Procurement Excellence Lead

Müller UK & Ireland is wholly owned by the Unternehmensgruppe Theo Müller which employs over 24,000 people throughout Europe. In the UK, Müller develops, manufactures and markets a wide range of branded and private label dairy products made with milk from more than 1,700 British farmers. The Müller brand is ranked at No.7 in The Grocer’s Top 100 list of Britain’s Biggest Brands, and is also the 7th most chosen brand in the UK.

We are recruiting a Procurement Excellence Lead, reporting to the Group Procurement Director – Indirect & IT. This is therefore a UK based role, with hybrid working that requires occasional international travel, typically to Germany. The role can be based at either our Market Drayton or Droitwich site.

The Procurement Excellence Lead is a new role designed to provide strategic procurement leadership to the Indirect & IT team, with the individual acting as a Subject Matter Expert (SME), coordinator and facilitator of category management, supplier management and sustainability activities in an SAP Ariba enabled Source to Pay (S2P) environment.

The purpose of the role initially is to ensure the effective transition of Group Procurement’s Indirect & IT team to a strategic category management focused organisation, which is planned for Q3 this year. This will involve working with spend category aligned teams to eliminate, automate, shift (to Group Shared Service (GSS)), optimise and standardise activities across the end-to-end S2P process, managing related communications and changes to ways of working.

The role will be central to the review and development of our Group Procurement Policy, standards and operating procedures and will require close collaboration with Procurement spend category teams, Procurement Governance & Compliance, Group Shared Services and business stakeholders.

Key Tasks and Responsibilities

Working with the Group Procurement Director to deliver the new Indirect organisation structure, in parallel supporting the continued evolution of the GSS-enabled operating model. Our goal is to create a collaborative environment built around a seamless end to end S2P process, supported by clear policy, process and guidance and removing existing regional variances
Accelerating the adoption of category and supplier management within Indirect & IT, acting as our primary SME providing expertise and knowledge transfer whilst ensuring these activities are planned and prioritised. This includes supporting the development of capabilities across the wider team to enable these activities; designing and implementing associated processes and review mechanisms; raising the awareness of business stakeholders and setting targets and tracking the organisation's progress
Developing and optimising clear, consistent procurement standards and ways of working across Indirect & IT, in turn driving functional efficiency and effectiveness. This includes the identification of bottlenecks, issues and opportunities, prioritising improvements, demonstrating agility and an entrepreneurial approach to achieve quick wins and continued marginal gains, ensuring that the team is leveraging SAP Ariba platform to realize its fullvalue
Leading and coordinating sustainability activities across Indirect and IT, acting as our SME with a working knowledge of regulatory and legislative requirements, ensuring compliance with the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act and similar legislation, in parallel enabling the achievement of our Scope 3 carbon reduction targets
Operating as the primary interface with GSS Procurement & Accounts Payable and Procurement Governance & Compliance, measuring and reviewing organizational and process effectiveness and efficiency
Leading the Group Procurement Training Academy, including the curating of content for both expert and business users alike.  

Key Skills and Experience:

Essential Specialist/Technical Skills/Abilities:

Degree educated
Operated at a senior level within a fast paced, complex organisation
Recognised expert in the procurement discipline
Deep knowledge of spend category management, supplier management, S2P process management, sustainability legislation and its application in a procurement setting
This role requires somebody with excellent communication skills, structured thinking, able to build trusted relationships quickly, who can exert influence both inside and outside the function and deliver a positive impact  

Desirable Specialist/Technical Skills/Abilities:

SAP Ariba, specifically Guided Buying, sourcing and contract management modules; knowledge of shared-services enabled operating models; experience of procurement related sustainability activities (Scope 3 emissions, EcoVadis) Lean Six-Sigma

The Process:

If you are interested in applying for the role of Procurement Excellence Lead and have the necessary skills and experience, then please apply today