Commercial Contracts Associate
Commercial Contracts Associate Contract Categories Self-Service Contracts: Standard, lower-risk agreements where pre-approved templates are utilized. The Commercial Contracts Associate acts as the designated "superuser" to execute and submit these requests on behalf of business stakeholders.
Full-Service Contracts: Complex agreements, including nuanced market research or specialized data purchases. These contracts are initiated by the DDA Commercial Contracts Specialist through myBuy or the Navigator platform and assigned to a designated Contract Manager for drafting, negotiation, and end-to-end contract management.
Position Overview The Commercial Contracts Associate is responsible for expeditiously and compliantly managing and processing contracts. The Associate will act as the designated superuser to process and execute self-service contracts on behalf of business stakeholders. For full-service contracts, the Associate will perform the initial system intake in myBuy or Navigator.
Given the high volume of agreements, specifically in market research and data purchasing, this role helps optimize business processes by:
- Enhancing Business Efficiency: Facilitating faster contract turnarounds, allowing project leads to focus on strategic priorities rather than administrative tasks.
- Driving Operational Excellence: Serving as a dedicated resource with expertise in specific project and contract types, including market research and data purchase contracts, while acting as the single point of contact for training, process improvements, and template enhancements.
- Delivering Technical Expertise: Acting as a "super user" of contracting solutions such as MyBuy and gMEMORI and providing contract processing and management support across the organization.
- Supporting Compliance & Standardization: Ensuring consistent use of templates, identifying trends, experimenting with new practices, and reducing business risk.
- Managing POs & Invoicing: Providing end-to-end oversight of Purchase Order structures to ensure appropriate business flexibility and driving resolution of invoicing issues.
Responsibilities The Commercial Contracts Associate will:
- Act as the single point of contact for contract-related queries, amendments, Purchase Order (PO) creation, vendor classification, and invoicing questions.
- Advise project owners on whether requests qualify for direct submission (self-service) or require Full-Service processing.
- Process and oversee market research and data purchase contracts, ensuring compliance with vendor Master Service Agreement terms, data privacy requirements, and acceptable use policies.
- Manage the US Market Research and Patient Support Program (MAP) to ensure compliance with applicable US regulations.
- Process self-service requests and prioritize Full-Service contract requests to expedite execution within the contract management tool, such as MyBuy.
Purchase Orders (POs) & Invoicing - Ensure the timely creation, issuance, and tracking of Purchase Orders.
- Partner with Finance to ensure PO structures are optimized for complex market research and data purchase agreements.
- Serve as a quality check to drive accuracy in reporting and FACT coding.
- Act as a liaison between vendors, internal stakeholders, and Accounts Payable to track invoice processing, resolve billing discrepancies, and ensure timely payments.
- Flag issues or delays to stakeholders and resolve them by ensuring contract workflows are completed on time or submitting tickets to IT for system-related issues.
- Partner with Commercial Contract Specialists (CCS) to support operational excellence and continual optimization of contracting practices.
- Conduct educational sessions and train project owners on contracting processes and the MyBuy system.
Required Capabilities - Ability to work autonomously within established procedures while keeping management appropriately informed.
- Ability to identify challenges and relevant issues within contracting and invoicing processes and make sound decisions to drive results and resolution.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to keep business stakeholders informed.
- Strong resource stewardship skills, with the ability to utilize time and resources efficiently to maximize business impact.
- Strong business process improvement skills and the ability to gain and apply knowledge of project management processes, methodologies, and tools.
- Strong prioritization skills with the ability to align tasks with the highest impact against business objectives.
- Self-starter with strong problem-solving and interpersonal skills.
- Ability to approach unique contracting situations with creativity and discipline while mitigating business and compliance risks.
- Flexibility to occasionally collaborate with Global Procurement and Contract teams outside of Pacific Standard Time, specifically teams in Europe and South America.
- Prior experience with data contracts, market research regulations, and digital/technology contracts is preferred.
Qualifications - Bachelor's degree required with 5-10 years of relevant experience, OR Master's degree with 5-10 years of relevant experience.
- Preferred experience in contract management, procurement, healthcare law/compliance, or paralegal functions.
- Demonstrated experience handling market research and/or data purchase agreements is highly preferred.
- Solid understanding of accounting, billing, and Purchase Order (PO) structures to support end-to-end financial operations.
- Intermediate knowledge of Mac operating systems, contracting systems, online/cloud systems such as Google Workspace, Docs, Drive, and Sheets, as well as Internet browsers.
- Demonstrated working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications, including Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.
- Willingness and ability to travel occasionally by air or car for business needs.
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