Supply Chain Manager; Bidding & Programmes

Role Purpose

Top level: Negotiates favourable terms, volume discounts and long-term contracts with suppliers and prepares and processes requisitions and purchase orders for the procurement of technical equipment, custom engineered products, systems, software or components.  Acquires and maintains understanding of technology trends, market forces, cost trends and supplier technology road maps.  Reviews purchase order claims and contracts for conformance to organisation policy and discusses defects and delivery problems with suppliers and negotiates refunds.

The role is accountable for providing a best in class procurement service for input into Customer bids, in support of securing new business for QinetiQ.

The Supply Chain Manager will be responsible for executing the cost effective and timely delivery of procurement sourcing projects. The Supply Chain Manager is responsible for driving the sourcing process, identification of Risk and Opportunities, and for working collaboratively with key stakeholders within the business to execute the procurement strategy for the full range of procurement projects.

Sourcing exercises will be initiated both by internal stakeholders to work on cost centre funded projects, or subcontracts in support of customer funded work. There will be equal focus on driving out unnecessary expenditure in order to reduce corporate overhead and the timely delivery of contractual solutions within the Project timescales.

The Supply Chain Manager will need to be able to develop new supplier relationships in order to meet QinetiQ’s future aspirations. This will require knowledge of specific aviation and space domains and associated supply chains.

Key Accountabilities:

• Develop strong relationships with key stakeholders in order to influence behaviours and ensure appropriate involvement of Procurement in all sourcing activities.
• Maintain awareness of the restrictions, controls and accreditation that are placed upon suppliers working in a Defence environment, ensuring at all times that both sourcing strategies and the incumbent supplier base do not jeopardize or threaten internal compliance.
• Collaborate with the Category Management Team to identify opportunities to utilize extant supplier relationships and frameworks that leverage Group scale.
• Ensure compliance with process, governance and controls as agreed in the Procurement Code of Practice and Sourcing methodology.
• Collaboratively develop plans with key stakeholders to ensure alignment of targets, improve supplier performance, and implement continuous improvement plans across spend.
• Collaborate with peers to develop and enhance systems, process, and best practice sharing to help QinetiQ achieve best in class performance, and bring consistency to sourcing activities.

Key Capabilities/Knowledge:

• Ability to guide others through the bidding processes.
• Understands impact of external customer requirements, recommends solutions to minimize risk and improve probability of winning external bids & tenders.
• Adaptive and change focused; able to adapt pace of delivery to meet business requirements.
• Provides best practice advice to business users and junior members of staff.
• Considered a technical expert within allotted embedded teams.
• Natural and articulate around management. Good listening skills and able to focus on issues critical to senior leaders. Can deliver communication concisely and steer conversation towards decisions needed.
• Highly customer focused and concerned with meeting and exceeding customer expectations.
• Highly results oriented. Keeps the organization on track and delivery oriented.
• Emotionally intelligent and comfortably relates to many different types of people. Is personally self-aware of strengths and weaknesses.

Experience & Qualifications:

• Proven contract negotiation and stakeholder influencing skills
• Demonstrable experience of the full sourcing process; from design through to execution
• Degree in a Business or Engineering discipline, or equivalent experience
• CIPS Qualified or equivalent experience
• 3+ years in a Procurement or Supply Chain related role

QinetiQ comprises teams of dedicated people; experts in defence, aerospace, security and related markets. We draw on our extensive technical knowledge and intellectual property to provide the know-how and support to solve some of the world’s most challenging problems.  Our people make the critical difference to customers by providing unique approaches to problem solving.  Why don’t you join some of the world’s finest scientific and technical minds and help us make tomorrow work today?