Category Strategy Support Manager

The Category Strategy Support Manager plays a key role in developing and communicating category strategies that align with business goals, value creation, risk mitigation, and supply chain optimization. You will leverage your expertise to create category presentations, reports, and other strategic documents that support decision-making and stakeholder engagement.

Key Accountabilities

In this role, you will partner closely with Category Managers, business stakeholders and suppliers to support the development and execution of robust category strategies while enabling effective supplier performance management. You will provide strategic insight, analysis and clear communication to support decision‑making, drive value creation, manage risk and support the successful delivery of bp’s commercial and operational objectives across the supply base. You will lead a category support team and evaluate incoming category requirements, assess urgency and complexity, and triage effectively to assign tasks based on priorities.

• Develop high-quality presentations and reports that effectively communicate category strategy.   Deploy different communication strategy to address specific stakeholder needs and gain commitment and support towards implementation of category strategy.
• Support development of category strategies with Category Managers that align with business objectives and procurement goals including initiating market analysis and research to recommend future value delivery strategies.
• Collaborate with Category Managers on demand planning and change management plans including creation of compelling cases for change and actions based on strategic insights and market analysis.
• Support end-to-end management of strategic categories and/or lead end-to-end for smaller/tactical categories, including strategy, stakeholder engagement, value delivery, and category enablement, aligned to the broader category strategy.
• Monitor and report on the progress of key performance indicators (KPIs) and change initiatives to ensure successful execution of category strategy.
• Lead standardisation and uplift of category-specific sourcing inputs including templates, KPIs and process.
• Lead scope of work reviews with business stakeholders to identify value and efficiency opportunities.
• Support implementation of bp’s Supplier Performance Management framework across strategic and core suppliers.
• Maintain strong working relationships with key suppliers to ensure performance against contractual obligations and service expectations.
• Support and participate in supplier performance reviews, including development of improvement plans to address performance gaps, risk and safety outcomes.
• Provide supplier performance insights, risk assessments and recommendations to internal stakeholders and category teams.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with business, finance, legal and procurement stakeholders to resolve supplier issues and optimise supplier value.
• Support contract management, dispute resolution and risk management activities related to supplier performance and service delivery.
• Develop and maintain optimised buying channels including catalogues, forms and invoice‑against‑contract solutions to support procurement efficiency and compliance.
• Own and maintain category‑specific content within SAP Ariba buying channels, ensuring accuracy, relevance and alignment with contracts and policies.
• Implement controls and monitoring to ensure price and contract compliance across buying channels and mitigate procurement risk.

Essential Education

• An undergraduate degree (ideally in procurement or business) or equivalent experience.
• Minimum 8-10 years professional experience in Indirect Procurement is required.
• Experience of working cross culturally and in an international environment
• Ability to communicate and influence across different levels in the organisation 
• Engaging and collaborative way of working 
• Resilient and experienced in working in multi-faceted environment 

Essential Experience and Job Requirements

• Business Requirements Analysis- Use understanding of stakeholder strategy and category knowledge to develop a viable, long term view of business requirements.
• Product & Market Intelligence- Uses deep knowledge of supply markets to create strong sourcing solutions. Uses supply market insights to determine future sourcing strategies for the business. Networks internally and externally and stay up to date via industry publications, conferences, and events.
• Category Strategy- Acknowledged expert with deep knowledge of their category including thought leadership regarding the impact of innovation and technology. Mentors and coach’s category managers / specialists / analysts / lead in the use of analytical tools. Leads governance discussions with executive sponsors regarding progress and business results.
• Business Acumen- Utilizes deep understanding of business operations and commercial factors to support decision-making and priorities opportunities to drive commercial value. Has a broad professional grasp of financial and management information and accounting procedures. Identifies new or alternative approaches to performing business activities more efficiently. Additional Competencies
• Relationship Management- Takes full ownership of engagement issues with stakeholders, monitors relationships and acts on relevant feedback. Maintains, develops, and leverages long-term strategic relationships with key senior-level representatives of relevant internal and external organizations and professional groups.
• Category Spend Profiling- Develops insights on spend profiles that result in elimination of non-value add spend within the category. Identifies key external and environmental drivers and uses this to recommend sourcing initiatives.
• Contract Management- Manage contracts to effectively control spend, reduce risk, avoid supplier driven scope creep. Manages BP’s and supplier’s compliance to the contract and proactively resolves issues before they become major problems.
• Supplier Relationship Management- Works collaboratively with suppliers. Links value proposition to strategic objectives.
• Value Creation & Management- Creates opportunities that provide mutual value and drive competitive advantage. Challenges suppliers to generate value-based solutions that deliver improved business results.
• Cost Modelling- Proposes internal and external solutions to reduce costs over the life of the purchase and implements solutions as agreed.
• Buying Channel Compliance - Monitor contract compliance via buying channels and provide analytics to identify contract risk trends and opportunities.
• Influencing- Proactively manages a wide range of stakeholders to overcome resistance and achieve a successful result from projects. Varies communication to address specific stakeholder needs and to gain commitment and support.
• Innovation- Experiments with new ideas. Brings together the creative ideas into a systematic approach or solution, seeking better solutions for new requirements.
• Project Management- Manages stakeholder expectations. Lead project execution to maximize value to BP while mitigating project risk.
• Analytical Thinking- Applies analytical techniques to solve complex problems. Identifies, evaluates, and makes clear recommendations based on analysis.
• Decision Making- Reaches decisions based on abstract, ambiguous, complex information from a broad range of stakeholders. Makes effective decisions based on urgency and risk level. Makes effective decisions on relevant global issues related to own area of expertise.
• People Management: Demonstrated ability to lead and support a team within a cross-functional project environment, with a strong attention to detail and timelines.

Desirable criteria

• Working towards or Membership of Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS)
• Familiarity with Ariba Source to Pay, Salesforce & Compass & also Digital Fluency thereby using various technologies & platforms to develop new ideas, projects and opportunities.
• Experience of working cross culturally and in an international environment.
• Demonstrated ability to establish and manage close relationships remotely.
• Ability to communicate and influence across different levels in the organization 
• Engaging and collaborative way of working 
• Resilient and experienced in working in multi-faceted environment 

At bp, we provide the following environment and benefits to you:

• A company culture where we respect our diverse and unified teams, where we are proud of our achievements and where fun and the demeanor of giving back to our environment are highly valued
• Possibility to join our social communities and networks
• Learning opportunities and other development opportunities to craft your career path
• Life and health insurance, medical care package
• And many other benefits.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, perform crucial job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment