IT Services Category Manager – IT Consulting (Technology Procurement)

Let me tell you about the role

The IT Services Category Manager – IT Consulting provides strategic category leadership for key categories at Castrol and is accountable for end-to-end management of global categories.

They are responsible for fostering end to end category operational excellence through leading teams who manage supply chain risk and maximize value, including sustainability, within their category. They do this through extensive teamwork across and beyond procurement, including with regional and business resources. This ensures their category operates end to end with high effectiveness.

The individual will be a strategic problem solver who leads development of exceptional executable category strategies to meet business objectives and also ensures competitive procurement outcomes. They ensure that strong category guidance is established for efficient execution across complex categories.

They cultivate partnerships with senior stakeholders and collaborate to deliver step changes in 3rd party spend management. They have high commercial acumen ensuring alignment with business goals and delivering secure optimal, compliant, and competitive, risk-managed procurement outcomes.

A transformational leader, adept at change management, who builds high performing teams through displaying emotional understanding and fostering resilience.

The category teams directly influence delivery of the business / entity financial plans and the overall value delivery of procurement, and are accountable for ensuring a safe, risk managed, sustainable and competitive supply chain.

The IT Services Category Manager leads the global IT Services procurement category strategy for IT Consulting, shaping strategy, driving commercial value, and partnering with business stakeholders to deliver competitive, innovative and compliant IT services sourcing and supplier‑management outcomes. The category manager will build the category strategies and sourcing roadmaps for IT service aligned with IT operating model, technology roadmap and business priorities.

The category manager will define sourcing approaches build vs buym insource vs outsource, single vs multi-vendor, regional vs global and tower model designs with clear commercial models for the strategy which include rate cards, blended rates, skill pyramids, outcome-based, fixed price etc.

Develop and deploy the global IT services category strategy, covering areas such as IT application services, support services, consulting services and managed services.

Use market intelligence and industry trends to shape long‑term IT services procurement strategy and drive competitive advantage.

Provide strategic steer in major negotiations with global and regional IT services suppliers.

Act as the senior commercial partner to global and regional IT leadership team.

What you will deliver

Category Strategy leadership: Leads the category team developing and delivering transformational procurement strategies, aligned with business needs, which ensures their category operates highly effectively end to end;-

• Possesses commercial acumen and awareness of external market dynamics, providing strategic guidance and challenging the team to formulate innovative, value-driven strategies.
• Leverages methodologies, such as systems thinking, to extract incremental value
• Ensures their strategy is aligned to business and regional needs

Category excellence: Demonstrates data led ownership of the end-to-end performance of the category, working with stakeholders to develop category management plans that allow efficient end to end category management reflecting business / region specific context such as laws, tax, market conditions and local content.

Transformational Leadership and Change Management: Leads major change initiatives, which deliver incremental value to business through ensuring supplier performance in a dynamic environment.

Team leadership: Builds high performing teams by fostering a culture of collaboration, excellence, and continuous improvement. Their team has strong technical skills and leads the category across procurement and the broader organization.

Supplier & Stakeholder Management: Uses storytelling to communicate impactful with stakeholders and external partners, respectfully challenging to achieve the right outcomes, resolving conflict and focusing on priorities.

What you will need to be successful

Degree educated - something related to Business, IT, Procurement preferred - or equivalent relevant professional experience

Functional knowledge: Must possess an in-depth understanding of category management principles and theories, coupled with experience in developing and deploying category strategies.

Business expertise: Exemplary stakeholder management and influencing skills in order to develop a deep understanding of the supported businesses / regions / assets and their priorities, including long term objectives to ensure strategies are effective

Leadership: Leadership experience, ideally in a procurement organization.

Problem solving: The role requires conceptual thinking, for instance, to match market capability/disruption with business requirements and develop the strategic options for the category

Interpersonal skills: The role demands strong interpersonal skills for leading the category team, leading the category organization-wide, and engaging with global, diverse senior stakeholders.

At bp, we provide the following environment and benefits to you:

• A company culture where we respect our diverse and unified teams, where we are proud of our achievements and where fun and the demeanor of giving back to our environment are highly valued
• Possibility to join our social communities and networks
• Learning opportunities and other development opportunities to craft your career path
• Life and health insurance, medical care package
• And many other benefits.

Our purpose is to deliver energy to the world, today and tomorrow. For over 100 years, bp has focused on discovering, developing, and producing oil and gas in the nations where we operate. We are one of the few companies globally that can provide governments and customers with an integrated energy offering. Delivering our strategy sustainably is fundamental to achieving our ambition to be a net zero company by 2050 or sooner.

It’s an exciting time to join bp. Meeting the energy challenge requires many different approaches and solutions. And as part of Finance Business & Technology (FBT), you’ll be fully connected into the world of bp. You’ll play an increasingly important part within a network of like-minded colleagues partnering on strategic projects that stretch across the globe. And it starts with you. There’s a world of opportunities to build new skills, challenge yourself and grow a long-term career at bp. And no matter where you work, your role will have meaning, purpose and impact. So if you want to be part of a caring, supportive environment where you can realize your full potential, we’re with you.

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