APAC Container Category Purchasing Manager

at  IMERYS ASIA PACIFIC PTE LTD

JOB DESCRIPTION

With an annual volume of 70 000 TEUs and a spend of 100M$ for container freight including merchant haulage, the Global Container Category is an important purchasing area at Imerys. The APAC Container Purchasing Manager will be responsible for strategic purchasing of these activities within the APAC region and will be part of the Global Container Category Team.
The APAC Container Purchasing Manager reports to the Global Container Category Manager based in Antwerp, Belgium

While applying a top class purchasing methodology, best practices, sourcing strategy and associated management KPI, the APAC Container Category Purchasing Manager will :

• Manage directly all APAC Container Purchasing
• Contractual negotiations through the Global Team and KAM structure with suppliers
• Spot negotiation through the local partners
• Be in charge of the transportation panel rationalization and local supplier relationship management
• Support as a backup for the Global Container Manager and team members in America and APAC as an active member of the Global Container Purchasing Team
• Manage quotations and coordination with internal stakeholders to provide an outstanding service to the organization in full support of the business processes.

EXPERIENCE/SKILLS REQUIRED:

• Solid experience in Purchasing or Supply Chain, in particular Container Shipping Business and related activities in an international business environment (5 year +)
• Expertise in purchasing within the broad transportation sector in the APAC region, with an industrial emphasis; understanding transportation needs.
• Experience in leading regional projects based on category management concepts and group purchasing approach desired.
• Experienced negotiator with providers for ocean container transportation
• Excellent, demonstrated collaboration and relationship-building skills required; relationships will be extensive.
• Strong communication skills towards internal and external stakeholders.
• Team player with a global interest in container related transportation.
• Ability to collaborate with strong, defined technical resources, engineers and leaders, as well as plant operations leader
• Strong project management skills
• Proven experience in planning and leading negotiations
• Highly motivated & results focused with the ability to act with a high sense of urgency
• Ability to operate and execute effectively in a fast-paced environment with multiple priorities and challenging deadlines
• Thorough knowledge of the formalities and processes of the Container Shipping industry

EDUCATION/KNOWLEDGE REQUIREMENTS:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Purchasing, Supply Chain (or related field) required.
• Knowledge of SAP is a plus.
• English fluently, other languages are more than welcome.

• Contribute in defining and implementing the Container Purchasing Strategy that best serves Imerys global needs for short and long term.
• Deliver the planned savings for the APAC Container Category
• Ensure to have a full and complete overview of all Imerys APAC container shipping activity, enabling the function to design the required strategy and to approach the market as one unified and strong shipper with the objective of cost savings
• Identify, quantify and pursue opportunities for cost savings or operational improvements and manage them on a project basis until completion and validation of the captured savings.
• Actively contribute to the alignment across the Global Container Purchasing team implementing common methodology, sharing best practises and secure continuity.
• Contribute in defining a common process of performance assessment for the category and report results periodically
• Be a supportive but also challenging business partner and source of related knowledge for Imerys internal stakeholders, predominantly in the Supply Chain Teams, define common goals and provide and seek support for improvement projects
• Setup a process of establishing detailed and tailor made SLA’s with the Imerys internal container shipping operations defining the applicable way of cooperation on operational level
• Be the local Imerys representative facing shipping lines or shipping industry bodies and maintain a supplier management process
• Maintain a relationship with the Imerys forwarding agents and ensure the proper application of the negotiated conditions.
• Active participation in the Merchant Haulage negotiations of your scope.
• Consult in logistics-related areas, such as warehousing, intermodal transport, cost-to-serve modeling, TMS, software support, etc.
• Drive on-going improvements with major providers through Supplier Relationship Management process (SRM), including periodic meetings which include problem solving, cost reduction, maintenance objectives, plant shutdown support, etc.
• Collaborate directly with the business Supply Chain, Operations leadership, legal and teams to optimize overall logistics costs to the plants.
• Act as a pulse check and voice of the internal customer (site manager/operations/supply chain leaders) to the ongoing category management approach of the Transportation category.
• Develop key regional supplier relationship management (SRM) program under the umbrella of global Purchasing SRM program, ensuring integration of these programs with the Business Area priorities.
• Manage associated regional contracts, price & service negotiations and application/control, periodic contract review (to quantify supplier performance)
• Contribute to budget calculations for the team.