CMS Distribution Limited
Operations Specialist - Cables & Connectivity
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Job Purpose Summary
The Operations Specialist is responsible for delivering operational excellence across the Cables & Connectivity business unit. The role owns all operational processes, performance, customer escalations, and cross-functional coordination, ensuring stable fulfilment, strong customer experience, and scalable growth. This role removes operational firefighting from Sales, Product Management, Purchasing, and senior management by establishing clear ownership, controls, processes, and improvement plans. Once stability is achieved, the focus shifts to continuous improvement, automation, efficiency, and customer-led operational enhancements.
Role Responsibilities
Operational Ownership & Performance
- Own end-to-end operational performance affecting customer experience.
- Act as the central escalation point for operational issues and ensure resolution with clear ownership and timelines.
- Monitor KPIs, identify trends, and drive corrective actions.
- Ensure operational performance supports commercial goals (revenue, GP, retention, growth).
- Establish and enforce operational standards across all relevant teams.
Customer Experience & Escalation Management
- Own resolution of customer operational escalations.
- Work directly with key customers to understand operational requirements and improve service.
- Identify recurring issues and convert customer feedback into measurable improvements.
- Support Sales by removing operational barriers to growth and improving customer retention.
Cross-Functional Leadership
- Act as the operational link between Warehouse, Customer Service, Finance, IT, Sales, Product Management, and Purchasing.
- Ensure issues have clear owners, deadlines, and communication routes.
- Reduce unnecessary workload and firefighting across commercial teams.
- Challenge inefficient processes and embed agreed changes.
Process Improvement & Operational Excellence
- Lead continuous improvement initiatives across all operational workflows.
- Review processes end-to-end, identify waste, simplify workflows, and introduce automation.
- Implement SOPs, controls, and scalable processes.
- Use data to quantify issues and build business cases for change.
- Introduce Lean principles and measure improvement impact.
Process & Workflow Management
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- Take ownership of improving key processes including:
- Workshop (cut-to-length, labelling, bespoke requirements)
- BOM creation
- Special/bespoke orders
- Key customer workflows
- Order-to-despatch workflows
- Returns & credits
- Customer account setup
- E-commerce operational processes
Additional Responsibilities
Project & Change Management
- Lead operational improvement projects with clear plans, owners, deadlines, and outcomes.
- Maintain improvement tracker and report progress.
- Ensure changes are implemented, embedded, and measured.
- Support wider transformation projects.
Finance & Commercial Operations
- Resolve operational issues affecting credits, invoices, accounts, and margin leakage.
- Identify processes causing unnecessary cost or write-offs.
- Use data to quantify commercial impact and support profitability improvements.
Growth & Customer Development
- Work with Sales and Product Management to identify operational opportunities that support growth.
- Engage customers to identify operational improvements that increase share of wallet.
- Project-manage customer-specific operational initiatives.
- Introduce value-added services and customised fulfilment where appropriate.
Operational Risk & Stability
- Identify operational risks affecting customer service, revenue, or GP.
- Develop preventative actions and contingency plans.
- Improve resilience across fulfilment and supply chain.
- Ensure critical processes have controls and documentation.
Key Measures of Performance
- Own Operational Performance & Service Levels: Take full ownership of operational performance, driving accountability across all teams to consistently achieve Cables & Connectivity service KPIs (on-time despatch, accuracy, fulfilment).
- Proactive Customer Experience & Escalation Reduction: Shift the organisation from reactive problem-solving to proactive operational management, reducing escalations and repeat complaints while improving customer satisfaction.
- Deliver Improvement Projects & Embed Change: Lead strategic operational improvement programmes and IT/system enhancements, ensuring all initiatives have clear owners, timelines, and measurable outcomes that stick.
- Build Scalable, Efficient Processes: Develop scalable, repeatable processes that reduce dependency on individuals, eliminate manual/non-value-added activity, and strengthen operational stability and scalability.
- Trusted Cross-Functional Partner for Growth: Operate as a trusted partner to Sales, Product Management, and Purchasing by removing operational barriers, improving customer experience, and delivering customer-specific operational projects that increase retention and share of wallet.
- Customer-Led Operational Insight & Solutions: Build a deep understanding of customer operational requirements and use data, controls, and early-warning indicators to shape service propositions, retention strategies, and value-added operational solutions.
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Skills & Personal Attributes
- Strong understanding of distribution and logistics operations.
- Proven process improvement capability and experience leading operational change.
- Strong analytical skills, with the ability to interpret operational, commercial, and customer data to drive decisions.
- Preferred experience with SAP, Qlik/QVW, CRM, or other ERP and analytics tools, with confidence in using data to identify trends, risks, and improvement opportunities.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management, able to influence without formal authority.
- Calm, structured approach to escalation management and issue resolution.
- Strong project management capability, including planning, prioritisation, cross-functional coordination, and delivery of complex operational projects.
- High level of commercial awareness (service → revenue → GP → profitability).
- Confident working with IT teams to translate operational requirements into practical system improvements.
- Customer-focused, detail-driven, proactive, and resilient.
- Demonstrable leadership capability, driving accountability and improvement across teams.
- Experience within IT distribution or technical environments advantageous.
Key Traits
CMS believes that a diverse and inclusive workforce enriches and is integral to the success of our company. We value diverse opinions and perspectives, and therefore welcome candidates from all backgrounds including but not limited to, ethnicity, gender, age, nationality, culture, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and neuro-diversity.
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