The Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions (DJSIR) is focused on growing Victoria’s prosperity, building the productive capacity of our economy and increasing participation – by creating more opportunities for people through skills and jobs; helping businesses and industries to thrive; and building vibrant communities and regions. For more information, see the DJSIR Strategic Plan 2023-2027.
Established on 1 January 2023, our work spans numerous portfolios, supporting departmental ministers and operating across metropolitan, regional and international offices. We oversee various public entities, including public corporations, regulatory authorities and specialist boards.
Our values are accountability, integrity and respect, and underpin everything we do. For more information about the department, please visit our website: www.DJSIR.vic.gov.au.
Category Management Specialist
- Salary: $138,631 - $ $162,076 (Plus superannuation)
- Ongoing position
- Usual hours of work: Full time (flexibility may be available)
- Usual work location: 121 Exhibition Street, Melbourne VIC 3000 (flexibility may be available)
The Role
As Category Management Specialist, you will provide direction for major spend categories including (but not limited to) ICT and Professional Services, taking the lead in understanding the supply chain for relevant categories, category strategy development and execution, and contract and risk management activities to meet business needs.
The Category Management Specialist is also responsible for providing analytical support (i.e. spend analysis) to inform category management decision-making and strategic planning. The position provides an opportunity to collaborate and to provide high quality timely advice to the procurement leadership team and stakeholders across the department and contribute to continuous improvement activities.
Key accountabilities include:
Category Management
Strategic planning and implementation:
- Develop and implement category strategies for major spend categories including, but not limited to, ICT and Professional Services; maximize value for money through overseeing and driving priority initiatives to achieve category vision and objectives.
- Utilising category specific knowledge to ensure the category activities are in line with VGPB requirements, industry best practice and standards, and DJSIR requirements.
Specialist advice and analytical support:
- Engage with senior internal and external stakeholders across all category elements, to provide specialist procurement advice, explore options to deliver strategic procurement solutions and collect feedback to drive continuous improvement.
- Oversee and own data collection and analysis of category spend to drive reporting to inform strategic decisions and continuous improvement for categories.
Supplier relationship management:
- Build capability and manage the performance and risk of strategic or highly complex suppliers and State Purchase Contracts (SPC) on behalf of the department.
- Own and drive strategic supplier relationships, whilst identifying, implementing and embedding continuous improvement opportunities; hold strategic suppliers accountable to meet demand forecasts as advised by internal business stakeholders.
Stakeholder engagement and communication:
- Prepares reports and develops briefs that provides options for decision making (e.g., Financial Delegation approval, informs executives on complex and emerging issues, etc.)
- Represents own area of work with internal and external stakeholders and effectively manages delivery commitments and expectations.
Contract management
Negotiation and contract management support:
- Provide technical SME input into contract formation and scoping of strategic and high value/risk contracts and contract management plans to ensure adherence to DJSIR policies and processes, and state legislation.
- Review and negotiate complex supplier contract terms and conditions for strategic and high value/risk contracts, making the necessary required variations and updates.
- Support management to define new / changed specifications and associated key performance indicators (KPIs), performance metrics and service level agreements (SLAs).
The Team
The position of Category Management Specialist will work within Finance, Investment and Procurement branch, which
sits within Corporate Services group.
The Corporate Services group consists of specialist functions including strategic communications, finance, investment and procurement, performance and governance, legal and legislation, people and culture, information technology and workplace services and emergency management. These functions enable the department to operate efficiently and effectively and support the Secretary and Ministers to meet legislative obligations and responsibilities whilst actively supporting the department's portfolio groups and Ministers to create the conditions for growing Victoria's prosperity, building the productive capacity of our economy, and increasing participation.
The group works to build a safe, high-performing organisation where the department's people are supported to perform at their best. The group does this by providing strategic, operational and program delivery support services in creative and innovative ways.
About You
To be successful in this role you will have the following skills and experience:
- Specialist Expertise: Exceptionally well-developed category and contract management capability with a procurement focus. Proven ability in managing complex and high-risk contracts, taking a proactive approach to resolving issues, and focusing on continuous improvement and streamlined user experience.
- Data literacy: Well-developed data analytics skills, including data extraction, collection (e.g. data parameters, data structure), interpretation, evaluation and analysis of variety of data, using Excel and other products. Ability to derive value from data sets to enable immediate and/or future decision making (predictive).
- Critical Thinking and Commercial Acumen: Considers a broad range of topics (beyond immediate area of work), works across government and at senior levels to develop and deliver sustainable solutions. Defines and maximises value add and/ or return of investment in business cases, contract terms, or service delivery agreements. Uses broad understanding of procurement and finance concepts to inform expenditure decisions and manage risks.
- Stakeholder management: Identifies issues in common for one or more clients or stakeholders and uses them to build mutually beneficial partnerships; Identifies and responds to stakeholder's underlying needs; Uses understanding of the stakeholder's organisational context to ensure outcomes are achieved.
- Working collaboratively: guides others to create a culture of collaboration; identifies, and works to overcome, barriers to knowledge or information sharing; Identifies opportunities to work with other teams to deliver outcomes.
- Innovation and Continuous Improvement: Uses understanding of clients or stakeholders' context to design and implement systems for continuous improvement within team or organisation; Reviews and analyses internal and external information to improve effectiveness and quality of work; Creates team environments where innovation and creativity are fostered and rewarded.
Further Information
For a confidential discussion, please contact Sridevi Akkaraju Venkata, Senior Manager, Category Management on 0469 352 975 or [email protected]
The department is committed to creating and maintaining a child safe organisation. We have zero tolerance of child abuse and are committed to taking the necessary steps to protect children from harm by adopting a preventative, proactive and participatory approach to child safety in accordance with the Child Safe Standards.
Successful candidates will be required to undergo a National Police Records Check prior to commencing employment with
the Department. For further information on the position, please refer to the attached position description.
Please note: We are accredited as a Disability Confident Recruitment (DCR) organisation and committed to inclusive recruitment. If you require an adjustment to participate in any stage of the recruitment process or have a particular requirement to be communicated with by either telephone or email only, please notify the DJSIR Recruitment Team on 0472875685, or via email at [email protected] with the position number in the subject line. For additional contact details for our team please review the attached Position Description, located under Job Attachments in the right hand menu.
How to Apply
Please click the ‘Apply Now' button. As part of the application process, you will need to provide a copy of your Resume and respond to the Key Selection Criteria as outlined in the position description.
Applications close at 23:59pm on Sunday, 23 September 2025.