Commercial Lead – Strategy and Development
Government Commercial Function
Apply before 11:55 pm on Tuesday 12th November 2024
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About the job
Job summary
Do you want to progress your career in the UK’s largest public sector procurement organisation? If so, you will have the chance to create market leading commercial agreements that help shape how common goods and services are bought across the public sector.
Crown Commercial Service is the biggest public procurement organisation in the UK.
With over 900 employees, we help thousands of public and third sector organisations save time and money when buying common goods and services. We currently manage more than £34 billion of spend every year across the public sector delivering commercial benefits of £3.8bn through CCS agreements including for:
- schools
- universities
- hospitals
- housing associations
- councils
- charities
- central government departments
Our culture is all about our people. The development of our people is key and though we’re all driven by different aspirations, we share the same commitment to quality and delivering value for our customers. Our people make up our family: the CCS Family!
The work we do is carried out to a very high standard in an exciting environment where success is celebrated. The expertise we offer our customers is all down to the people who work here. We realise that together we can achieve more.
Our purpose
We deliver commercial benefits for the UK central government, arm’s length bodies and the wider public sector. We do this by establishing and managing outstanding customer-focused commercial agreements for common goods and services and through our category expertise and procurement capability so that our customers can buy as effectively and efficiently as possible. Our values, and the behaviours they require, allow us to create a positive workplace culture.
Our values
Our culture is one of inclusivity and care, where we respect each other and our differences. It’s one that supports collaboration, teamwork and innovation and one that embraces difference. We support everyone having a voice so that our people feel valued and empowered to bring their ideas and whole self to work.
We listen, respect, collaborate and trust in order to deliver with confidence.
Job description
Commercial is the largest directorate in CCS and is responsible for the design, development, implementation and management of our commercial agreements (frameworks), which are used by our customers across the public sector.
This is an exciting opportunity to join a newly created function within the Commercial Directorate; the New Product Development Team (NPD).
NPD has been established to focus on:
- Our future products and services portfolio, including new commercial agreements (frameworks)
- Delivering a self-service capability for tail spend
- Creating a capability to focus on innovation
This is an exciting opportunity to join the team at the start of our journey and to be involved in shaping NPD, which will include being at the forefront of decisions on embedding our new processes and leading on the development of approaches to drive new product development and innovation.
This role is ideal for a commercial professional looking for the next step in their career with an opportunity be involved in major projects and high-profile work that focuses on new areas of growth and innovation for CCS and the public sector.
To note, this role will require knowledge of commercial and procurement practices.
Locations
The successful candidate(s) will be able to agree a contractual workplace from those locations listed in this advert. When selecting your location listed in this job advert please be aware that this will be your contractual base location with a requirement to spend a minimum of 60% of your working time in this organisational workplace. Your time spent on official duties at workplace locations other than your contractual office such as supplier, customer or partner locations required to perform your role is included in the 60% attendance. This requirement will however take into consideration any reasonable adjustments agreed upon appointment for people with a disability, flexibilities agreed for those with specific caring responsibilities, or other similar temporary flexibilities.
Person specification
In this role, you will be involved in:
- Influencing the future CCS product portfolio strategy contributing towards the Commercial Directorate achieving its 2-year growth target of an additional £8bn of spend under influence by the end of FY 24/25.
- Supporting the business plan target to increase the delivery of spend related commercial benefits in excess of £3.3bn each year.
- Supporting the shaping of the New Product Development team, including scoping new products and services and supporting the Head of New Products and Innovation to launch a new capability to focus on innovation for CCS and our customers in the public sector.
- Embedding the processes and structures for New Product Development in CCS, including managing the portfolio of new and future products and services.
- Working closely with and being a key interface for the Commercial Category teams and with the wider CCS organisation to design, implement and manage the future commercial portfolio for products and services.
- Involvement in supplier engagement, working with Strategic Suppliers to support New Product Development and the CCS Innovation ambition.
- Keeping up to date with market developments across sectors, including focus areas of New Products Development and innovation. This will include supporting the development of an approach to capture market innovations, changes and new capabilities.
- Leading on the development of solutions to support the delivery of new portfolio products and services.
- Developing a deeper understanding of how technology can be used to improve customer access to our products and develop strategies to simplify buying.
- Leading the creation and early scoping of designated category/sub-category strategies.
- Leading market deep dives through user research and collaboration with customers, suppliers and across relevant teams within CCS, applying these learnings to create a deep understanding of customer requirements in your area of responsibility.
- Leading the creation of business cases for new commercial agreements within the category, ensure effective adherence to governance processes for procurement activity and project delivery.
- Ensuring customers, government policy objectives, commercial strategy and procurement best practice are at the heart of NPD. Engaging routinely with stakeholders from CCS, across government and supplier organisations to support NPD objectives.
- Engagement across CCS (including the Commercial Directorate and Customer Experience Directorate) and customer groups to ensure Return on Effort is delivered and maintained.
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Manages Complexity – The ability to work collaboratively and self-motivate in a fast paced and changing working environment, responding to diverse stakeholder needs
- Commercial Focus – Proven experience in commercial and procurement practices from the perspective of both suppliers and buyers
- Builds Relationships – Drives a performance culture working with others to achieve results personally and through others whilst role modelling the CCS’s values to Listen, Respect, Collaborate and Trust
- Strategy and Policy Development – Experienced in developing commercial strategies to deliver procurement or supplier management capabilities with a leading role in implementation and end to end delivery
Benefits
For existing Civil Servants: For full details of the impact on any move across the civil service on your existing terms and conditions, please read the candidate pack. Please note that any move across the Civil Service may have implications on your ability to continue to claim childcare vouchers.
Things you need to know
Selection process details
Please be advised that the Virtual ADC is taking place on either 27th November or 3rd December 2024. Please hold both dates, but you will only need to attend one. This will require a full day's attendance.
If you are invited to attend a virtual ADC, but for any reason are unable to meet the date outlined then please get in touch with the team on commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible. The ADC is booked and paid for in advance by departments, therefore it is only in certain circumstances we are able to accommodate alternative dates.
Details of schemes available are attached in the advert.
For full details of our process, and a likely timeline, please read the explanation provided in the attached candidate pack.
Throughout our selection process, we will make decisions about your capability to do the job, based on evidence you provide against the essential criteria for the role which are detailed in the attached Candidate Pack.
Your application will be reviewed by a panel and should you be successful at sift we will invite you to attend a Virtual commercial Assessment and Development Centre (VADC). The panel will review results of the VADC and determine which candidates will go through to a subsequent final panel interview. Please note: Only candidates that achieve an A grade at ADC will be invited to interview for this role.
IMPORTANT: If you do not receive an acknowledgement of your application within 2 working days please contact: commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
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Working for the Civil Service
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
Diversity and Inclusion
Apply and further information
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : Lynsey Munro
- Email : commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Further information
