Category Manager

Duties:

• The Category Manager (CM) may support one or several procurement categories.
• The CM is accountable for end to end performance of the acquisition process via the management of the RFI &/or RFP's until the Pvet 4 stage for critical work packages (up to PVet 5 based on some Regions) .
• The CM is expected to lead major / business critical supplier selection exercises to support business needs.
• The CM ensures the deployment, implementation, and monitoring of agreed category strategies.
• Sometimes, the CM can be in charge to animate and manage several CBs.
• Furthermore, the CM is responsible for supplier relationship management and continuous improvement of suppliers within his/her category (with the support of Supplier Performance Management Team if needed) and the management of suppliers performance, including but not limited to, quality, cost, delivery, contractual performance and innovation.
• Accountable for ensuring the most up-to-date knowledge of his/her supplier market, including new innovations and key emerging technologies relevant to their category.
• An essential element of his role is to ensure that the suppliers provide the competitiveness required to support the business and to introduce optimal supply base changes to support business winning capability.

Skills:

• Reporting to the relevant Global Category Manager and / or Categories Team leader (CTL) depending of geographic location.
• The Category Manager (CM) supports one or several procurement categories.
• The CM works in close relation with the relevant Global Category Managers (GCM), the Categories Team Leader (CTL) and the Tactical Buyer (TB).
• All CM actions have to be in line with the strategy defined by the Global Category Manager and the CM will have a regular feed back loop with the GCM. The CM's prime role is the management of the RFI or/and RFP's until PVet 4 stage for business critical work packages (up to PVet 5 based on some Regions) in order to provide competitiveness to the business

In addition to this their main tasks are:

• Strategy:
• Provide input into worldwide category strategies for short, medium and long term needs
• Ensure the relevant players have a good knowledge of Thales need and support the category strategy so that the business secures targeted projects and customer competitive advantage.
• Ensure that clear and measurable savings targets are identified and delivered by category and endorsed by business / project.
• Ensure category commitment and spend compliance tracking is well reported.
• Procurement Competitiveness Capture:
• Monitor category markets on an on-going basis to identify and understand key players, newcomers, economic evolutions, market or regulation constraints, innovations and technology in order to support the development of the most up to date category strategies for the businesses.
• Based on the above provide insights as to how products / projects could be more competitive via the adoption of different suppliers / methodologies / technology etc.
• In conjunction with the Procurement Product, Bids and Project Managers (PPM) and cross functional teams, the CM supports the preparation of Make / Buy decisions (lead by the PPM) in order to optimise business performance.

Governance, Leadership and Performance Management:

• Ensure the company governance is applied using KPI's and root cause corrective actions Supplier / Acquisition Management:
• Performance management of the supply base in line with the standards set out by the Global Category Manager.
• Ensure that supplier competitions follow the governance process and are balanced and fair in order to improve business and customer performance.
• Ensure that the supplier contracts and framework agreements are negotiated when required in line with the category strategies.
• Ensure that global contracts / framework agreements are adopted and utilised.
• Ensure that specific legal compliance government or special customer requirements are taken into account during conception / implementation of category strategies.
• Ensure that the company e-Acquisition and all procurement tools are properly fully used according to governance procurement work packages at global level.
• Ensure that the risks, opportunities and Tier supply chain mapping is understood and managed in order to optimise business performance.
• Based on the performance management of the supply base identify the suppliers who require focused development actions and ensure that the Supplier Development Team have the required support / leverage to conduct successfully these actions
• Operational Support:
• Ensure the Tactical Buyers receive all required information to raise the Procurement Orders.