Category Sourcing Manager, Europe

Job Description

Category Sourcing Manager, Europe

Please note that this role is based in the United Kingdom. In order to enable us to meet statutory and regulatory obligations of the United Kingdom immigration system you must have the appropriate immigration permission needed to work and reside in the United Kingdom.
Overview

Strategic Sourcing and Procurement is responsible for managing external spend with third party suppliers, who provide goods and services to SPE's various businesses. Businesses supported are the Motion Picture Group which includes film labels Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems, TriStar Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation, and Sony Pictures Classics, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and TV distribution business which manages the sales, distribution and marketing of physical DVD product in retail as well as distribution on streaming platforms and Sony Pictures Television which operates a range of pay and free TV aggregated services in its Networks division, ranging from linear and VOD (video on demand) services to third party platforms through to direct to consumer SVOD (subscription video on demand) and AVOD (advertising video on demand) services. The procurement team therefore has the unique advantage of working with stakeholders from across all the businesses, enabling a holistic view of SPE.

The Strategic Sourcing and Procurement department delivers substantial value through proactive and strategic supplier management and has been gradually expanding its influence in most areas of supplier spend from Post-production to IT, to Marketing and Professional services. A key aim of the department is to embed a procurement mindset across the various businesses, by deploying structured and consistent procurement tools and techniques, embedding supplier relationship management programmes, enabling transactional efficiency, and supporting source to pay solutions. The team also partners closely with business Finance leads as well as other support departments such as Legal.

SPE's Strategic Sourcing and Procurement London based team (which is part of a larger global Procurement department based in LA) primarily supports Europe, (key countries are UK, Germany, France and Spain) but also provides an important link and role in terms of global category management for all key categories (Marketing, IT, Post Production, Professional Services, Facilities). The remit of the Sourcing Manager role will form part of a growing and expanding European, LATAM and Asia Pac focus, supporting various categories, but particularly Marketing, which contributes a large percentage of SPE in market, locally managed spend.

Areas of Responsibility:

We are looking for self-motivated, analytical, and proactive individual to form part of a growing and high-performing procurement team, who will support the vision of the Strategic Sourcing and Procurement organization.

The required candidate will need to take the initiative and identify/drive projects forward to completion as well as demonstrate strong strategic sourcing/procurement experience and strong analytical, communication, and collaboration skills. The role could involve European travel (France, Germany, Spain, UK) and infrequent head office travel (Los Angeles).

Relationship Management

Internal Relationships
• Build relationships with Business Leads and Finance (stakeholders) across all 3 SPE businesses: (Motion Picture Group, Home Entertainment and TV distribution and TV Networks) in Europe (France, Germany, Spain, and UK). This could also include future relationships with stakeholders in LATAM and APAC.
• Engage and facilitate cross-functional teams for relevant categories or projects.
• As Marketing is a large percentage of local in-country European spend, a key element of the role will be to manage and develop internal marketing stakeholder relationships throughout SPE's various business units and coordinate sourcing strategies, opportunities, and requirements. This will include proactively meeting with clients and developing client relationships.

External Relationships
• Manage external supplier relationships and supplier agreements in areas including Marketing and other categories with specific in-country spend.
• Develop and manage the supplier base with input from internal clients.
• Support and develop global supplier relationship management programmes with select suppliers.
• Monitor performance of suppliers and serve as a resource to resolve issues and problems.
• Communicate and report to management the status of any critical external relationships that could affect planning and decision-making.

Strategy Support
• Support global category management strategies by engaging local EMEA business leads and providing support and requirements to overall global category vision.
• Proactively develop and implement sourcing strategies to provide cost savings, time efficiencies, improved product quality, etc. across various SPE Business Units/Departments.
• Analyse industry trends and conditions that affect internal stakeholders and external suppliers and/or pricing and overall category/sub-category strategies.
• Carry out analysis on relevant areas of spend and develop hypothesis.
• Develop a pipeline of projects based on analysis and strategic insights.
• Provide clear, fact-based, executive-level presentations with sourcing strategy recommendations.

Market and Category Knowledge
• Continually monitor and understand the marketing market and identify opportunities resulting from new product offerings and/or market shifts (e.g., exit or entry of suppliers, changes in pricing, etc.).
• Perform research on new spend areas or suppliers to inform future strategy.
• Keep abreast of developments in key categories, by reading relevant trade press/articles, attending forums or industry seminars.

Support Strategic Sourcing Initiatives/Procurement tools
• Identify, initiate, lead and manage cross-functional tactical and strategic sourcing projects.
• Employ a strict adherence to Strategic Sourcing and Procurement's 7 step procurement methodology used for all projects.
• Use appropriate techniques to develop robust baselines for all projects.
• Develop/draft and manage (RFP (Request for Proposals, RFIs (Request for Information), RFQs (Request for Quotation) including the collection of requirements, management of supplier communications, and review of bid responses.
• Manage and synthesize the collection of requirements from various country stakeholders, including scopes of work and specifications. An acute attention to detail and taking the time to draft or check requirements carefully for inclusion in RFPs/RFQs is important.
• Perform make versus buy outsourcing analyses and develop total cost of ownership models.
• Carefully perform robust analysis on supplier proposals, translating analysis into stakeholder-friendly presentations. Ensure analysis is appropriate and adapted to the business/stakeholder in question.
• As a large proportion of in-country spend is Marketing, distilling findings and proposals into Marketing appropriate recommendations is often critical to success in this category.
• Use SPE procurement tools to plan, track, forecast and capture value from strategic sourcing initiatives that deliver benefit to the organization.
• Execute clear, structured negotiation strategies, gaining input from Finance and the business prior to negotiation
• Evaluate supplier f

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Jobcode: Reference SBJ-g4ywj1-18-117-142-128-42 in your application.