Category Manager (IT) | Leading Insurance Business | Sussex

A leading insurance business with an exciting growth plan and innovation agenda is recruiting a Category Manager to work across IT spend. The business work at pace and the procurement team drive procurement excellence, delivering high value across all projects delivered.

Working closely with a management team who share a passion and dedication to pushing boundaries, your voice will be heard as you are encouraged to challenge and think “outside the box”. As Category Manager for IT you will take responsibility for a software related spend, supporting your colleagues on other IT spend categories where required. You will be working at all levels across the business up to Executive level in managing the end to end procurement process on their assigned initiatives.

The team here will work closely with you, and support in this business is never too far away. The company adopts a friendly and approachable culture, self-development is encouraged, and the inspiring Director here will no doubt push you to be the best you can be.

Sound like something you’d like to be a part of? Here’s some more background for you…

Key Responsibilities:

• Run IT procurement end to end activities (tender, negotiation, due diligence etc. through to contract signing) for mid/ high value spend (£50k+)
• Agree and deliver against clearly agreed target signing dates, ensuring all aspects of procurement including due diligence have been completed in good time, prioritising appropriately and ensuring that proportional effort is applied to each contract such that timeframes are acceptable
• Create and/or work to Category Plans for areas of responsibility
• Liaise with legal to support business owners in a smooth contracting process, with key clauses and outcomes clearly understood
• Establish rate cards and standardised contracts to support procurement self-service in the business.
• Identify opportunities for procurement to drive increased value into the organisation and deliver upon those opportunities
• Build a strong partnership with business leads, ensuring early engagement, making the process easy for the business, with clear inputs, deliverables and acceptable turnaround times for completion of procurement activity
• Keep up to date with developments and trends in external supply markets

Skills and Experience Required:

The appointed Category Manager will come with existing knowledge of the IT category, ideally across software. You will have spent at least 4-5 years in a similar role, preferably gained in the Financial Services / Insurance Sector.

Further skills and experience that we’re looking for is as follows:

• Experience of handling complex IT supply relationships and a background of executing software agreements
• CIPS qualified, or working towards CIPS qualification
• Communication, presentation and influencing skills
• Highly organised, and able to manage multiple projects at a time whilst consistently paying attention to detail
• Effective stakeholder management skills

If you feel your experience aligns to the above, we would love to hear from you and tell you more about the company, the role and the team you would be working alongside.

In securing this role you will be embarking on a great opportunity to develop yourself, but not only this, you’ll receive a range of fantastic benefits too.

Take a look:

• Car allowance of £5,000
• Bonus scheme up to 10%
• Pension scheme
• Life assurance
• Medical
• Share scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• 25 days annual leave, with option to buy and sell holiday
• Range of high street discounts
• Tax free charity donation scheme