Job Description

VitalAire is a part of Air Liquide Group company with more than 35 years of experience in Home Respiratory Care in Portugal, specializing in oxygen therapy, ventilation, aerosol therapy and secretion suctioning home treatments. VitalAire works daily in partnership with doctors and healthcare professionals, caring for thousands of patients at home and contributing to improve their quality of life. The VitalAire team provides a quality home service, recognised by its patients and respective healthcare professionals

How will you CONTRIBUTE and GROW?

The main mission of the position will be to ensure the deployment of purchasing category strategies and to collaborate in the execution of the procurement process for all direct categories.

The position will have a number of specific responsibilities:
1. Supply execution (daily supply activities):

• Implement the sourcing strategy or instructions defined by category managers,
• Develop and implement your own sourcing strategy for categories not managed by the Category Manager.
• Analyse and review specifications with requisitioners.
• Develop and review specifications with requisitioners.
• Identify potential suppliers and propose a list of potential suppliers to requisitioners, supporting the category manager.
• Launch RFx to pre-selected suppliers and facilitate the supplier selection process (technical and commercial) with requisitioners.
• Prepare objective negotiations and define the roles to be played by Air Liquide stakeholders in relation to suppliers.
• Select suppliers and negotiate contracts.

2. Contract implementation and management:

• Explain contracts to internal customer managers for proper implementation and execution in the system. Also communicate them to internal customers locally.
• Establish metrics and controls to ensure and monitor successful contract implementation locally.
• Follow up on contract implementation.
• Manage contract compliance.
• Define and periodically review purchasing channels.
• Contract management (application of price increase formulas, collection of volume discounts, product and service portfolio management, progress clauses, renewal, etc.), including updating the purchasing database (contracts, catalogues, etc.)
• Manage incidents and complaints.

3. Supplier relationship management

• Manage supplier relationships (Guarantees, Sanctions, Claims, Supplier Reviews, Performance and Risk Management with European Process Managers (in case of a complex situation)
• Facilitate the introduction of suppliers to stakeholders at company level
• Contribute to the evaluation of supplier performance
• Encourage the supplier assessment and audit process in collaboration with inspection teams, HSEQ and technical experts
• Contribute to the identification and mitigation of supplier risks to ensure compliance with risk mapping.

4. Stakeholder management

• Develop and manage relationships with internal customers (BL, Functions)
• Consolidate internal customer feedback on category strategies
• Consolidate internal customer feedback on supplier performance
• Lead working sessions with internal customers to identify opportunities for TCO reduction
• Drive awareness and recognition of the purchasing function within the business stakeholder community (BL, functions)

5. Continuous improvement

• Run regular surveys to measure internal customer feedback for continuous improvement in collaboration with the Purchasing Director.
• Implement corrective actions with suppliers to improve performance (e.g., supplier development programmes, progress plans, etc.) and monitor progress.
• Implement corrective actions with clusters/functions to improve contract compliance.
• Identify opportunities to automate purchase orders (catalogues, open purchase orders, etc.)
• Analyse opportunities for reduction of spot purchases provided by the tactical procurement manager (contract compliance and coverage), define and implement corrective actions.

6. Reports

• Consolidate and present the procurement action plan to your Management and, when necessary, to the related Category Manager.
• Contribute to the annual ambition plan and its updates (within the target forecasting and ongoing processes).
• Provide regular activity reports to your Management on current and projected savings in relation to your scope.

7. Procurement execution (lead buyer role in direct activity management)

• For assigned categories: define EU/cluster/multi-country procurement guidelines or strategy and align with stakeholders
• Execute RFQs, lead negotiations with shortlisted suppliers and manage the global sourcing of selected suppliers
• Coordinate with direct buyers to ensure compliance with defined sourcing guidance or strategy
• Manage relationships with internationally sourced suppliers
• Centralise complaints (>10KE) for globally sourced suppliers

Are you a MATCH?

You will be the ideal candidate if you meet the following requirements:

• Master or Bachelor's degree.
• At least 3-5 years of experience
• Experience in the industry sector.
• Knowledge of strategic planning and strategic sourcing, functional and value analysis, (re)design of costing techniques, supplier relationship management, including financial analysis, cost management
• Languages: High level of English and Portuguese - You will report regularly to the Group.

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Our Differences make our Performance

At Air Liquide, we are committed to build a diverse and inclusive workplace that embraces the diversity of our employees, our customers, patients, community stakeholders and cultures across the world.

We welcome and consider applications from all qualified applicants, regardless of their background. We strongly believe a diverse organization opens up opportunities for people to express their talent, both individually and collectively and it helps foster our ability to innovate by living our fundamentals, acting for our success and creating an engaging environment in a changing world.