Buyer

The Commodity Buyer acts as the single point of accountability for their commodity, owning all commercial and supply chain activities from initial concept through to end-of-life. Working closely with Engineering, Programme Management, Suppliers, and Operations, they ensure supplier selection, development, readiness, and industrialisation activities are delivered successfully to support programme timing, cost, quality, and performance targets

Key responsibilities will include: 

• Negotiating contracts, prices and terms of business with suppliers and reviewing opportunities to make business savings utilising negotiation and procurement best practice tools and methods 

• Lead the Matched Trio team during the sourcing of commodities for new projects reporting progress to the Programme Purchasing team 

• Ensuring a continuous supply of required goods and materials during the relevant development phase and communicate any supply problems which may pose a risk or impact on business operations 

• Supporting and resolving commercial issues in the production supply chain 

• Developing commodity strategies for own commodities 

• Assisting with the purchase and supply chain of global production for specified projects through negotiated costs with suppliers and deliver value to the business 

• Purchasing goods, materials, components or services in line with the specified cost, quality and delivery targets 

• Researching and evaluating areas of opportunity and reduce costs where possible 

• Develop ideas and strategies to improve operational efficiency, add value, aid business performance and work towards a strategy of continuous improvement 

• Stakeholder engagement at all levels both internally and with our external suppliers 

• Researching and owning the strategic relationships with suppliers and subcontractors 

• Supporting product change requests during the development phases and review and communicate the impact on capacity plans 

• Developing and improving Procurement processes as required. 

• For personal growth and where required support XP/Experiment projects, prototypes and the negotiation of Indirects contracts 

• Act as escalation for the Logistics team in relation to delivery/commercial issues and for the STA team as required 

• Own strategic relationship with suppliers 

• Hybrid working with at least 2-3 days in the office 

• Ability to travel as required. 

PERSON SPECIFICATION 

Skills and experience required: 

• Previous proven experience within a similar role 

• Experience working in an automotive or manufacturing environment 

• Previous exposure and experience to working with raw material market data, indices & platforms 

• Strong technical knowledge and understanding of automotive processes and components and supply chain management 

• Experience of stakeholder management 

• Experience in supplier/customer relationship management  

• Understanding of cost drivers in a manufacturing environment and experience in leading cost reduction activities 

• Results orientated with the ability to plan and deliver against project deadlines 

• An organised approach with good business acumen 

• Excellent analytical skills 

• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal, and the ability to work effectively with teams  

• Good IT skills including PowerPoint, Excel and Word 

• Good understanding of the need for diplomacy and confidentiality  

• Good attention to detail 

• Self-motivated with a can-do attitude 

• Proactively contributes to the team 

• Flexible approach to work 

Desirable: 

• Experience of using Microsoft Dynamics Navision (NAV) 

• Experience of working within a Tier 1 Automotive environment 

• MCIPS or studying towards CIPS qualification. 

KEY INTERFACES 

Internal: Supplier Quality, Engineering, PMO, Innovation 

External: Suppliers, Mercedes-Benz  

DIMENSIONS 

Budgets managed: NO 

Direct reports: N/A