Manager, Group Procurement

As a Manager Sourcing Delivery for Liberty Blume Procurement Solutions, your primary responsibility will be to deliver sourcing activities for our customers, which ranges from driving sourcing processes (RFI, RFP, RFQ) to renegotiation of existing contracts and contracting. You are leading sourcing activities at one of our LBPS customers. Our ambition is to – over time – have you involved with different customers. The duration at one customer varies from 12 to 24 months. If needed you might be deployed ad hoc on another customer.

As the Procurement categories LBPS gets involved in varies per customer, this creates a dynamic environment for the Sourcing Manager as you can get involved in wide variety of Procurement categories. A Manager Sourcing Delivery could be linked to a specific department at the customer (e.g. Technology, IT, Marketing, Contact Center) for a period of time or the remit could be more fluid and cut across different customer departments simultaneously.

As Manager Sourcing Delivery you will work closely together with the Sourcing Strategy team. During Sourcing Strategy development this role will provide customer specific input, while during the Delivery stage of the process the Manager Sourcing Delivery will keep the Sourcing Strategy lead informed and align where needed on the negotiation strategy and use their category/supplier insights to increase the result.

LBPS often sets up cross functional teams with representatives from various LBPS teams to address for example sales opportunities or supplier innovation. These are phenomenal opportunity for the Manager Sourcing Delivery to get broader (Procurement) experiences.

As a Manager Sourcing Delivery it is important to deliver your work with high quality, in an efficient matter, on time, while achieving the agreed annual savings targets. This role requires a can-do mentality, strong communication (both written and verbal), excellent interpersonal & stakeholder management, strong negotiation skills and ability to think out of the box as well as the ability to embedded emerging technology in your day-to-day activities.

The ideal candidate will be hard-working, motivated, open for working in fast paced, demanding environment, across different customers and countries. Prior experience in procurement is valued.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Sourcing delivery: Contribute to Category Strategy development and have a close collaboration with the LBPS Category Intelligence team for the project/supplier that you are involved in. Translate this Sourcing Strategy into a Sourcing Strategy implementation plan. Do you go for competitive process or is direct renegotiation more suitable?

Tendering & Supplier selection:

• Finetune requirements with the internal customers and prepare the Request for Information/Request/Quotation documents in our online Sourcing tool.
• Lead the set-out tendering process ensuring an equal playing field for all suppliers involved amongst others by preparing an objective evaluation framework.
• Analyse the supplier responses from a commercial Total Cost of Ownership perspective and together with the internal customer from a business/technical perspective.
• Prepare the negotiation strategy to optimize the results and conduct the negotiation round(s). Where possible leverage technology to speed-up this process and/or enhance the result.
• Finally drive the supplier selection process.
• You are the lead and spider in the web of this process and the person who engages with all involved (e.g. internal customer, LBPS Category Intelligence team, legal, finance) to achieve the best result possible and chip in to the critical metrics (e.g. procurement benefits/savings target, customer happiness).

Contracting: Bring together the outcome of your tendering process or renegotiations with existing supplier in an agreement. This can vary from putting a Framework agreement in place for new suppliers or Statement of Work for existing suppliers. Drive the contract approval process in our Contract management system.

Procurement value recognition: Calculate the Procurement value delivered on your sourcing activities and supervise the result (e.g. price reduction, costs avoidance, TCO improvement) in line with applicable savings rules in the LPS system. Ensure all involved approve and sign-off the Procurement value achieved.

Stakeholder management: Procurement work is people business, therefore you are encouraged to build a good relationship with internal customer to ensure a smooth sourcing process and optimize your results. You will also collaborate with colleagues the finance, legal, privacy, security and others. You are also encouraged to deploy strong stakeholder management on the suppliers involved in your activities.

Contract In-life management: Support internal customers when and where needed when contract is life by supporting formal change requests or other changes with commercial implications. Engage in case of disputes (e.g. performance, breach, commercials). Continuously monitor contract renewal roadmap in order to allow amble time for sourcing activities to take place. Based on market intelligence identify and raise in-life savings opportunities and align with Category Intelligence team on possibilities.

KNOWLEDGE & EXPERIENCE

PREFERRED EDUCATION/ QUALIFICATIONS

• Academic background: preferably in business administration, or finance / procurement or equivalent experience
• Validated experience in procurement/ purchasing or finance
• Preferably experience in an international / multi-country / service environment
• Demonstrated experience of working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment, with a strong focus on customer service

SKILLS & ABILITIES

• Excellent communication and networking skills, relates effectively to people at all levels of the organization and with the supply base.
• Ability to deal well with ambiguity and excellent change management skills to drive improvement
• Can-do mentality, pragmatic, drives for excellent results.
• Sourcing experience (e.g. competitive bidding processes, running effective tendering processes, Negotiation Preparation, Negotiation Execution, Supplier Screening and Selection, Total Cost of Ownership Analysis) is valued
• Confident negotiator
• Comfortable with figures and in collecting, analyzing and interpreting data
• Global and Cultural Alertness
• Proficiency in using procurement technology tools and systems, particularly supplier collaboration tools.
• Sophisticated skills in MS Office (Excel / PowerPoint).
• Proficient (oral & written) in English

What's in it for you?

• Competitive salary + Bonus **where applicable**
• 25 days annual leave with the option to purchase 5 more
• Access to wellbeing and mental health benefits such as the Calm app, personal medical, critical illness cover and dental insurance
• Matched pension contribution up to 10%
• Access to our car benefit scheme
• Access to our online learning platform to continue to develop and grow your career with us
• The chance to join an innovative, fast-paced and passionate team

Who we are:

Liberty Blume, a Liberty Global company, is a rapidly growing business services provider, specialising in tech-enabled back-office solutions. Our mission is to deliver efficiency, scale and value to our customers through Business, Procurement and Financial Solutions. If you're curious, customer centric and enjoy being one step ahead, join us on our scale up journey and unlock your freedom to grow!

Liberty Global is an equal opportunity employer, committed to an inclusive environment and accommodating all candidates. We're eager to hear from you, no matter your background.