Global Category Manager - Oxford

Global Category Manager jobs

Category management in the procurement field is overseeing the acquisition of certain classes of goods or materials, often those that are somehow interconnected or interdependent. In larger companies and/or those where sourcing is international, an additional layer of management, the global category procurement manager, might be inserted.

Depending on how advanced the existing procurement is, the global category manager might be required to develop an entire global category procurement strategy or manage the one that is already in operation within a set of guidelines. Either way, the aim will be to reduce costs to the company, which will be achieved by negotiating deals and rates with supplier, forming partnerships and constantly analysing the market in which he or she is working.

A general aim will be to reduce or limit costs wherever possible, both within the employing company through systems, staffing and prudent economising and through the act of procurement itself. The global category manager will have to implement a worldwide plan of action throughout the company. This can mean seeking to impose consistency internationally to meet the results of forecasting, planning and analysis. But it can also involve the exact opposite: tailoring different procurement strategies to the different market environments to take advantage of local efficiencies.

Global Category Manager Jobs in Oxford

The county town of Oxford and famous throughout the world for its university, Oxford is actually a thriving, self-contained city with a diversity of industries not directly related to its county status or education sector. It has been a successful city for so long that its architecture spans the millennia, and since much of the most important buildings were churches, it got the name “city of dreaming spires”.

Without doubt the university and its related activities (bars, cafes, hotels, shops, theatres etc.) is the key single employer of the city, and the university heritage also plays into its thriving tourism industry. All this contributes to the thriving nature of the city, which is busy all the year round.

But a major industry just to the south east of the city centre is car manufacturing, at the Cowley BMW plant, home of the new Mini. The plant used to be the Morris Motors plant during the First World War, and this attracted a railway and other communications to serve it. During World War Two the plant made training planes for the RAF. After the war mergers and acquisitions changed the company to BMC, then British Leyland, Austin Rover, the Rover Group and finally BMW (but locals still call the factory Morris’s).

With a thriving, ever changing population and various high-tech and heavy industries, Oxford often throws up Global Category Manager positions to help oil the wheels of commerce. It’s certainly an exciting place to live and work.