Procurement Manager - Interiors

Reporting to the Head of Department (HoD) Commodity Procurement, the Commodity Manager will have responsibility for the successful development and deployment of Category Strategies for their team’s commodity areas. With a team of buyers and senior buyers reporting to them, the Commodity Manager will have strategic responsibility for multi-million £’s of direct material spend per annum with McLaren’s suppliers and will drive best in class strategies across the whole team (with an annual spend of over.£80m).

The Commodity Manager will have responsibility for leading and mentoring their team members and, utilising their experience, demonstrating ‘what good looks like’ for Category Strategies and Supplier Relationship Management. They will be a role model within Procurement in terms of Procurement professionalism and the right behaviours.

They will set the strategic direction of future supplier sourcing for McLaren vehicles for the commodities & suppliers within their commodity area and effectively direct their supplier relationships, in order to ensure access to the best technology at the lowest achievable ‘total cost’, whilst ensuring at all times that any possible risk to McLaren is minimised.

The Commodity Manager is accountable for the following key activities:

• Lead and mentor their team in a manner that develops their people, achieves the most from them and delivers on their key objectives, including assisting them with the development of best in class Category Strategies;
• In developing Category Strategies, the Commodity Manager shall ensure close cooperation with Engineering to incorporate Technology Roadmaps and shall demonstrate expertise regarding their suppliers’ and the wider industry’s current and future technological advances;
• Deliver the creation and subsequent updating of Category Strategies, fully aligned with Technology Roadmaps, to ensure McLaren has clarity regarding the best possible selection of suppliers to meet our future product plans, technology, sourcing and cost requirements;
• Fully utilise the strategic understanding of their supplier base to deliver the best possible Total Cost for McLaren. This includes negotiating new programme sourcing, driving continuous cost reduction through process improvement & new technologies, as well as delivering appropriate low cost sourcing strategies, whilst protecting McLaren from risk;
• Be a role model for other team members, such that they aspire to develop into the Commodity Manager position in the future, and so that their professional behaviours are replicated by other team members (i.e. ‘show what good looks like’);
• Be a subject matter expert regarding the suppliers, competitors and industry landscape within their commodity area, fully conversant with the manufacturing processes, cost drivers and current, as well as future, technology;
• Demonstrate that Procurement is a key business partner that brings real added value when interacting with other departments, so that other functions want to engage Procurement’s expertise;
• Prepare and deliver, with the HoD, the annual plans for cost reduction (including minimising any supplier claims) for their Commodity area, to ensure the committed improvements in direct material cost are delivered in line with the business plan. Work collaboratively with the Vehicle Line and Engineering Functional Leadership teams to ensure their teams support and deliver on their cost down objectives too;
• Understanding and interrogating supplier Quotation Analysis Forms (QAF’s), in order to deliver the best possible total cost for McLaren;
• Own the relationships with our key suppliers, including leading the Supplier Relationship Management process, to ensure McLaren is a ‘customer of choice’ and treated as such by its suppliers;
• Demonstrate best practice in the application of Supplier Relationship Management and mentor other team members so they achieve the same standard;
• Build strong relationships with their opposite numbers(s) within Engineering to ensure robust cross functional cooperation, in order to deliver aligned strategies and ‘one voice’ to the McLaren supplier base, in turn delivering the best cost…