Senior Buyer

About the role

Kerry Inc. seeks Senior Buyer at its facility located at 3400 Millington Road, Beloit, WI 53511.

Key responsibilities

Sets strategy, lead category sourcing activities in the America’s Region across a $146 million annual spend budget 10%. Analyze market and delivery conditions to determine present/future material availability/price 3%. Prepare market analysis reports 3%. Oversee all activities related to procurement of materials in the assigned categories, from intent to purchase through delivery of the material 2%. Formulate purchasing objectives for the category in collaboration with Company business units and execute contracting/purchasing activities as agreed with each Business Unit 10%. Vendor selection and negotiation process for regional vendors 5%. Negotiate complex requests for materials 4%. Ensure category buys are contracted in line with strategy, and master agreements are properly codified into local region contracts 2%. Prepare and review contracts, bids, proposals, and agreements for legal correctness, price, and acceptability of items to specifications 5%. Evaluate vendor quotations with the appropriate negotiation and purchasing techniques to ensure quality, price, delivery, and service 2%. Achieve significant cost reductions through vendor selection and collaboration with stakeholders of multiple company business units 15%. Directly solve operational issues with vendors 5%. Review and resolve vendor claim and contracts for conformance to company policy 5%. Use extensive SAP expertise to anticipate material needs and arrange procure to pay transactions in full compliance with company policies, including inventory receipt and reporting within the SAP system 5%. Efficiently administer the execution of a highly complex purchasing category through the utilization of the Kerry version of the SAP software tool to ensure maximum value can be applied to the procurement categories 5%. Foster connectivity across multiple Kerry business units and maintain/monitor information across approximately 50 manufacturing sites 2%. Develop and administer advanced training on Kerry SAP systems to procurement peers and leaders, to increase capacity of the procurement department 3%. Use practical examples gained in procurement activities to predict and create a roadmap for trainings which will increase the capacity of the procurement department 5%. Responsible for applying the SAP Requirements Planning Suite methodologies to ensure the Food Chemical Ingredients category of purchase is fully functional under this operating model and support the rest of the procurement team to do the same across the areas of responsibility as SAP expert, or employee with key knowledge 2%. Use SAP knowledge to ensure that all continue to fine-tune the system, including collaboration with Kerry IT teams to test and implement SAP improvements 2%. Maintain a network of relationships across several company departments to monitor efficient use of the SAP system and maintain the procurement department’s credibility of maximizing SAP efficiencies 5%.

Qualifications and skills

This position requires a bachelor’s degree or foreign equivalent, in Supply Chain, Finance, Information Systems, or a related field, plus 3 years of experience with a Combination of procurement/sourcing/supply chain and SAP experience. Additionally, the applicant must have employment experience with: (1) Utilize Project management skills with high proficiency with KDM (Kerry Delivery Methodology standardized way of working), or demonstrated equivalent, to execute cost-savings projects on time at full financial benefit; (2) Employ intermediate to advanced negotiation skills, to achieve beneficial contract terms, optimize the category and resolve conflicts/claims with suppliers; (3) Manage a significant financial spend across a complex set of procurement categories, and administer the procurement strategy across complex inter-connected computer ERP systems; (4) Utilize SAP planning module and SAP contracting module to prescribe and guide buying patterns according to strategic spend plan; (5) Ability to diagnose faults, prescribe and implement improvements in the SAP contracting module, procure to pay ERP systems/modules (SAP materials management (MM), Advanced Planning and Optimization (APO module) design and functionality; (6) Apply advanced data analysis using SAP, Microsoft Power BI, BODs (Business objects for data services), and Analysis for Office, to determine strategic spend plan; and (7) Ability to arrange and prepare data from acquired companies for migration and adoption into SAP systems. Up to 25% of domestic business travel and 5% of international business travel for Kerry sites and supplier visits and audits, industry conferences and colleague training.