Category Specialist - The Toro Company

The Toro Company•Perry, OK

18h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Category Specialist is an integral role in the sourcing department, often collaborating with every position within the Integrated Supply Chain (ISC) to help ISC achieve its goals of Operational Excellence and Sustainability. The Category Specialist’s major responsibilities are reducing costs, cultivating strategic supplier relationships, improving quality and delivery metrics, supporting continuous improvement projects, and growing the skills and knowledge needed for advancement into a Category Management position and beyond. This role blends tactical and strategic capabilities, with a heavy focus on the strategic, within the global sourcing department and significantly impacts the day-to-day operations and the long-term strategic goals of The Toro Company (TTC). The Category Specialist role demonstrates the ability to lead key responsibilities and is deemed an expert in their role. This role is highly engaging and can also provide opportunities to explore additional future career paths within our dynamic Sourcing department.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required, preferred in Supply Chain Management, Operations or Engineering.
Level determined by years of sourcing experience: Specialist I: 0-2 years sourcing experience Specialist II: 2-4 years sourcing experience Specialist III: 4+ years sourcing experience
Experience in Steel Components & Flexible Manufacturing category preferred with ability to learn other categories and shift based on business need.
Ability to Obtain a Supply Chain Management certification required.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills to professionally interact with internal and external stakeholders at all levels in the organization.
Highly self-motivated, ability to work under pressure, manage and prioritize multiple objectives concurrently, attend to details, and meet deadlines in a dynamic environment.
Proven ability to analyze situations and drive to standardize process improvements.
Excellent computer skills including Microsoft Suite, MRP/ERP experience required, SAP® experience preferred.
Ability to import data into Excel and analyze using pivot tables, graphs, sorting, filtering, find and replace, and formulas including lookups, sum, average.
Ability to maintain composure and support their peers during rapidly changing situations, remaining focused on the relevant objective.
Capacity to work independently as well as within a team-oriented, collaborative environment.
Understanding of manufacturing processes, cost drivers, and market dynamics for assigned commodities.

Nice To Haves

SAP® experience preferred.

Responsibilities

Enhance and grow supplier relationships through excellent communication to ensure the supplier’s alignment with ISC’s goals.
Support development and implementation of supply agreements, Long Term Agreements (LTA), and collaborative partnerships.
Execute category team’s cost reduction strategy through supplier negotiations and partnership with cross functional teams.
Complete and review total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis and provide guidance to category team and leadership.
Lead, understand, and execute category specific strategy by using past experiences and drawing upon historical data to draw conclusions and pivot strategy within the category to align with ISC strategy.
Collaborate and partner with Category Manager(s) in cost negotiations and contract implementation with strategic suppliers.
Lead negotiations, develop and implement cost reduction initiatives of non-strategic spend suppliers.
Research, identify and determine new suppliers that align with Toro values and select the best possible supplier for a part based on the supplier classification criteria set by category team’s strategy.
Lead and support supplier transitions.
Participate and advise in supplier exit process standardization and continuous improvement projects.
Analyze quote packages from suppliers using the TCO model with the support of the category team to select the appropriate supplier.
Collaborate with engineering on strategic initiatives and ensure engineering change notices (ECN’s/ECO’s) are completed timely.
Support category manager to reconcile monthly purchase price variance (PPV).
Identify root cause for variances and improve controls to minimize those.
Lead monthly reconciliation of PPV of 10-15% of category spend.
Ability to troubleshoot unique issues that arise of moderate to advanced complexity.
Drive continuous supplier lead time reduction.
Assist Sourcing Specialist I, II, and manufacturing plants on supplier deliveries and escalations as required.
Resolve invoice discrepancies and authorize payment on invoice holds as appropriate.
Support sourcing finance by negotiating payment terms and promoting the supply chain finance program.
Champion various intradepartmental process improvement projects including lean activities, productivity improvements, lead time maintenance and others as assigned, present to leadership.
Support training and onboarding of new Sourcing Specialists while being an ongoing point of contact for assisting them in continued learning and troubleshooting.
All other tasks and projects as assigned.