Job Description

Vendor Management Office (VMO) \xe2\x80\x93 ComEx Contract & Commercial Asst. Manager

Purpose

Assist the Commercial Experience (ComEx) VMO Lead in Contract & Commercial management activities, including Supplier relationships, publishing contract insights, enabling strategy development, performance management and savings across Uniops ComEx contracts. Working collaboratively with Procurement, Service Lines, Finance, to ensure E2E connectivity for all Vendor relations.

About Unilever

Unilever is one of the world\xe2\x80\x99s leading suppliers of Food, Home and Personal Care products with sales in over 190 countries and reaching 2 billion consumers a day. Unilever has more than 400 brands found in homes around the world, including Persil, Dove, Knorr, Domestos, Hellmann\xe2\x80\x99s, Lipton, Wall\xe2\x80\x99s, PG Tips, Ben & Jerry\xe2\x80\x99s, Marmite, Magnum and Lynx. Faced with the challenge of climate change and the need for human development, we want to move towards a world where everyone can live well and within the natural limits of the planet. That\xe2\x80\x99s why our purpose is \xe2\x80\x98to make sustainable living commonplace\xe2\x80\x99.

Business Context

The UniOps organisation provides the resilient digital platform for the Unilever business. UniOps spends more than \xe2\x82\xac1B each year with external vendors, and the quality and value of vendor services are critical to the success of Unilever.

The Vendor Management Office (VMO) is a new agile, cross-functional organisation that will transform the way that UniOps manages suppliers and the value we gain from our supplier spend. The VMO will:

• Coordinate the change to a new proactive operating model, building collaboration across functions to maximize value from our supplier spend.
• Be the engine that amplifies delivery of value from a new Collaborative Procurement Model that plans supplier decisions much further ahead, across whole areas of spend rather than individual contracts, and ensures best alignment with our business strategies.
• Assure the performance and compliance of suppliers and will ensure that we have the right data to deliver ever more value year on year.
• Provide end-to-end orchestration, and governance of vendor management activities across UniOps.

Objectives

Closely partner with service line, Finance, and procurement teams to support the contract management for Commercial Experience (ComEx).

Ensure 3rd party budgets, costs and suppliers are optimally managed, highlighting risks as needed.

Continuously build and nurture strategic relationships with key stakeholders including suppliers and service lines so as to drive value for Unilever.

Key Accountabilities

• Accountable for tracking and managing the 3rd Party Budget & Spend across all Contracts working with VMO & SL Leadership, Service owners, SL Finance teams & FBP\xe2\x80\x99s
• Billing Validation, dispute resolution, approvals, and reporting and proactively seeks to deliver savings across ComEx Contracts
• Performance management: KPI tracking, governance, and independent Dispute resolution for ComEx strategic vendors
• Lead market-based Cost baseline and benchmarking for respective contracts
• Contract management: Obligation management, contract insights and analytics, support procurement, service line in defining overall ComEx contract strategy
• Monitors Supplier spend and carries out Billing Validation & booking of monthly charges. Validates the billing for accuracy and plugs any value leakages. (Validates for discrepancies in scope, rates, volumes, Fx adjustments, penalties, rewards) and books the charges as applicable.
• Manages the forecasting for respective service line and perform forecast vs actual analysis
• Ensures timely creation of PO\xe2\x80\x99s and Drives adherence of No PO No Pay policy and POT (Payment on Time) target achievement with business entities and service providers
• Manages supplier performance at the \'aggregate level\' across all services delivered by the specific Service Providers.
• Ensures that the service providers resolve commercial and performance related issues that impact their aggregated service delivery.
• Lead Contract Compliance
• Lead strategic governance meetings, Commercial review meetings with suppliers and key UniOps stakeholders regularly to monitor progress against issues and to ensure that an agreed level of performance is maintained.
• Partner with suppliers and key UniOps stakeholders to identify value generation opportunities enabling the achievement of shared vision
• Hold supplier and stakeholders accountable to minimize value leakage on account of non-compliance to contractual obligations.
• Ensures that quantitative and qualitative data is collected and analysed to monitor the suppliers\' performance against agreed requirements, publishes the results, and initiates actions based on results. Publishes the results of performance and service improvement reviews.
• Carries out Consumption analytics to identify insights related to cost drivers and identifies optimization opportunities
• Owns the contract change management process to efficiently manage ongoing changes to scope, commercials. Ensures timeliness and accuracy.
• Drives continuous improvement and Innovation initiatives. Contributes to Supplier strategy board activities and Key commercial initiatives in line with the org objectives from time to time.
• Reviews SLAs and extensions to existing SLAs. Liaises regularly with service providers and customers to review and improve performance against SLA.
• Proactively identify and mitigate risks while highlighting critical risks and escalate to VMO leads / other channels when necessary
• Lead select larger VMO initiatives and define \xe2\x80\x9cTO BE\xe2\x80\x9d state for VMO

About You

At least 3 years experience of contract management in a global organisation, with a strong track record of contract, vendor and commercial management; Overall 6-8 years of experience preferred.

Experience of partnering / governance cross a complex, multistakeholder landscape.

Strong commercial / excel skills.

Strong analytical ability/ critical thinking

Excellent stakeholder management skills

Negotiation and conflict resolution skills

A strong team player, with the ability to grow effective relationships across a complex organisation.

Excellent communication skills (verbal and written).

Attention to detail, supported by sound financial and analytical understanding.

Behaviours

Candidates would be required to demonstrate the Unilever Standards of Leadership & live the Values through showing the following behaviours:

• A Passion for High Performance through Accountability - Strive for high quality and success, hold yourself and others accountable for decisions. Challenging the status quo, be bold & passionate about value, think outside of the box and be keen to improve.
• Demonstrate Consumer Love through a Customer First approach - Think about our customers constantly and strive to providing the best services and experiences.
• Be a Talent Catalyst through Collaboration - Work in an openly creative culture, where all ideas are welcome, encouraging innovation and transparency.
• Show Agility through Empowerment - Always be one step ahead, embrace change and challenges, initiate solutions and make decisions in good faith.

Reports

This role will assist the VMO ComEx Lead in managing VMO ComEx team, responsible for end-to-end delivery of contract management office, ensuring delivery of Unilever and supplier activities to drive value.

Interfaces

Service Lines

Global Procurement

Supplier Operations

Finance

Unilever