Category Manager

Your New Salary: £193 p/day PAYE or £280p/day Umbrella (inside IR35)* equivalent of £50K pa

Location: Central London

Duration: Short term temporary assignment until 11/04/2025 (potential extension)

Working hours: 40 hours per week, Monday - Friday, fully remote or hybrid

Who You'll Be Working for: World class luxury fashion brand.

Category Manager - T&E Procurement - What You'll be Doing:

Supporting procurement categories for colleague-facing services owned and managed by Procurement, including travel (taxis, air travel, hotels) and expenses.

Category Manager - T&E Procurement - Responsibilities:

• Creating sustainable value in upstream and downstream activities across all spend categories, through category strategies and plans, sourcing and the creation of excellent contracts, some global, regional and some single-market.
• Ongoing Category Management. Ensure that Supplier contracts are being delivered in line with the agreed contract, to the level of performance and quality, or that non-compliance or risk of non-compliance is escalated at the earliest moment to key teams.
• Research new suppliers, challenge the incumbent suppliers for innovation and monitor existing relationships.
• Develop category strategies and plans and effective communication across the business.
• Follow market trends to enable insight through market research, benchmarking, supplier knowledge and networking.
• Liaise closely with Business Partners and Finance to deliver the services at the best commercial value and improve processes, specifications and commercial relationships.
• Work with the wider company's Business Services Procurement function to ensure that value is driven from all commercial contracts setting targets for improvements.
• Understand overall acquisition costs and develop appropriate cost models for decision making and performance reporting.
• Ensure CSR compliance through the supply chain.
• Drive supplier competition, development and rationalisation as appropriate.
• Develop supplier and supply market expertise to inform category strategies.
• Work with internal customers to ensure category projects are delivered on time and within budget.
• Provide support to Finance teams with managing their Opex budgets.
• Ensure the management of this category fits within the wider procurement agenda and ensure this aligns with internal stakeholder requirements & goals Project delivery.
• Negotiate with suppliers to deliver significant measurable and sustainable annual savings in both budgets and cost avoidance.
• Be responsible for the creation of RFI/RFPs through to conclusion in line with the relevant Policies Lead and develop breakthrough business projects in category using advanced category management/strategic sourcing tools.
• Ensure that the supply and suppliers are suitable for commercial use through a validation process.
• Ensure that new vendors are reviewed from a financial stability and approved for SAP on a timely basis.
• Deliver specific projects as required Improvement delivery.
• Drive the identification of supplier performance improvements and close liaison with stakeholder groups to implement.
• Continually review savings opportunities and areas for efficiencies Build strong relationships - internal and external.

Category Manager - T&E Procurement - The Skills You'll Need to Succeed:

• Experience in relevant Category Relevant within Luxury Retail is desirable
• Ability to demonstrate category knowledge and speak with subject matter experts internally and externally
• Good knowledge of procurement concepts, processes and techniques including commercial contracts negotiation skills and relationship management
• Experience implementing sourcing methodologies for category management
• Strong negotiation skills to achieve best TCO
• Strong Travel Procurement experience including contract negotiations
• Demonstrated leadership talent with ability to motivate all levels of stakeholders
• Proficiency with Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• Well-developed stakeholder management skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills with an ability to inspire trust and confidence
• Superior ability to communicate both orally and in writing
• Ability to make decisions and solve problems while working under pressure
• Ability to develop strategic project and category plans

*Please note this Umbrella rate is the amount payable to the Umbrella company - this does not represent what you will actually receive from the Umbrella company.

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We would be grateful if you could send your CV as a Word document. If your application is successful, you will be contacted within 7 days. We regret that due to the high volume of applications we receive we cannot provide feedback on individual CVs. Please note that we can only consider candidates who are eligible to work in the UK and are able to provide relevant supporting documentation.

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