Category Manager

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Job Description

Organisation: Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation (ESPO)

Work Location: Barnsdale Way, Grove Park, Enderby, Leicester, LE19 1ES

Salary: £41,208 - £45,054 per annum (pro-rata for part-time)

Working Hours: 37 Hours per week Full time

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 12th July 2024

Interview Date(s): TBA

If you're looking for an exciting and challenging opportunity ESPO is seeking to appoint a highly motivated individual to work within our Catalogue team. This position is ideally suited to someone who wants to continue to advance their career in a busy and supportive team.

About Us

ESPO is one of the UK's largest public sector buying organisations and for over 40 years we have been supplying Schools, Colleges and the wider public sector with an extensive range of products featured in our suite of customer focused catalogues.

About the Role

As a Category Manager you will be leading a team of Product Managers and support staff to develop and deliver a range of market appropriate products to service the needs of our existing and future customers, you will ensure products are procured compliantly, supplied and available at all times, meet all required standards and customer expectations. You will build strong relationships with key stakeholders and catalogue suppliers ensuring that all SLA's/KPIs are adhered to.

About You

To apply for this post, you must:

• Degree or equivalent qualification or demonstrable experience in this field.
• Experience of product management in a medium size organisation preferably related to catalogue product merchandising.
• Experience in Supplier Relationship Management methodology and practice with supplies of all sizes in various market places.
• Managing a team of professional resources ensuring effective staff utilisation to meet deadlines and achieve targets and goals.
• Experience in influencing and building relationships with key customer groups and stakeholders to ensure appropriate input into product range development.
• Ability to analyse and interpret product and market management information, from a number of sources, to determine and maximise its use to test commercial advantage.
• Excellent communications skills; the role involves significant interface and liaison with customers, stakeholders, suppliers, internal teams, Competence in Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel and the ability to manage time effectively to meet deadlines.

We'd also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the interview process.

What we offer:

• Flexible working opportunities and access to employee benefits portal with car lease scheme.
• 27 days annual leave plus bank holidays (increasing to 32 after 5 years' service), and a scheme to buy additional leave.
• Local Government Pension Scheme with a generous employer contribution.
• Opportunities for learning development, including CIPS or CIM.
• Great office location next to Fosse Park, with free on-site parking and easy access to M1 and M69.

Interested in Flexible Working?

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of ESPO. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below. This may include requests for, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.

For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:

Ian Gibbins - Head of Catalogue and Supply Chain.

Telephone: 0116 265 7894

Email: i.gibbins@espo.org

How to Apply

ESPO is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity, and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our customers. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the customers we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.

To apply for this job, please click 'Apply Now'. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Employee Service Centre: https://emss.freshdesk.com/support/home.

By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.

About Us

About ESPO

We're a unique organisation, owned by the public sector and sharing their values and ethos, but operating with a commercial edge. As a specialist procurement body, we pride ourselves on establishing procurement solutions that save money for the public sector. View our prospectus to find out more.

We have modern, open-plan offices with excellent transport links and a friendly workplace environment. We offer flexible working, a generous holiday entitlement, a contributory pension scheme, training (including professional CIPS qualification) and opportunities to develop your career.

ESPO is supported by wide range of roles across many different disciplines including sales, marketing, procurement, finance, operations (warehouse management and transport planning) and customer services. So whether you are interested in a public-facing role or playing your part behind the scenes, ESPO could be the place for you.

To learn more about working for ESPO please visit www.espo.org.