Procurement Manager Surfactants Technology & Strategy

Job Title: Procurement Manager - Surfactants Technology and Strategy

Requisition ID: R-97815

Function: Supply Chain- Procurement

Work Level: 2C

Location: Mumbai/ Bangalore, India

ABOUT UNILEVER

With 3.4 billion people in over 190 countries using our products every day, Unilever is a business that makes a real impact on the world. Work on brands that are loved and improve the lives of our consumers and the communities around us. We are driven by our purpose: to make sustainable living commonplace, and it is our belief that doing business the right way drives superior performance. At the heart of what we do is our people – we believe that when our people work with purpose, we will create a better business and a better world.

At Unilever, your career will be a unique journey, grounded in our inclusive, collaborative, and flexible working environment. We don’t believe in the ‘one size fits all’ approach and instead we will equip you with the tools you need to shape your own future.

UNILEVER PROCUREMENT:

There has never been a more exciting time to be working in Procurement when you consider the sheer scale of what we are seeking to grow the business whilst doing more good for our planet and our society. As Unilever Procurement adapts to the ever-dynamic business environment, we will need to be agile in order to continue our track record of delivery in contributing to the top and bottom line. Inevitably, given the consistent and high quality of our delivery over the past few years, we will be asked to continue this rate of performance and indeed go over and above this standard to ensure the value provided is further enhanced across the scope of our remit. As well as ensuring that we are best in class in delivering the basics, we also have to look to the future and continuously evolve to meet the needs of our changing environment - reinventing ourselves for sustained competitive advantage.

Our suppliers are at the heart of everything we do. We need to work more closely than ever with suppliers to co-create sustainable practices and bigger and better innovations. This places great demands on the skills and expertise of all of us as Procurement professionals.

JOB PURPOSE

Find your purpose at Unilever. You will lead innovations, big and small, that will make our business win and grow. You will learn from brilliant business leaders and colleagues in a truly global and diverse culture to ultimately become a better you. If you are passionate about procurement and its role in driving a positive impact for the business, our customers, and consumers then this role is just for you.

In this role you will be accountable for leading the end to end professional sourcing strategy and its ongoing evolution with the surfactants team and the business groups and R&D teams, leveraging your deep technical expertise in surfactants you will support the procurement teams with development of their strategic approach and with their negotiations and pipeline of value delivery.

As one of the world’s leading players within the Home, Personal Care and Beauty and Well Being categories Unilever is therefore one of the largest users of Surfactants and Oleochemicals. This role is accountable for developing and keeping live the overall procurement strategy for surfactants and how we drive the most effective conversion of feedstocks into the final delivered surfactants used by our business groups in Homecare, Personal Care and Beauty and Wellbeing. The role will seek to drive continuous end to end efficiency programs across the surfactants spend base and suppliers working with business groups and business units to fast-track project identification and implementation for value delivery.

Since Unilever directly procures primary feedstock of surfactants, it is extremely critical to comprehend the holistic end to end value chain and seek to manage value delivery in each step in the chain. The candidate’s technical skill base will also be critical in supporting the innovation procurement process for key programs and will involve a good apprehension of the surfactant markets and close alignment with both internal and external stakeholders.

The role will leverage the programs on sustainable feedstocks and our greenhouse gas reduction roadmaps to support the most effective way to ingest and drive GHG reductions at the level of surfactants through to our finished goods supporting the buyers in delivering this,

The role encompasses technical as well as business and procurement skill sets.

WHAT WILL YOUR MAIN ACCOUNTABILITIES BE

• Lead the continuous techno economic assessment of surfactant value chains to identify and unlock trapped value in surfactant value chains all the way to end use.
• Techno economic assessment will include in product use efficiency assessments as regards to material and product performance benchmarks.
• Lead and steer cross functional teams’ strategic negotiations related to current and new surfactant technologies, through “deal design” including, but not limited to technology assessments, commercials and should be cost modelling.
• Support assessment of new surfactants from a perspective of preferential accessibility in initial technical and later commercialisation in contracts.
• Develop a clear understanding and utilise expertise within or outside the organization to business case ideas and delivery pathways for new value chain projects.
• Adopt a six-sigma approach to continually apprehension trapped value and methodologies to identify and unlock.
• Work with procurement teams on assessing the best pathways to deliver GHG reductions from feedstock programs through the complex network of surfactants partnerships and suppliers at the lowest imaginable cost to serve. Draw on GHG and Life Cycle assessment capabilities to drive impact with value along the chain.
• Support and co-develop together with the R&D and Science & Technology teams the overall future technology acquisition and implementation strategy for new surfactants and its feedstocks to drive value ideation and delivery in the business.
• Lead and provide recommendations on the economics of new surfactants technologies, within the overall Techno-Economic Assessment (TEA).
• Act as an advisory lead for surfactant teams and run continuous techno economic assessments to help and assist the identification and unlock of trapped value in surfactant value chains all the way to end use.
• Structure and manage key current and new technology partnerships and associations within the Surfactants industry to accelerate delivery from the surfactants strategy across value, purpose, and future-fit goals.
• Support the procurement team to develop strategies for procurement of the respective portfolios and assess, identify, and select the appropriate supplier base.
• Scout for challengers and new capacities that would meet the evolving needs of the business, keep and maintain a healthy pipeline of new projects and programs.
• Accountable for the accelerated delivery of Procurement Key Value Platforms (Our Lighthouse Programs), and influencing across Benchmarking, Competitive Buying, Value Chain, Sustainability, and Technology adoption.
• Support security of key materials through the development of contingency plans and alternative materials/suppliers
• Identify metrics, tools, and process to optimize sourcing networks and supplier and industrial efficiency end to end from feedstocks to surfactants to soaps and shampoos.
• Critically the role needs to identify best practice benchmarks and assess the business case of delivery against the top priority gap closure initiatives.
• Accelerate and support delivery of value savings and margin enhancement for the BG’s and BUs as surfactant users in line with sourcing strategies.
• Lead together with our strategy and insights teams the digitization of the portfolio generating more headspace for strategy implementation.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO SUCCEED

