Director Category Sourcing

You are a business partner to category leadership and understand the commercial strategy for the business. You will develop and align a supply strategy for your category and align it with the short-, mid- and long term business requirements. You will provide leadership to a virtual category team (Category Council), consisting of representatives of all commercial organisations, global business development and various functional experts. With the objective to analyse the supply base, align requirements, make assortment choices to optimize margins and drive an implementation roadmap. To optimize costs and margin via the supply base in all commercial organizations of Mediq. You are the Strategic Supplier Account Manager for the most critical suppliers. You will develop an account plan, manages supplier performance, unleash the innovation potential and secure access to new products/services for the category across the countries. You have oversight over all suppliers, products and sourcing initiatives for the category. And will bring people together to prioritize these initiatives based on impact, align implementation timelines and drives the results to land in the P&L. And evaluate result versus target and takes corrective action where needed.

Further Key Accountabilities:

Business Partnering & Supply Strategy

• Be an integrated business partner to the sales organisations, global business development, understand the commercial category strategy and business priorities.

• Develop an aligned supply strategy across all business units, trade organisations and Mediq Own Brand for the segment.

• Translate strategy into a time phased implementation roadmap with tangible deliverables and agreed/aligned ownership

Assortment Alignment

• Analyse the assortment and develop deep category insights on costs, margins, volumes and customer requirements

• Identify initiatives to align the portfolio across the markets, quantify the opportunity in a business case and align an implementation plan

• Converge deviating opinions and different priorities into aligned decisions based on facts and figures. And create buy-in for implementation.

• Manage a funnel of initiatives to actively steer sales, product management and customer service towards higher margin alternatives.

Sourcing & Contracting

• Lead data driven analysis and develop negotiation strategy for the category

• Align short-, mid- and long term sourcing needs, develops an effective sourcing strategy and drives an implementation roadmap to deliver on objectives set

• Execute tenders following a structured fact based and auditable process

• Analyse RFP/RFQ data, manage the decision making process and award business based on objective, pre-aligned criteria and scoring matrix

Partnership Development & Account Management

• Integrally manage the large, global, strategic supplier accounts and develop a strategic partnership for long term value.

• Develop a supplier account management plan including new opportunities to grow sales, gain product access, reduce costs and optimize operations

• Manage supplier performance and conduct periodic business reviews.

Performance

• Own the cost productivity and margin improvement roadmap for the applicable commodities and secure P&L impact in line with target

• Evaluate performance versus target, identify gaps and initiate corrective action with clear ownership in the business units, trade companies and Own Brand group of Mediq.

• Enable new revenue streams via access to new products, new suppliers and innovations

Change Leadership

• Actively communicate and create buy in with the business units, trade companies and the Own Brand team

• Bring people together and provide leadership to the Category Council, the cross functional network of business unit representatives and functional experts

• Mobilize people for change, facilitate portfolio choices and steer assortment

Essential for the role is that you are able to work in a cross functional international matrix environment, converge deviating views to an aligned set of priorities and requirements. This requires excellent stakeholder management skills, an inclusive leadership style, a positive can-do mentality and a sharp eye for results.

Functional skills & Expertise

• Strategic Leadership in Procurement and/or Category Management.

• Inclusive leadership style, driving collaboration, strong networking skills

• Creativity to find opportunity and expertise in optimizing assortment for costs and value.

• Ability to develop strategic supplier relationships into partnerships

• Experience in buy-for-resale in the medical sector is desired

Personal Skills

• Strong (change) leadership skills

• Stakeholder Management

• Conceptual/Strategic skills

• Result orientation

• Communication skills

• Structured, data driven approach

• Project Management

• Can-do mentality

Education & Experience

• Master Degree and 8-15 years working experience

• Experience in a mid-size/large multinational

• Working in a matrix organization

• Experience in Managing virtual teams