Sr. Procurement Manager

Description:

 Sr. Manager Procurement 

Position summary: In the News Corp Global Sourcing Organization, our aim is to unlock value for News Corp to reinvest in what matters most. We do this by bringing speed, efficiency, and security to buying at News Corp and with all business units within. We partner deeply across News Corp’s business units to deliver solutions fit for purpose.

As a centralized organization operating in a high complexity environment, we bring one voice to stakeholders, suppliers and vendors to ensure the best outcomes.

Our organization fosters a culture of collaboration, innovation and continuous improvement while providing opportunities for ongoing career growth and development. As a Category Leader, you will partner closely with key stakeholders to help shape and implement sourcing strategies related to your category.

This team is responsible for developing and driving holistic category strategies, managing stakeholder relationships, and bringing excellence to News Corp-wide sourcing, supplier, and supplier management. You will collaborate across teams to develop new procurement approaches and solve complex business problems.

As a sourcing category leader, you will lead strategic sourcing engagements across a wide range of business units to enable new initiatives to launch and scale rapidly. You are an expert practitioner in creating competitive environments, and have a strong bias for decision-making rooted in data and analytics. You routinely influence C-level supplier relationships and advise senior business leaders on innovative sourcing strategies that create sustainable, long-term partnerships. You are a highly effective communicator, and are able to articulate the value proposition of partnering with our sourcing group.

This role in particular focused on category leadership for the sub-category Real Estate and Facilities, under the Indirect Category umbrella.

Accountabilities

Category Management

Lead the delivery of the annual YOY productivity savings & working capital impact across the category owners; set preliminary vision/goals for the category assigned in first 90-days on the job based on identified cost drivers
Develop, execute, and implement a complete Category Strategy for Real Estate, Facilities Management (FM), and Construction/Design (A&E, GCs), collaborating with key stakeholders, team members, and leaders affected by the respective category; Play an integral role in the development of multi-year global category plans and strategies that drive supplier consolidation and leverage spend across the organization while increasing spend under contract.
Follow structured project management methods and principles to execute complex, long-term category management and strategic sourcing initiatives
Adopt/leverage the Category Performance framework and define metrics related to category performance and continuously tracks them
Prepare and execute clear, structured negotiations following the Global Sourcing and Procurement Category Management and Strategic Sourcing methodologies
Start/Run program level initiatives that can create benefits such as improving an existing process, execute actions to increase diversity, etc.
Manage Category cards detailing overall category strategies, preferred suppliers, and business unit requirements for execution; ensure category health is tracking per strategy/goals/plan
Develop “should cost” and “total cost of ownership models” for the category; support the strategies & targets set by the Category Head.
Build strong partnerships with key budget owners, functional stakeholders, and strategic suppliers.
Be part of multiple cross-functional teams executing major category initiatives, ensure delivery of values across the procurement process, contribute to the compliance tracking of category specific policies and performance metrics, and support the translation of rapidly evolving category market trends and leading practices into opportunities for News Corp

Sourcing Advisory

Establishing strong relationships with internal business partners; building a robust understanding of strategic business direction, requirements and priorities across assigned suppliers and/or spend categories.
Developing global sourcing strategies to deliver against business objectives for internal clients.
Evaluating supplier core competencies and competitive positioning using industry cost models and benchmarking analysis; leveraging key-insights to inform and support the category strategy development process.
Managing the fundamentals of sourcing and supplier engagement activities including RFx, spend pattern analysis, contract analysis, bid evaluation, negotiations, and supplier consolidation.
Working with business and finance leaders to identify and drive savings and controllership improvements, focusing on total cost of ownership.
Providing guidance to internal stakeholders on procurement strategies; maintaining procurement ethics in accordance with News Corp’s global policies & methodologies
Preparing and holding business reviews with stakeholders to review vendor performance, future opportunities, and/or challenges.
Develops an understanding of the designated business unit market strategy and in coordination with the Business Sourcing Partners, proactively identifies individual spend category strategies/drivers that will allow to meet aggressive cost reduction targets
Works with senior cross-functional internal customers as well as the Business Sourcing Partner to define detailed business requirements with designated business units, prioritizing business requirements and taking them through approval process; Participates in standardized relationship management processes globally for designated business area(s)
Ensures Sourcing Partners as well as Contracting and Sourcing Analysts follow the category strategy & policies, procedures without deviation
Implements change management strategies within designated business units to increase utilization of best practices sourcing and procurement solutions
Assists the Business Sourcing Partner in business unit capacity and demand planning forecasting customer business unit demand
Negotiation of global preferred supplier agreements
Maintains the contracting database and feeds the Supplier Relationship Management system

Contracting

Perform negotiation of contracts...including but not limited to Master Services Agreements, Construction/Design Agreements (e.g., AIA), Software as a Service, comprehensive Master Services Agreements, Master License and Service Agreement, Statement of Work, Amendments, etc. and negotiation of global preferred supplier agreements, following the legal guidelines.
Execute SOWs of complex and strategic nature through creation to approval
Manage escalations to the legal department appropriately, as needed
Be a contracting subject matter expert (SME) providing coaching and advisory services to other sourcing managers in the team under given category

Critical Experiences | Competencies | Abilities

Bachelor of Arts or Sciences Degree or equivalent experience required, MBA preferred
Minimum 5 years of global real estate, facilities, and construction/capital expenditure sourcing experience.