Strategic Procurement Manager (M&A, IT Outsourcing)

Job title: Strategic Procurement Manager (M&A, IT Outsourcing) Location: Edinburgh Contract Permanent At Royal London we want to attract the best talent to help us achieve our vision of becoming the most trusted and recommend financial company in the UK. We are the largest mutual life, pensions and Investment Company in the UK The Procurement Team is a successful and growing team entering the second year of our three year transformation strategy. We have the ambition and drive to be the best in our market. Due to our success in 2019 we have been able to secure additional roles so that we can increase the impact of our department on the Royal London Group. In 2019 we smashed our savings target, built our relationships and reputation across the Royal London Group and attained market leading employee engagement scores. Our success however led to demand for our services outstripping our capacity and we are now in a position where we need to recruit new people into the team. With the support of new recruits we will be pushing boundaries into new areas of spend and business strategy. Those who join us will have the opportunity to join a team that is supportive, fun, high performing, focussed and has a relentless hunger to innovate. We have an excellent track record of supporting professional development through CIPS and specialist negotiation sponsorship. We are looking for ambitious people with a strong procurement or supplier management background to join our team to help build on our success and deliver an improved service for our stakeholders and members. Key Accountabilities • The role will identify strategic sourcing opportunities to drive down costs in delivering third party services, mitigate risk and improve performance using market insight, spend analysis, demand management, simplification opportunities and strengthening supplier relationships. • Provide Procurement support on high risk, high spend Royal London strategic technology or business services’ projects - specific leadership, to include synthesising relevant information from industry analysis, supplier analysis, total costs, historical pricing trends, and competitive information to prepare for negotiations • Lead negotiator to multi-million pound contracts and sourcing arrangements as well as complex new business deals • Build and apply a negotiation strategy that is based on Category plans, utilises industry analysis, internal business analysis, and thorough market knowledge • Apply innovative negotiation techniques that will drive cost, risk and relationship value to the business, including implementing the BATNA technique • Maintain positive relationships during all stages of negotiations, especially when there is a difference of opinion, gaining consensus to each agreement • Design, lead and implement category market leading sourcing arrangements for designated spend category o Technical market expertise across Technology sectors (e.g. Infrastructure, Software and Services, including IT Outsourcing) o Experienced in delivering enterprise-wide IT transformation initiatives including Legacy systems, Digital and Data • Key Procurement contact on M&A activity supporting Group Strategy • Provide leadership in risk management through leading commercially focussed and regulatory compliant tendering activities and establishing robust contracts and commercial governance for goods and services with suppliers • Build and develop excellent executive / senior management relationships, becoming a trusted business partner through successful and relevant stakeholder engagement and delivering great deals Skills and Experience • Demonstrable experience across IT Procurement and supplier management, preferably within the financial sector • Able to forge excellent Exec / Senior Manager relationships • Experience of writing / input to board papers, budgets and business plans • Experience of managing High value/ High Risk projects simultaneously Essential Criteria • Significant experience in IT Outsourcing and M&A activities, including 3rd party consents and contract novations • Very strong knowledge of IT commercial models and approaches/techniques necessary to achieve best in class deals • Spend category management expertise across a broad range of indirect spend categories • Strong selling style and effective communicator, collaborator and influencer • Advanced negotiation skills and comprehensive knowledge of contract law • Proven leadership and coaching skills, able to deputise for the Head of Technology Procurement Desirable Criteria • Commercially astute, able to develop business cases and be a strong negotiator • Strong relationship management skills – gravitas and interpersonal skills to interface with senior leadership • Strong attention to detail and capability to see, assess and mitigate commercial risks • The ability to see projects in their holistic entirety • Strong planning and organisational skills What we offer • We've always been proud to reward employees by offering a number of benefits • such as Pensions and Protection, Performance and role-related benefits, Lifestyle and Wellbeing • Our culture comes from within, or to put it another way, it comes from our people. It’s what makes Royal London a great place to work. • Our People Promise is something we live up to every day. We know we can rely on you, and you can expect plenty from us in return. • Glassdoor have again ranked as among the best places to work in the UK We are an equal opportunities employer. We work hard to attract the best talent for our award-winning team. We believe that embracing difference makes us stronger. Our diverse people bring us different skills – whatever their educational background, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, race, religion or belief. In fact, the first pillar of our People Promise is designed to make sure you 'work somewhere inclusive'. We want to live up to this promise; it’s good for our people and good for our customers too, because our workforce should reflect our communities.