ABOUT US
Wickes is more than just the nation’s favorite home improvement retailer. It’s a place where we’ll ask for your ideas, listen to your opinions and value the contributions you make. Chances are you’ve never experienced anything quite like our culture. All our colleagues come from different backgrounds, but what we all have in common is a determination to succeed and a passion for being the best we can be. If that sounds like you, we’ll make you feel right at home.
We have ambitious plans... transformational plans, facilitating the requirement for a Buying Project Manager to identify and deliver projects that improve profitability of the products we buy and sell.
Being right at the heart of our ambitious commercial plans, it’s a given that you will be able to design project plans and deliver them through proven people and project management.
ROLE PURPOSE
The Buying/Procurement Project Manager role will have overall accountability within Strategic Procurement for managing the financial reporting of our supplier income and cost of goods programmes as well as delivering their part of the annual globally supplied buying improvements plan.
The Buying/Procurement Project Manager will originate, define, plan and manage a variety of Projects to help the Category Management Team buy at the best possible price to maximise profit, managing cross-functional teams, project dependencies, risks and issues, and have a clear and co-ordinated strategy to communicate to all key stakeholders on an ongoing basis.
PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES
Data and Technical skills:
Data management: data cleansing to improve data quality, interrogating high volume of data with a view to offering commercial insights
Undertake various reconciliations to ensure the integrity of analytical data
Develop trackers and automated reports to show the performance of commercial initiatives and projects
Developing processes to realise efficiencies
Financial & Analytical Skills:
Provide financial insights into COGs savings initiatives and suppliers terms improvement and review profitability through analysis and commentary
Review and evaluate the information provided by the business and suppliers through terms negotiations clearly highlighting associated benefits and risks
Understanding of Commercial P&L, rebate and variance analysis
Establish a framework to support annual COGs budgeting and develop templates to provide quarterly forecasting cycles.
Ability to dive deep into data, existing processes, and technology challenges in order to identify issues and opportunities.
Team management:
Lead, support, inspire and engage team colleagues to create an effective working environment, and ensure the successful delivery of team objectives.
Train, coach and appropriately empower individual team members, to create a committed team, who feel personally valued and motivated, and who deliver on their targets and timescales.
Buying Project management:
Deliver the financial targets set out in the annual buying improvements plan, as measured in a reduction in the cost of goods sold
Analyse and report the financial performance of each project to key stakeholders; compile post implementation reviews to understand learnings for future projects
Initiate, design and plan future initiatives that feed into a continually evolving pipeline of efficiency projects
Manage buying projects that vary in complexity from single product tenders to those covering hundreds of products and entire categories
Publish and manage critical paths for each project, making in-flight adjustments as necessary and keeping key stakeholders informed on progress as appropriate
Lead and manage project teams across departments including Category Management, QA, the Wickes Far East Sourcing Team and relevant departments within Travis Perkins Group
Recognise the commercial levers between Wickes and its suppliers to uncover opportunities to buy better
Understand how commodity and currency fluctuations impact Wickes landed cost prices and help formulate plans to mitigate these fluctuations e.g. introducing tracker agreements
Review supplier trading agreements on an annual basis and make recommendations to the Category Management team on how to drive incremental value
Manage the Wickes relationship with external agencies as appropriate e.g. external e-auction providers
Manage ad hoc projects as deemed appropriate by the Head of Strategic Procurement
WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?
A buying manager with a proven track record of commercial success, you will be highly motivated, innovative, tenacious and able to work in a fast paced environment. You will be able to manage projects efficiently and get the best out of people - you will be adept at holding stakeholders to account and escalating challenges as appropriate.
You will have strong analytical skills and have a keen eye for detail as well as being able to look across categories to pick out company-wide trends and opportunities. You will be inquisitive by nature, always looking out for new ways of delivering incremental profit.
This role will benefit an individual who is studying CIMA to become a Commercial Finance manager in 2-3 year time, as this role offers exposure to Commercial areas of the business and the experiences required by CIMA at the strategic level (Risk Management, Project Management, Leadership skills and People Skills)
WHAT WE CAN OFFER
In return, we offer a competitive salary package, together with 25 days holiday (increasing with service), flexible benefits package, life assurance, pension and a number of additional benefits to suit your specific needs. But with all of this, your reason for joining our business is our family, collaborative culture, offering support for and developing each other, ‘playing for club and country’.
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