• Strong technical skills and capabilities built from deep surfactant industry knowledge within R&D, Procurement and / or manufacturing perspective.
• Outstanding in idea generation, ideas that are forward thinking, and that contribute to creating sustained competitive advantage.
• Strong at selling ideas to his/her business partners, internally and externally, translating these into effective proposals conveying value and communicating it accordingly.
• Appreciative of the value and impact of outstanding execution with a keen eye for detail.
• Act as an entrepreneur, treats business as his/her own, sets trends and is willing to lead, follow or get out of the way.
• Behave as a Partner with Purpose ambassador and demonstrate the value procurement adds to the business.
• Genuinely committed to Unilever’s sustainably lead business model, connected with Unilever and the business agenda.
• Well balanced breadth and depth approach with strong people development skills

Experiences & Qualifications

Essential:

• Minimum of 10 - 15 years’ experience in surfactant technology, manufacturing or R&D with an overlapping procurement or value engineering expertise
• Deep domain experience in Surfactants, Oleochemicals and or Bio-surfactant industries
• Strong financial and business case acumen to interrogate, design and propose business models and business cases.
• Good apprehension of life cycle assessment for Green House Gas management and decarbonization.
• Strong stakeholder management skills
• Drive for operational excellence and execution as well as strategic thinking and foresight
• University degree and background in science and technology/value engineering fields.

Preferred:

• Experience working in/with global organizations.
• Experience in dealing across cultures and time zones.
• Experience with complex contracting clauses, deal design and

Skills

• Deep domain experience in Surfactants, Oleochemicals and or Bio-surfactant industries.
• Technical knowledge and surfactant production and formulation skill base.
• Value engineering and deep value identification skills needed to continually comprehend trapped value and methodologies to identify and unlock.
• GHG impact and life cycle assessment capabilities and skills.
• Deep cost and should cost value modelling capabilities.
• Supply and Material Strategy process and development - Strategic Sourcing.
• Strong/leading skills in respect of capital expenditure management and business case design.
• Supplier risk and resilience management
• Negotiation strategy and formulation.
• Identifying value creating and innovation opportunities
• Managing Sustainability and impact assessment in complex value chains
• Apprehension of exploiting technology for procurement efficiency

Leadership

• You are an inclusive motivator of people. Your team deliver with real passion, growing and learning from each other whilst delivering quick wins.
• You are still accountable for your own results and as a manager, you also need to motivate others to deliver with passion, creating an inclusive and engaging climate around you. You can balance challenge with support and coaching. You comprehend the wider business context and you are emotionally intelligent enough to motivate people to deliver what is needed.

• Critical SOL (Standards of Leadership) Behaviors
  • PERSONAL MASTERY: Sets high standards for themselves. Has emotional intelligence to take feedback, manage mood and motivations, and build empathy for others.
  • PASSION FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE: Generates intensity and focus to motivate people to deliver results at speed. Takes personal accountability and accountability for execution and results.
  • TALENT CATALYST: Invests in people – coaches individuals and teams to realize their full potential. Creates an inclusive climate, empowering everyone to be at their best.
  • PURPOSE & SERVICE: Has humility, understanding that leadership is service to others, inside and outside Unilever.
  • CONSUMER LOVE: Invests time inside and outside to comprehend the needs of consumers.
  • BUSINESS ACUMEN: Creates sustainable growth with purpose, engaging different partners across the system for change.

D&I statement:

Equal Opportunity Employer: Unilever is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, or any other basis protected by applicable law, and will not be discriminated against based on disability. Unilever embraces diversity and encourages applicants from all walks of life. This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity.

"All official offers from Unilever are issued only via our Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Offers from individuals or unofficial sources may be fraudulent—please verify before proceeding."