Job Description :
Global Category Manager, Digital & Technology
Permanent
About the Function
Our Procurement team are innovators, always seeking new ways to help our business, people and much-loved brands thrive. We’re dedicated to maximising the £12 billion+ we spend every year, building brands of premium quality, while creating sustainable value and growth. Together, we’re shaping the services, partnerships and innovations that meet our future needs.
Our procurement team delivers outstanding end-to-end value across our supply chain and offers innovative supplier solutions. Together, we’re driving our ‘Society 2030: Spirit of Progress’ plan across suppliers and agency partners to create a more sustainable world. Wherever you choose to carve your career, we’ll support and encourage you in our inclusive culture.
About the role
Global Procurement delivers significant contribution towards Diageo business, productivity, and growth goals. The Digital & Technology category is seeking to deliver value creation to support operating margin improvement and competitive advantage through sourcing, negotiation, optimization, and supplier partnerships, leveraging the sweet spot between efficiencies and effectiveness of our investment.
This category is complex, with varying stakeholder needs, significant external spend and key relationships at an executive level. The prime accountability for the role is to drive value through ensuring the commercial elements of spend in this category are implemented brilliantly with our vendors. This role will lead sourcing decisions with key team members and will support the maximization of value as well as return on investment, whilst minimizing risk from all external spend - assuring quality of delivery and performance.
The Digital & Technology category is additionally going through a period of transformation. Digital & Technology is growing in importance and becoming strategically more integrated in our planning and decision making. This is the most complex of all procurement categories due to the complexity and risks associated with the products and services in the category.

This role acts as the interface between business users and senior collaborators and the Procurement community (accountable for the purchasing strategy) ensuring Diageo buys the right goods and services from the right supplier at the right price. The role will play a key part in developing and leading Digital and Technology procurement across Consumer, Customer, Supply, Enterprise Foundations, Analytics & Insights and Corporate Value Streams; through effective business partnering and collaboration across Procurement Centres of Excellence. This includes (but is not limited to):

• Applying strategic procurement excellence, through the creation of category strategies built on Diageo’s best methods, standards and tools to deliver procurement value for Diageo.
• Driving end-to-end execution of category strategies, ensuring that global and market category professionals are aligned and working in line with strategy.
• Serving as subject-matter expert for specific spend categories, ensuring collection and leverage of supply market expertise and close engagement with collaborators for value-adding procurement.

Responsibilities

General

• Leadership. Build, lead and elevate the business impact of Procurement within the Digital & Technology function. Inspire and develop junior members of the team and coach individuals as they develop and grow.
• End to end category excellence. Take ultimate ownership for maximising procurement value for Diageo from one or more spend categories, including application of best-in-class market knowledge, partner engagement, global community development, tools & techniques.

Category strategy

• Business partnering. Develop and grow relationships with all partners for deeper insights into needs and capabilities; establish a position to advise on how to gain greater value from close engagement with Procurement.
• Strategy development. For one or more value streams, develop and evolve comprehensive category strategies that match strategic business requirements, are well researched with analysed market dynamics to create incremental procurement value for Diageo.
• Best in class capabilities. Generate insights and opportunities from internal and external benchmarking, develop cost models to consider scenarios with suppliers and collaborators and build & evolve analytics capabilities that allow regular review and improvement of strategies.
• Strategy execution. Take accountability for end-to-end execution of all category strategies developed, across geographical and organisational boundaries. Track and monitor progress. Ensure close collaboration of teams aligned behind strategies and resolve critical issues.

Sourcing

• Global sourcing: Lead sourcing activities for global agreements. Engage and influence partners for alignment.
• Global contracting: For relevant sourcing projects, deliver best possible outcomes for Diageo through effective planning, preparation and application of the Negotiation Toolkit. Negotiate and close contracts aligned to relevant category strategies.

Risk management

• Mitigate strategic risks. As part of category strategy development, identify and design mitigations for potential risks, in line with Category Strategy development standards.
• Mitigate sourcing risks. Identify corporate, supply, supplier and other risks associated with sourcing activities and put mitigations in place, engaging all relevant team members, partners and suppliers to ensure the mitigations are successful.
• Apply and improve tools & techniques. Apply Diageo Procurement standard, ensuring the most recent and relevant approaches are always applied; use formal governance and peer review to ensure the quality and efficacy of risk management; contribute to development of standards.

Supplier relationship management

• Supplier Collaboration: Establish standards, ways of working and trust relationships with global suppliers in relevant categories; ensure Diageo best practices are applied and that there is a good foundation for strong performance, risk mitigation and rapid resolution of issues.
• Supplier performance: Support Business Centres of Excellence in setting critical metrics, driving consistency across suppliers and markets, improving the value of data generated and applied and act as an escalation point for chronic supplier performance issues.
• Supplier development: In line with Procurement strategic supplier strategies, collaborate with suppliers to unlock breakthrough opportunities for the business; stimulate supplier capabilities to generate ideas for the future.

Experience, Skills & Capabilities Required

• Extensive experience in Procurement, Finance, FMCG Commercial or other relevant role.
• Demonstrated performance in leading projects and teams, experience developing and implementing category and procurement strategies, managing and negotiating with suppliers
• Strong analytical and financial awareness including a comprehensive understanding of Annual Operating Plan requirements and financial goals & value drivers relevant to the categories in scope
• Track record influencing and managing senior team members and budget holders and driving cross-functional teams.
• Expertise in business and commercial competence and broad understanding of IT related legal and contractual concepts associated with technology – e.g. effective Statements of Work
• Advanced business, financial, legal and commercial acumen gained from previous negotiations on sourcing projects and or contact negotiations

Skills

• Advanced prior experience and understanding of IT sourcing and contracting processes and practices is essential
• Solid understanding of automation, AI and other digital solutions

Working with Us
Flexibility is key to success in our business and many of our staff work flexibly in many different ways, including part-time, compressed hours, flexible location. Please talk to us about what flexibility means to you and don’t let anything stop you from applying.

Join us and you can also expect a highly competitive and flexible rewards and benefits package including:

• Competitive base salary and bonus scheme
• Contemporary work life balance policies, benefits and wellbeing activities
• Contributary pension scheme

Celebrating our inclusive and diverse culture is core to Diageo’s purpose of “celebrating life every day everywhere”. This purpose is, in itself, inclusive in nature, as it values everybody irrespective of background, disability, religion, gender identity, sexuality or ethnicity.
We know that for our business to thrive and for Diageo to realize its ambition, we depend on having diverse talent with a range of backgrounds, skills and capabilities in each of the 180 countries in which we operate and to reflect our broad consumer base. We view diversity as one of the key enablers that helps our business to grow and our values, purpose and standards set the conditions for us to respect the unique contribution each person brings.
Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected Consumer Products Company in the world. To achieve these, we need the world’s very best people.
We’re looking for people with creativity, boldness and a sense of purpose to take Diageo and our timeless, pioneering brands to the next level.
Feel inspired? Then this may be the opportunity for you!
Worker Type :
Regular
Primary Location:
1HQ
Additional Locations :
Amsterdam, Budapest, Edinburgh Park, Madrid, Onyx, Glasgow, St James Gate
Job Posting Start Date :
2025-01-2

• Applying strategic procurement excellence, through the creation of category strategies built on Diageo’s best methods, standards and tools to deliver procurement value for Diageo.
• Driving end-to-end execution of category strategies, ensuring that global and market category professionals are aligned and working in line with strategy.
• Serving as subject-matter expert for specific spend categories, ensuring collection and leverage of supply market expertise and close engagement with collaborators for value-adding procurement