Guidance

Commercial Strategy - Associate Commercial Specialist

Published 8 July 2024

Job Pillar Role Component	STRATEGY AND POLICY DEVELOPMENT Commercial Strategy
Commercial Professional Level	Associate Commercial Specialist (Grade 6 equivalent)
Role Summary	In this role you will promote the delivery of commercial excellence through the planning, development and management of commercial strategies for your department as well as contributing to the development and implementation of business unit strategies.   You will lead a team, building their confidence and commercial capability to drive performance and manage setbacks. The role will also require you to use your commercial expertise to identify opportunities for improvement and implement these changes at a local level by working with affected parties to identify and overcome challenges.
Key Responsibilities	Typically, the key responsibilities in this role will include (but are not limited to): ● Developing and maintaining business unit strategies ● Devising suitable commercial strategies for complex, high value procurements and contracts ● Managing, developing and maintaining commercial strategies and creating and implementing agreed sourcing plans ● Building strong relationships with senior stakeholders to include senior officials and ministers across various functions ● Overseeing and collating data and information required to inform the development of commercial strategies ● Ensuring relevant issues are fed into strategy and big picture considerations ● Identifying, tracking and escalating the need for a third party provision in your area of responsibility in order to prioritise and manage contracts in the pipeline ● Applying an understanding of the importance of prime contractors in managing and assuring their own supply chain in particular security of supply and contingencies ● Considering the long-term resilience of supply chains and taking opportunities to mitigate the risks and develop opportunities ● Identifying routes to market, conducting early market engagement and undertaking a proportional delivery model assessment ● Applying strong negotiation skills ● Establishing dialogue/negotiation strategies with clear parameters ● Seeking to maximise benefits for the project through effectively executing the commercial strategy ● Securing and acting on insights into customers, citizens, services, communities and markets affected by their area and the wider public sector context
Essential Criteria	Strategy and Policy Development: ● Has practical experience in implementing government and department commercial policies across a range of different delivery models ● Has expertise in the development and implementation of business unit strategies through supply chain management and has the ability to challenge risk averse behaviours where appropriate ● Has experience in developing resource and implementation plans in line with policy objectives and has the ability to expertly apply procurement rules Commercial Focus: ● Has a strong practical understanding of market and commercial drivers as well as contract law ● Demonstrates the ability to draw conclusions from a wide range of complex data from different sources ● Has a practical understanding of the concept of ‘value for money’ and can articulate what a successful return on investment looks like for a particular project/programme Risk and Assurance Management: ● Demonstrates the ability to take calculated risks in an area of responsibility in order to implement efficient and innovative solutions ● Demonstrates the ability to conduct analysis of options, risks and margins of error to provide assurance on decisions and manage subsequent trade-offs Commercial Ethics: ● Ability to influence stakeholders to take active steps to eliminate corruption, fraud and unethical behaviour in supply chains, taking appropriate actions in the event of any alleged breach of standards Team Management: ● Demonstrates the ability to manage a team, understands their commercial capability and where they have development gaps and can build their confidence to deal with setbacks ● Has an understanding of the cumulative impact of implementing change in their business area to include: culture, structure, service and morale Build Relationships: ● Demonstrates strong stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to show resilience in interactions with suppliers in order to defend the department’s position ● Demonstrates the ability to present technical issues to senior stakeholders in order to help them arrive at decisions by acting in an advisory capacity
Civil Service Behaviours	Ability to show examples across all of the following behaviours for level 4 of the Success Profiles Framework: Seeing the Big Picture: ● Develop and maintain an understanding of economic, social, political, environmental and technological developments to ensure activity is relevant. Ensure plans and activities in your area of work reflect wider strategic priorities and communicate effectively with senior leaders to influence future strategies. Adopt a governmentwide perspective to ensure alignment of activity and policy. Bring together views, perspectives and diverse needs of stakeholders to gain a broader understanding of the issues surrounding policies and activities Making Effective Decisions: ● Clarify your own understanding and stakeholder needs and expectations, before making decisions. Ensure decision making happens at the right level, not allowing unnecessary bureaucracy to hinder delivery. Encourage both innovative suggestions and challenge from others, to inform decision making. Analyse and accurately interpret data from various sources to support decisions. Find the best option by identifying positives, negatives, risks and implications. Present reasonable conclusions from a wide range of complex and sometimes incomplete evidence. Make decisions confidently even when details are unclear or if they prove to be unpopular. Developing Self and Others: ● Prioritise and role-model continuous self-learning and development. Identify areas individuals and teams need to develop in order to achieve future objectives. Support colleagues to take responsibility for their own learning and development. Ensure that development opportunities are available for all individuals regardless of their background or desire to achieve promotion. Ensure individuals take full advantage of learning and development opportunities available to them, including workplace based learning. Encourage discussions within and between teams to learn from each other’s experiences and change organisational plans and processes accordingly Leadership: ● Promote diversity, inclusion and equality of opportunity, respecting difference and external experience. Welcome and respond to views and challenges from others, despite any conflicting pressures to ignore or give in to them. Stand by, promote or defend own and team’s actions and decisions where needed. Seek out shared interests beyond own area of responsibility, understanding the extent of the impact actions have on the organisation. Inspire and motivate teams to be fully engaged in their work and dedicated to their role
Department Context	To enhance the generic commercial role profile, additional information can be added by a department to outline the specific nature of the role. This may include: ● An additional short paragraph in the role summary ● Additional key responsibilities based on the department context ● Bespoke essential skills/experience required for the role