Principal
Company is part of one of the major construction companies in the Netherlands and active in the railsector. Both new construction and maintenance for clients such as Prorail (90% of assignments), GVB, RET, HTM, Tata Steel.
The company employs about 1,000 people, has sales of about €330 million, spend of about €200 million and is headquartered in the province of Utrecht with about 200 employees. There are branch offices at several locations in the Netherlands.
Within the organization, security is key. The company is on the “safety culture ladder” at the highest level (5).
The culture can be described as: team play, getting things done, safety and hard work.
Procurement
The Purchasing Manager reports to the CFO and provides leadership to:
- 1 Strategic Project Purchaser
- 1 Senior Project buyer (vacancy)
- 2 Project Buyers
- 2 process coordinators, whose main focus is on simplifying and automating processes
- 1 product manager/buyer, dealing with major maintenance contracts and subcontracts.
Your duties
You will focus (like the strategic buyer) on the large projects, with a value from € 30 mio onwards. The buyers focus on medium-sized projects with a value of €3m. up to € 30 mio.
You are involved in your projects from day one. These are complex, multi-year and integral. You will supervise both the tender phase, the contracting phase (immediately after the contract is awarded) and the execution/construction phase. You start the tender phase by preparing the procurement strategy for the project. You roll out that procurement strategy yourself after receiving your stakeholders’ approval. Upon contract award to your organization, you will start contracting suppliers once you smartly negotiated once again, after which, during the construction phase of your project, you will be the escalation channel for problems, supervise the extra work discussions, “manage” all kinds of changes in the specifications, manage the overall relation with suppliers, and in case of major problems, conduct claim discussions.
You will work with project managers, contract managers, engineers and with management. You have a solid impact on business results.
Each project buyer is also responsible for managing a category. You will be expected to manage the “bulk materials” category (rails, switches, ballast materials), a spend of approx. €50 mio.
The strategic buyer is responsible for ‘subcontracting’ (the main category) and the 2 buyers for catenary materials and engineering/consulting firms, respectively.
For your category, you will create a category plan in consultation with your key stakeholders.
The challenge in your category is mainly to create bargaining space by developing new suppliers, since for a major product in your category, one party holds about 90% of the market.
Naturally you report to management on progress, results, deviations from your plans.
In your role, it is also important that you help your colleagues, the project buyers, to develope in their profession.
Operational procurement is done by the work preparators.
Centric is used as the central application for projects and Maximo for maintenance.
Your suppliers are mainly located in the Netherlands. International travel will therefore be limited.
Your profile
- Experience in the projects industry as e.g.: Contract specialist, Account manager, Tender engineer , Buyer, Category buyer
- Lots of experience in contracting, able to draft contracts independently
- HBO working/thinking level
- Strong communicator, Dutch speaking.
Offer
- Contract for an indefinite period
- Salary up to €84,000 per year
- Bonus plan based on company performance and your own achievements, of up to 0.75 monthly salary
- 25+8 days off
- Electric lease car
- An excellent pension plan, both for you and your partner;
- Home working policy: 3 days/week at the office; 2 days/week from home
- Home working allowance + home working place
- Weekly team meeting at headquarters in prov. Utrecht; you can also work from branch offices in Deventer, Rotterdam, Roosendaal or Zaandam
- A “Procurement Learning Course” has been developed by the organization so you will be trained in-house.
