Strategic Category Head (IS)

Morgan Hunt is delighted to be supporting our Higher Education client based in Edinburgh to appoint a Strategic Category Head for the IS team. This role is a maternity cover for a period of 16 months. The client offers hybrid working model with 2 days per week office based.

Reporting to the Head of Strategic Procurement, the Information Services (IS) Category Head's role is to lead, develop and manage a small, professional and high-quality procurement team, delivering procurement excellence for the University within the IS Category. This will include both (i) improving the service and value delivered to our internal stakeholders, as well as (ii) improving external supplier performance, to successfully achieve our strategic procurement ambitions and support the University in achieving its overall strategic objectives.

The IS Category is responsible for supporting budget holders in procuring digital third-party supply contracts to meet their respective needs.

The high-level categories of purchases and corresponding contracts include:

- Hardware, including desktop, client and mobile, audio visual, and print;

- Infrastructure, including networking, and research and enterprise computing infrastructure;

- Cloud Service, including Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS);

- On premise software; and

- Library and Publications, including periodicals, books and e-books.

Main duties:

• Prepare and deliver annual commodity plans to achieve best practice indicators, focusing on improving category influence, value for money, deliver the University procurement capability and influence whole life costs and sustainable procurement.
• Develop the IS procurement category in a strategic and operational nature, working in collaboration with Operational Procurement and Contract & Supplier Management teams, to ensue value for money and efficiency's are achieved across the University.
• Deliver commercial value to internal stakeholders and projects for their IS/Libraries, in line with the strategic ambitions of the project/department and University.
• Develop strategic and creative approaches to market through agreed commodity procurement strategies, in collaboration with key stakeholders, to support the University in achieving its strategic objectives
• Provide valuable supply market advice to stakeholders for current and future requirements with the aim of delivering additional commercial value for the University, achieving sustainability and social responsibility objectives, improving competition, and delivering efficiency's
• Manage, maintain and develop supply agreements for the University, carrying out contracting, tendering and sourcing exercises where required, and in line with relevant legislation.
• Deliver and embed appropriate contract and supplier management for the University's supply relationships/ agreements, ensuring that optimal value is obtained throughout the life of the contract and that supply risks are mitigated.
• To reduce both capital and recurrent costs through effective routes to market against an agreed cost-savings targets.
• To manage, plan and demonstrate procurement leadership and good governance for a wide category of goods and services.

Requirements:

• A Professional Diploma (MCIPS), relevant degree or substantial experience in a procurement environment.
• Existing category knowledge within IS/digital industry.
• Demonstrated experience in delivering procurement excellent and value for money in line with agreed targets.
• Several year's experience delivering a relevant procurement service, showing knowledge appropriate to this high value technically diverse environment.
• Outstanding and highly responsive customer management skills.
• Excellent planning and organisational skills, along with the ability to make astute business decisions in collaboration with others.
• Ability to effectively lead and motivate a team of procurement professionals influencing
• Strong influencing skills to build trusted and successful relationships, as well as contributing to business strategies/cases and projects
• Experience evaluating and established framework agreements and contracts.
• Have good knowledge all legal aspects of public procurement legislation and policies.
• This role is ideal for an ambitious person who would like to develop a career within one of Edinburgh's most prestigious organisations and make a key contribution to its ongoing success.

Morgan Hunt is a multi-award-winning recruitment business for interim, contract and temporary recruitment and acts as an Employment Agency in relation to permanent vacancies. Morgan Hunt is an equal opportunities employer. Job suitability is assessed on merit in accordance with the individual's skills, qualifications and abilities to perform the relevant duties required in a particular role.