Market Category Specialist, Capex (East Africa)

East African Breweries PLC (EABL) is East Africa’s leading branded alcohol beverage business with an outstanding collection of brands that range from beer, spirits and adult non-alcoholic drinks (ANADs), reaffirming our standing as a total adult beverage (TAB) company.

EABL has extensive operations in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania with breweries, distilleries, support industries and a distribution network across the region. It also runs a growing export operations business within and outside of the wider Eastern Africa region. The group’s diversity is an important factor in delivering the highest quality brands to East African consumers and long-term value to East African investors.

EABL operates within a multi-cultural, multinational, multi-currency environment, dealing with various regulatory, tax and compliance requirements

EABL is a Public Listed Company (Plc) listed on the Securities/Stock Exchange in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

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 £5 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  Sustainability 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:

Within category teams, the role holder will implement the East Africa CAPEX  program. Moreover, will be responsible to manage projects risks, deliver planed savings, identify and deliver additional opportunities.

• Support the category lead in strategy refresh – performance and spend insights.
• Lead or support the execution on key strategic projects. Focus will be on large Capital projects, Utilities CapEx but also opportunity for involvement across all spend areas including MRO and utilities.
• Support risk management activities, market risk assessments.
• Work in collaboration with in-market teams - sharing supplier performance data; building supplier improvement plans.
• Project delivery – on time, to budget (including savings delivery), to specification.
• SPM program lead for sub-category key suppliers.

Role Responsibilities:

General

• Applied expertise.  Work with internal partners (Procurement and business) to ensure RFP’s focus on key business and commercial outcomes.
• Category excellence.  Strong understanding of category and sourcing outcomes. Lead development of best in class market data and knowledge, category strategies and sourcing events by applying Diageo standards for category excellence.  Contribute to improvement of existing and development of new tools & techniques.

Category strategy Sourcing delivery

• Business partnering.  Work with business partners to ensure sourcing exercises delivery required outcomes whilst managing all risks and assuring program value is achieved.
• Business partnering.  In close alignment with category managers, develop and grow relationships with stakeholders, partners and suppliers for deeper insights into needs and capabilities; articulate requirements and deliver insights for greater value from partner collaboration.
• Best in class capabilities.  Generate insights and opportunities from internal and external benchmarking, develop cost models to consider scenarios with suppliers and partners and build & evolve analytics capabilities that allow regular review and improvement of strategies. Learning shared and adopted into practice across Procurement team.
• Strategy development.  Support the development and evolution of category strategies by (1) capturing, articulating and confirming business requirements; (2) researching and analysing market dynamics; and (3) assessing opportunities and proposing solutions.

Sourcing

• Develop and implement sourcing strategies to support the transition to sustainability targets.
• For relevant sourcing projects, support effective planning, preparation and application of the Negotiation Toolkit.  Support category managers in negotiating and closing contracts.  Manage contracts and contract compliance through contract lifecycles.

Risk management

• Mitigate risks.  Support risk management activities with data inputs.
• Apply and improve tools & techniques.  Apply Procurement best practice standard, ensuring the most recent and relevant approaches are always applied.

Supplier relationship management

• Supplier relationship.  Utilise supplier relationship management frameworks to assess supplier performance, highlight areas for improvement and build action plans with suppliers.
• Supplier development. Develop supply base to support sustainability targets. 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.
• Supplier relationship.  Establish standards, ways of working and trusted relationships with global & regional suppliers; in relevant categories; ensure best practices are applied and that there is a good foundation for strong performance, risk mitigation and rapid resolution of issues.

Experience / skills required:

• Graduate or equivalent qualification and member of professional body, e.g. CIPS
• 3+ years experience in CapEx Procurement
• Strong analytical and financial awareness including a strong understanding of financial goals & value drivers
• Need to be technically literate with proven record of using systems successfully
• Strong verbal, written and presentation; strong interpersonal skills
• Proven track record of consistent performance and delivery
• Strong track record of category management, sourcing & relationship management
• Ability to engage and collaborate with technical teams
• Ability to work with in-market teams colleagues to share insights and good practice
• Ability to complete Pan-regional and global sourcing exercises with multiple business partners. Analyse, recommend and secure business alignment.
• Ability to work with regional teams in the execution of sourcing recommendation and ongoing supplier performance management.

Flexible Working Statement:

Flexibility is key to our success. Talk to us about what flexibility means to you so that you’re supported to manage your wellbeing and balance your priorities from day one.

Diversity statement:

Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere. And creating an inclusive culture, where everyone feels valued and that they can belong, is a crucial part of this.

We embrace diversity in the broadest possible sense. This means that you’ll be welcomed and celebrated for who you are just by being you. You’ll be part of and help build and champion an inclusive culture that celebrates people of different gender, ethnicity, ability, age, social class, educational backgrounds, experiences, mindsets, and more.

Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world. Join us and help transform our business as we take our brands to the next level and build new ones as part of shaping the next generation of celebrations for consumers around the world.

Feel inspired? Then this may be the opportunity for you.

If you require a reasonable adjustment, please ensure that you capture this information when you submit your application.