Sr. Category Specialist

Role Details – Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities:

- Conduct strategic and operational procurement activities to support various FM projects;
- Procure, expedite and schedule deliveries of materials and sourcing equipment, goods and services;
- Perform procurement activities across multiple FM categories of spend, search for better deals and find more profitable suppliers;
- Identify, gather, analyze and summarize purchase requirements and demand;
- Preparation of sourcing strategies and sourcing processes;
- Involved in the creation & implementation of sourcing strategies in compliance with the legal, internal policies, good practices and business goals;
- Manage bidding and tendering activities for goods and services related to projects;
- Manage price negotiation and finalization for commercial supply agreements / contracts and letters of intent in close alignment with procurement services
- Analyze supplier offers and quantify total costs of ownership (TCO)
- Develop and manage supplier relationships including supplier performance
- Regular reporting of sourcing/negotiation strategies and outcome, sourcing recommendation and benefits.
- Actively participating in improvement of procurement processes and governance
- Conduct regular market analysis and benchmarking exercises, identifying market trends and monitoring related developments

Job Dimension – (E.g. Revenue & Budget size, Sales Volume etc.)

- Responsible for approx. AED 50-100Mn annual spend

•    Target Budget Savings as defined by department head and/or function on an annual basis.

Other Context (if applicable):

- Interactions with internal business clients regularly on execution of sourcing initiatives
- Communication of progress and outcomes of category strategies and sourcing initiatives to the Category Manager
- Ongoing engagement with key internal and external customers
- Externally represent the MAF Procurement Team function, liaising between business clients and suppliers.

Functional/Technical Competencies:

- Facility Management or direct related procurement knowledge required
- Good technical knowledge of FM related scope.
- Demonstrate procurement planning and strategy development within the region.
- Good experience with savings tracking and measurement.
- Strong understanding of Category Management, governance design and category performance management.
- Experience with compliance management.
- Supply market research and supplier analysis
- Supplier Costing Models & Total Cost of Ownership analysis and supplier analysis
- Supplier evaluation, registration and on-boarding
- Experience with eSourcing tools - eRFx eAuctions

Personal Characteristics and Required Background:

- Understanding and practiced best-in-class procurement processes, systems and practices
- Customer focused & takes time to understand the needs of the business partnering, influencing and negotiation skills
- Understanding of SAP Ariba, Microsoft AX, Oracle, eRFx

- Strong conceptual, analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Strong interpersonal and influencing skills.
- Relationship building skills with a customer service.
- Planning and organization skills to effectively establish the priority and scheduling of work tasks.
- Well-developed negotiating and management skills to foster continual improvement and cultural change enable effective implementation of plans across the organization.
- Integrity, judgement and professionalism.

Minimum experience

- At least 3 years’ experience in contracting or category management

Minimum Qualifications/education

Preferable Bachelor’s degree.

Preferable professional Procurement qualification (e.g. MCIPS).