Based in Solihull or London (3 days in office / 2 days at home)
We are looking for a Procurement Manager to join our friendly and dynamic team here at Waterstones in either our Piccadilly, London or Solihull office. This is a new role where you will be responsible for ensuring Waterstones acquires necessary goods and services efficiently, cost-effectively, and with high quality, while managing supplier relationships and mitigating risks.
This is a diverse role where you will be able to strategise and negotiate with suppliers and vendors, and ensure purchases of products, equipment, and services across the company align with the company's strategic objectives.
This role will also require you to embed a strong, compliant and effective procurement to pay process embedded across the company and roll out a PO process.
What you will be doing
- Conduct research to source the best products and suppliers in terms of best value, delivery schedules, and quality
- Run tenders, evaluate bids, and make recommendations based on commercial and technical factors
- Negotiate and agree contracts, monitoring the quality of service provided
- Develop and maintain excellent relationships with teams who procure services or goods across the business. Help them understand how you can help them in their role and the importance of good procurement governance
- Build and maintain good relationships with new and existing suppliers
- Liaise between suppliers, manufacturers and relevant internal teams
- Forecast levels of demand for services and products
- Develop and implement a procurement to pay strategy ensuring strong compliance.
- Work with other relevant stakeholders to roll out a PO process across the company
- Develop strategies to ensure cost savings and supplier performance targets are met or exceeded
- Ensure the security and sustainability of sources of essential products and services
- Forecast price trends and their impact on future activities
- Analyse data and produce reports and statistics on spending and saving
- Undertake value for money reviews of existing contracts and arrangements
- Ensure suppliers are aware of business objectives
- Keep up to date with trends and innovations, regulation, and new technology that can impact the business
What we need from you
- Experience in procurement, purchasing, or supply chain management, ideally within retail or ecommerce background.
- Proven track record of managing procurement activities, including strategic sourcing, contract negotiations, and supplier relationship management.
- Experience with or comfortable working in a stand-alone procurement role.
- Experience in running tenders, evaluating bids, and making recommendations.
- Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously, ensuring timely and cost-effective delivery.
- Experience in monitoring and managing the quality of service provided by suppliers.
- Experience in developing and implementing procurement compliance.
- Ability to forecast levels of demand for services and products.
- Experience in undertaking value for money reviews of existing contracts.
- Ability to analyse data and produce reports and statistics on spending and saving.
- Experience and proven ability in developing strong internal relationships.
- Strong knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint)
- Knowledge of procurement regulations and compliance requirements.
Person Profile
- Excellent attention to detail in contract management, supplier evaluations, and analysis
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills for interacting with suppliers, internal teams, and stakeholders.
- Strong analytical skills to assess market trends, supplier performance, and procurement data.
- Confident in making decisions and leading on all procurement activities, working as a stand‑alone procurement expert to the business.
- Highly organised.
- Approachable and ability to build excellent relationships both internally and externally.
Waterstones is committed to encouraging equity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and is dedicated toward eliminating unlawful discrimination.
Our aim is to be truly representative of all sections of society and our customers, and for each employee to feel fully respected and to be able to give their best.
Diversity Statement
At Waterstones, we are committed to creating a workplace that is fair and inclusive to people from all backgrounds, perspectives and experiences, and we strive to promote an inclusive work culture.
We are working hard to ensure our recruitment processes are free from bias, and our aim is to be truly representative of all sections of society and our customers, and for each employee to feel fully respected and able to give their best.
Reasonable Adjustments
We understand that some disabled applicants may, due to the nature of their disability, find some parts of the recruitment process challenging. If you need any reasonable adjustments during any part of the interview process, please make these known either to your interviewer or the person you liaise with when setting up your interview.
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