Procurement Category Manager

Location: Belfast, United Kingdom

In fast changing markets, customers worldwide rely on Thales. Thales is a business where brilliant people from all over the world come together to share ideas and inspire each other. In aerospace, transportation, defence, security and space, our architects design innovative solutions that make our tomorrow's possible.

Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us. At Thales UK, we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across the major industries of Aerospace, Defence, Security and Space. Your health and well-being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you; whether that’s part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

Fixed Term contract- 18 month Fixed Term Contract

With a 70+ year heritage in world class engineering, Thales in Northern Ireland is a leading high technology company in the defence and space sectors. Recently making news winning a large contract worth £223 million. It’s a great time to join Thales Belfast

We are growing and looking for Category Managers (CM) to join us initially on an 18 month fixed contract. Our Category Managers may support one or several procurement categories.
We are keen to hear from Category Managers who are well rounded in Category Management, Sourcing and some contracts knowledge. Whilst the teams are largely based in Belfast we can look at having your base close to any of our UK sites with occasion travel to Belfast.

Key responsibilities

• Accountability for ensuring the most up-to-date knowledge of the supplier market, including new innovations and key emerging technologies relevant to the category.
• Responsibility for leading major / business critical supplier selection exercises to support business needs, as well as the deployment, implementation and monitoring of category strategies.
• End to end performance responsibility for the acquisition process via the management of RFIs and/or RFPs.
• Supplier relationship management and continuous improvement of suppliers within the category (with the support of Supplier Performance Management Team if needed) and the management of strategic supplier performance including, but not limited to, quality, cost, delivery, contractual performance and innovation.
• Ensure the suppliers provide the competitiveness required to support the business and to introduce optimal supply base changes to support business-winning capability.
• Responsibility for mastering economic models for the category so that increased value can be added to Thales and the supply base.

About you

Ideally, you’ll have experience:

• Developing category strategies, developing sourcing options, cost benchmarking, developing commercial models, contract drafting, KPI models & facilitating major/complex tender processes.
• Stakeholder Management capability
• Interpersonal skills to optimise cross organisation working and to work effectively with suppliers.
• Technical and Supply Market knowledge of the Purchasing Families relevant to the role
• Track record of deploying Category Management techniques to define long term supply policies
• Experience of working within a Shared Service environment with demonstrable Customer  Service Focus
• The ability to lead negotiations including import/export considerations.

Benefits at Thales

We strive to create an environment where you can prioritise your wellbeing and have designed our benefits to give you the flexibility and power to do so.  Our core benefits include a pension plan, private medical insurance, life assurance, income protection as well as an employee assistance programme.

In addition, our flexible benefits platform gives you the power to customise your benefits to suit your needs.  You can choose to add a number of optional benefits including: healthcare cash plan, health assessments, family cover private medical insurance, buying/selling annual leave, gym membership discounts + much, much more.  You can also enjoy exclusive access to our discount site!

Alongside a competitive base salary, we offer a variable compensation plan bonus, 27 days annual leave + 1 company day + UK public holidays as well as the opportunity to volunteer up to 3 days to support local charities/communities in which we work.

Thales is an equal opportunities employer and diversity and inclusion are integral to our success.

The successful candidate will need full Security Clearance (SC) - For more information and guidance please visit the UKSV website*

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In line with Thales' Baseline Security requirements, candidates will be asked to provide evidence of identity, eligibility to work in the UK and employment and/or education history for up to three years. Some vacancies may require full Security Clearance which can require further evidence to be provided. For further details of the evidence required to apply for Baseline and Security Clearance please refer to the Defence Business Services National Security Vetting (DBS NSV) Agency.

At Thales we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working.

Thales UK is committed to providing an inclusive and barrier-free recruitment process. We will provide reasonable adjustments and support to ensure neuro-diverse applicants or those with a disability or long-term condition can be their best during the recruitment process. To request an adjustment, if you need this job advert in an alternative format or if you have any questions about the recruitment process, please contact Resourcing Ops for mid to senior roles, or the Early Careers Team for graduate and apprentice roles.

Great journeys start here, apply now!