Procurement Manager - Supply Chain

Established in 1981 with a single store in the Northwest of England, the JD Group is a leading omni-channel retailer of Sports Fashion, Outdoors and Gyms with our colleagues working in stores across several retail fascias in many markets around the world.

JD Sports Fashion Plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1996 and has been a FTSE100 publicly quoted company since 2019 and continues to grow in the UK and internationally.

We want to be the leading global omnichannel retailer in the sports and outdoor industry. To be a part of this successful company and help us to achieve this you will have the desire to ingrain our strategic goals of being a people-led, innovative and customer-focused organisation which provides operational excellence whilst identifying new areas of growth as part of our day to day objectives.

Sourcing Manager – Supply Chain

Responsible to : Group Head of Strategic Sourcing

Department: Finance

Location: JD Sports Fashion plc, Bury Head Office

Group Overview: Established in 1981 with a single store in the North-West of England, JD Sports Fashion plc is a leading global omnichannel retailer of sports fashion and outdoor brands. JD is an industry-leading retail business which combines the best of physical and digital retail to give a compelling consumer proposition, enabling its customers to shop seamlessly across all channels. The Group now has over 4,500 stores across 36 countries with a strong presence in the UK, Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, and is proud of the fact that it always provides its customers with the latest products from the very best brands.

Role Background: The Sourcing Manager will support the Supply Chain lead with commercial support including risk management, supplier identification, planning and re-tenders across the Supply Chain category ensuring commercial clauses are negotiated within agreements are correct. The ideal candidate should have 2+ years’ experience within a Supply Chain category role alongside an understanding of carrier and freight agreements and how to effectively manage and negotiate them.

In this role, the selected candidate will work on improving margin, sales, and operations to align with our sourcing strategy. This responsibility will primarily involve managing expenditures from our UK and European businesses, with potential expansion to global opportunities where leverage opportunities exist.

The selected candidate is expected to bring relevant experience and skills to enhance sourcing processes, commercial terms, supplier performance, and innovation alongside experienced divisional colleagues.

All expenditure falls under the scope within Supply Chain including customer logistics, warehouse and automation totalling £490m for UK and EU alone. In this role, you will contribute to developing an effective procurement strategy for Supply Chain and the relevant categories. Additionally, you will perform tasks such as conducting RFPs, negotiating commercial agreements, and supporting ongoing vendor management to achieve continuous savings, performance, and process improvements.

Responsibilities: This is an exciting opportunity to help support and deliver the Procurement strategy. We are looking for an individual with a passion and enthusiasm for Sourcing. Acting as a commercial lead for sourcing and commercial activities, the successful candidate(s) shall ensure that negotiation and contract work is undertaken in accordance with Group and sector best practice, including but not limited to:

• Close engagement with colleagues on matters including revenue/capex budgets, embedding savings, and supporting business cases for new projects and/or investments.
• Executing strategies to extract savings and manage demand-side consumption to lower the company’s Total Cost of Ownership for external spend as it relates to the specified category.
• Building and maintaining productive relationships with stakeholders within the company.
• To advise and influence decision making, contribute to policy development and take responsibility for operational effectiveness. Collaborate closely with other functions/ business divisions.
• Influence or convince stakeholders to achieve outcomes.
• Identifies situations in advance where procurement involvement can increase.
• Plans and manages company’s overall sourcing strategy considering the global footprint to ensure all potential opportunities are leveraged.
• Creates strategic sourcing plans for smooth functioning of the department.
• Conducts market research, as well as creating cost estimates and forecasts.
• Transparent and detailed presentation of proposed contract awards, sourcing changes and recommendations.
• Utilising Group Finance platforms and templates for Purchase Orders, tenders and eAuctions to ensure financial and operational transparency.
• Regular engagement with the Group Legal team to minimise risk and maximise commercial leverage via agreements with clearly defined service levels, KPIs and appropriate remedies for non-performance.
• Engage acquisition business contacts to ensure rapid-delivery of financial benefits arising from wider JD-Group commercial leverage.
• Work with the Group Sustainability team to ensure sourcing approach to contribute to Group ESG goals such as: i) Climate Change, ii) Sustainable Sourcing and iii) Recycling and the Circular Economy.
• Act as a trusted adviser and subject matter expert leading procurement projects across all types of services.
• Support the Business in defining process and policy and holding team members to account.
• Partner with the relevant teams to formulate complex service requirements and scope, identify vendors, manage the end-to-end RFP process, provide a supplier evaluation framework, and make recommendations on vendor selection.

Key Relationships:

• Supply Chain, Legal, Finance, Profit & Asset Protection, People Services, Buying and Merchandising, Transformation, Digital, Technology and Marketing.
• UK and International colleagues and external suppliers (noting that travel may be a requirement when necessary).

Skills/Experience/Knowledge required:

• Commercial experience within fast-paced omni-channel retail and/or relevant commodity/services experience with the ability to manage a high level of ambiguity or change.
• Confidence to own problems and issues, propose solutions and ensure deadlines and/or business goals are achieved.
• A self- starter who has the initiative and confidence to seek out opportunities to deliver value.
• Influence – engage and drive change, owning and resolving issues and challenges.
• Strong engagement and communication skills and experience of successfully delivering process improvements and efficiencies.
• Attention to detail – focused and confident with a breadth of experience in related categories.
• Driven by data and analytics. You bring strong analytical skills with a passion for using data to develop innovative, effective solutions to address business needs, initiate opportunities and deliver margin improvement.
• A strong negotiator with the ability to influence using excellent oral and written communication and presentation skills.
• A builder of strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• Organised and deadline-driven, bringing strong project management and analytical skills.
• Autonomous with high level of drive and energy.
• Strategic: you recognise and resolve situations that are ambiguous or challenging and use logic to identify alternatives, evaluate, and present solutions while thinking about contingency plans.
• Confidence to challenge the business where needed.

The Successful Applicant

• Experience within the category of Supply Chain within Procurement for 2+ years
• Strong negotiation and leadership skills.
• Proficiency in MS Office software and computer systems.
• Excellent decision-making and strategic thinking abilities.
• A proven track record in building complex relationships.

We know our colleagues work tirelessly to make JD Sports the success it is today and in turn, we offer them some amazing benefits including staff Discount On JD Group and other brands within the organisation and personal development opportunities to learn and develop at work. #J-18808-Ljbffr