Category Manager

About Abbott

Abbott is a global healthcare leader that helps people live more fully at all stages of life. Our portfolio of life-changing technologies spans the spectrum of healthcare, with leading businesses and products in diagnostics, medical devices, nutritionals and branded generic medicines. Our 114,000 colleagues serve people in more than 160 countries.

Abbott in Ireland

Abbott has been operating in Ireland since 1946 and serves the Irish market with a diverse range of healthcare products including diagnostics, diabetes care, medical devices and nutritional products. In Ireland, Abbott currently employs about 6,000 people across ten sites located in Dublin, Donegal, Clonmel, Cootehill, Galway, Kilkenny, Longford and Sligo.

Diabetes Care Kilkenny

Our new manufacturing facility in Kilkenny, opening in 2024, reflects the growing demand for Abbott's global Diabetes Care products. The facility will be a centre for world-class engineering, quality, medical device manufacturing, and other science-based professionals to produce life-changing technologies that enable people with diabetes to live the best and fullest lives they can. At Abbott in Kilkenny, you can shape your career as you help shape the future of healthcare .

This is how you can make a difference at Abbott:

In this important role, you will lead category sourcing initiatives focusing on Packaging, encompassing local, domestic and international purchasing opportunities. You will be establishing, articulating, and implementing sourcing strategies, with an emphasis on introducing new suppliers to support the expansion in Kilkenny. This entails obtaining program buy-in from various stakeholder organizations, managing project plans, identifying the resources to support the objectives, and driving projects through complex sourcing processes, ensuring end results meet the requirements of all organisations impacted.

To fulfil this role, you will need a proactive approach that is relationship oriented, customer focused, analytical and data-driven, creative and committed to continuous improvement. Experience in working on new supplier onboarding is a plus.

Responsibilities:

• Overall strategic ownership of suppliers/commodities within the Packaging category. 

• Working closely with business stakeholders in Corporate and Divisional functions to enable business continuity, including driving implementation plans.

• Nurturing stakeholder relationships by serving as a strong business partner, helping to identify business critical needs and requirements while providing operational support that meets immediate and long-term demands.

• Being a strategic representative of Abbott, across disciplines, industry and within the community.

• Proactively identify areas of opportunity for business process improvement.

• Providing insights to business units on how to optimize and refine Abbott and Supplier processes to improve effectiveness.

• Influencing business units to align with strategic initiatives that enable effective operational efficiencies across the enterprise.

• Effective operational leader capable of driving effectiveness for the category.

• Ability to assess overall needs and react to anticipated and unanticipated disruptions.

• Driving financial performance thorough supply base management, and category capability building.

• Strong cost focus, delivering savings, managing negotiations and escalations, and driving value add / value engineering analysis.

• Influencing and partnering with business leaders to manage and align business needs and requirements for the category.

• Monitoring global market dynamics and anticipating business critical actions that may be required for business continuity.

• Being a key relationship manager with category suppliers, driving risk management, and enhanced development of a flexible agile supply base.

Qualifications and experience

• Degree in related discipline.

• At least 8 years of combined / related experience in a procurement / buying / category management role.

• Experience in identifying and onboarding new suppliers.

• Experience of supporting new site / expansion activity.

• Industry experience in paper packaging / labels preferable.

• Experience in a manufacturing environment preferable.

• Strong communication, negotiation, presentation, and interpersonal skills.

• Effective relationship building skills, capable of engaging stakeholders at all levels.

• Proficiency in PC applications (word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations)

• CIPS qualification (or equivalent)

• Degree educated.

We offer:

Attractive compensation package that includes competitive pay, as well as benefits such as

• Health Insurance for you and your family

• Pension

• Life insurance

• Short Term Disability Protection

• Long Term Disability Protection

• Carers leave.

• Education Assistance

Connect with us at www.abbott.com or https://www.ie.abbott/, on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/abbott-/, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Abbott and on Twitter @AbbottNews.

Abbott is an equal opportunities employer.

The base pay for this position is

In specific locations, the pay range may vary from the range posted.