Category Director - Group Procurement

Career Grade: Director

Internal Closing Date: 24th March 2025

Location: Dublin

Why BT?

We’ve always been an organisation with purpose; to use the power of communications to make a better world. You can trace this back to our beginning as pioneers of the world’s first telecommunications company. At our heart we’re a technology company with research and innovation in our bones and a desire to be personal, simple, and brilliant for our customers - those are the values we live by whilst also creating an inclusive working environment where people from all backgrounds can succeed.

Our pursuit of progress over the past 180 years has established BT as a strong, successful brand, with huge scale capable of achieving great things. From supporting emergency services, hospitals, banks and keeping economies around the world online, safe and secure, to delivering large scale technology. Today, we also own and operate the EE and Plusnet brands.  And BT Group owns and operates Openreach as a separate legal entity.

Today in this fast changing, always on, digital world our purpose remains true. Yet the market conditions, regulation and competition we face are tougher than ever before. So if you have the drive, optimism and resilience to help propel us forward we’ll offer unrivalled personal development, a wealth of opportunities to learn, experience new things and pursue new careers. If that’s you and what you’re looking for, we’d love you to be part of our future.

Why Procurement?

Procurement plays a critical role in BT where we are charged with building, funding and protecting BT’s value by leveraging the capabilities of our third party partners and suppliers. 

1. Establish the right innovative supplier relationships and agreements necessary to create value for BT Group
2. Deliver cost efficiencies through efficient sourcing agreements
3. Ensure we have the commercial models, terms and conditions required to enable economic growth and at the same time protect BT Group from both financial and reputational damage

Deliver an expert, efficient and effective sourcing and procurement function with strong and robust relationships based on value, trust and productivity with our stakeholders.

Why this job matters

The Category Director is responsible for leading a global super category and the category management process. They are accountable for billions GBP of spend, for defining & delivering against this category strategy and will be the business partner to key stakeholders alongside other category directors as required. They are responsible for setting the agenda for strategic sourcing execution by their team and drive innovation opportunities to realise more value. They will have a degree of supplier relationship management ownership based on the supplier segmentation in their category which may be delivered either by themselves or direct reports.

What you'll be doing - your accountabilities

 Strategic

• Develop and deliver the L1 super category strategy, leading on strategic sourcing and business partnering initiatives that underpins BT’s customer facing units and corporate unit’s strategies and plans
• Recognised as a leader in BT and by our suppliers and industry peers, who can influence BT Group’s strategic sourcing agenda
• Sets direction for innovative improvement initiatives to realise more benefits in category / harness synergies across categories

Operational

• Is the business partner to key Customer Facing Units / Corporate Units to drive the category strategy and manage demand
• Holds excellent senior relationships with internal and external stakeholders to establish category priorities, secure buy-in for category strategy and support for category implementation, ensuring compliance to BT policies and external regulations
• Lead and guide the delivery of all strategic sourcing and improvement initiatives at global / regional / industry levels
• Set the strategic direction, individual and team targets and with a 2-5 year view on the optimal procurement strategy
• Set clear vision for regional and industry category teams, and ensure adherence across regions and customer facing units.
• Oversight to ensure procurement processes and activities are compliant and adhered across teams
• Drive category spend and performance, develop and deliver category strategy and long term values, ensure activities across teams are in line with governance, assurance and SOX controls
• Sets appropriate targets for sub-categories and sub-category leads, and ensures category strategy implementation
• Provide insights to teams about the best approach to market, the optimum commercial models and supplier relationships
• May act as the Supplier Relationship Management lead with key strategic suppliers e.g. Cisco (or the Direct Report will)
• Provide insight to develop and implement policies and frameworks underpin products and service delivery

People

• Recruit, hire, train and coach a professional, engaged and motivated diverse team
• Lead, develop and coach a team of procurement professionals to deliver brilliant outcomes and be trailblazers for the team.

Skills and experience required for the job

• Substantial years experience as an established leader within the Procurement function, with excellent leadership skills and the ability to lead, build and deliver through high performance teams
• Excellent in providing guidance and decisions to the team in order to achieve optimal solution and outcome
• Strong business mind set and category expertise, across end to end Source to Pay areas, as well as external market condition
• Demonstrates a track record of decision making capability and deliver against key metrics
• Strong relationship management skills & ability to influence decision making with senior stakeholders within a matrixed environment
• Experience in business partnering and supplier relationship management
• Ability to manage complex, strategic and commercial requirements between BT and Suppliers, deliver projects and results on time and in full

Specific Category Area: Networks

• Experience with a variety of network infrastructure technologies and companies (e.g Nokia, Ericsson, Cisco)
• Experience with a breadth of technologies including Fixed and Mobile Networks, Core Networks & Platforms, Switching & Routing, Data Centers, etc.