Travel Specialist

Elastic the Search AI Company enables everyone to find the answers they need in real time using all their data at scale unleashing the potential of businesses and people. The Elastic Search AI Platform used by more than 50% of the Fortune 500 brings together the precision of search and the intelligence of AI to enable everyone to accelerate the results that matter. By taking advantage of all structured and unstructured data securing and protecting private information more effectively Elastics complete cloud-based solutions for search security and observability help organizations deliver on the promise of AI.

What is The Role

We are seeking a thorough and strategic Travel Specialist to handle our corporate travel program and optimize our global travel this role you will bridge the gap between day-to-day travel operations and high-level vendor management. The Specialist will work closely with the Global Sourcing and Procurement teams in India and North America.

What You Will Be Doing

• Execute a global travel strategy aligned with company objectives financial goals and employee experience expectations.
• Act as the primary point of contact for account managers at airlines hotel groups and car rental agencies.
• Supervise travel patterns and spend data to find opportunities for further savings or program improvements.
• Track leakage (out-of-policy bookings) and implement strategies to drive bookings back through preferred channels.
• Identify negotiate and secure Corporate Negotiated Rates (CNRs) with key airline partners and hotel chains to maximize return on investment.
• Execute the end-to-end Request for Proposal (RFP) process from data collection to final contract execution.
• Review summarize and analyze data and present findings in a concise and structured manner. Execute and distribute procurement spend reports according to predefined monthly or quarterly reporting schedules.
• Provide monthly reports to leadership on the performance of negotiated contracts and overall program health.
• Support sourcing strategy and procurement optimization processes by providing data insights and recommendations. Perform procurement analytics to deliver useful insights to larger procurement team to enable significant business impact
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (Finance Sourcing P2P etc.) to gather monthly and quarterly data for analysis.
• Serve as a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for category sourcing managers and functional leads for providing category-specific spend reports
• Bring analytical and conceptual skills linking issue resolution to process improvement.
• Conduct training on analytical tools and dashboards as needed.
• Build strong relationships with business collaborators and cross-functional partners.
• As a system administrator update/maintain various procurement tools and system configurations. Collaborate with IT and various other departments to efficiently manage the procurement systems. Lead implementation efforts for any new tools and/or features of existing tools

What You Bring

• Bachelors or masters degree in business or finance/accounting or equivalent.
• 35 years of experience in corporate travel management procurement or a related role within the travel industry.
• Strong ability to collect and interpret data identify and communicate potential opportunities and risks.
• Strong data analytics and report building skills through tools such as MS Excel & Google G-Suite. Advanced experience with the following procurement tools will be considered an asset: Workday Strategic Sourcing (ScoutRFP) ServiceNow Netsuite and Confluence Wiki.
• Willingness to learn new technologies in procurement data analytics.
• Project management (including change management) experience and skills.
• Strong communication influencing negotiation and conflict resolution skills.
• Possess high integrity combined with good judgement with the ability to identify recommend and select the best overall solution
• Strong ability to develop and manage relationships with key business partners and suppliers.
• Be a self-starter with a positive can-do attitude. Must be willing to work on ones own initiative and must be focused on achieving goals.
• Work hours - EMEA shift (1pm to 10pm IST) aligning with North America time zones overlap including flexibility in work times to support all other global time zones when needed.