Strategic Sourcing Manager - Dry Animal Proteins and Fats - Chicken Principal Accountabilities

Job description

About Mars, Incorporated

Mars is a family-owned business with more than a century of history making diverse products and offering services for people and the pets people love. With almost $35 billion in sales, the company is a global business that produces some of the world’s best-loved brands: M&M’s®, SNICKERS®, TWIX®, MILKY WAY®, DOVE®, PEDIGREE®, ROYAL CANIN®, WHISKAS®, EXTRA®, ORBIT®, 5™, SKITTLES®, UNCLE BEN’S®, MARS DRINKS and COCOAVIA®. Mars also provides veterinary health services that include BANFIELD® Pet Hospitals, Blue Pearl®, VCA® and Pet Partners™. Headquartered in McLean, VA, Mars operates in more than 80 countries. The Mars Five Principles – Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom – inspire its more than 100,000 Associates to create value for all its partners and deliver growth they are proud of every day.

Purpose of Role:

·  Develop and implement sourcing strategy that delivers ensures supply, maximizes value for money, and improves quality for $200M+ spend in dried chicken, chicken meals, and poultry fat.
·  Collaborate with other Mars business segments and global category teams on development of strategy to leverage scale, identify alternative sourcing opportunities, and mitigate risk.
·  Partner with internal stakeholders and suppliers to deliver, value, continuous improvement, and lowest total cost of ownership.
·  Achieve competitive price advantage through knowledge of markets, including the relevant domestic and international economic factors.
·  Drive efforts to leverage supplier resources to bring new ideas and products/ commodities/services, including new ingredients to enable our growth aspirations.
·  Identify and execute productivity opportunities from a Commercial and overall business perspective.

Principal Accountabilities

·  Create, deliver, and execute the sourcing strategy for assigned ingredients for Mars Petcare US. Collaborate with all Mars North American units and cross-functional stakeholders to deliver a target value improvement of 5-10% of the total spend.
·  Drive an effective and collaborative relationship with key stakeholders to deliver competitive and market advantages through superior analysis, strategy, judgment, and execution. Ensure delivery of business plans at or ahead of targets & plans and appropriate Commercial representation in internal business processes.
·  Deliver market trend, market development information and analysis to drive business understanding of these markets and how best to utilize the capabilities of suppliers and industry developments to deliver a competitive advantage to Mars Petcare. This includes leading creation and implementation of strategic supplier initiatives to deliver sustained competitive advantage.
·  Identify and implement novel and creative means for reducing costs, improving quality or otherwise improving total value for money. This includes networking within the Mars Global Commercial community for best practices & ideas for reapplication.
·  Ensure supply chain security and contingency plans to secure business needs and provide recommendations/execute as appropriate.
·  Drive in-depth portfolio analysis to clearly identify areas of routine spend and implement tools such as e-auctions, RFPs, etc, to drive efficiency in the dried chicken category

Key Functional Skills/Knowledge

·  Analyze supplier and economic markets; identify and manage market risks and opportunities; identify and develop a supplier relationship management program that improves the overall capability of our supply base.
·  Engage and energize the organization to create and implement breakthrough sourcing strategies; effectively negotiate commercial terms and conditions; apply business law to create appropriate legal contracts; manage business, legal and intellectual property risk.
·  Effectively manage relationships with all internal and external stakeholders; develop and maintain superior processes for integrating external supplier ideas into the business.
·  Proven leader who has demonstrated the openness to act as a team player, and situational leadership within peer group to influence business strategy.
·  Leverage supplier expertise and resources in order to bring innovative ideas, products and processes back to the business.
·  Excellent interpersonal and communication skills; both verbal and written including the ability to communicate effectively with all levels of the organization.

·  Ability to influence others not in direct span of control.
·  Excellent team working and interpersonal skills.
·  Proven ability to prioritize activities appropriately, and make trade-off decisions as appropriate.
·  Excellent analytical skills for financial assessments and issue identification, along with flexible thinking to adapt to changing markets.

Required Experiences & Education

·  Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Logistics or related field.
·  Minimum 3 years’ experience working in sourcing field.
·  Ability to convey communications clearly and concisely.
·  MS Excel, Word and Powerpoint functional skills.

Preferred Experiences & Education

·  MBA
·  5+ years’ experience working in sourcing.
·  Working experience with MRP systems
·  Good interpersonal, team building and conflict management skills
·  5 years experience in the consumer products industry

Decision Making Authority and Impact

·  Manage spend of over $200M for Mars Petcare US
·  Certain segments of this spend might include moderate to high volatility
·  Direct impact to P&L for multiple businesses and stakeholders.
·  Prevent interruptions in supply chains of multiple businesses that can cause customer service issues.
·  Create and recommend medium term (3-5 year) sourcing strategy to business
·  Execute upon contracts within Commercial limits of authority
·  For contracts above limits of authority, obtain necessary approvals prior to execution
·  Perform robust market analysis and propose contract positions to senior management
·  Provide cost projections to affected stakeholders.

*LI-LM1

Mars is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. If you need assistance or an accommodation during the application process because of a disability, it is available upon request. The company is pleased to provide such assistance, and no applicant will be penalized as a result of such a request.

Nearest Major Market: Nashville
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