Procurement Strategy & Insights Assistant Packaging, Global Procurement

ABOUT PROCUREMENT

Part of the Supply Chain’s family, Procurement is responsible for over 30B Euro of material and services spend globally with more than 50,000 suppliers. Getting the right services and materials, sustainably sourced and ensuring responsible procurement is critical to ensuring our brands with purpose grow. Our teams work closely with the business to understand brand needs, bring supplier innovation to meet changing consumer needs and drive financial value for Unilever through competitive buying. We are at the forefront of digital procurement, bringing new tools and analytics to drive data-based decisions.

With over 1400 employees globally, we support a network of thousands of suppliers, more than 1.5 million smallholder farmers who in turn support communities of over 7 million people. Our strategy is ‘Procurement with Purpose’ and focuses on buying responsibly, buying better and growing together with partners around the world and we have an ambition that is based on three key drivers: Being Purpose-Led, Value-Driven and Future-Fit.

Schaffhausen and Singapore are Procurement’s global hubs for strategy & insights, purpose & partnerships, and the global sourcing teams, which integrate with the market teams around the globe.

PROCUREMENT STRATEGY & INSIGHTS

The Procurement Strategy & Insights Team is a newly formed team, serving as the nerve centre of the Unilever global procurement organization, enabling the procurement organization to design and deliver step-change across value chains, operating processes and tools, and business models. This team is responsible for:  

Sensing, incubating, and enabling innovative ideas, new business models, and transformation programs for disruptive value creation across procurement teams

Creating and implementing standardized processes and data-driven decision making to ease operating effectiveness and drive better and faster outcomes

Developing and enabling procurement strategies with respective network VPs and portfolio and market teams based on strategic insights

Identifying, scaling, and spreading best practices across the global procurement organization, within and across teams

Facilitating rapid learning, capability development, and future-fit upskilling of our people

MAIN JOB PURPOSE

Reporting to the Procurement Strategy & Insights Team and Integrated in the Packaging Sourcing LT, the purpose of this role is:

To be a healthy forward-looking challenger, as well as a partner to the One Packaging sourcing team, provoking and bringing new thinking. With the following key activities:

Facilitate creation and updating of portfolio strategies and deliver analytics and guidance for negotiations and contracting applying expertise and the newly created playbooks, incorporating best-in-class solutions.

Lead the Insights creation from available data, based on a good understanding of the data architecture and guiding the mining process

Help define and Rollout strategic transformation programs, such as Resilience 2.0, Price Transparency and ZBB

Derive value creation opportunities based on deep Value Chain expertise, Supplier, Competitor and Industry Insights, as well as benchmarking and cost modelling

Conduct supply and demand analysis, in collaboration with the portfolio sourcing teams

KEY INTERACTIONS

The Procurement Strategy & Insights Packaging professional will interface with the following stakeholders:

One Packaging Leadership team

Packaging Procurement Director & LT

Global and Market sourcing teams

Procurement Finance Team

Head of Supplier Operations, Sourcing Operations and team

Key Suppliers and agencies/partners

Industry and insights resources

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Facilitate creation and updating of portfolio strategies, and deliver analytics and guidance for negotiations and contracting applying expertise and the newly created playbooks, incorporating best-in-class solutions

Co-leads with the sourcing team the key strategic activities within the portfolio, acting as a challenger, bringing fresh thinking and ideas and balancing historical knowledge

Masters the newly created frameworks/playbooks on key procurement skills (Strategy, Negotiation, Contracting), acting as consultant to the portfolio, using the tools to upskill the sourcing team and as enablers for the execution.

Lead the Insights creation from available data, based on a good understanding of the data architecture and guiding the mining process

Develops the data mining approach, together with the Digital Strategy team, to uncover valuable business insights that can be transformed into actionable plans

Analyses data to seek trends, patterns, anomalies, and findings that drive useful business insights

Translates data into insights by discovering, creating, testing, and validating hypotheses with the portfolio sourcing teams, communicating the insights and working with the sourcing teams to develop and execute strategies that leverage these insights

Helps define and Rolls out strategic transformation programs, such as Price Transparency, ZBB and new ways of working

Evaluates the readiness of the Packaging portfolio to implement transformation programs and defines the focus areas.

Proceeds with on the ground execution of global initiatives, translating the frameworks into clear guidance and action plans ready for execution, incorporating all the nuances from the Packaging portfolio

Expand potential local programs/best practices across the whole Packaging Portfolio

Derives value creation opportunities based on a deep Value Chain expertise, Supplier, Competitor and Industry Insights, as well as benchmarking and cost modelling

Executes detailed Value Chain analysis to define opportunities to intervene/intermediate at different levels, taking into account all the different Packaging we source

Is closely connected with the Markets and Industry boards, acquiring the relevant Intel to identify opportunities and creates technology/Innovation roadmaps based on Mega Trends

Masters the Benchmarking tools and through internal and external evaluation draws conclusions to guide the sourcing team to the optimum supply base as well as assets

Owns and drives the development of the Cost modelling for the portfolio

Conduct supply and demand analysis

Drive the supply and demand analysis for the different services across the portfolio

Work closely with the sourcing teams, S&I colleagues, and external entities to identify, forecast, and interpret supply- and demand-driven opportunities across the portfolio

LEADERSHIP BEHAVIORS

Strategic, Systemic Thinking & Entrepreneurial

Strong Talent catalyst to bring the best out of people

Outstanding problem-solving and analytical skills

High Growth mindset & Consumer Love

Strong Communication & Influencing skills

High Initiative, Quick Learner and Self-Starter

SKILLS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

0 - 5 years experience in a procurement, Packaging Sourcing or Packaging Development role either in Unilever / FMCG industry or in a large complex organisation with strong portfolio and market expertise

Consulting experience in Tier 1 consulting firms would be a plus

Strong business and commercial acumen

Packaging Industry Knowledge is a plus

Change management experience of large scale / global transformation programs is a plus

Has a good understanding of Agile principles, values, methodologies and practices that enable agility and approaches delivery with an iterative and incremental (test - do – learn) approach

Ability and drive to work independently and lead diverse teams, across different geographies

Experience of working in cross-functional teams within a matrix environment – both F2F and virtually

Ability to influence senior stakeholders and peers effectively.

Excellent critical thinking, analytical and story-telling skills in order to respond to multiple market/portfolio specific characteristics and influence change remotely