Sourcing Assistant / Specialist

We're Hiring: Sourcing Assistant / Specialist

Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)

Employment Type: Full-Time

Experience Level: Mid-Level to Senior

Work Arrangement: Fully Remote

About Us

We are a globally focused organization committed to building reliable, competitive, and efficient sourcing and supply networks across diverse markets. Our teams collaborate across Procurement, Supply Chain, Operations, Finance, Quality, Engineering, Logistics, Legal, and commercial functions to identify suppliers, obtain competitive offers, support purchasing decisions, and ensure consistent access to required products and services.

The Role

We are seeking an organized and commercially focused Sourcing Assistant / Specialist to support supplier research, sourcing activities, quotation management, supplier evaluation, competitive bidding, commercial analysis, and procurement coordination.

The ideal candidate will help identify suitable suppliers, coordinate RFQs and RFPs, compare commercial offers, maintain sourcing documentation, support negotiations, monitor market conditions, and ensure sourcing activities are completed accurately, competitively, and on schedule.

Key Responsibilities

• Support day-to-day sourcing activities across assigned products, materials, services, and categories.
• Conduct supplier research and identify potential manufacturers, distributors, service providers, and alternative sources.
• Maintain databases of existing, prospective, and qualified suppliers.
• Research supplier capabilities, product ranges, geographic coverage, capacity, certifications, and service offerings.
• Coordinate supplier prequalification and initial capability assessments.
• Collect supplier profiles, company information, certifications, product catalogs, technical specifications, and commercial documentation.
• Support supplier onboarding and registration processes in coordination with Procurement and Supplier Management teams.
• Prepare and issue requests for quotations, requests for proposals, requests for information, and other sourcing documents.
• Develop RFQ and RFP packages using approved specifications, quantities, delivery requirements, commercial terms, and evaluation criteria.
• Communicate sourcing requirements clearly to prospective and existing suppliers.
• Coordinate supplier responses and ensure quotations and proposals are received within required deadlines.
• Follow up with suppliers regarding incomplete quotations, missing information, revised pricing, technical clarifications, and commercial conditions.
• Review supplier quotations for completeness, accuracy, pricing, lead times, minimum order quantities, payment terms, warranties, and delivery conditions.
• Prepare quotation comparison tables, bid summaries, supplier evaluation matrices, and sourcing reports.
• Compare suppliers based on price, quality, delivery, capacity, service, technical capability, compliance, and other applicable requirements.
• Coordinate technical and quality evaluations with Engineering, Quality, Operations, and other relevant stakeholders.
• Support commercial evaluations and supplier-selection decisions.
• Conduct basic market and price benchmarking to assess supplier competitiveness.
• Monitor market pricing, commodity movements, freight costs, currency effects, and other factors that may affect sourcing costs.
• Identify cost-saving and cost-avoidance opportunities through supplier comparisons and competitive sourcing.
• Support negotiation preparation by compiling supplier pricing, historical spend, market benchmarks, and commercial information.
• Participate in supplier negotiations under the direction of Procurement or sourcing leadership.
• Support negotiations involving price, lead times, payment terms, minimum order quantities, delivery conditions, warranties, and service levels.
• Maintain records of supplier quotations, negotiation outcomes, approvals, sourcing decisions, and commercial agreements.
• Coordinate sourcing approvals in accordance with company procurement policies and delegated authority requirements.
• Support purchase agreement, framework agreement, and contract preparation in coordination with Procurement and Legal teams.
• Monitor sourcing projects from initial requirement through supplier selection and award.
• Maintain sourcing project schedules, action trackers, supplier communications, and status reports.
• Coordinate with Planning and Operations teams to understand demand, inventory requirements, project schedules, and delivery needs.
• Support sourcing activities for new products, new projects, product launches, business expansions, and changing requirements.
• Identify alternative suppliers to reduce supply risk and improve sourcing flexibility.
• Support dual-sourcing and supplier-diversification initiatives for critical products and services.
• Monitor supplier capacity, lead times, production constraints, availability, and potential supply disruptions.
• Escalate significant sourcing risks, supplier concerns, pricing issues, and delivery constraints to the appropriate stakeholders.
• Support supplier performance reviews following sourcing awards.
• Coordinate with Supplier Management teams to ensure newly selected suppliers meet onboarding and performance requirements.
• Assist with supplier transitions, source changes, and replacement supplier implementation.
• Maintain accurate supplier and sourcing data within ERP, procurement, e-sourcing, and supplier-management systems.
• Ensure sourcing records and documentation are complete, accurate, and properly filed.
• Prepare sourcing dashboards and reports covering quotations, supplier participation, pricing, savings, project status, and sourcing activity.
• Track sourcing KPIs and support management reporting.
• Assist Finance teams with savings calculations, spend baselines, pricing validation, and financial-benefit tracking.
• Maintain confidentiality of supplier pricing, bids, negotiations, contracts, and other commercially sensitive information.
• Ensure sourcing activities comply with procurement policies, ethical standards, contractual requirements, and applicable regulations.
• Identify opportunities to improve sourcing workflows, templates, supplier databases, reporting, and digital procurement processes.
• Support automation and use of e-sourcing tools to improve sourcing efficiency and transparency.
• Conduct post-sourcing reviews to identify lessons learned, supplier performance issues, and opportunities for future improvement.
• Provide general sourcing support to Procurement and Supply Chain teams as required.

