The existing Head of Supply Chain is being seconded into an exciting leadership role in TalkTalk’s full fibre task force for a minimum of 3 months and potentially longer.

As a result there is a need to backfill on a temporary basis the Supply Chain senior leadership role in the business - responsible for continuing to implement the end-to-end supply chain strategy and budget for TalkTalk Consumer and providing TT business and Technology with subject matter expertise, whilst enabling the new product centre of excellence through leading multi-million-pound deals serving both TalkTalk’s Direct business as well as its wholesale division. This role regularly presents at TalkTalk’s executive committee as it enables key strategic product enablers as well as cost savings realised through a more efficient supply chain and savings on existing 3rd party supplier relationships.

Partnering with the group Product Director and the Commercial Director for Direct Consumer & B2B on key strategic deals, being the subject matter expert for the business on supply chain and owning the supply chain strategy across the board.

The Team

The supply chain & logistics team consists of a team of 11 members ranging from supply chain managers, warehouse supervisors to senior planners. This team is accountable for ensuring TalkTalk is enabled as a business to service its customers through managing product flow. The team is responsible for managing such processes as the forecasting, supplier management, supply planning, replenishment & fulfilment. This team maximises availability to our customers whilst minimising working capital and cash flow in line with budget. Driving cost saving and innovation through innovation and supply review. The team is also responsible for mitigating supply chain risk to TalkTalk, recent examples are COVID and Brexit planning.

This team sits across direct consumer, B2B, wholesale and technology.

Role Expectations

STRATEGIC & BUDGET PLANNING

As the owner for supply chain strategy this role is responsible for directing inventory requirements to the product offering roadmap. This includes managing the wider supply chain and logistics team to ensure the circa £50M annual spend is in line with business requirements and approving these plans before they are built into the overall budget line for the business. Sets processes, policies and guidelines for a best practice approach to supply chain planning. Ensuring stock availability to enable the internal product, trading and base management teams to best serve the base, whilst ensuring cash flow and working capital are tightly controlled to limit the exposure to the business.

As the subject matter expert for the business this role will ensure protection to the business through forward thinking and planning, ensuring the supply chain team mitigates risks to supply chain such as the recent COVID and Brexit implications.

SUPPLIER MANAGEMENT

Empower the supply chain team to manage the product suppliers on behalf of TalkTalk, taking personal ownership of the Tier 1 supplier relationships based on the strategic importance and spend value (circa £25-£40M annually), working closely with procurement. Ensure the business has clear key performance indicators for measuring supplier performance, implementing plans when and if required for supplier poor performance.

CONTRACT NEGOTIATION

Partnering the group product director and the commercial director for direct consumer together with procurement on strategic deals, being the subject matter expert for the business on supply chain principles. Commercially support all group product related negotiations, leveraging supply chain and commercial principles to assist in delivering preferential sustainable terms for TalkTalk.

STRONG STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT

This role regularly presents at TalkTalk’s executive level as it enables key strategic product enablers as well as cost savings realised through a more efficient supply chain and savings on existing 3rd party supplier relationships. Partnering with the group Product Director, the Commercial Director for Direct Consumer & B2B and procurement on key strategic deals, as well as working closely with senior execs in wholesale to ensure supply chain readiness for the business. This role requires the individual to operate at all levels up to MD and CEO, working closely with business directors to provide subject matter expertise and guidance for supply chain.

Based on the nature of this role and size of the team the expectation is the individual will be directing the strategy whilst working alongside the team implementing the operational requirements. This requires the ability to manage stakeholders at all levels throughout the business, adjusting approaches accordingly to ensure buy in and collaboration.

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

Ensure the effective management of TalkTalk owned stock in line with departmental KPIs and SLAs, manage stock so there is minimal obsolescence, proactively notifying the relevant teams of slow-moving stock and creating strategies to manage this, making the appropriate commercial decisions to mitigate risk and drive benefit. Management of returned product including refurbishment where appropriate. Partnering closely with internal stakeholders to ensure all costs and write offs are accurately pre-empted and allocated in the P&Ls.

COMMERCIAL ACUMEN

As this role has budget responsibility and is a key stakeholder in contract negotiations the individual needs a high level of understanding financial implications to supply chain such as working capital, cash flow and stock provisions. Additionally, there are several accounting treatments that need to be understood such as stock capitalisation, IFRS15 revenue pull forward and currency hedging.  As this role will be presenting and working collaboratively with EXCO members and senior finance partners including the CFO its crucial the overlay of commercial acumen is present.

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