Senior Buyer

**Job Purpose**

The role of the Senior Buyer is to:

- Strategically source goods and services to improve quality and provide for innovative opportunities at the lowest total cost of ownership.
- Ensure all goods and services are sourced responsibly in line with regulatory, ethical, technical, sustainability and customer requirements.
- Formulate and maintaining in-bound supply chain strategies to maximise the effectiveness and optimise the total cost of the components they buy.
- Be a consultative partner, demonstrating knowledge across spend categories and providing insight to support and help to shape strategy.
- Be a champion for business processes and governance and support the Head of Commercial, oils UK with the development of other colleagues.

**Dimensions**
- Total third party spend - c £60m
- External contacts - 3rd party suppliers & Customers.
- Internal contacts - Commercial, Innovation; Customer Strategy & Planning; Sales, Finance, Corporate Relations, Operations, Planning, Technical.
- Travel will be required in this role.

**Principal Responsibilities**
- Create and develop category and sourcing plans in conjunction with business stakeholders.
- Drive partnership strategy as appropriate to ensure long term collaborative business growth planning and ensuring continuity of supply.
- Obtain the lowest possible total cost of ownership through negotiation, market intelligence and supplier knowledge.
- Conduct regular reviews with key stakeholders and provide regular reporting on initiatives and cost reduction projects.
- Communicate market conditions in a timely fashion and in a way that is clear and concise for both internal and external understanding.
- Utilise ERP system to drive analytics and provide appropriate reports for use within category plans and for sharing and analysis with appropriate teams.
- Utilise appropriate tools to maximise value delivery (e-auctions, should cost modelling, TCO, value lever analysis)
- Demonstrate commercial awareness and lead negotiations across all allocated areas of third party spend.
- Develop a network of strong supplier relationships that create innovative opportunities to drive value.
- Make use of SRM tools and performance measures to drive supplier effectiveness.
- Maximise opportunities to mitigate risk across area of spend responsibility.
- Manage all aspects of spend throughout the life cycle.
- Excellent working knowledge of the key personnel at each major supplier, their processes, internal systems and moreover understand cost drivers.
- Drive working capital reduction across the category.
- Develop and maintain responsible suppliers ensuring they are maintained to a standard to meet Princes / Industry standards (e.g. BRC).
- Ensure all suppliers comply with Princes ethical standards, are SEDEX registered (where appropriate) and may be audited.
- Manage contracts professionally and accurately, while maintaining cost conditions and source lists.
- Control currency requirements in line with group policy if required.
- Professionally resolve problems both internally and externally in a fair and ethical manner while protecting the long-term interests of the team and company.
- Support fully the efforts of other departments in achieving 100% stakeholder satisfaction.

**Knowledge, Skills and Experience**
- Thorough understanding of procurement processes and frameworks - Essential
- Previous experience in a category management role - Essential
- Excellent working understanding of category management, strategic sourcing, supplier development and value chain mapping - Essential
- Excellent working knowledge of allocated areas of spend - Essential
- Understanding of contract principles and clauses and be able to construct an interpret agreements - Essential
- SAP analytics and reporting - Desired
- Degree level qualification, ideally business related - Desired
- Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Office - Essential
- Associate or student of CIPS, or working to CIPS qualification - Desired
- Willingness to travel UK and overseas - Essential

**Competencies**
- Business Awareness - Developed
- Communication & Influencing
- Developed
- Planning & Organising - Developed
- Creativity & Innovation - Developed
- Working with People - Developed

**Job Types**: Full-time, Permanent

**Benefits**:

- Company pension
- Cycle to work scheme
- Discounted or free food
- Free parking
- Private medical insurance

Schedule:

- Monday to Friday

Supplemental pay types:

- Bonus scheme

Work Location: Hybrid remote in LIVERPOOL