Key Performance Indicators

• Sourcing project completion rate
• Sourcing cycle time
• RFQ completion rate
• RFP completion rate
• Supplier response rate
• Competitive quotation coverage
• Number of qualified suppliers identified
• New supplier qualification rate
• Supplier onboarding cycle time
• Quotation turnaround time
• Quotation accuracy
• Supplier comparison accuracy
• Pricing competitiveness
• Cost savings
• Cost avoidance
• Savings realization rate
• Spend under competitive sourcing
• Supplier diversification
• Alternative-source coverage
• Supplier lead-time performance
• Supplier capacity availability
• Supplier selection accuracy
• Sourcing stakeholder satisfaction
• Supplier responsiveness
• Negotiation effectiveness
• Contract execution cycle time
• Sourcing documentation completeness
• Sourcing data accuracy
• Procurement policy compliance
• Supplier risk assessment completion
• Critical-source risk mitigation
• Sourcing report accuracy
• Sourcing report timeliness
• Supplier transition performance
• Purchase-price variance
• Market benchmarking coverage
• E-sourcing adoption
• Process improvement completion
• Sourcing productivity

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate should have strong experience in sourcing, procurement, purchasing, supplier management, supply chain, commercial operations, or procurement coordination, preferably within manufacturing, technology, construction, engineering, logistics, retail, distribution, professional services, or other international business environments.

The candidate should demonstrate:

• Strong understanding of sourcing and procurement processes.
• Experience identifying suppliers and coordinating RFQs, RFPs, and competitive bidding activities.
• Strong commercial awareness and ability to evaluate supplier quotations.
• Experience preparing quotation comparisons, supplier evaluation matrices, and sourcing reports.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to review pricing, spend, supplier, and market data.
• Understanding of supplier qualification, onboarding, and due-diligence processes.
• Experience communicating with suppliers and following up on commercial and technical requirements.
• Strong understanding of purchase orders, pricing, lead times, payment terms, delivery conditions, and commercial agreements.
• Experience supporting supplier negotiations and commercial discussions.
• Strong organizational skills and exceptional attention to detail.
• Ability to manage multiple sourcing projects, suppliers, deadlines, and priorities.
• Strong follow-up and coordination capabilities.
• Experience supporting new-product, project, or business-launch sourcing activities.
• Understanding of supplier risk, alternative sourcing, and supply-continuity principles.
• Familiarity with ERP, procurement, e-sourcing, supplier-management, or contract-management systems.
• Strong Excel and spreadsheet skills with the ability to prepare sourcing analyses and reports.
• Ability to work effectively with Procurement, Supply Chain, Finance, Quality, Engineering, Operations, and Logistics teams.
• Strong problem-solving and negotiation-support capabilities.
• Ability to handle confidential commercial information professionally.
• Excellent written and verbal English communication skills.
• Experience working with international suppliers and distributed teams is highly desirable.
• A proactive, commercially minded, and continuous-improvement approach