Network & Hardware Category Manager - UK
City of Bristol, England, United Kingdom
As a Network & Hardware Category Manager, your main objective is to :
· Set the Group Procurement strategy for Network & Hardware working with multiple internal stakeholders.
· Challenge the needs in a constructive dialog with stakeholders.
· Define and drive the negotiation strategy whilst ensuring the involvement and buy in of stakeholders including AXA Senior Executives.
· Linking with the community of Network & Hardware Sourcing Experts and developing relationships with AXA Operating Company procurement teams (including CPO) to develop transparency on common work/vendors/challenges and to support local projects in a pull mode.
· Maintain constant market knowledge, identifying vendor strategies, detecting disruption in the market, anticipating and mitigating risks and seizing opportunities.
Main missions
Your responsibilities include:
Ensure upstream procurement involvement within the IT stakeholders through Sourcing Business Partners for Group Operations or through the network of AXA Companies buyers in order to deliver value / savings & minimize AXA risk exposure.
Proactively manage contract lifecycle: renegotiation, ensure compliance etc.
Challenging the needs: the Sourcing Lead Expert will challenge the needs and have a dialog with business areas to set the right conditions to optimize benefits. Levers will include specification/test to open to alternative solutions/alternative vendors, reuse of excess licenses available, change in deployment to optimize number of licenses.
Gather needs throughout for aggregation purposes and getting best deals for the AXA Group.
Define negotiation strategy with internal stakeholders, involve these stakeholders, including AXA Executives, when driving the negotiations with Vendors.
Drive the contractual negotiations with Vendors and internal stakeholders (Legal, Compliance, Data Privacy, Security, Resilience). For AXA Companies, in pull mode, the Network & Hardware Sourcing Expert may be in support / advising mode to another AXA Company buyer.
Provide the Procurement network Groupwide with key information about the negotiated deals, being able to promote these deals to ensure AXA Companies adherence to them.
Drive the development of new market opportunities (new suppliers, technologies, substitution products, etc.) for creating/ensuring competition between vendors for the benefit of AXA.
As may be assigned, operate as a Key Vendor Manager at global level (for a specific vendor), ensuring relevant alignment to Key Vendor Management framework.
Propose and implement levers for reducing or avoiding costs through vendor competition.
We are looking for someone with the following experience and skills:
Experience
Master’s degree in Procurement / MBA level / CIPS qualified.
Significant experience (5+ years) in Procurement with at least three years spent in Network, Workplace or Datacenter categories.
Exposure to large, multi-country company
Technical skills
Excellent negotiation skills, including experience with monopolistic like vendors.
Ability to design and articulate negotiation strategies.
A broad understanding of IT evolution.
Deep knowledge of pricing models (software metrics, SLAs, etc).
Knowledge of key contractual clauses.
Awareness Asset Management and deployment.
English - Fluent in speaking and writing - another European language is a plus.
Soft skills / transversal skills
Good Communication and teamwork, able to work in an agile mode across the IT community.
Excellent collaboration.
A strong colleagues and internal customers focus.
Result orientated.
Creative and innovative mindset to challenge established business models and approaches.
Ability to work with the wider leadership team.
Ability to work in an international environment.