About the position
Suitably qualified and experienced Strategic Category Manager required to lead the procurement strategy by driving cost optimization and fostering excellent supplier relationships, ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory frameworks in order to deliver commercial value and operational excellence in line with the overall business strategy. The role focuses on optimizing costs, improving quality, and ensuring efficient supply processes by developing category-specific sourcing strategies and managing supplier relationships to secure the best value for the organisation.
Reporting to the Group Procurement Manager, this is a Durban-based role.
Responsibilities:
- Lead and own all aspects of strategic sourcing and category management, including stakeholder management, sourcing, contract negotiations, category strategy, spend analysis/market intelligence, and supplier management across all Marketing categories
- Develop, document, and execute category strategies in collaboration with stakeholders to achieve functional and organizational objectives
- Conduct deep dive analysis of spend and market data, and conduct benchmarking to understand key drivers, identify top opportunities, and formulate strategies and negotiation plans that deliver value
- Deliver key category performance indicators including savings, supplier rationalization, risk management, spend under agreement, joint innovation, and supplier performance
- Craft negotiation strategies and lead the negotiation of complex enterprise agreements in collaboration with business stakeholders, Legal, Risk Management, Data Privacy, Information Security, and external suppliers/partners
- Deliver significant year over year cost savings
- Develop and manage stakeholder relationships and influence stakeholders to align with industry best practices in support of applicable Group strategies
- Ensure all procurement activities comply with relevant policies, governance frameworks, and legal requirements
- Conduct regular reviews and audits to ensure compliance with policies and procedures; and identify opportunities for continuous improvement
- Drive consistent best practice across the business through unified reporting, templates, processes and internal controls
- Assess potential risk exposure (supply, financial, reputation) and establish contingency plans to mitigate impact to the business
Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Business Administration or Information Technology
- Procurement or Supply Chain certification preferred
- At least 8-10 years of strategic sourcing experience
- A minimum of 5 years' experience in a procurement function developing category plans and sourcing in Information Technology and Tech Services
- Understanding of IT hardware, software, network infrastructure, cloud technologies, services and industry standards
- Proven track record leading large, complex negotiations with strategic suppliers across indirect spend categories, with the ability to lead cross functional negotiation teams and ensure alignment at all levels
- Proven contracting expertise; the ability to dig deep into contract details, collaborate with internal teams to understand business requirements, draft contractual terms, formulate strategy, and execute contract negotiations to achieve best possible outcomes while maintaining successful business relationships
- Ability to identify potential risks and liabilities in contracts as they relate to policies and business objectives and proactively develop solutions on contractual terms in collaboration with Legal, Risk, Data Privacy, Information Security, and business stakeholders
- Experience drafting, editing, and negotiating all agreement types, including Master Agreements, SOWs, Addenda, Change Orders, Sales Orders, and Technology agreements (SaaS, End User License, Subscription, Cloud Services, Managed Services, Support Agreements, etc.)
Desired Skills:
- Strategic sourcing
- IT service industry standards
- Support agreements
- Indirect procurement
- Cost optimisation
- Category specific sourcing
Desired Qualification Level:
