Hillier Nurseries Ltd; a family business, has been growing for over 150 years and is passionate about a lot of things. At our core, we care most about our planet, our people, and our future. Evidenced by our Planet Mark certification.
We remain a family business to this day and continue to stay true to our horticultural roots, championing the creation of green living spaces. Inspiring every generation to embrace the natural world is our mission, and as we succeed in this, our business and family are growing.
You will join the business at an exciting stage in its growth as several new centres and significant redevelopments are maximised and we broaden our product offering to become a true leisure destination.
This role is being offered on a permanent, full-time basis of 37.5 hours a week and will be based at our headquarters in Ampfield, Hampshire.
What we offer

• Competitive salary (based on experience)
• Car allowance.
• Health insurance.
• Enhanced Group Pension Scheme.
• Life Assurance.
• 31days annual leave (including bank holidays).
• 20% staff discount
• Enhanced Employee Assistance Programme for both you and your immediate family, including free counselling on health, financial, legal and personal/family matters.
• Company Christmas gifts (eligibility based on start date with Company).
• Free access to the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Romsey and deals at other gardens nationally.

This pivotal role is key to the success of Hillier, holding responsibility for both retail sales as well as planning what we grow on our own nursery.
The role:

• Nursery production and range planning – working with our Head of Nurseries to ensure that the range grown on our own nursery optimises the return for the overall company.
• Stock flow – ensuring that stock planned from our nurseries and partners flows to the centres, whilst taking account of space limitations at both our centres and our nursery.
• Supplier management – ensuring that we receive the very best commercial terms, quality, and availability. Making Hillier the ‘must supply’ retailer.
• Conduct regular market research to stay updated on industry trends, pricing, and new product availability.
• Stakeholder management – building strong relationships with other head office and operational teams to ensure the execution of your ranges meet a consistently high standard across the business.
• Efficiently follow critical paths for POS, customer communications, and events ensuring 100% accuracy and delivery enhancing the customer journey and maximising sales.
• Manage stock, retails, promotions, and range to ensure maximum profitability whilst minimising wastage. Through excellent planning and inflight management, budgeted profit and sales are always achieved.
• Ensure the Hillier portfolio is delivered in an ethical, sustainable, and legal way in the sourcing of product ranges, aligned to the overall business strategy.
• Analyse and evaluate overall performance against the original strategy and identify lessons to learn for future business cycles.
• The role involves both office and nursery work environments, with travel to meet with suppliers and attend industry events.

To succeed in this role you will be creative, energetic, a strategic thinker and a strong team player. You will be passionate about product and have a clear vision of how your ranges and products will appeal to our customers, whilst ensuring our offer is truly unique.
Requirements

• Excellent planning skills.
• Agility – ensuring we make the most out of every day, ensuring profits are maximised by balancing the trade-off between sales action and write off.
• In depth knowledge of horticulture with a keen interest in new varieties and trends.
• Experience of working in a similar role for a multi-site retailer.
• Experience in managing a diverse portfolio of suppliers and products.
• Excellent organisational and efficient working practices with strong attention to detail.
• Fantastic verbal and written communication skills.
• Proficient using Microsoft Office.
• Able to manipulate complex data.

• Knowledge of the gardening market and garden centres.

Have we captured your interest, and would you like to know more? Then please apply and we will be in touch with you soon.

Job Type: Full-time

We are the AA. And we keep everyone’s show on the road. There for our customers wherever and whenever they need us, we’re always ready for anything. That’s why, for over 100 years, we’ve continued to evolve and adapt. Today, as the nation’s number one motoring organization, we offer a range of excellent products and services to millions of customers.

This is the job

The AA IT department are recruiting an IT Procurement Manager. The IT Procurement Manager shall support the Senior IT Procurement Manager with the definition and execution of the annual Category Strategy. For the right candidate this role will offer experience across a wide range of technology sub categories such as; hardware, software, data and professional services. Embedded in to the central IT function, this is a key role in delivering service excellence, commercial value and thought leadership within the IT function.

This could be an ideal career opportunity to further develop large scale IT procurement knowledge in a newly created position which will offer opportunities to manage and be involved in setting best practice processes, and owning tactical projects to support the strategic IT and business objectives.

What will I be doing?

Reporting to the Senior IT Procurement Manager, the IT Procurement Manager is responsible for;

• Defining and implementing sourcing strategies for Capex and Opex related projects assigned to you in the Category Plan.
• Facilitating the negotiation and sign off of supplier contracts with Legal, the business and senior management (where applicable)
• Supporting the Partnership Management team with strategic supplier relationships.
• Contributing to the overarching IT Category Strategy
• Driving positive change, implementing Procurement best practice processes and governance.
• Positively raising Procurement’s profile around the business via proactive stakeholder management; liaising regularly with key stakeholders to establish priorities, remove blockers and deliver to shared deadlines.
• Driving maximum commercial value out of sourcing exercises and actively seeking out business cases for which lead to; cost reduction, revenue generation and operational efficiency.
• Delivering market insights in to the business
• Manage the execution of key sourcing projects via the Procurement System (Ariba), developing RFx and consulting the business son best practise.

What do I need?

• 3+ years of experience in IT Procurement
• Ability to autonomously build strategies, gaining business alignment to these and delivering against them
• Thorough understanding of full end to end lifecycle Procurement
• Experience in conducting cradle to grave sourcing initiatives
• Support identification and management of supply and financial risk
• Proactively interrogate budgets to identify opportunity and risk
• Support cross functional project teams to address initiatives identified
• TCO modelling to define optimal cost structures
• Able to build strategic relationships (internal and external) and follow through on commitments
• Communicate and influence stakeholders to gain commitment and buy in
• Financial reporting of cost improvement on a P&L basis, interpreting CAPEX, OPEX, depreciation and cash flow
• Solid understanding of contractual law
• Good understanding of management accounting
• Experience of using SAP Ariba or similar sourcing systems is desirable

Education and Qualifications:

• Degree level education
• CIPS preferential

Personal Characteristics:

• Autonomous
• Driven
• High commercial acumen
• Strong attention to detail
• Highly numerate
• Strong interpersonal and people management skills
• Intellectually inquisitive

Additional Information

What else is expected of me?

Good conduct matters at the AA. It’s very important that you act with honesty & integrity, are respectful of others and have a consistent desire to do the right thing. Everyone at the AA lives these behaviours, so we are all able to support the delivery of good outcomes for our customers.

Apply now by clicking the apply button below and the link taking you to the indeed apply page. The AA will contact you directly regarding your application. Good luck!