Category Specialist

Job Title:
Category Specialist

Location:
Any of our HUBS (Cumbernauld, Middlebrook, Milton Keynes, London)

Contract and working pattern: 37.5 hours per week

Are you ready to Be Your Best Barr None?

Lets Grow!!!

We are all about Being Your Best Barr None and having a career with real Moments that Matter!

Employing around 850 people across the UK, we are proud to be a responsible business that takes care of our people, values diversity, gives something back to our communities and works to minimise our environmental impact.

For 150 years AG Barr has been building great brands and is home to some of the nations favourite flavours.

At our core is IRN-BRU, launched in 1901 and still going strong today, the vibrant RUBICON fruit based brand, Boost making every moment better with a caffeine kick, hydration hit or tasty treat, and FUNKIN where real fruit means authentic taste.

We also have a number of exciting owned brands within our portfolio including MOMA, which crafts quality oats into great tasting oat drinks and porridges.

There's never been a better time to join us!

A new opportunity has become available in the area of outsourced procurement supporting the end-to-end strategic sourcing process and manage the commercial health of specific spend categories.

• Strategic Sourcing Support:
  Lead the execution of RFPs (Request for Proposal) and RFQs (Request for Quote). This includes market research, vendor pre-qualification, analyzing complex bid submissions and the creation and maintenance of assigned category strategies.
• Negotiation:
  You are able to lead tactical negotiations to ensure the best financial value is delivered for the business balanced with non financial requirements.
• Spend Analytics:
  Use data to identify "Savings Levers." You will analyze spend patterns to spot opportunities for consolidation or specification improvement and ensure the savings funnel is continuously filled with new ideas.
• Supplier Performance Management (SRM):
  Manage delegated categories of our supplier base. You will track KPIs to ensure they meet contractual obligations and ensure through regular suppliers meetings any non conformance is addressed .
• Contract Lifecycle Management:
  Act as the custodian of the category’s contracts. You’ll ensure that all renewals are planned at least 6 months in advance and the category manager is fully aware of the renewal plan. Including monthly PPV delivery, proactively managing risk registers and ensuring all other reporting requirements are met.
• Market Intelligence:
  Stay abreast of external market factors (inflation, raw material indices, or labor shifts) that might impact the cost of your categories and ensure learnings are built into Category strategies
• Stakeholder Influence:
  Act as a consultant to internal departments. You help them define what they need versus what they want to ensure the business doesn't overspend on unnecessary specifications.

• Experience in Procurement, ideally within a FMCG environment.
• Commercial Curiosity:
  An ability to look at an invoice and ask, "Why are we paying this, and is there a better way to buy it?"
• Technical
  
  Skills:
  
  Advanced Excel is a must (VLOOKUPs, Pivot Tables) to clean "messy" spend data into a clear story. AI prompting to ensure AI is deployed to improve data interrogation and automate repetitive tasks. Ability to quickly create compelling presentations for internal and external purposes.
• Negotiation:
  Comfortable with "principled negotiation"—focusing on value and long-term partnership rather than just the lowest price.
• Project Management:
  Ability to manage multiple sourcing projects simultaneously without missing contract expiry deadlines. Represent…