Procurement Strategy & Insights Manager - Customer Operations

Job Title: Procurement Strategy & Insights Manager - Customer Operations

Location: Mumbai HO

Function: Procurement, Supply Chain\

Req ID:R-1174878

ABOUT PROCUREMENT

Part of the Supply Chain’s family, Procurement is responsible for over 30B Euro of material and services spend globally with more than 70,000 suppliers. Getting the right materials, sustainably sourced and ensuring responsible procurement is critical to ensuring our brands with purpose grow. Our teams work closely with the business to understand brand needs, bring supplier innovation to meet changing consumer needs and drive financial value for Unilever through competitive buying. We’re at the forefront of digital procurement, bringing new tools and analytics to drive data-based decisions.

With over 1400 employees globally, we support a network of thousands of suppliers, more than 1.5 million smallholder farmers who in turn support communities of over 7 million people. Our strategy is ‘Procurement with Purpose’ and focuses on buying responsibly, buying better and growing together with partners around the world and we have an ambition that is based on three key drivers: Being Purpose-Led, Value-Driven and Future-Fit.

Our teams work closely with the business to understand procurement needs and drive financial value for Unilever through competitive buying. We’re at the forefront of digital procurement, bringing new tools and analytics to drive data-based decisions.

PROCUREMENT STRATEGY & INSIGHTS

The Procurement Strategy & Insights Team is a newly formed team, serving as the nerve centre of the Unilever global procurement organization, enabling the procurement organization to design and deliver step-change across value chains, operating processes and tools, and business models. This team is responsible for:  

• Sensing, incubating, and enabling innovative ideas, new business models, transformation programs, and competitiveness understanding for disruptive value creation across procurement Logistics teams.
• Creating and implementing standardized processes and data-driven decision making to ease operating effectiveness and drive better and faster outcomes.
• Developing and enabling procurement strategies with respective network VPs and portfolio and market teams based on strategic insights.
• Identifying, scaling, and spreading best practices across the global procurement organization, within and across teams
• Facilitating rapid learning, capability development, and future-fit upskilling of our people

LOGISTICS or CUSTOMER OPERATIONS PORTFOLIO

The Logistics Portfolio covers the sourcing strategy development and procurement of logistical services for Unilever globally, including transportation, warehousing, pallets, sea freight and air freight services.  This position will work closely with the Logistics Procurement Leadership Team to create sourcing and supplier strategies and build future fit capabilities that align with the overall business objectives relevant to Logistics. Key Facts and Figures: € 3.1 Billion Spend; 400+ warehouses globally; 4000+ suppliers globally.

MAIN JOB PURPOSE

Reporting to the Procurement Global Procurement Strategy & Insights – Head of Customer operations, the purpose of this role is:

To act as a forward-looking challenger and strategic partner to the Leadership Team, bringing external thinking, digital innovation and AI-led insights to reshape logistics procurement. With the following key activities:

• Lead AI-Driven Procurement Transformation in transportation - Own and lead the design, rollout and scaling of AI-enabled and autonomous procurement capabilities across global logistics
• Support and lead the Insights creation, sourcing of data and market insight including visualisations for global logistics to Facilitate portfolio Strategy Creation/Updating, Negotiation preparation, contracting
• Derives value creation opportunities based on a deep Logistics expertise, Supplier, Competitor and Industry Insights, as well as benchmarking and cost modelling in connection with WCL

KEY INTERACTIONS

The Procurement Strategy & Insights Manager will interface with the following stakeholders:

• Chief Procurement Officer & CORE Leadership (Customer Operations & Real Estate Leadership team)
• Head of Global Procurement Strategy & Insights & broader Strategies & Insights team
• Global and Market sourcing teams
• Procurement Finance Team
• Supplier Operations & Data and Analytic teams
• Digital, Data Science & Technology teams (Internal & External) – AI Labs
• Start-ups and scale-ups in digital freight procurement automation
• Key Suppliers and agencies/partners (Mainly market insight and consulting suppliers)
• Industry and insights resources
• Logistics operations teams

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

1. Lead AI-Driven Procurement Transformation in transportation

• Own and lead the design, rollout and scaling of AI-enabled and autonomous procurement capabilities across global logistics, including: Autonomous / semi-autonomous sourcing, AI-driven buying competitiveness and price transparency, Predictive and prescriptive forecasting, Optimisation, recommender and strategy agent solutions
• Act as Business Product Owner or SME for advanced digital and AI solutions such as: Procurement GPT / Umove, Sourcing and negotiation tools, Strategy agents, optimisers and recommenders
• Translate procurement and logistics problems into clear AI use cases, leading MVP development and scaling into business-as-usual solutions.
• Shape the target state for “autonomous procurement”, including decision rights, human-in-the-loop models and governance.

Support and lead the Insights creation, sourcing of data and market insight including visualisations for global logistics to Facilitates portfolio Strategy Creation/Updating, Negotiation preparation, contracting

• Co-leads with the sourcing team the key strategic activities within the portfolio, acting as a challenger and bringing fresh thinking or tools to support negotiations.
• Masters the newly created frameworks/playbooks on key procurement skills (Strategy, Negotiation, Contracting), working in the portfolio, using the tools to upskill the sourcing team and as enablers for the execution.
• Reviews/challenges the Sourcing Strategy and competitiveness measures ahead of upcoming contract negotiations boards.
• Member of the Warehouse of Transport strategic squad.

Derives value creation opportunities based on a deep Logistics expertise, Supplier, Competitor, and Industry Insights, as well as benchmarking and cost modelling in connection with WCL

• Example: Develop buying competitiveness methodology, sources and visualisation with pareto views to guide users to value opportunities and increased competitiveness, Market comparisons, Outside in competitor intel that can deliver structural value etc.

LEADERSHIP BEHAVIORS

• Strategic, Systemic & creative Thinking & Entrepreneurial
• Systems thinker with a strong product and technology mindset
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and building new capabilities from scratch
• Strong ability to translate between business, data science and technology
• Influences senior stakeholders with insight, storytelling and evidence
• Hands-on, entrepreneurial and outcome-driven
• Outstanding problem-solving and analytical skills (including interpretation and independent decision making)
• Strong Talent catalyst to bring the best out of people.
• Strong Communication, Influencing skills & senior stakeholder management.
• High Initiative, Quick Learner, and Self-Starter
• Project management and planning

SKILLS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

Experience

• 5–10 years’ experience in one or more of the following:
  • Logistics / Supply Chain / Procurement transformation roles (FMCG or complex global organisations)
  • Logistics technology, digital freight, fleet management or supply chain SaaS companies
  • Strategy, analytics or digital transformation roles with strong execution focus
• Experience building, scaling or product-owning digital or AI solutions, not just using them.
• Exposure to AI, advanced analytics, optimisation or automation in a business context.
• Consulting experience (Tier 1 or digital/analytics-focused firms) is a plus.

Capabilities

• Strong understanding of logistics procurement economics, 3PL models and cost drivers (or ability to learn quickly).
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional programs spanning business, tech, data and external partners.
• Strong commercial and strategic thinking, with the ability to challenge legacy procurement models.
• Excellent storytelling and stakeholder influence skills in global, matrix environments.

Technical & Digital Skills (Positioned as Enablers, not must-haves)

• Familiarity with data and analytics ecosystems (e.g. cloud platforms, SQL, BI tools).
• Understanding of GenAI, optimisation, forecasting and decision-support systems.
• Experience working with product teams, engineers or data scientists is a strong advantage.
• Prompt engineering, API-based tools or experimentation mindset is a plus.

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.