Category Manager

Location: St. Louis

About Ameren Services (B&CS)
Ameren Services provides administrative support and services to Ameren Corporation and its operating companies, subsidiaries and affiliates. Ameren Services includes a wide range of skill sets and roles, from finance and legal experts to digital and cyber specialists, plus those charged with ensuring environmental compliance and operational safety. Together, we help execute a strategy that enables Ameren to deliver superior long-term value to customers, shareholders and the environment.

Our benefits include:

Medical coverage on date of hire
100% employer paid cash balance pension plan
401(k) with company match fully vested on date of hire Minimum of 15 days paid vacation and 12 paid holidays

Paid parental leave and family caregiver leave

Visit our Benefits & Perks Page for more information on benefits provided to regular full-time employees.

About The Position The Category Manager is responsible for the development and implementation of Ameren-wide sourcing strategies for assigned categories of approximate $2.5 Billion of annual sourceable spend to leverage the supply base, ensure continuity of supply, maximize cost savings/value realization, and support the achievement of Ameren's business strategy in a proactive manner by truly partnering with the business stakeholders as well as the vendors.

Key responsibilities include:

Represent the Procurement organization to the broader Ameren businesses and implement strategies to strategically source related spend

Utilize the sourcing process to develop, implement and manage proposal activities; lead negotiation and completion of contracts with suppliers to maximize benefits across Ameren.

Analyze and leverage spend across all Ameren business segments. Segment spend based on category and work with stakeholders to define current and future business needs.

Ensure assigned category(ies) are procured in a manner which mitigates risk and provides the highest overall total value to Ameren through:

Supplier assessments and rationalization

Diverse spend

Negotiation strategy and execution to drive lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Make vs. buy analyses

Should cost models

Cycle time improvements

Security and continuity of reliable supply

Continuous improvement

Internal Stakeholder Management:

Build and maintain strong relationships with team members in Ameren's sourcing organization

Develop and maintain a strong network and foster collaboration with key internal stakeholders and suppliers to gain input into demand planning and forecasting, assist in strategy development, advocate the use of the negotiated contracts and influence strategy implementation.

Balance commercial and contractual complexities with stakeholders, through influencing change (without authority), driving enterprise consistency and delivering value with internal clients and external stakeholders, e.g. manage stakeholder expectations, operational cultures and individual business requirement, establish and adjust priorities, manage supplier dispute resolution process

Leads cross-functional teams consisting of technical SMEs, operations SCM personnel, Legal and other stakeholders, as required, in the development and implementation of sourcing strategies

Market Intelligence (MI) & Cost Modelling:maintain company-wide demand profiles and external supply and demand MI information;interpret MI to drive category strategies and provide direction to stakeholders (i.e. raising changes in market conditions which could have an impact to cost or schedule);understand the marketplace for assigned category(ies), including industry structure and new and non-traditional suppliers;build cost models, identifying value and cost drivers, to drive for better understanding of costs and results during supplier negotiations.

Development and implementation of category strategies:for optimizing and leveraging category management processes, policies and tools with the potential for significant corporate financial impact.for long-term strategy development and implementation of a complex categories within the materials and/or equipment portfolio, to achieve lower total cost of ownership and higher value for…