Senior Manager, Sourcing Operations
Company Overview
Grainger is a broad line, business-to-business distributor of maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) supplies and other related products and services. More than 3.2 million businesses and institutions worldwide rely on Grainger for products such as safety gloves, ladders, motors and janitorial supplies, along with services like inventory management and technical support. These customers represent a broad collection of industries including commercial, government, healthcare and manufacturing. They place orders online, on mobile devices, through sales representatives, over the phone and at local branches. Approximately 5,000 suppliers provide Grainger with more than 1.6 million products stocked in Grainger’s distribution centers and branches worldwide.
Primary Function:
- Provide Strategic leadership and provide expertise to a cross functional team of supervisors and sourcing professionals. Proactively develop relevant strategies for our large Sourcing customers.
- Coach & develop customer specific solutions to ensure service, revenue, profit, and expense and operating earnings targets are achieved with identified large customer base.
- Translate data to identify opportunity to continually improve and create specific strategies to facility department goals and objectives.
- Proactively build strong relationships across multiple functions at multiple levels to further sourcing and ensure service, sales, profitability, and growth requirements are met.
Principal Duties & Responsibilities:
- Consistently develop strategies and refine actionable tactics that can be executed to deliver on Sourcing’s KPI’s.
- Partner across company Sr. leaders to position Sourcing to deliver on goals and operational expectations with the large customer.
- Proactively understand the (VOC) voice of the customer, sales expectations and develop strategic countermeasures to resolve issues and ensure continuity between sales and Sourcing. Manage the development and implementation of strategies to support key large customers, through strategic customer visits to develop all inclusive (Sourcing & Catalog) strategies that will help maximize Grainger’s revenue/margin opportunities.
- Proactively coach and assess employee strengths and development opportunities to continually accelerate employee, team and Sourcing growth and performance.
- Create a team environment of engagement, fostering of diverse viewpoints, continuous improvement, performance excellence and a passion for customer service.
- Establish team service, revenue and operating profit goals that align with Sourcing and company goals.
- Build strong relationships with business partners across key functions within Grainger, Sales, Finance, National Accounts Customer Service, Cross-Referencing to ensure sales opportunities are closed while balancing the needs of the customer and the company.
- Manage highly complex and large customer needs by understanding what they value and developing solutions/new capabilities to meet their needs.
- Manages staff of 4–6 Supervisors that each manages a team of 15-18 team members (comprised of NEX and Exempt team members) with associated expense budget.
- Create value by driving change to improve Grainger’s position in the market place.
Preferred Education & Experience:
- Requires Bachelor’s degree in Business Management, Finance, or related field. MBA and P&L experience preferred.
- 10 plus years successful experience in sales, purchasing, product management, customer service, or operations environment within a large organization.
- 5–10 years experience managing a large team of employees.
- Superior communication skills including presentations, listening, verbal and written.
- Proven systemic thinking skills including understanding of implications of actions on outcomes in multiple processes. Proven record of good judgment and assessment.
- Demonstrated relationship building and interpersonal skills.
- Genuine passion and competence for talent management and continuous improvement.
- Strong analytical, problem solving, and decision making skills.
- Proven ability to work in fast paced environment where constant multi-tasking and prioritization is required.
Work Environment:
- Reports to Sourcing Director
- Manage a team of NEX, Exempt and Supervisors
- Travel is required 30% plus
- Regularly interfaces across multiple functions at multiple levels both inside and outside of the organization.
Impact:
This position has responsibility for leading a team of sourcing professionals in a high volume sale quoting
environment where they make decisions on source, cost, and price to enable Grainger’s to capture a sale
opportunity that was unable to be fulfilled with our current offering. Direct responsibility and impact for
$100M to $200M in revenue, $4.2M expense / payroll, and $30M to $40M in operating earnings.
EEOC Statement
Grainger is an Equal Opportunity Workplace and an Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.