Director of Supply Chain

Topps Tiles is the UK’s leading tile specialist.  Formed in 1963 in Sale, Manchester and floating on the LSE in 1997, the business grew rapidly through the early 2000’s to become the clear market leader in the domestic tile market. 

Our Topps Tiles Retail business serves the domestic tile market and remains the clear market leader with 344 stores today.  In 2017 we entered the Commercial tile market through the acquisition of Parkside Ltd (and subsequently also acquiring Strata Tiles).  This was an important strategic step as it approximately doubled our addressable market in the UK whilst maintaining our specialism in tiles.

The core purpose for the business is to “inspire customers through our love of tiles” and this specialism gives us great focus as a business.  This year we have established a new goal for the organisation – to achieve a market share goal of the combined UK Domestic and Commercial market of £1 in every £5 spent by 2025 (this will require us to outperform the market by c.3-4% p.a.). 

The strategy to achieve this is centered on serving a broader customer base – through the Retail and Commercial businesses, supported by two key strategic pillars.  Leading Product – encompasses our advantaged product sourcing capability (including working with manufacturers to source unique and exclusive products) and Leading People represents our focus on world class customer service levels.

We believe the business has an exciting period ahead of it. In Retail we believe there is an opportunity to strengthen our value credentials and appeal to an even wider customer base, continue our journey to become a true omni-channel retail business and hone our property portfolio to maximize return on investment.  In Commercial we have a clear strategy to become the market leader and have plans in place to grow this business to £25m of sales by 2025. 

The culture of the business is best described through ‘The Topps Way’ – ‘we are small teams, with big ambitions who trust each other, celebrate success and put the customer at the heart of what we do’. 

The Role:

As Director of Supply Chain for Topps Tiles Group, you will be joining the market leader at a very exciting time. We are on a journey to take 1 in 5 of the UK Tile Market by 2025. If you are successfully appointed into this role you will have an amazing opportunity to make a REAL contribution to the delivery of our goal. As a member of the Topps Tiles Group Leadership Team and reporting to the Group Buying Director, you will oversee both our warehouse and transport operations with a mission to deliver exceptional service to our customers and our colleagues through our mission of ‘Supply Chain Excellence’. You will of course, be expected to promote cross functional collaboration, providing an interface right across our omni-channel business and will have the unique opportunity to develop an optimal warehousing and transport footprint in-line with our strategic plans.

 An inspirational leader and communicator, you will have exceptional coaching, motivational and relationship management skills. Equally, you will be passionate about quality and customer service with a proven track record of delivering continuous improvement. We are looking for a commercially astute and a proactive decision-maker who thrives under pressure. You will have significant experience of designing and implementing supply chain and logistics strategies and managing selected 3PL’s. Previous experience in a supply chain role at senior level is essential.

Role Purpose

• Deliver excellent service to customers and those serving them across our retail and commercial business units
• Management of our 150,000sq ft warehousing operation and our fleet of 26 vehicles, plus 3rd party suppliers
• Efficient and effective delivery of day to day SLA’s, standard and processes to achieve and exceed KPI’s
• Support cross-functional projects to enable deliver
• To set, manage and deliver against our Group Supply Chain Budget
• Continuous improvement – analysing data, identifying capability gaps, developing the team’s mindset and supporting their development
• Lead the further development and implementation of a supply chain plan to support of strategic goal of 1 in 5 by 2025

The Person

• Educated to degree level in a relevant field of study
• Professional qualifications within Supply Chain would be desirable
• Several year experience of supply chain ideally within a similar (building materials) type business; or retail business
• Experience with established supply chain improvement techniques, approaches and innovations
• Proven experience of developing ideas, driving change and implementing transformations in a high-pressure environment
• Commercial acumen, financially savvy and a proven influencer and collaborator
• A great leader and the ability to drive high levels of team engagement – colleagues want to deliver for you
• Ambition to be the best in the tile market at what you do in your field of expertise
• Ideally based within the East Midlands as we would expect a presence at our Support Office in Leicester, however the Company operates hybrid working 

For further details please contact Beth.Sutton@toppstiles.co.uk