Senior Buyer - IT

Senior Buyer - IT |Hybrid - Home-Based-Some travel required |FT |Perm|Salary DOE
We are one of the UK's leading independent hospital groups and the largest in terms of revenue. From our 39 hospitals and 33 clinics, medical centres and consulting rooms across England, Wales, and Scotland, we provide diagnostics, inpatient, day case and outpatient care in areas including orthopaedics, gynaecology, cardiology, neurology, oncology, and general surgery. We also operate a network of private GPs and provide occupational health services to over 700 corporate clients. We are the principal independent provider by volume of knee and hip operations in the United Kingdom.
The group was founded with the acquisition and re-branding of 25 Bupa hospitals in 2007. Since then, Spire Healthcare has made significant capital investments in its estate and continues to deliver successful and award-winning clinical outcomes and high levels of patient satisfaction.
Spire is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 250. We were the first private hospital provider to publish outcomes data on our website and we have received awards for our clinical quality and high levels of patient satisfaction.
Spire Healthcare is committed to the highest quality of patient care. Working in partnership with over 8,760 experienced consultants, we delivered tailored, personalised care to approximately 926,500 inpatients, outpatients, and day case patients in 2022.Patients, consultants, and general practitioners trust Spire Healthcare to deliver the high-quality care they expect from a leading private healthcare provider.
We are now looking for a Senior Buyer to join our team. As a Senior Buyer, you have an important role to play in ensuring that we are delivering best value for money, minimising commercial risk, and maintaining/improving quality and service delivery. You will work closely with key stakeholders to identify, develop and implement effective sourcing initiatives and drive supplier performance to deliver the sourcing plan.
Key Responsibilities:
- In conjunction with the Category Manager and/or Head of Procurement, identifying, developing and implementing sourcing/procurement strategies to ensure best value for money.
- Leading and implementing sourcing initiatives aligned with Spire's business needs and the procurement plan.
- Concluding sourcing initiatives with relevant legal framework to minimise commercial risks and ensure performance can be monitored.
- Developing and maintaining relationships with key suppliers to improve quality and service performance, risk mitigation and identify opportunities to drive further value from our relationships.
- Measuring and actively managing supplier performance against agreed service levels, implementing improvement plans where required.
- Developing strong relationships with key stakeholders, generating a solid understanding of their business, potential impact or directional change for sub-categories and to ensure the delivery of the right solutions in terms of quality, value and functionality.
- Working closely with the relevant key stakeholders to ensure that best value for money is achieved.
- Monitoring compliance to preferred supplier agreements and work with key internal stakeholders and suppliers to ensure such benefits are realised.
- Being the subject matter expert for designated sub-categories, ensuring sound commercial advice is provided to the business at all times.
- Developing a detailed understanding of relevant sub-categories, monitoring and highlighting when market changes will have a material impact on our cost base, recommending relevant action to be taken.
- Working in conjunction with other Procurement team members and share experiences and practices to further improve procurement process, tools and performance.
- Producing clear project status updates and management information reports for the Category Manager and / or Head of Procurement.
- Complying with and promoting the Spire Healthcare Procurement Policy across the organisation.
- For regulatory compliance, underpinning robust processes that maintain procurement information/data, files and records.
- Representing the Procurement team at cross functional meetings.
- Ensuring supplier pricing is maintained accurately at all times and support the resolution of any price queries by working with the Accounts team as required.
Key Requirements:
* Graduate or equivalent experience, and/or working towards MCIPS or MCIPS qualified preferred.
* Several years' proven experience in a similar IT Procurement role
* Demonstrates procurement competence, strong negotiation & influencing skills, with evidence of having applied innovative thinking
* Ability to understand, articulate and lead the sourcing process.
* Experience of developing and executing sourcing initiatives.
* "Hands on" approach. Versatile, tenacious and people-oriented.
* Able to prioritise effectively, taking into account short and long-term needs of the business.
* Experience of the healthcare industry is desirable but not essential.
* Proficiency in drafting, reviewing and negotiating contractual terms and conditions and service level agreements.
* Effective communicator at all levels (written and verbal), with excellent interpersonal and influencing skills.
* Ability to gather, collate and analyse large amounts of procurement and financial data.
* Effective in analytical thinking, decision making, report writing and presentations.
* Ability to lead and participate actively in cross-functional project teams and familiarity with process improvement methodology.
* The ability to work effectively with senior and other business management is essential.
* Ability to build and maintain effective supplier relationships based on the highest standards of ethical conduct.
* Competent use of Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, as a minimum) at an advanced level.
* Proven track record of controlling and reducing external spend whilst developing a robust supplier base.
Benefits:
We offer employed colleagues a competitive salary as well as a comprehensive benefits package which includes but is not limited to:
* 35 days annual leave inclusive of bank holidays
* Employer and employee contributory pension with flexible retirement options
* 'Spire for you' reward platform - discount and cashback for over 1000 retailers
* Free wellness screening
* Private medical insurance
* Life assurance
Spire Healthcare is committed to creating an environment that will attract, retain, and motivate its people. We are an equal opportunities employer, committed to the health and wellbeing of all our colleagues and consultants.
We firmly believe that it is our people that make the business successful, and everyone should have the opportunity to work in a motivated team, free from discrimination on any grounds. We, therefore, are keen to receive and review applications from all candidates of under-represented groups who feel they offer the requisite skills.
For us, it's more than just treating patients; it's about looking af ter people