Our client in the automotive industry is currently looking to employ a Senior Procurement Operations Lead. This position will be based in Uitenhage.
Main purpose of the position:
- Partners directly with plant or country leadership to assess needs, develop solutions, and proactively manage sourcing needs. Ensures appropriate collaborative communication is occurring between strategic sourcing teams and shared services transactional teams. Drives procurement policy compliance for procurement activity within scope.
- Supports organizational change management efforts for plant or country in support of the overall Global Procurement transformation. Accounts for cultural and organizational specifics to assess readiness for change and overcome any barriers to change.
- Provide commercial steering and guidance towards scalable and cost-effective investments : Ensure on time, on quality and cost effective supply of materials, equipment and services during industrialization and operations phases, both for upstream and downstream processes. Secure commercial and legal framework agreements and drive “make or buy” assessment for select project components.
Responsibilities:
- Executes sourcing strategies within geographical scope for both manufacturing and non-manufacturing ensuring consistency with Global Indirect category strategies. Develops negotiation strategy for local negotiations and actively leads local contract negotiations as required based on criticality or complexity.
- Leads organizational change management efforts geographical area of responsibility – which includes plant locations and countries. Utilizes change management tools to ensure clarity of Global Procurement transformation goals and provide updates regarding the status of the changes. Serves as first point of escalation for any barriers to change that exist at the local level.
- Develops relationships with local and regional suppliers to support the overall Global Procurement supplier segmentation strategy.
- Seeks out new opportunities for application of 7-Step SSP and EST to drive savings opportunities. Supports team learning goals.
- Directly manages local Procurement Operations resources to ensure delivery of operational procurement activity.
Qualifications/ Experience:
- Required: Bachelor’s Degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Business, or a related field.
- Desired: Master’s Degree in a related field preferred. Project Management certification preferred.
- At least five (5) years of Procurement experience with prior experience applying project management principles and change management tools in a business setting required.
- Previous strategic sourcing experience required.
- Experience in a related industry preferred.
Knowledge and Skills:
- Proficient negotiation abilities, Application of strategic sourcing process, Project Management, Change Management, Excellent communication (technical, non-technical), Proficient in interpreting and analyzing financial statements.
- Skills required: strong financial/statistical analysis, organization skills, strong Microsoft Access/Excel skills and/or other database programs, a team player, influence skills, self-directing, and ability to work in a very fast paced, multi-tasking environment.
Please consider your application unsuccessful should you not receive a response within 2 weeks of applying.