In the process of development, the enterprise is nothing more than buying raw materials and processing them into finished products for sale. Therefore, in the pursuit of profits, it is necessary to ensure the sales side"Sell more, sell expensive", and also pursue the procurement side of "buy less, buy worth". To this end, the procurement department in the manufacturing industry will set up a series of procurement-related functions to achieve the goals of cost clarity, market understanding, demand alignment, lean delivery, value realization, etc. Therefore, a high-level first-chain enterprise, the procurement department is usually divided into the following functions.
Cost Manager:Cost Engineer The position of cost engineer may be different in different organizations, and some organizations will put the cost engineer in the project team, responsible for the profit and loss calculation of the overall project, and the ** chain is more of an employment relationship. Some organizations will put the position of cost engineer in the chain, responsible for the cost baseline approval and target guidance of the entire material, semi-finished product and finished product. Generally speaking, the cost engineer is a position that empowers the procurement department with accurate information, and needs to ensure the "value" of cost payment through various types of support such as dynamic tracking of raw materials in the market, sorting out cost base data, difference analysis, and plan review. Junior cost engineers can find opportunities to reduce costs from raw material approval, and top cost engineers can find opportunities to reduce costs on a large scale from the overall "value" of the solution. This position requires not only qualitative and quantitative scoring ability, the ability to calculate the cost, but also the ability to control from the perspective of product v**e. Therefore, it is usually suitable for expert talents who are careful, curious, and willing to immerse themselves in a certain field.
Sourcing and procurement: The position of Sourcing Engineer is called by many names in the industry, which can be called Sourcing Engineer, or Commodity Engineer or Category Engineer. Whatever the name, Sourcing is a category manager who is responsible for the buying strategy for a particular category in the organization. In terms of process, Sourcing Engineer has to control the sourcing of goods, bidding, verification, business introduction, management, contract management, compliance management and other responsibilities. It is also necessary to clarify the market situation, competition pattern, technology trends, fluctuations, cash flow management, etc. from the professionalism of materials. Therefore, there is an old saying in the industry: if you do the best in procurement, you can do sales. That's because, when a commodity engineer is at the pinnacle, understands the market, understands the technology, understands the industrial chain, has the resources, and has the key network, he has actually obtained the competency needed to become a top salesperson, just to switch positions in the trading relationship. In large foreign companies, in fact, the term sourcing procurement is used relatively less, because there is no need to find the best business, and there are only a few top ones, and it is more about the role of category experts + the position of the buyer to promote a win-win and reasonable transaction. Therefore, this position will require people with high emotional intelligence, high leadership, high commitment and high enthusiasm, and also need to be accompanied by certain integrity and trustworthiness and willingness to achieve the personality traits of others. In the top sourcing procurement I have seen, there must be two things that must be missing: rigorous compliance awareness & belief in achieving others, which is the cornerstone of ensuring that procurement personnel can become industry leaders.
Procurement fulfillment management: Supply Manager The position of procurement fulfillment management is also known as a lot in the industry, which can be called purchaser or buyer, but in foreign companies, it is mainly called supply manager. In terms of responsibilities, there will also be two situations, in the common responsibilities, the supply manager needs to control the overall supply and demand balance of materials, ensure the on-time delivery of materials and inventory turnover, etc. In a word, it is: no shortage, no silt. After the production of materials, some logistics, customs, accounting, defective products and other problems are usually handled by another buyer in large foreign enterprises, which we will introduce in the next function. The position of supply manager is usually classified according to the material item, if it is classified according to the material, then the position will focus on the ** condition of the product, and will also adopt different ** strategies. For example, the best strategy of expensive products such as CPU SSD memory is different from the best strategy of structural parts, camera modules, fingerprint modules, packaging materials and other categories. Because of the complexity of the product, the procurement pre-period, the industry status, the calling mode, the availability of raw materials, the maturity of the system, the high-level relationship and so on are all different. Therefore, in addition to the need to communicate with the front-end planning department, it is also necessary to cooperate with sourcing and procurement, and at the same time consider the characteristics of the category in the industry project cooperation relationship to do a good job in the long, medium and short term strategy. At the same time, it is also necessary to calculate MWD (material without demand) according to Waterfall, and at the same time liquidate liability with ** to ensure that in the transaction process, both parties can do the corresponding responsibilities according to the actual performance. This position is still relatively open to people from different backgrounds, but the core competencies are those that require strong communication and persuasion skills, as well as a strong sense of responsibility and horizontal leadership.
