Category Strategy Support Lead - Warehousing, Downstream Aviation & Freight Forwarding

Entity: Technology Job Family Group: Procurement & Supply Chain Management Group Job Description: Role Synopsis The Category Strategy Support Lead plays a key role in developing and communicating category strategies that align with business goals, value creation, risk mitigation, and supply chain optimization. You will leverage your expertise to create category presentations, reports, and other strategic documents that support decision-making and stakeholder engagement in support of the category managers for Warehousing, Downstream aviation and Freight Forwarding . Working Hours: This role operates on a shift basis and requires flexibility. Candidates must be flexible to work either: • Shift A (ASPAC/EU): 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM MYT, or • Shift B (ASPAC/US): 5:00 PM – 2:00 AM MYT. Key Accountabilities • Partner with Warehousing, Downstream aviation and Freight Forwarding c ategory managers, stakeholders and suppliers to develop and execute category strategies that deliver value, manage risk and support bp’s commercial and operational objectives. • Lead and coordinate a category support team, assessing incoming requests and prioritizing work based on urgency, complexity and business impact. • Prepare high-quality presentations, reports and communications tailored to stakeholder needs to secure alignment and support for category strategies. • Conduct market analysis and research to generate strategic insights and identify future value delivery opportunities. • Support demand planning, change management and the development of compelling business cases that drive adoption of category initiatives. • Manage Strategic and Core suppliers through stakeholder engagement, value delivery, category enablement and alignment with broader procurement objectives. • Track and report category performance, KPIs and change initiatives to ensure successful execution of strategy and continuous improvement . • Standardize and enhance category sourcing processes, templates, KPIs and scope reviews to improve efficiency and identify value opportunities. • Implement supplier performance management practices, maintain supplier relationships, drive performance reviews and develop improvement plans to address risk, safety and performance gaps. • Optimize procurement channels and SAP Ariba content, ensuring contract compliance, pricing accuracy, efficient buying processes and effective risk controls. Essential Education and Experience: • An undergraduate degree (ideally in procurement or business) or equivalent experience. • Minimum 6-8 years’ professional experience in Indirect Procurement is required. • Experience of working cross culturally and in an international environment, can communicate and influence across different levels in the organization, through an engaging and collaborative way of working • Resilient and experienced in working in multi-faceted environment Required Experience and Job Requirements: • Business Requirements Analysis- Use understanding of stakeholder strategy and category knowledge to develop a viable, long term view of business requirements. • Product & Market Intelligence- Uses deep knowledge of supply markets to create strong sourcing solutions. Uses supply market insights to determine future sourcing strategies for the business. Networks internally and externally and stay up to date via industry publications, conferences, and events. • Category Strategy- Acknowledged expert with deep knowledge of their category including thought leadership regarding the impact of innovation and technology. Mentors and coach’s category managers / specialists / analysts / lead in the use of analytical tools. Leads governance discussions with executive sponsors regarding progress and business results. • Business Acumen- Utilizes deep understanding of business operations and commercial factors to support decision-making and priorities opportunities to drive commercial value. Has a broad professional grasp of financial and management information and accounting procedures. Identifies new or alternative approaches to performing business activities more efficiently. Additional Competencies • Relationship Management- Takes full ownership of engagement issues with stakeholders, monitors relationships and acts on relevant feedback. Maintains, develops, and leverages long-term strategic relationships with key senior-level representatives of relevant internal and external organizations and professional groups. • Category Spend Profiling- Develops insights on spend profiles that result in elimination of non-value add spend within the category. Identifies key external and environmental drivers and uses this to recommend sourcing initiatives. • Contract Management- Manage contracts to effectively control spend, reduce risk, avoid supplier driven scope creep. Manages BP’s and supplier’s compliance to the contract and proactively resolves issues before they become major problems. • Supplier Relationship Management- Works collaboratively with suppliers. Links value proposition to strategic objectives. • Value Creation & Management- Creates opportunities that provide mutual value and drive competitive advantage. Challenges suppliers to generate value-based solutions that deliver improved business results. • Cost Modelling- Proposes internal and external solutions to reduce costs over the life of the purchase and implements solutions as agreed. • Buying Channel Compliance - Monitor contract compliance via buying channels and provide analytics to identify contract risk trends and opportunities. • Influencing- Proactively manages a wide range of stakeholders to overcome resistance and achieve a successful result from projects. Varies communication to address specific stakeholder needs and to gain commitment and support. • Innovation- Experiments with new ideas. Brings together the creative ideas into a systematic approach or solution, seeking better solutions for new requirements. • Project Manage…