On behalf of the MOD, we are looking for a Category Group Manager Inside IR35
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is a central government department with a mission to protect our country and provide the ultimate guarantee of its security and independence, as well as helping to protect its values and interests abroad.
The MOD is one of the biggest public procurement organisations in Europe and the single largest customer for UK industry. It currently manages approximately £20 billion of spend on capital investments in equipment and infrastructure every year. Over the next decade the MOD is committed to spending over £190 billion on equipment and support. The MOD’s customers include both the armed forces and national security agencies, and it has a diverse range of requirements, including military fighting vehicles, education services, nuclear submarines and facilities management.
The MOD’s aim is to provide its armed forces with the best capabilities to enable them to protect the UK’s security and advance national interests, both now and in the long term.
To do this the MOD has an annual budget of almost £53 billion and a workforce comprising 197,000 people. of which 54,000 are civilians working for the UK MOD.
The work really matters; the MOD offers a range of engaging roles which have a direct impact on the quality of services they provide, in many locations across the UK. We support teams working in HR, Primary Health Care, Corporate Services, and many others.

In the role of Category Group Manager you will be responsible for providing senior level thought leadership and experience across the Portfolio and associated categories, driving up the maturity and quality of category strategies and their adoption within the portfolio categories.
You will be responsible for building and directly leading a team of (c2-5) Category Management staff, building their confidence and commercial capability and deep category expertise to drive performance and manage setbacks. The role will also require you to use your commercial expertise to identify opportunities for improvement and implement these changes at a local level by working with affected parties to identify and overcome challenges.
You and your team will contribute to delivering commercial excellence for a category group aligned to a capability portfolio, through development and implementation of category strategies (for categories that include large complex platforms, equipment, support contracts, Infrastructure, FM, corporate services, digital services and commodities) across the commercial lifecycle.
You will engage with Senior Leaders across MOD and be a core member of the Portfolio and Category Management leadership teams, providing a customer-focused service, understanding the business needs and stakeholder drivers, with the aim of becoming a trusted commercial advisor. You will also develop relationships with the department’s key and strategic suppliers, driving ‘value for money’ and risk management excellence across the category.
For clarity, ownership of the implementation of agreed strategies will sit with the respective Delivery Organisations with the Category Management team supporting as required.
SC Clearance is an essential requirement for this role, as a minimum you must be willing & eligible to undergo checks. Please note, due to the exceptional requirements of this position (due to the nature of this role and speed at which we require a postholder in situ) preference may be given to candidates who meet all of the essential criteria and hold active security clearance.

The main duties and responsibilities of the Category Group Manager would be to:

• Champion Category Management across your category group and capability Portfolios.
• Developing with senior stakeholders, including Portfolio Directors, the vision for the category group.
• Cascade the vision and translating into delivery objectives for the sub category teams aligned to Portfolio priorities.
• Conduct annual category planning to develop a prioritised pipeline of category opportunities within your category group area and Portfolio.
• Undertake quarterly reviews to dynamically prioritise opportunities in-year. Ensuring category group plans are incorporated into annual planning and budgeting cycles.
• Develop an overarching portfolio plan for your category group, consolidating and aligning the sub-category workstream plans, incorporating risk and quality in support of Portfolios.
• Initiate and conducting opportunity analysis for identified opportunities within your category group engaging with all relevant stakeholders. Producing Opportunity Assessment reports to feed into category planning and prioritisation processes.
• Support business cases, where necessary, to demonstrate coherence, integration, through life support, value for money, benefits and risks across platforms and Portfolios Building and maintaining key relationships across the department and with important external stakeholders
• Influence MSHQ, NAD Options and Commissioning to shape future portfolio priorities adopting Category Management principles.
• Identify and mapping key stakeholders for category group and specific sub categories. Cultivating and managing proactive relationships with internal and external stakeholders including industry to implement category management directly and through the supply chain.
• Bring the best practices and learning from the external market to the department through leveraging industry and Allies experience to develop deep market insights and knowledge.
• Encourage and empowering others to adopt best practices, driving collaboration and innovation across the Defence enterprise to demonstrate continuous improvement.
• Develop, sharing and promoting best practices and lessons learned to create a culture of learning and good practice that supports continuous improvement to optimise category delivery. Driving category change based on Lessons Learned.
• Identify capacity and capability requirements across the category group.
• Provide regular management reports and/or updates to Head of Category Management, Portfolio Director, other senior stakeholders and forums as required.