Buying Centre of Excellence Manager (12 Month FTC)
Coventry (Coventry)
Job description
*Please note this role can be based at either our Coventry or London office (&home)
Why join us
Joining Sainsbury's as a Buying Centre of Excellence Manager offers a unique opportunity to work on business-critical projects and programmes that drive real value, while collaborating with various functions across General Merchandise. With a focus on strategic planning and stakeholder engagement, this role provides a platform for ambitious individuals to gain diverse experience in a dynamic and supportive environment. You will have the chance to lead cost-saving initiatives, drive cross-functional collaboration, and contribute to the success of Sainsbury's by shaping its priorities and ensuring optimal outcomes, making it an ideal role for those looking to make a meaningful impact and advance their career within a leading retail organisation.
What you'll do
As the Buying Centre of Excellence Manager at Sainsbury's, you will play a pivotal role in driving structured supplier investment processes and cost-saving initiatives to achieve margin improvements across GM categories. Your strategic thinking and leadership skills will be essential as you lead negotiations, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and manage multiple projects to deliver impactful change at pace. Your ability to analyse data, build strong relationships, and prioritise effectively will be key in supporting the trading teams, incorporating corporate objectives, and driving continuous improvement within the organisation. This role offers a dynamic and challenging opportunity to make a significant impact on business-critical projects while working collaboratively in a high-performance team environment.
Who you are
You are a competent buyer preferably from a branded background with high agility and stakeholder navigating skills and a strong project management style. You are a strategic and collaborative leader with a strong commercial acumen and experience in negotiating with both branded and own-branded suppliers. Your ability to build strong relationships and high-performing teams, coupled with your proficiency in data analysis and programme management, enables you to drive cost-saving initiatives, lead negotiations, and support the trading teams in delivering strategic goals. With a natural leadership style, a positive mindset, and a focus on continuous improvement, you immerse yourself within the category team to understand priorities and make impactful decisions that drive optimal outcomes for Sainsbury's.
We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new — whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:
Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to save 10% on your shopping online and instore at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat, and we regularly increase the discount to 15% at points during the year. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 20% of salary, depending on how we perform.
Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy up to an additional week's holiday, and we provide private healthcare. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, salary advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme.
Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.
Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).