Buyer

BIG PICTURE VIEW

Our Buyers are responsible for purchasing the right product for a competitive cost at the right time to ensure an exceptional service level for our customers. Each of our buyers manages a wide range of distributed and manufactured products – from food service items like sugar cubes to bulk goods like plywood – so you’ll have an opportunity to learn and build relationships across a broad base of suppliers.

We’re a highly collaborative team. In addition to working with your procurement teammates, our operations are right behind our office space – so you’ll have the opportunity to physically see the impact that the product you buy has on our operations and customers and collaborate with the teams that use them. Your primary measures of success will be product availability and cost. We hold ourselves to a high service standard – we hold ourselves to the goal of shipping 92%+ of our orders on time AND complete.

YOUR DAY-TO-DAY:

• Review your buying dashboard in our planning program (Anaplan) and work with suppliers to place Purchase Orders at a competitive cost within the delivery timeframe needed within Flinn’s ERP
• Troubleshoot product availability challenges by reviewing product attributes, suggesting alternate products or suppliers to meet customer needs
• Work with and manage vendors to improve quality, cost, delivery and service.
• Monitor purchase price variances and proactively recommend or take actions to improve cost
• Help drive SKU and vendor rationalization by deploying tactics or providing recommendations.
• Conduct or support vendor audits and evaluations, managing vendors to their scorecard and taking corrective actions when necessary
• Drive continuous improvement – provide recommendations for process improvements to supervisors and teammates and implement.

WHAT YOU’RE GOOD AT AND WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO YOU

• CUSTOMER-FOCUSED: you’re passionate about your customers, going out of your way to understand their goals and how you can support them
• CURIOUS: you dig in to understand why something works the way it does because it helps you provide a better outcome, and use that to effectively solve problems and produce alternative solutions
• YOU GET THINGS DONE: you’re goal-oriented; you understand metrics and have the ability to produce desired outcomes through your daily actions, and can effectively balance different priorities and projects simultaneously to do so
• ANALYTICAL: you are comfortable working with data, see trends, anticipate change and articulate, conceptualize or solve both complex and complicated problems and scenarios
• COMMUNICATION: you communicate clearly in written and verbal formats across levels and teams within the organization
• TECH-FLUENT: able to quickly learn and navigate new systems with guidance
• BUSINESS ACUMEN: you’re entrepreneurially minded; you understand the impact that product / inventory flow has on sales and overall growth
• INTEGRITY: you conduct your work with transparency and honesty; you own errors, assume good intent and expect the same of others

WHAT YOU NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL

• BA/BS degree; preferred focus in Supply Chain Management or related field
• 1+ years of experience working in purchasing, procurement, sourcing, and supply chain, or relevant internship or undergraduate experience
• Proficiency with the Office365 suite (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PowerBI, SharePoint)
• Excellent organizational and follow up skills
• Strong negotiation skills

We’d also love it if you had…

• Previous experience with a scientific, educational, or chemical company, in a high SKU count portfolio
• Experience using / working in Anaplan planning software
• Bilingual in any one of the following languages: Mandarin, Standard Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, Vietnamese, Urdu
• Sourcing experience