Senior Category Buyer

Permanent
Skyways Hub, Liverpool
Competitive Salary + Great Benefits

Role overview

Here at Yodel, we deliver more than just parcels we deliver a great experience when it comes to your career too. Yodel are looking to hire a passionate Senior Buyer managing the logistics third party contracts and suppliers approx. £100m+ annually. You will be covering various subcategories such as: fuel, subcontractor carries, fleet, maintenance, and materials handling etc., making procurement recommendations, and implementing changes. This brilliant opportunity is based in Liverpool but will be a mixture of working from home and in the office. You will be required to travel occasionally to other locations/ supplier meetings across the UK & NI and potentially the Republic of Ireland.

The Senior Category Buyer will form an integral part of the Procurement function, in the delivery of the contractual and project initiatives activity. The successful candidate is to develop, manage and implement category strategies that supports Yodel's business needs and align with organisational objectives, values, vision, and goals. You will develop and implement procurement strategies which drive best value, working collaboratively with colleagues across various functions to maximise business benefit. You need to have a sound understanding of legal terms and conditions in relation to the supply of goods, works and services with the ability to draft supply agreements and amendment to terms, working with Yodel's Legal team to protect the business interests. You will need to maintain an excellent understanding of the environment / market within which the category of supply operates, and the risks and opportunities presented by the dynamics of that environment. As well as monitor/benchmark the supply market to identify potential new suppliers and products and meet with suppliers to understand their products skills and experience.

In addition to these duties, you will be responsible for the following:

• You will support and input to the wider team, ensuring safe delivery of the overarching strategy across the entire third-party supply chain.
• You will be responsible for a full sub-category review of the allocated categories across the business, to develop and implement an end-to-end strategy to deliver; operational efficiencies, identification of critical supply with risk mitigation, development of SRM with preferred/critical suppliers and opportunity analysis delivering ROI value for their stakeholder(s) and ultimately Yodel.
• You will be responsible for engagement with key stakeholders across the business and ensuring timely delivery on various projects that will be allocated across the spend categories of logistics and meets the expectations of the business.
• Develop strong working relationships with suppliers and internal stakeholders at all levels.
• Proactively seek out areas for continuous improvements and cost reduction within the supply chain, present business cases for change with best total value options for Yodel, which has a positive effect on EBITDA.
• Provide guidance/support to all team members within the procurement function.
• Support the wider team to embed procurement policies, processes, and overall governance frameworks: Decision Gateways (DG's) to the procurement lifecycle, and sustainable supply chain, modern day slavery, ethical supply, and supplier code of conduct.

The successful Senior Category Buyer must be commercially savvy and able to project manage multiple, high value and complex projects at the same time. You will be responsible for engagement with key stakeholders across the business and ensuring timely delivery on various projects that will be allocated across the spend categories of logistics and meets the expectations of the business. You will have experience in competently writing and executing procurement sourcing strategies, RFx's, ITN's, assessment methodologies, business cases, position, and recommendation papers for internal stakeholders. Whilst keeping compliant with internal policies, regulations, and governance procedures. You will need to show demonstrable experience of managing complex contracts and working with suppliers through SLA and KPI performance and will have experience with dispute resolution and claims management.

The successful candidate will need to also possess the following skills/experience:

• You will need to have procurement experience of category and contract managed environment.
• MCIPS is desirable.
• Substantial category management experience from within a services or logistics sector
• Commercially strong and contractually aware, skilled in reviewing and drafting supply agreements and ensuring mitigation of risk.
• Experienced in managing multiple, high value and complex procurement projects to successful completion of more than c£10m per annum.
• Competently write RFx's, ITN's, Procurement strategy, business cases, position, and recommendation papers for key stakeholders.
• Good working knowledge of the procurement lifecycle and application thereof.

If you are an independent, dynamic, and ambitious individual with excellent negotiation skills, with an ability to successfully project manage and deliver key contract negotiations then we would love to hear from you. The successful candidate will receive the following great benefits:

• Competitive remuneration package
• Mixture of office and home working
• Private Medical Insurance
• Business casual dress code
• Free personal & professional development courses
• Pension Scheme
• Up to 25% discount on Very.co.uk
• 33 days holiday including bank holidays.
• Free parking
• On-site modern gym facilities (includes many classes per week including HIIT and yoga)
• In the office you will have access to Costa, Juice bar, Starbucks, and restaurant.
• Dedicated wellness initiatives that support your wellbeing, ranging from our 24-hour employee assistance programme to subsidised gym membership.