Category Manager

Position Title: Category Manager

Department: Purchasing

Remote Type: Hybrid Remote (Ideally 2 days in the office)

Bring your career and talents to CDW, where you can have a greater impact, be inspired by our mission and excited about your job and future. With revenues of over £1 billion, CDW UK is a leading supplier of IT solutions and services to a broad range of commercial and public sector customers globally.

What you’ll do:

• Day to day management of a particular category within the procurement team ensuring support and guidance are provided as well as team target met.
• Allocating and distributing workload within the team so its fair
• Assisting with tasks set by the purchasing manager or head of purchasing in a timely fashion
• Ensure targets are met that are set by the purchasing manager and the team are buy in the best possible fashion.
• Develop supplier and manufacture relationships for a given product set: ensure suppliers always provide information related to deals and promotions and use this information to negotiate better deals. This relationship can be supported by regular meetings where necessary
• To negotiate at any opportunity, to maximise margins, ensuring best price
• Liaise with sales teams to communicate any issues arising with their orders
• Clear and concise interaction with all company departments; notably the sales department
• Ensure purchase orders are loaded correctly to enable quick payment of invoices
• Ensure all changes to purchase orders are recorded on the system
• Liaise with warehouse to ensure any issues can be resolved in a timely fashion
• Provide cover for other members of the department as necessary and perform other tasks if requested from time to time by the Category Manager
• Support less experienced members of the team in the education of best practice and negotiation.

What you need to succeed:

Must-have:

• Experience of working in a procurement role, ideally within IT (Understanding of core CDW vendors, beneficial) for at least 3 years
• Experienced in dealing with suppliers and negotiations to ensure best cost and quality.
• Show excellent team management skills
• Excellent numeracy skills
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• Demonstrated ability to work well under pressure
• Highly motivated with ability to work under own initiative, making decisions to benefit the business
• Demonstrated attention to detail, time management and organizational skills
• Microsoft Office skills, preferably including: Excel and Word but not essential

Nice to have:

• Professionalism
• Honest and hardworking
• Self-Motivated and proactive
• Excellent attention to detail
• Proven record of reliability, responsibility and work ethic
• Excellent organisational skills
• Good interpersonal skills - ability to liaise with personnel at all levels and adapt style accordingly
• Capable of multi tasking, efficiently managing time and resources
• Ability to work to challenging deadlines
• Have a desire for continuous development and improvement
• A receptive, approachable individual who can provide and receive feedback in an effective, impartial manner
• Willing to go the extra mile to ensure requirements are met and practices are followed
• Able to identify, communicate and resolve issues that may cause risk to others or the company
• Flexibility with working hours
• Passionate about making positive changes and improving efficiencies
• Must have an excellent command of the English language with strong written and verbal communication skills

Who we are:

CDW is a leading technology solutions provider to business, government, education and healthcare organisations in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Our fingerprints can be found on technology in workplaces of more than 250,000 companies; from startups to international conglomerates. With the breadth of products and services we offer, there is no request too big or too small.

What you can expect from us:?Culture, coworkers, careers:

CDW is not only the People Who Get IT, but the People who get People. Our relationships are fuelled by our deep expertise and grounded in the CDW Way. Our empowering leadership makes things happen and inspires their teams to do the same. From the teammates beside us to the leaders who guide us, we move forward together. At CDW, you’ll work with people who inspire you. People with positive, success-driven attitudes who you will learn from and forge strong relationships with. Bring your best true self—and your best ideas—to CDW. Because diverse perspectives bring forth better problem solving—and better solutions for our customers on a rapidly evolving technology landscape.