Head of Purchasing

Recruiter: Jonathan Lee Recruitment
Location: Staffordshire
Salary: Market related
Application date: 17th Feb 2025

Join an iconic British manufacturing powerhouse at a pivotal moment in their journey of innovation and growth! Reporting directly to the senior leadership team, you’ll be at the forefront of driving transformative procurement changes across global category management. With a focus on inspiring and empowering purchasing teams, you’ll craft and execute a visionary global category management strategy that sets new industry standards.

This role is all about driving a high-impact category management program across the group, ensuring the seamless execution of business-wide strategies that deliver cost-effective solutions and maximize commercial value. You’ll be at the forefront of securing products at the lowest total cost while aligning strategies with overarching business objectives.

Success in this role means creating a dynamic business environment where teams thrive, strategies are executed efficiently, and operational excellence is achieved. Building strong relationships with Engineering and Operational leaders will be key to driving the transformative changes needed to embed the category strategy framework.

Key Performance Areas:

1. Strategy Development & Integration
   • Spearhead the global roll-out of a standardised category strategy program.
   • Ensure seamless integration into all facets of the business to maximize impact.
2. Relationship & Business Integration
   • Showcase the business value of category management to stakeholders.
   • Foster strong, long-term relationships that enhance capabilities and performance.
3. People Leadership
   • Lead and develop a high-performing category team with a strong cross-functional mindset.
4. Business Management & Coordination
   • Drive cross-functional category knowledge to capitalize on every opportunity.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Strategic Development & Integration
   • Identify and quantify opportunities to enhance category strategy and sourcing approaches.
   • Collaborate with stakeholders to prioritize key performance areas.
   • Define and implement best practices to elevate category management across the business.
   • Develop a clear vision and objectives under the direction of the Purchasing and Supply Chain Director.
   • Create and maintain infrastructure, templates, and frameworks for effective category management.
   • Monitor and track strategic progress, adapting to evolving business needs.
   • Act as a catalyst for senior leadership buy-in and resource allocation.
2. Relationship & Business Integration
   • Champion the category management vision and ensure alignment with business goals.
   • Define and communicate the tangible benefits of category projects.
   • Collaborate with key stakeholders to set and track budgets, targets, and strategic actions.
   • Strengthen relationships with Engineering and Operations to ensure alignment with business needs.
   • Drive awareness of supplier expectations and secure senior-level support for key initiatives.
   • Build credibility by delivering on commitments and swiftly resolving challenges.
3. People Leadership
   • Cultivate strong relationships to drive engagement and buy-in across the business.
   • Inspire and motivate the category team to achieve high performance.
   • Provide strategic and commercial leadership in category development.
   • Attract, develop, and retain top-tier talent.
   • Conduct performance reviews and address development needs.
   • Establish a clear vision and support the team through training and succession planning.
4. Business Management & Coordination
   • Ensure business intelligence systems provide valuable insights for decision-making.
   • Implement robust processes and governance frameworks for category management.
   • Facilitate collaboration between category management and other supply chain components.
   • Deliver accurate and timely reporting on budgets, market analysis, and resource planning.
   • Set internal performance targets and establish supplier performance measurement criteria.

This executive role offers the opportunity to make a real, tangible impact by driving strategic initiatives, fostering relationships, and leading a high-performing team to deliver exceptional business results. Ideally, you will already be responsible for major category spend across worldwide sites. You will have gravitas, strong commercial acumen, and exceptional people and relationship management skills. We are keen to talk to procurement professionals who are currently working for global manufacturing and engineering businesses.

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