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Kohler Co. · 4 days ago

Sr. Category Leader, IT

Kohler, WI

Full-time

Onsite

Senior Level, Lead/Staff

$129K/yr - $165K/yr

10+ years exp

Kohler Co. is a global leader in the manufacturing and design industry, and they are seeking a Sr. Category Leader in IT to manage and optimize IT category spend. This role involves negotiating agreements, supporting supplier selection, and ensuring the financial and operational performance of IT categories.

Consumer Goods

No H1B

Responsibilities

Lead the development of Category Strategies

Learn and understand the current state of the category in the market and at Kohler

Identify gaps issues and challenges affecting assurance of supply, quality, service, cost, lack of innovation and relationships

Proactively identify future areas of opportunity to address cost, building a pipeline of value to be executed through a variety of sourcing and other approaches

Support the execution of IT and business projects and initiatives focused on driving and delivering value to the organization

Develop sourcing strategies for cross-functional RFx, evaluation, supplier selection, proposal analysis, and contract negotiation

Manage and defend against cost increases at contract renewal

Implement various negotiation tactics to minimize unfavorable risk and impact to Kohler

Evaluate and support the addition of new providers and technology, and improved processes

Support the management of existing vendor relationships and performance

Interact with senior leaders and report on cost savings and avoidance, risk mitigation, and keep stakeholders informed of project development

Become an expert in understanding the procurement purpose and process

Develop key relationships with stakeholders and provide training and support

Identify areas of improvement in the procurement team and process, and propose changes to make improvements happen

Qualification

Contract ProficiencySupplier ManagementNegotiation SkillsIT Purchasing ExperienceCost AnalysisStakeholder ManagementCollaborationInterpersonal SkillsProblem SolvingCommunication SkillsProject ManagementRelationship Building

Required

Bachelor's Degree in Supply Chain, Operations, IT, Business or another related field (Advanced degree a plus)

Minimum 10 years of IT and/or strategic purchasing experience (specific IT purchasing experience a plus)

Experience independently managing contracts and projects with $1-10M in annual spend

Experience utilizing supplier and contract management platforms (Jaggaer a plus)

Contract Proficiency

Understand the importance of contract quality

Proficient understanding of business and legal Interpretations of contract T&Cs

Proven ability to manage various commercial and legal aspects of IT agreements

Proficient in managing/leading the contract and sourcing process

Able to build and maintain key internal / external relationships critical to success, including those with senior leaders including directors, VPs and C-level officers

Comfortable collaborating with stakeholders on requirement gathering and execution

General understanding of IT solutions, concepts and terms

Able to prioritize workloads due to actual level of urgency, and proactively keep stakeholders up to date

Experienced in negotiating the gamut of hardware, software licensing and services agreements

Ability to negotiate with varying degrees of negotiation power and leverage

Skilled in cost analysis, with a focus on total cost of ownership and value delivered

Develop and execute negotiation strategies for large opportunities

Delight customers/stakeholders

Strong drive for results

Ability to learn quickly

Strong degree of independence in work

Comfortable asking questions when unclear