Category Manager - Store Design - FTC Maternity Cover

About the role

We are looking for a dynamic individual, with proven experience of working in a fast-paced environment, ideally from within the luxury Cosmetic or Personal Care industry, with a large global focus on e-commerce. The Category Manager will be responsible for sourcing and cost reduction within the Indirect categories, with a specific focus on Store Design, permanent fixtures.

This global role will liaise with regional teams across the UK, EMEA, US and APAC, to deliver the Store Design category strategy plans, while supporting sourcing for global contracts. The role will manage all areas of Store Design, and travel will be required.

The ideal candidate will have a broad spectrum of Indirect Procurement experience across several categories, with specific expertise and experience within the Store Design categories, around design, and fixtures and fittings installation in offline luxury stores and concessions within retail department stores.

• Responsibility for development and delivery of the Store Design sourcing strategy, working with regional leads to deliver a category plan in agreement with the Global Procurement Director.
• Spend Mapping of all associated spend data to support sourcing strategy, including ‘deep dive’ analysis of spend within the category across all geographic regions.
• Taking a lead role in working with stakeholders to develop a local sourcing plan and project roadmap.
• Project managing regular supplier cost initiative meetings with both internal and external stakeholders, as well as Supplier Relationship Management at a regional level.
• As part of category strategy identify risks and consolidation opportunities within supply base, including specification of ‘needs’ vs. ‘wants’.
• Analyse the current supply base with key operational stakeholders and present alternate solutions that optimise business growth and improve business efficiencies. Including phasing out poor performing suppliers and developing and onboarding new suppliers who can better support the aggressive business growth plans.
• Developing and owning, in agreement with the Head of Indirect Procurement, Cost Initiative reduction targets on a 12-month rolling annual basis.
• Forecasting, monitoring, and reporting on all assigned cost initiatives monthly, including ownership within the Cost Initiative pipeline tracker, and associated rebate tracking.
• New supplier sourcing and tendering programs with development and monitoring of full 12-month sourcing pipeline.
• Negotiation of terms and conditions for supplier contracts, managing inputs from operational stakeholders and liaising with legal team to ensure contracts signed within appropriate timescales, including contracting with legacy suppliers currently not under terms.
• Develop and implement regional procurement/sourcing processes to ensure ‘maverick’ spend minimised.
• Set-up and manage credit checking programme as part of risk management policy.
• Support the global Procurement Excellence team in rolling out key procurement/sourcing policies within the business.

COMPETENCY MUST HAVES:

• Learning Curve – Capability to quickly take on board and disseminate new data/info around operational business needs and quickly develop into a sourcing plan of action.
• Attention to Detail – Able to work in a fast-paced environment, without making unchecked errors across a wide range of cost initiative projects at the same time.
• Managing Priorities – Ability to commit and deliver against deadlines agreed, where there will be multiple priorities to consider and manage.
• Project Management – Must be conversant with both sourcing tenders/RFP processes as well as VAVE project management with suppliers. Ability to manage both external and internal stakeholders to deliver a project on time, with significant associated savings.
• Commercial acumen – Must have strong negotiation skills with clear demonstrable consistent cost saving achievements both from tendering and negotiation, as well as project managing value engineering cost initiatives.
• Autonomy – Must be able to take responsibility for own resource time, prioritising highest value/ROI projects and…