Category Lead - Professional Services (Madison, WI or Remote)
Employment Type : Full-Time
Madison and/or Remote (Work from Home)
Job Purpose:
This position leads category management and sourcing activities for the Professional Services Category Group. Delivers significant initial cost reductions, supplanted with year-over-year productivity improvements in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) while maintaining or improving product quality and supplier service levels. This position also facilitates and leads cross-functional teams with key stakeholders to develop effective cost reduction strategies, value creation and partnership opportunities and implementation plans.
Job Responsibilities:
- Oversee development and execution of strategies through the sourcing process for specific Category Group of spend areas. Ensure enterprise and functional strategies are connected to business needs and influence strategies based on enterprise value.
- Effectively drive sourcing process including identification of suppliers, key term definition and performance commitments and negotiation of deal in partnership with business lead
- Champion and secure TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) reductions for a Category Group
- Oversee supplier selection process within category
- Possess, demonstrate and teach expertise in the category management levers across spend categories
- Lead and manage multi-functional stakeholder teams on specific strategic sourcing initiatives or projects
- Drive best practices
- Measure and track internal performance within each spend category and proactively put in place improvement plans, as needed
- Monitor strategy implementation and adjust, as needed, to ensure value creation out of category is on track to plan
- Drive annual productivity improvements in each spend category
- Build, maintain and grow effective relationships across key leader and stakeholders in the enterprise
- Create effective working relationships across all interested parties in procurement excellence – legal, information security, governance and risk management, finance and any other specialized group.
- Partner with business areas to ensure contract compliance is being met within category and appropriate risk mitigation strategies are in place and being monitored
Job Requirements:
- Bachelors degree in Business, Supply Chain, Marketing, IT, Engineering or related field.
- Five years progressive related work experience. Sourcing, legal, supply management or process & quality experience required. Professional Services experience preferred.
- Certified Professional in Supply Management (CPSM) or Certified Purchasing Manager (C.P.M.) preferred.
- Experience working with outsourced suppliers and off-shore suppliers preferred (especially in areas of IT outsourcing, operations outsourcing, insurance administration outsourcing, software acquisition, print or direct mail management, back-office outsourcing, claims management sourcing, temporary labor sourcing).
- Experience with strategic sourcing practices such as opportunity identification, benchmarking, supply base analysis, spend analysis, supply base strategy development, supplier performance management and e-sourcing preferred.
- Demonstrated ability to employ data, facts and information and known problem-solving approaches to resolve problems required. Experience with Quality management/improvement techniques, Six Sigma, TQM, ISO or similar process improvement methodology a plus.
- Demonstrated expert team facilitation, influencing, and communication skills.
- Ability to translate (or extract) business and commercial requirements from players at all levels in the organization (executives to shop floor participant).
- Ability to translate the identified requirements into clear, comprehensive, consistent, and mutually exclusive requirements.
- Highly effective listening, interpersonal, influencing, teamwork, and collaboration skills
- Demonstrated ability to lead negotiations. Familiarity with the essentials of contracting and common contract terms, structures, and definitions.
- Experience negotiating for key business functions and/or high value ($5M+) deals preferred.
- Demonstrated ability to establish priorities and manage deadlines.
- Project Management experience and skills preferred.
- Demonstrated ability to establish priorities and manage deadlines.
- Project Management experience and skills preferred.
#LI-SS
CUNA Mutual Group’s insurance, retirement and investment products provide financial security and protection to credit unions and their members worldwide. As a dynamic and growing company, we strive to create a culture of performance, high standards and defined values. In return for your skills and contributions, we offer highly competitive compensation and benefit packages, significant professional growth, and the opportunity to win and be rewarded.Please provide your Work Experience and Education or attach a copy of your resume. Applications received without this information may be removed from consideration.