Category Buyer

Location: Bangalore, India

Thales is a global technology leader trusted by governments, institutions, and enterprises to tackle their most demanding challenges. From quantum applications and artificial intelligence to cybersecurity and 6G innovation, our solutions empower critical decisions rooted in human intelligence. Operating at the forefront of aerospace and space, cybersecurity and digital identity, we’re driven by a mission to build a future we can all trust.

Present in India since 1953, Thales is headquartered in Noida and has other operational offices and sites spread across Delhi, Gurugram, Bengaluru and Mumbai, among others. Over 2200 employees are working with Thales and its joint ventures in India. Since the beginning, Thales has been playing an essential role in India’s growth story by sharing its technologies and expertise in Defence, Aerospace and Cyber & Digital sectors. Thales has two engineering competence centres in India - one in Noida focused on Cyber & Digital business, while the one in Bengaluru focuses on hardware, software and systems engineering capabilities for both the civil and defence sectors, serving global needs. The Group has also established an MRO (Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul) facility in Gurugram to provide comprehensive avionics maintenance and repair services to Indian airlines and support the growth of the local aviation industry.

Reporting to the relevant Global Category Manager and / or Category(ies) Team leader (CTL) depending of geographic location.

Key Figures :
- Annual volume of commitment and spend within relevant category (ies) and % of Savings
- Number of suppliers for the given category and the structured closure of legacy, close and disengage suppliers as defined by the category strategies
- Year on year competitiveness and cost reductions
- Category operational performance (quality, on-time delivery, supply risk assessment, ..)
- % Category compliance with policy suppliers based on both commitment and spend
- Involve in the creation of specific contract(s) where there is a business need

The Category Buyer (CB) supports one or several procurement categories.
The CB works in close relation with the relevant Global Category Managers (GCM), the Categories Team leader (CTL), the Category Manager(CM) and the Tactical Buyer (TB).
All actions have to be in line with the strategy defined by the Global Category Manager and the CM. The CB's prime role is the management of the RFI or/and RFP's until PVet 4 stage (up to PVet 5 based on some Regions) in order to provide the competiveness to the business.

In addition to this their main tasks are:

Operational Support :
• Ensure the BA's receive all required information to raise the Procurement Orders.

Procurement Competitiveness Capture:
• Monitor the markets for defined categories including key players, newcomers, economic evolutions, market or regulation constraints, innovations and technology in order to support the development of the most up to date category strategies to the businesses.
• Based on the above provide insights as to how products / projects could be more competitive via the adoption of different suppliers / methodologies / technology etc.

Governance, Leadership and Performance Management:
• Ensure appropriate governance is applied using KPI's and root cause corrective actions

Supplier / Acquisition Management:
• Performance management of the supply base in line with the standards set out by the Global Category Manager .
• Ensure that supplier competitions follow the governance process and are balanced and fair in order to improve business and customer performance.
• Ensure that global contracts / framework agreements are adopted and utilised.
• Ensure that Thales e-Acquisition and all THALES procurement tools are fully used.
• Based on the performance management of the supply base identify the suppliers who require focused development actions and ensure that the Supplier Development Team have the required support / leverage in order for these actions to be successful.

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