillset matches expected service delivery.
Supporting direct reports in creating personal goals to assure progression.
Setting a cadence of accountability through coaching.
Maintaining a good overview of the main challenges and repeat issues in Vendor Management.
Ensuring the team's administrative needs are covered, and that approvals are assessed and responded to promptly.
Monitoring and ensuring that the vendor is performing according to expectations on a weekly/monthly basis.
Ensuring underperforming metrics have remediation plans set up by the coordinator, VM or vendor; reviewing and providing feedback on vendor-initiated action plans.
Organizing, scheduling, and owning Business Reviews; holding vendors accountable for performance reporting cadences.
Assessing the viability of vendor relationships in collaboration with leads based on performance data.
Educating the vendor on the specifics of Wise metrics and the product offering to ensure appropriate service delivery.
Fully understanding the Wise Servicing Strategy and how it relates to the specific VM team.
Owning the hiring calibration process; ensuring vendor recruitment aligns with Wise's needs and providing feedback on the hiring process.
Initiating BCP as needed; ensuring mitigation plans are communicated and implemented.
Reporting and managing incidents effectively; contributing to resolution reviews and vendor response management.
Ensuring that vendors are managed in line with TPRM policies; maintaining up-to-date documentation according to requirements.
Assisting on relevant audits; conducting site audits according to internal guidance; reporting risks and working on risk-reduction projects.
Understanding and following the quarterly budgeting process; planning for service delivery costs and one-off expenses.
Tracking vendor costs and following the monthly billing/approval flow; executing monthly invoice reconciliation.
Continually contributing to and improving the cost forecast to ensure ongoing accuracy.
Cultivating a collaborative partnership with the Vendor, ensuring continuous communication and alignment on priorities.
Ensuring WFM headcount recommendations are built into ramp plans; managing support role staffing and training.
Making adjustments to agent staffing if necessary, and keeping the vendor accountable for delivering the headcount required.
Maintaining proficiency in local labor laws for HC distribution.
Understanding the Wise product offering, enabling to make decisions on what is appropriate service delivery for Wise.
Requesting and following through on vendor platform accesses; mitigating access-related incidents and working with UT teams on fixes and addressing concerns.
Staying abreast of changes in workflows, processes, and tools to mitigate negative impacts on performance.
Understanding contact handling tools (case routing logic) and workforce management tools (Calabrio) for capacity analysis.
Noticing inefficiencies in the tools and communicating findings to the relevant team.
Gathering data and assisting the relevant teams in finding fixes or workarounds.
Planning and delivering requirements for SDGs; collaborating with leadership on growth holds or cancellations if targets are missed.
Staying on top of Check the Checker (CTC) results; holding QA teams accountable for developing initiatives that will support under performers.
Ensuring vendor is taking actions on QA analysts according to the guidance in the QA framework.
Managing and ensuring success of Certification needs for Trainers, and being aware of initiatives driven by Wise Training team and Vendor to help under-performers improve.
Maintaining a well-documented overview of all promises and delivery from their vendor, which is accessible for relevant parties.
Having a good overview of repeat issues with status of delivery.
Maintaining rigorous standards by creating precise project pages in Confluence/Jira as a single source of truth.
Working on OKRs and owning initiatives; using Jira to track tasks and timelines efficiently.
Providing timely feedback to the VM team and any internal stakeholders.
Owning the bi-yearly update of process documentation; completing written retrospectives to quantify project impact.
Knowing the location and content of MSA, DPA, SOW, and Exit Strategies; identifying operationally relevant items within contracts.
Using Wise BI tools for deep dives to identify root causes and make data-driven decisions.
Guiding coordinators in data usage.
Working with reporting teams to ensure vendor access to data; identifying missing KPIs and setting up new reporting cadences.
Comparing internal and external team performance to find opportunities or differences.
Giving feedback and sharing insight to Wise on operational metrics.
Serving as the primary point of contact for communication with internal stakeholders, identifying areas for improvement, driving initiatives, and fostering collaboration between Wise and partner.
Active cooperation with internal operational leadership to ensure vendor processes and expectations meet changing internal expectations while not compromising third party management integrity.
Leading any internal stakeholder meetings and conversations, aiming to align all vendors rather than only their specific focus.
Building and maintaining relationships and improving internal cooperation.
Strong cooperation with the Wise WFM teams to ensure a consistent and stable capacity governance procedures are adhered to from Vendor Management side.
Managing capacity by planning ramp up, working closely with WFM for shift and schedule requirements.
Keeping the vendor accountable for adjusting the daily/weekly schedules requested by intraday team.
Capturing thorough records of every internal alignment and external vendor engagement, ensuring full transparency and accountability for all discussions.
Working closely with vendor’s senior leadership to ensure effective implementation of action plans and continuous improvement initiatives for operations management.
Maintaining strong relationships with the appropriate stakeholders from the vendor side through consistent strategy oriented communication and site presence.