Local Category Buyer (1 year contract)

Company Description

For more than 265 years, JACOBS DOUWE EGBERTS (JDE) is inspired by its belief that it’s amazing what can happen over a cup of coffee or tea. We are fuelled by our purpose of unleashing the possibilities of coffee and tea to create a better future. Today, our coffee & tea portfolio is available in more than 100 developed and emerging markets, through a portfolio of over 50 brands that collectively cover the entire category landscape led by leading household names such as L’OR, Jacobs, Senseo, Tassimo, Douwe Egberts, Old Town, Super, Pickwick and Moccona. 

JDE is part of JDE Peet’s, the world’s largest pure-play coffee and tea company, headquartered in The Netherlands.

What’s it like to work at JDE?

We are proud of our passionate, driven associates that challenge the status quo and pursue mastery in everything they do. Our goal is simple and ambitious – JDE: A coffee & tea for every cup.

At JDE, we're Made to Stand Out. Every day we are progressive in outlook, ambitious in nature, resourceful in action and decisive in approach, bringing coffee and tea moments to everyone around the world.

Job Description

As our Category Buyer for Raw, Packaging and Indirect Materials, you will have a critical position within the Malaysia Procurement team. The core goals will be to lead the way to expected margin targets, manage a variety of different stakeholders who will be working with you very directly and closely, and to mature the category overall and prepare for future growth.

Your main challenges will be to:

• Understand business requirements;
• Manage various sub-categories with the support of Regional Buyers in Malaysia;
• Develop sourcing strategies for local country, put them in place for all portfolios and align with internal stakeholders;
• Use of sophisticated pricing models (roll-out to regions);
• Be ready to integrate new business in recently acquired companies;
• Conduct negotiations with suppliers;
• Lead innovation projects.

Responsibilities and Key Activities

• Identify and priorities opportunities to deliver total cost of ownership savings in your categories and drive the implementation of the plans to capture those opportunities.
• Proactively manage supplier relationships to deliver cost & cash results, to drive continuous improvement and position JDE as a customer of choice
• Measure and benchmark performance to ensure that JDE has the most competitive cost base in your category.
• Drive innovation programmes in your category to continually search for cost saving opportunities, new technologies, new products and new suppliers that contribute to the overall strategy of the business.
• Contribute on sourcing strategies development for Regional categories, working closely with APAC Regional Procurement Team and execute strategies in local country.
• Define category strategies for Local categories, lead execution and track benefits realization
• Establish and maintain portfolio of strategic agreements and key supplier relationships to manage risk in procuring.
• Manage supplier selection for Local categories, negotiate & contract key suppliers and administer contracts; PO creation.
• Manage supplier risk assessment (scanning via official tools and databases, financial assessment, etc.)
• Establish and analyses performance metrics in order to evaluate supplier performance.
• Keep oversight over set of contracts within category and ensure contract compliance considering payments terms, prices, discounts & rebates and performance in close collaboration with business.
• Understand the physical manufacturing process, including visiting plants to ensure guidelines are being followed, to deliver optimal goods & services to production plants.
• Ensure compliance to internal policies & procedures,have a deep understanding of and manage compliance to the Combined Business Model.
• Maintain purchasing records/data and pricing in the system.
• Identify and capitalize on opportunities to improve the organization’s buying patterns and supply channels.
• Monitor changing trends in price and availability of coffee, understand the complexity of the market (fundamentals and technical) and ensure proper reporting on financial performance and risks to internal stakeholders.
• Maintain and develop good working relationship with worldwide customers and suppliers.

Qualifications

Required Experience & Competencies:

• University Degree (Bachelor).

• At least 3 years of relevant experience.An excellent track record of delivering “best in class cost and cash results”.

• Successful experience of leading cross functional teams that focus on the lowest total cost of ownership as a key target

• International experience in global companies (ideally FMCG)

• Excellent communication and influencing skills.

• The ability to thrive with ambiguity, change and minimum processes and systems.