Procurement Manager

Apply on JLP Jobs - the official careers website for John Lewis Partnership, John Lewis & Partners, and Waitrose & Partners.

About the role

We are seeking a commercially astute and experienced Procurement Manager to join our Supply Chain Procurement Team. As a Procurement Manager, you will play a vital role in delivering best in class sourcing, negotiation, category planning, and supplier management for Good Not For Resale (GNFR) Procurement.

The focus scope for this role is John Lewis Distribution, comprising third party logistics (3PLs), 1 & 2 Person Carriers, warehouse automation & equipment. There is scope and flexibility to work on other projects within the wider Supply Chain Procurement category team, such as Waitrose 3PLs, international freight, UK consolidated primary inbound transport services and pan Partnership fleet & fuel. The Partnership Supply Chain teams have significant plans to invest in our network and procurement is included early in strategic projects as part of this.

You will actively challenge how the business allocates costs, commits spend, and manages third parties to reduce overall GNFR spend and third party risk, ensuring the Partnership achieves the best value through your expertise. You will deliver compliance to procurement policy and, through the supplier management and risk frameworks, ensure that regulatory compliance and commercial risk are protected. Your role will involve applying business acumen and procurement expertise to identify and execute business improvements, providing in depth analysis (underpinned with digital tools such as Coupa Sourcing Optimisation AI and market insight tools) to support decision making and demonstrate an understanding of internal and external trends.

Effective stakeholder management is essential. You will engage with partners across supply chain, change management, commercial finance and legal, including senior leaders, and work externally, actively engaging and managing third party suppliers.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide commercial expertise and procurement leadership to key business stakeholders, securing commercial agreements.
• Deliver best in class sourcing and supplier management activity, and plan and execute negotiation strategies for GNFR Procurement.
• Demonstrate an understanding of internal and external trends and maintain a broader understanding of the wider market.
• Deliver compliance to procurement policy and, through the supplier management and risk frameworks, protect regulatory compliance and commercial risk.
• Actively support and contribute towards supplier rationalisation across the Partnership, following procurement best practice, policy and procedures, using procurement tools and ensuring consistency with partnership principles and our ethics & sustainability ambitions.

Essential skills / experience you'll need

• Broad procurement experience, including category planning and supplier management.
• Extensive experience in buying a full range of supply chain services & equipment.
• Extensive negotiation and contracting expertise.
• Critical analysis and influencing skills to work with and influence a broad cross section of stakeholders.
• Commercial expertise to drive and deliver business improvement opportunities across the business.
• Good understanding of procurement strategy, policy, process and systems.

Desirable skills / experience you may have

• CIPS or CILT qualified or working towards.
• Understanding of ESG programmes as they relate to third party outcomes.
• Professional negotiation training via a specialist provider such as The GAP Partnership, Scotworks or CIPS.

The partnership

We're the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We're not just employees, we're partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world. As we look to our future, there's never been a more exciting time to join us.

We're ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify. Never knowingly undervalued on price, quality and service in John Lewis and passionately serving food lovers in Waitrose.

As partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and in its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through the good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect.

We all own making the partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we're free to be ourselves and can thrive. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective.

As partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.

Important points to note

It's important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre employment vetting (which may include DBS checks for successful candidates). If required, you'll be informed and provided with information about vetting during the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays. Any DBS checks required will be carried out by a third party registered body and financial probity checks may also be required for some of our roles.

We occasionally close vacancies early in the event we receive a high volume of applications, and therefore, we recommend you apply early. If you require a reasonable adjustment due to a disability which means you may need longer to complete your application please contact us as soon as possible.

We want all of our partners to have a good work life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.

Salary

£57,800 - £86,400

Contract type

Permanent

Working pattern / flexible working

The partnership has adopted a hybrid working approach, meaning you'll be able to work a mixture between the office and home based upon your personal needs whilst balancing the needs of the business.

Location of work

You can choose between a London or Bracknell office base and you will be expected to travel to either office with additional travel to visit the Distribution Leadership team, based in Milton Keynes. You will also visit other supplier and partnership locations depending on your projects and focus.