Assistant Procurement Manager

Asst. Procurement Manager : Business Services - Workplace & Travel

Job Title: Asst. Procurement Manager : Business Services - Workplace & Travel
Department: MBS Procurement – Business Services
Profession: Supply Chain
Location: Mumbai, India

Req ID: R

Main Job Purpose:
Business Services Lead for Workplace, Travel & Fleet for India is responsible for leading the One MBS procurement agenda for Business Services in all facets as mentioned above (managing a spend corpus of Euro 30M), while remaining flexible to assignments in MBS Procurement outside the core remit.
You will be leading projects and program independently under supervision of the Portfolio Strategy Lead – Workplace Travel & Fleet (Asia) and assisted by global leads on key strategic programs.

ABOUT MBS PROCUREMENT
This role will fall within the Unilever's Marketing Business Services (MBS) Procurement department. MBS is responsible for managing a spend of ~9bn Euros with a supplier base of 40,000+ suppliers across Marketing, Business Services and IT.

MBS kicked off a major transformation program (One-MBS) to move from the current market-based organization and global organization to an expertise-driven organization. By consolidating our MBS teams globally, we are creating a single community to better align with Global functions, Divisions & Markets and their strategies. As One team we can better leverage our scale, and yet remain relevant in the markets by working together, we can work faster to connect strategy and execution and be better partners to internal stakeholders and our suppliers by acting as One Unilever. It will allow us to work with each other more closely so we can learn from one another and build our capability and expertise as MBS procurement professionals.

Within MBS, the Business Services portfolio covers an array of various services of Workplace Travel, Fleet, Waste management, Workforce Management, HR Services which includes services related to our offices and supply chain sites with cost-effective solutions that excite our employees and do so safely and sustainably.

Key Accountabilities:

• Implement global sourcing and supplier strategies for the assigned procurement portfolios/sub-portfolios that deliver best value to the Unilever business.

• Identify and assess potential suppliers, prepare and manage supplier selections and finalize commercial agreements, coordinating with budget holders and support functions such as Legal, Tax and Data Privacy effectively and efficiently.

• Establish successful Ways of Working between stakeholders and Procurement

• Build and maintain strong and successful working relationships with stakeholders, suppliers and user communities across Unilever business.

• Take ownership on and lead projects to deliver the One-MBS agenda across key value pillars such as Sourcing Excellence, Partner with Purpose, Preferred Supplier governance, Supplier Diversity, Contract Life-cycle Management, Responsible Sourcing, savings, cash, Social Commitments.

• Build and maintain market knowledge of trends and suppliers in assigned categories of spend as appropriate.

• Manage the assigned Portfolios in terms of sourcing, contracting, stakeholder and supplier partner management activities on a day-to-day basis

• Execute innovative strategic sourcing processes, support CPM roll-out as relevant and focus on delivering best value to the Unilever business.

• Establish, build and maintain successful/effective relationships with key suppliers

• Take ownership on and lead projects to deliver the One MBS agenda as a part of the portfolio across the key areas of Partner with Purpose (PWP), RSP, Sustainability, CLM, Savings, Cash, People well-being, etc

Professional Skills:
Skills/Competencies
Essential:

• Stakeholder management & influencing, able to build rapport with a diverse set of stakeholders (local/regional)

• Ability to communicate effectively in English language (Oral/Written)

• Strong analytical skills and to be able to present key findings in a crisp way

• Project management, time management & prioritization

• Self-starter, able to work independently and virtually
Preferred:

• Get energy from working in an always changing, fast paced, performance-oriented environment

• Ability to find market intelligence and merge with data analysis to support Portfolio and negotiation strategies as relevant

• Influencing skills to challenge and promote ideas and concepts with stakeholders as a trusted adviser

• Understand supplier cost models and lifetime cost of acquisition

• Negotiation abilities to develop value-add situations with key suppliers

• Innovative thinking to measure and promote supplier performance improvement

• Curiosity for new technology to provide cost reduction or value creating support

Experience Required:
ESSENTIAL
o Experienced (5-7 years) in a procurement role in a large complex organisation
o A proven commercial negotiator and good communicator (fluent in English)
o Track record of building relationships in a complex field of stakeholders and suppliers, across diverse functional groups and geographic locations
o Advanced knowledge of MS Excel (V-lookup, pivot tables), MS Powerpoint and data analytics (minimum: Power BI navigation) & allied digital tools

PREFERRED
o Bachelor degree or equivalent
o Studying for or achieved relevant procurement certifications (CIPS, Unilever Buying Foundation or equivalent)
o Experienced in setting up and managing supplier contracts, preferably in indirects
o Experience in working successfully in virtual team environments
o Working knowledge of creating category and negotiation strategies as relevant
o Managing and influencing senior (WL2+) stakeholders in the market
o Managing complex and dynamic workload, running multiple projects simultaneously
o Working knowledge of Unilever business systems e.g. SRS, CLM, Coupa, RSP, Velocity

Travel: 15 to 20% (can vary depending on the specific engagement)

Contacts:
Internal:
Procurement:

• Business Services teams in other markets

• Supplier Operations in UniOps

• Procurement Strategy and Insights

• Procurement MBS

Business partners:

• Business Services stakeholders in India/Nepal

• Uniops central service lines and within markets

• Procurement Uniops

• Internal Unilever Divisions (HR, Finance, Legal, Supply Chain)

• Sustainability & CSR teams

External:

• External Partners

• Suppliers

Reporting Channel: This is a Market based role with reporting to Portfolio Strategy Lead – Workplace & Travel

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