Buying Centre of Excellence Manager

Job description

Job Description
We'd all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That's waiting for you at Sainsbury's. From fragrance to car care, clothing and pots and pans, our General Merchandise team delivers all the non-food items for Sainsbury's, Habitat and Argos customers. This multi-brand environment means you get to work across most areas. You can also be a pioneer, because the team believes in being brave, iterating and learning as they go. They also develop deep connections to other departments, which opens up a lot of different career opportunities for you. What's certain is that you'll spend time on the shop floor to get closer to customers, and bring a broad perspective and the full support of your manager with you wherever you decide to develop next.

Why join us
Joining Sainsbury's as a Buying Centre of Excellence Manager means stepping into an influential role where you will lead high-profile projects and initiatives that deliver significant value to our business. With the opportunity to collaborate with various functions across General Merchandise (GM), you will work closely with the Head of Buying Centre of Excellence to drive forward our strategic priorities and foster cross-functional partnerships. This role offers breadth of experience and the chance to work across different categories, including branded and own-brand sourcing teams. You will have the opportunity to make a tangible impact by implementing cost-saving initiatives and driving margin improvements. With a focus on stakeholder management, strategic thinking, and data-driven insights, this role will provide a platform to showcase your leadership skills and contribute to the success of Sainsbury's.

What you'll do
As a Buying Centre of Excellence Manager at Sainsbury's, you will have a high-profile role working on business-critical projects and programmes that deliver real value. You will collaborate with different functions across the General Merchandise (GM) department, partnering with finance to support the trading teams in achieving their strategic goals. Your responsibilities will include managing and driving a structured branded supplier investment process, overseeing own-brand Cost of Goods (COGs) initiatives, and identifying opportunities for cost reduction and margin improvement across GM categories using data analysis. Additionally, you will play a key role in rolling out advanced negotiator training, building stakeholder relationships, leading cross-functional teams, and ensuring aligned decision-making. You will also support the incorporation of corporate objectives and provide programme management for projects, ensuring adherence to timelines and budgets. Your strategic thinking, commercial acumen, leadership skills, and ability to analyse data will be instrumental in driving success in this role, as you collaborate with various teams across the organisation and find solutions to complex problems.

Who you are
As the Buying Centre of Excellence Manager for Sainsbury's, you are a strategic and results-driven professional with a strong commercial acumen and natural leadership style. With your expertise in leading negotiations across a high-profile branded and own-branded supply base, you possess the ability to drive cost reduction and margin improvement initiatives, delivering tangible value to the business. You excel in stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration, building strong relationships and high-performing teams to drive change at pace. Your analytical skills enable you to generate structured insights from data, guiding strategic decision-making. With your tenacity, resilience, and problem-solving mindset, you are able to overcome challenges and find innovative solutions. You are a self-motivated team player, able to work autonomously while prioritising tasks effectively. Your strong project management and organisational skills, combined with your ability to unite and collaborate with diverse teams, position you as a valuable asset in delivering end-to-end business change.

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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).