Head of NPI & Data Governance

Head of NPI and Data Governance  
Location: UK, Hybrid (Manchester, Corby or London) - travel required to all locations

RS Group are a global leader in supplying the engineering world with products and solutions to meet the challenges of our customers across 36 countries worldwide.  We provide over 800,000 in-stock and over 3 million unstocked products to more than 1.2 million customers.

With an ever-growing portfolio of products and expanding global presence, we have an exciting opportunity for an experienced manager to lead our new product introduction and data governance teams.

You will provide strategic and operational oversight to ensure supplier data is onboarded efficiently to increased standards. You'll advise and lead the business in its cross functional systems, process and data model requirements to increase both product speed to market and product growth capability.

Key deliverables of this role:

• Leading business transformation to deliver improved Supplier product onboarding using digital technology to create advanced automated product introduction processes 
• Proactively manage the product lifecycle process from product introduction through to discontinuation 
• Responsible for data governance and delivery of accurate product data to protect customers and minimise business risk. The product data created supports all channels to market to aid customer research and buying decisions 
• Introducing appropriate levels of automation and digital solutions to enable scalable growth of the RS product range whilst reducing the cost to serve   
• Reduce the time to market <7days to ensure we have market leading launch plans and achieve high quality data and content standards  
• Drive continuous improvement in product launch and lifecycle management, through the proactive use of data and insight to manage internal and external stakeholder performance and improve the quality of inputs  
• Lead and develop a high performing team and CI culture  
• To work with solutions architecture and IT to bridge the gap between business and technical understanding, to deliver a to-be technical architecture for product introduction and maintenance that is flexible enough to deliver on an evolving content strategy for the next decade
• To provide thought leadership and counsel to introduce content briefing, standards management, and acquisition capability both internally and with suppliers to a level beyond the current industry standard

What we are looking for from you:

• High technical competence with extensive digital know how and knowledge of enterprise level Content systems PIM, DAM, CMS. 
• Strong leadership capability (c36 FTEs) and experience of large-scale business change and transformation  
• Proven track record of process design and process re-engineering  
• Excellent strategic thinking capability and ability to execute plans through the team and 3rd party partners  
• Experience of managing large offshore partners and relative supplier performance using KPIs and leading QBR process 
• Ability to work proactively and collaboratively with a large, diverse mix of internal and external, global stakeholders 
• Strong analytical and data driven mindset 
• Excellent knowledge of continuous improvement methodology and application 
• Budget responsibility and understanding of key metrics 

We are RS Group.

At RS we’ve been solving engineering problems for over 80 years: big ones, small ones, easy and difficult ones. We turn the ‘what ifs’ into the ‘why nots’, the impossible into the possible.  

Our purpose? Making amazing happen for a better world.  

We offer service and product solutions. We send out a parcel every 2 seconds, to over 130 countries. We provide over 800,000 in-stock and over 3 million unstocked products to more than 1.2 million customers.  

We want people like you, as you are curious about things, you like doing things differently and also in a human way with empathy. Because that’s exactly how we partner with people – our customers, suppliers, colleagues and communities – to solve problems.  

We’ll also invest in your development and wellbeing – because building a more diverse and inclusive culture, being ethical, responsible and committed to our Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) action plan is at the heart of everything we do. 

Come and join us and over 9000 employees worldwide – and we’ll help you to think big, do more and unleash your brilliance, so you do amazing things too.