Aspion
Senior Buyer
Manufacturing Industry
Westmead, Aylesford
Highly £Competitive (Flexible depending on experience)
Monday – Friday, 08:30 – 16:30
Our client, a family-owned furniture companywithglobal headquarters in Kent and offices in France, Germany, and the USA, are looking for a Senior Buyer. Due to continued growth both in the UK and internationally, we are seeking an experienced Sourcing Specialist/Senior Buyer to support the next stage of growth.
In this position, you will take accountability for ensuring supplier processes are efficient, sustainable, and profitable, implementing improvements where necessary.Working closely with the Product and Operations teams, you will implement improvement where necessary. The role is truly cross-functional, and you will gain exposure to many areas of the business.
Key Benefits:
- £Highly competitive salary.
- Generous Pension scheme.
- Healthcare Cash Plan.
- Extra days leave for your birthday.
- Regular team socials and events.
- Dynamic and fast-paced office environment.
- Free parking.
Requirements:
- Outstanding communication, negotiation, interpersonal and influencing skills.
- Manage time effectively, prioritise tasks and achieve set targets and dates.
- Practical, commercial, and technically minded and a real problem solver.
- Completer/finisher and someone who takes ownership of all aspects of their role.
- Tenacious, with a strong drive to bring results in terms of efficiencies and cost savings.
- Ability to think outside the box when issues arise with delays and try and resolve.
- Ability to work well under pressure.
- Happy to travel internationally on short timescale.
- Must be passionate about the brand, be flexible and have a can-do attitude.
- Confident, pro-active, approachable, and happy to turn your hand to anything required.
- Hardworking, conscientious and take pride in your work.
- Happy to work to tight deadlines.
- A high degree of self-motivation and drive.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Buying experience in a manufacturing environment, ideally from within the furniture industry.
- Strong, tenacious communicator and effective negotiator, with the ability to build relationships with suppliers.
- Excellent relationship management and negotiation skills.
- Experience in global stakeholder engagement and management.
- Have previous sourcing and cost reduction experience as a buyer.
- Prior experience within a manufacturing environment is essential, ideally within the furniture industry.
- Strong negotiation and communication skills.
- Have extensive knowledge of raw material pricing along with an understanding of market indexes.
- Excellent Project Management skills with the ability to meet tight deadlines.
- Ability to build and maintain effective and productive relationships with staff, stakeholders, and suppliers.
- Analytical, numerically minded and be able to demonstrate problem solving abilities.
- Strong knowledge of negotiation techniques, commercial understanding, and cost breakdown
- Commercial and financial awareness with a full understanding on how failure impacts product, manufacturing, and customer fulfilment
- Previous use of an MRP / ERP System and proficient in MS Office
The Role:
- Sourcing responsibilities will include negotiating deals with suppliers, researching alternatives and taking stock of current products & suppliers.
- Leading strategic sourcing, focusing on international supply bases.
- Proactively identify and source new products and suppliers, both domestically and internationally, developing new sourcing options as necessary
- Working closely with suppliers and internal departments to ensure efficient, timely supply of materials and products.
- Bringing an understanding of the target market and analysing market trends to enable informed buying decisions.
- Challenge and manage suppliers to deliver the required standards and measure their performance against agreed objectives and SLAs, putting in place corrective actions where necessary.
- Achieving cost reduction goals as assigned by the business, as well as bringing your own ideas.
- Working cross functionally with internal departments, collaborating to align and develop sourcing strategies.
- Negotiating contracts, improved prices, SLA’s and terms of business with new and current supply base and review opportunities to make business savings utilising negotiation and procurement best practise tools and methods.
- Managing any initial issues with new suppliers once onboard before handing over to the purchasing team
- Maximising communication techniques, including using the phone as a primary method to achieve the best possible levels of engagement.
- Working with production / designers to identify any cost savings within the product design or product assembly to improve margins.
- Building and maintaining long term relationships with existing suppliers, constantly assessing, and evaluating in conjunction with purchasing team
- Heading up and leading projects as directed by the Global Head of Product
- Ensuring that a professional and consistent approach is taken in relation to all supplier relationships.
- Overseeing all supplier contacts and contracts, maintaining, and improving relationships to ensure effective pricing and lead times.
- Constant evaluation of Suppliers in quality control ensuring all items meet the specs we provide.
- Ensuring continuous supply of required goods and materials and communicate any supply problems which may pose a risk or impact on business operations.
- Support with forecasting short- & long-term demand and plan resources accordingly
- Liaising with Sales Reps to ensure accurate forecasting, delivery, and stock levels.
- Working with the Global Head of Product to manage procurement budget and prepare cost estimates as necessary.
- Communicate, monitor and advise on any supply problems which may impact on the business.
- Providing the Senior Leadership Team with regular reports and updates
- Work with Quality Control & Compliance Manager and After Sales to reduce/eliminate any quality control and / or manufacturing problems.
At Aspion, our core values have been built around the importance of transparency, innovation, passion and collaboration. As such, we are committed to open communication and the protection of your privacy. We have updated our policies in line with new General Data Protection Regulation laws to make it easier for you to understand how we collect, store and handle your data – these can be viewed on our website.
