The Data Center & Colocation Category is part of the Cloud Infrastructure team under IT & Cloud and supports SAP's global data center expansion and capacity roadmap. This temporary assignment requires a highly experienced procurement specialist with deep, hands-on expertise in the colocation market. The contractor will advise infrastructure, engineering, finance, legal, and business stakeholders on sourcing strategy and translate complex requirements for capacity, power, location, connectivity, resilience, sustainability, scalability, and deployment timing into commercially robust procurement outcomes.
The Senior Data Center & Colocation Procurement Specialist will independently lead complex, business-critical sourcing work for colocation services across regions. The assignment covers the full procurement lifecycle-from market intelligence, supplier shortlisting, RFx design, bid normalization, site and capacity evaluation, and commercial modelling through negotiation and execution of master service agreements, statements of work, order forms, and related amendments. The contractor is expected to challenge requirements constructively, identify commercial leverage, and provide credible
recommendations with minimal ramp-up or supervision.
Key deliverables include category and market insights, sourcing strategies, RFx packages, normalized proposal evaluations, should-cost and total-cost-of-ownership models, negotiation plans, contract positions, executive decision materials, risk assessments, and supplier governance outputs. The contractor must be capable of owning assigned workstreams end to end, navigating ambiguity, and securing competitive outcomes while protecting capacity, service continuity, flexibility, and contractual risk. The engagement does not include ongoing people-management responsibility or independent authority to commit SAP.
Key Responsibilities
We are seeking a senior procurement practitioner who has built substantial, recent experience sourcing data center colocation capacity and can contribute immediately. This is not a generalist procurement role. The successful contractor will bring detailed knowledge of the global and regional colocation supplier landscape, commercial structures, capacity constraints, negotiation levers, and contracting risks.
The ideal candidate has personally led high-value, multi-site or multi-region colocation transactions and is comfortable engaging directly with major operators and regional providers. They can interrogate technical demand, normalize non-standard proposals, model long-term commercial exposure, negotiate complex protections, and turn incomplete inputs into clear recommendations for senior stakeholders. Success requires an independent, delivery-focused specialist with strong commercial judgment rather than a coordinator or developing category professional.
What will you do?
* Lead complex global sourcing for colocation capacity, power, connectivity, and related data
center services.
* Develop sourcing strategies using market intelligence, supplier capacity, pricing, and regional risk.
* Translate technical and business requirements into effective RFI, RFQ, and RFP processes.
* Evaluate proposals and build TCO models covering power, fees, indexation, commitments,
ramp schedules, and exit costs.
* Lead commercial negotiations on price, capacity, flexibility, service levels, remedies, renewals and termination rights.
* Support colocation agreements and order documentation with legal, technical, finance, and
business stakeholders.
* Assess supplier, site, delivery, resilience, sustainability, and regulatory risks.
* Present clear recommendations, benchmarks, trade-offs, and risk mitigations to senior
stakeholders.
* Drive savings, supplier governance, procurement documentation, and end-of-assignment
handover.
