Category Manager – Construction, Facilities & Property

About the role

Reporting to the Head of Indirect Procurement, the Category Manager – Construction, Facilities & Property is responsible for driving holistic value and cost reduction across an assigned portfolio of spend.

This spend comprises of all Construction, Facilities & Property Services required across the entire business, including Property Rental, Office & Site Costs, all Hard & Soft Facilities cost drivers and activities. For Construction activities, spend includes labour and materials, contractors, building equipment, and project management resources. Holistic value includes the identification of priority ESG strategies across category. Key stakeholders are across the group and all divisions.

Key responsibilities:

Category Strategy

• Provide thought leadership and develop comprehensive 1-3 year category strategies for Construction, Facilities & Property, leveraging best practice and exploring all value levers like supply/demand dynamics.

• Collaborate with stakeholders to create execution roadmaps, wave plans for procurement activities, and utilise analysis tools to understand market forces and cost drivers.

• Develop holistic procurement strategies and projects that drive value across multiple dimensions (cost, working capital, innovation, performance, sustainability), while leading and coaching the procurement teams.

Stakeholder Engagement / Business Partnering

• Communicate with business stakeholders to ensure alignment to key procurement strategies. Ensure business governance is in place to promote strategic alignment

• Engage and influence stakeholders at all levels to maximise the impact of the Category Strategy.

• Lead change management and communications to successfully implement new commercial procurement solutions

• Build relationships across the procurement community and with key stakeholders

• Establish strong relationships with Group Property and other corporate functions e.g., Finance, Audit, Tax, Risk and Governance etc.

Markets and Risk

• For Construction, Facilities & Property, understanding and responding to market intelligence and economic fundamentals to ensure the best time to go to market for optimal supplier pricing and value

• Develop deep understanding of the supplier capabilities, industry and roadmaps for key products and/or services

• Delivering supplier strategies which actively anticipate and reduce supplier risk (e.g., sole supplier risk, financial health, data privacy, information security, modern slavery) and secure competitive supply. Partnering with group stakeholders and Procurement Excellence teams to understand and embed agreed risk standards.

Contracting

• Ensure appropriate Supplier contracting strategies are in place across the category to mitigate legal and regulatory exposure

• Partner with legal and stakeholders to develop framework agreements for supply and or maintenance, that can be used by regions and sites

• Partner with legal, site and project stakeholders to put in place robust project contracts with suppliers, that meet the needs of DS Smith company investment project goals

• Embed and monitor relevant supplier KPIs, engineering and site standards into project contracts in support of business requirements

• Work closely with Commercial and Legal teams across the business to deliver commercial and contractual solutions including the creation and management of contracting templates

• For higher complexity projects, lead the selection, negotiation, and management of construction project suppliers and contractors and work closely with project managers, engineers, and other stakeholders to align procurement activities with project timelines and requirements

• Ensure an aligned approach and responsibilities for managing relevant contracts with business stakeholders and Regional Procurement teams

• Partner with Procurement Excellence to ensure that contracts are available and saved in a contract management system.

Initiative Management

• Deliver priority procurement initiatives within assigned category. These initiatives could apply a variety of strategies and levers including; tendering, e-auctions and cost negotiations, price benchmarking, supplier consolidation, specification, waste and rationalisation, demand and policy levers, price negotiations to support changes and growth etc.

• Management of large-scale supplier market tender approaches and negotiations end to end, in accordance with the Category Strategy

• Manage commercial negotiations for complex deals, balancing the diverse demands of multiple stakeholders

• Project manage procurement initiatives, overseeing all aspects of risk management and contract governance processes

• Share and implement procurement best practice across category

Procure to Pay Collaboration

• Work with Shared Services, Regional Procurement teams and business stakeholders to communicate preferred supplier arrangements in a way the business can be guided to buy compliantly. Ensure preferred suppliers are communicated to regional Procurement teams, who assist in making this information available to business

• Partner with the Procurement Excellence team, Shared Services, Property Group, and Regional Procurement teams on strategies to improve the content and catalogue strategies for buying from current systems

• Partner with business and Shared Services and relevant regional procurement teams, to optimise capital programme payment structures in line with group policies and working capital goals.

Supplier Relationship and Performance Management

• Ensure relevant Supplier Performance and Relationship Management processes and priorities are aligned with business stakeholders and Regional Procurement teams under a defined supplier segmentation model

• Drive continuous improvement initiatives with suppliers, based on agreed supplier segmentation above. Ensure supplier reviews are conducted at appropriate frequencies – e.g., quarterly, monthly etc., as agreed with stakeholders, based on aligned segmentation and roles and responsibilities. Revisit the segmentation periodically to ensure continued alignment with business needs

• Manage and optimise the supplier base within the category

• Ensure that Strategic Suppliers have ‘top to top’ meetings and governance in place and aligned with business stakeholders

• Ensure clear roles and responsibilities with engineering teams, sites and project managers for the supplier’s delivery under the contract, in line with agreed scope and milestone payments.

About you

• A strong knowledge and demonstrated experience of procurement roles in Construction, Facilities & Property.

• Experience of leading transformational change in procurement and in a matrix environment.

• Delivery of results: Ability to deliver to agreed savings and value targets.

• Problem solving: Ability to use information, analysis and insights to identify and unlock opportunities across the supply base

• Programme delivery: Ability to lead a portfolio of strategic and tactical procurement initiatives with competing resources and priorities.

• Prioritisation skills: Ability to independently prioritise work and deliver procurement initiatives in a complex matrix environment.

• Communication and Influencing: Ability to build strong trusting relationships with cross functional and cross geographical stakeholders in an ambiguous and complex matrix. Use these relationships to support and challenge these stakeholders. Outstanding relationship management skills required.

• Fluency in English. Fluency in another European language in Europe where DS Smith has a presence would be an advantage.

• Experience in a manufacturing industry preferred but not essential.

• Bachelor’s degree in Construction Management, Quantity Surveying, Business, or a related field. A Master’s degree or professional certification (e.g., CIPS, RICS (or EU equivalent)) is desirable.

• Experience with construction standard forms of contract in UK and EU is desirable (e.g. JCT, NEC, FIDIC).

• Proven experience in procuring and negotiating construction contracts ranging from £2m to £50m.

• Experience in developing and successfully implementing 1-3 year category strategies.

• Experience in implementing and managing a range of complex procurement sourcing and contracting negotiations.

• Demonstrable track record in influencing in a matrix environment.

About us

DS Smith are a leading provider of sustainable packaging solutions, paper products and recycling services in more than 30 different countries.  It’s a very exciting time to join, as we have committed to investing in our future across our strategic growth enablers within Innovation (R&D), Sustainability and Digital & Data.

To fulfil our purpose of redefining packaging for a changing world, we aim to build a diverse, motivated, and engaged workforce. Our goal is to create a culture of inclusion where everyone is treated fairly, differences are valued, and everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.

Our people come from diverse backgrounds, bring different perspectives, ideas and experiences to generate unique solutions focused on present and future sustainability challenges. We welcome all candidates to apply, even those not meeting all criteria.