Procurement Category Manager

Job Introduction

Selfridges has always been much more than a shop. We’re a social space where everyone is welcome and feels a sense of belonging, a creative playground where culture and commerce collide, and an experimental hub where you can discover the most innovative and sustainable ideas in retail. We’re here to help make the world brighter. And you can be an important part of this. We’ll talk more about the role below, but before we get to that, let’s share with you the good stuff…  

Rewards and benefits 

Life at Selfridges is dynamic, exciting, and always evolving. As well as working with some of the most cutting-edge, iconic and boundary-pushing brands, designers and creatives, we also offer our team members opportunities to help make a positive difference through our network of communities, both within and outside Selfridges. Here are just a few of our rewards and benefits that help make our team experience that bit more extraordinary. 

• Flexible working options to benefit you, your family and your wellbeing that can include part-time, flexi-time, job sharing or hybrid working

• Generous annual leave that increases with length of service 

• Up to five paid volunteering days – from beach cleans to co-ordinating food and clothing donations 

• Family leave that suits your set up including Maternity, Paternity, Adoption, Surrogacy and Shared Parental leave policies 

• Defined pension contribution scheme  

• Generous bonus and/or commission scheme  

• Enviable team member discount including sale previews and double discount days 

• Exclusive local discounts on a range of restaurants, bars, beauticians and entertainment 

• Subsidised gym memberships  

• Annual travel pass and cycle-to-work schemes  

• A sustainable car salary sacrifice scheme 

• Several internal communities to get involved in from our Diversity Board and Green Warriors who are leading the charge on D,E&I and sustainability, to the Wellbeings who are always thinking of new ways to champion healthy minds, bodies and routines for our team members 

• Workplace Options, our confidential team member assistance programme for when life gets tricky or you need a little guidance 

• Access to a wide range of training programmes to help your career development 

Read on to find out how you can play your part in Reinventing Retail… 

Role Responsibility

Selfridges requires a highly experienced Procurement and Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) professional with a proven track record in the advertised Category and a deep understanding of best practice processes in Procurement and Supplier Relationship Management to manage its Retail Products & Services category.

The Procurement Category Manager will develop and maintain strong relationships with the business to become the single point of contact on all commercial and supplier performance matters for the category.

The Procurement Category Manager will develop sound commercial category plans (strategic, tactical, and including SRM) to deliver real value to the business along with clear supplier performance management via a formal Supplier Relationship Management process for the category. The Procurement Category Manager will identify and deliver real/demonstrable cost savings, enhanced service, and  mitigated risk.

The Procurement Category Manager will develop and maintain a right sized, high performing, professional procurement team for the category to meet the business requirements.

The Procurement Category manager will also be required to develop and deliver RFx’s, Benchmarking, and formal Supplier Relationship/performance management activities as required.

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Role Responsibilities

• Design, Develop and implement the Procurement strategy for the Retail Products & Services category to meet business requirements, this must align with the overall Procurement Strategy to facilitate  Procurement Centre of Excellence (CoE) establishing a business partnership model across the functions to agree sourcing strategies, to help transform Procurement across all areas of GNFR
• Creation and delivery of Procurement strategies and targets for the Retail Products & Services Category
• To lead the development and implementation of procurement policies and system strategies conducting tendering, contract management, spend analytics and supplier performance management for the category also supporting the wider Selfridges Procurement function.
• Responsible for structured engagement with all required Selfridges functions to ensure that all contracts have suitable cover and protection, meet the requirements of the business and deliver expected value
• Implementation and improvement of best practice processes supporting the wider Selfridges Procurement function
• Identification and realisation and reporting of cost-saving and waste-reduction opportunities, including managing demand to identify cost actions
• Managing the Retail Products & Services category Procurement category team to deliver an effective service to the business

• Supporting the Head of Selfridges Procurement to ensure companywide purchasing requirements and contract management solutions for Retail Products & Services are managed in a clear concise manner, which demonstrate the financial and operational benefits for the business
• Conduct/support senior level negotiations and implement appropriate tactics to achieve a favourable outcome
• Commission, execute and deliver, high level procurement projects to agreed timelines and objectives
• Responsible for conducting and leading regular reviews of the spend categories through benchmarking, rationalisation and aggregation opportunities
• To provide procurement category advice for Selfridges as may be required
• Define and Implement the Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) strategy for the category
• Identify the relevant business leads and agree appropriate SRM supplier segmentation for the category
• Work with the business owners in the category to define and agree appropriate supplier performance measures in line with the defined SRM process
• Agree and implement appropriate meeting schedules for Selfridges and the Suppliers  

Customer Interaction

• Identify, develop and expand key relationships with key stakeholders to meet business needs
• Agree a formal engagement plan with key stakeholders to ensure that procurement is at the heart of the business decision making process
• Provide a point of escalation for key contacts to ensure that the category is meeting the timelines and targets agreed with the business 
• Provide a single point of contact for customers on all category related matters becoming the trusted advisor for the category
• Training and educating customers on the procurement process and policy to increase and maintain adoption

Team Support

• Responsible for creating and leading a high performing category team, to ensure delivery of effective service across the whole business
• Effectively manage the category team’s workload to deliver against deadlines
• Encouraging and motivate team members to 'work as one' on procurement activity, to deliver a seamless service to internal customers
• Ensuring adherence of departmental and company procurement procedures and policies
• Effectively manage the relationship with the Finance team on budgets, cost saving, consumption and spend reduction targets/reports
• Ensure that Category team expertise is created/trained and maintained

The Ideal Candidate

Experience

• Proven track record of delivery in Procurement Category management in the Retail Products & Services category in retail or a similar fast paced service environment. experience to cover all aspects of Retail Products & Services
• Proven track record of Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)
• Strong stakeholder management
• Experienced people manager
• Strong influencer
• Effective supplier performance manager
• Senior level negotiator of contracts with program and project management experience
• Proven success of purchasing for internal customers

Technical Skills

• Excellent negotiator
• Deep understanding of Procurement category management and Supplier Relationship Management best practice preferably within Retail Products & Services
• Essential deep knowledge of Microsoft MS Excel and other MS Office applications (i.e. Word, PowerPoint)
• Creating and managing complex tender and benchmarking exercises
• Able to create appropriate commercial models to suit requirements in the Retail Products & Services category
• Experienced in drafting and interpretation of contracts and clauses, in depth understanding of Contracts with deep Retail Products & Services category specific knowledge
• High level negotiations and category/Supplier Relationship Management
• Degree level education or CIPS an advantage

Personal Attributes/ Behavioural Skills

• Strong leadership abilities to effectively influence and manage internal and external senior leaders
• Excellent negotiation skills
• Excellent communication, reporting and interpersonal skills
• Analytical skills
• Planning and organising skills
• Customer service skills
• Coaching and influencing
• Highly team oriented
• Problem solving and an ability to focus on multiple projects
• Numerate

About the Company

Everyone is welcome 

Selfridges is a place where we want everyone to feel a sense of belonging. We embrace every self and are committed to cultivating a diverse and inclusive working culture. We are leading with purpose to not only increase the visibility and recognition of under-represented talent within our organisation, but the wider industry too. Here at Selfridges, everyone is welcome – irrespective of race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, age or disability, we stand by equal opportunities for all.   

Our awards cabinet  

We’re not ones to brag, but since you asked...Selfridges has won the award for The World’s Best Department Store an unprecedented four times at the IGDS awards, with an additional award for the Best Sustainability Campaign. We were also recognised as a ‘Best 25 Big Company to Work For 2020’ as awarded by The Sunday Times. 

Selfridges