Procurement documentary: BuyerIn large foreign enterprises, supply manager and buyer are separated, the former is in charge of supply and demand balance, and the latter is in charge of transactional orders, logistics follow-up and accounting, and defective product return and exchange processing. If you want to use a clear boundary to divide the two, that is, the things before the shipment of the first merchant are under the management of the supply manager, and the things after the shipment are under the management of the buyer. There are two main reasons why large foreign companies set up positions in this way, one is that the supply manager can spend more time on long-term strategy and category characteristics. Another reason is that from a compliance point of view, the functions of generating purchase requirements and placing actual orders can be separated, so as to avoid black-box operations. Relatively speaking, what the buyer does will be relatively trivial, and the impact on the business will be relatively low, and some of the responsibilities of the customer service will lie. However, the advantage is that there will be more related parties to its docking, and there will be more opportunities for GCM and business opportunities in different categories. It can be said that buyer, as an entry-level position, is very convenient to quickly understand the state of the industry and establish an industry vision based on the company's status. This position is suitable for newcomers who are new to the industry, and at the same time have a relatively patient and confident personality, calm temperament, or want people with less pressure to be competent.
BPM: Branding Procurement Manager is a very distinctive subdivision position in a large foreign company. Each product will have its own "product power", for example, "a powerful chip brings the ultimate smooth experience". Then the position of BPM needs to start from the market, and transform the "ultimate smooth experience" required by the marketing department into the performance parameters of products and even components, and then determine the procurement strategy. Translated: the ultimate smooth experience - 512GB + 8GB + UF31. Reading and writing - Micron Hynix's LDPRR5 solution should be used - the participation ratio of Samsung, Hynix, Micron and Kioxia in this project should be adjusted a:b:c:d. The position of bpm is to start from the market demand and product characteristics, and output to the purchasing department to guide them, telling them what kind of performance parameters should be achieved in the selected parts in addition to meeting the cost requirements, and what qualitative use effect can be brought by such performance. Therefore, BPM will have the feeling of a "product manager" in the purchasing department, and will output its own opinions in advance with the project team in the solution selection in the R&D stage. To a large extent, the candidate's characteristic requirements for this position can be directly referred to the product manager, who needs to be an enthusiast of the product, familiar with the performance of various components, and have a strong ability to communicate and persuade others.
Procurement Representative Project Procurement: or Rocurement Representative. This position is easy to understand, and it can be understood as the purchasing branch of the project manager. The logic of its control is similar to that of PM, which plays its role in the five major links of project planning, initiation, execution, monitoring, and closing. Specific things to be implemented, including but not limited to: Define project scope, plan project activities and time, project cost budgeting, preparation of procurement and personnel plans, control of quality and risk plans, etc. This position in project procurement is a position to ensure that funds, manpower, and systems can operate efficiently, and to control the overall progress, risks and costs of the project by formulating various plans. However, it is worth mentioning that procurement belongs to the back-end department in the business flow after all, and it is often very easy to fall into a passive situation, so project procurement needs to pay special attention to the acquisition of key resources and the demonstration of business value, and remember to become a contractor who urges work. The characteristics of this position are also in logical analysis, horizontal leadership, responsibility, persuasion and communication skills, and it requires a certain amount of field accumulation.
Commodity trader This is a rare and extremely valuable position. At present, I have only seen this position in the external recruitment list of Huawei and Cisco, and the annual salary is between 100 and 200w. The responsibilities of this position are mainly for a certain type of expensive products (in our industry is core components such as chips), similar to ** or ** long-term**. Its role is not only to meet the group's internal consumption in the next 3 to 5 years, but also to serve as a strategic material for industry reserves, and to "help" friends at the appropriate time. At the same time, it is also because of its deep participation in the industry. The information received in this process will also be used as an important opinion for the group in strategic investment, and continue to provide the most valuable industry trends for its own research institute and financial institute, and determine the subsequent technology strategic reserve decision. This type of position, which most people have never heard of, is a compound position based on industry & academia & investment, which is basically only allocated in the consumer electronics industry, the new energy vehicle industry, and a small number of FMCG industries. The requirements for candidates are not only to examine the soft business ability reserves, but also to the contacts, resources, information reserves, patterns, industry status and so on in the industry.
Procurement, as a window to interact with the best businessmen, represents the exchanges between the two stakeholders in the commercial market. Therefore, it often has the characteristics of specialization, commercialization, and compliance.
Basically, if you want to develop in the field of procurement for a long time, choosing a component that suits you and accumulating it for a long time is often the core condition for building professional competitiveness. After many purchasers have been immersed in a certain field for a long time, with information, contacts, technical reserves, and business support, they often jump out of the professional circle and become the best businessmen in a certain subdivision, at this time, they can maximize their accumulation. Of course, there are also some procurement transformation to the research institute of the first company, through the acquisition of exclusive information + output of professional opinions, to create a role in the financial field.