Commodity Buyer

Do you want to be Autocar’s commodity buyer?

Are you obsessed with customer focus and meeting the end user’s needs? Do you feel stifled by bureaucracy? Have an entrepreneurial drive? Do you refuse to let obstacles get in the way of achieving results?

Your mission

As a Commodity Buyer, you will be part of a diverse supply chain team responsible for creating and implementing sourcing strategies for all components used in Autocar trucks. You will be part of a strong purchasing team focused on building positive relationships with both internal and external customers. You will build a plan that focuses on obtaining competitive pricing while identifying and executing cost reduction strategies. You will lead negotiations for selected components and support your team and others to build a foundation that establishes long term contracts with key suppliers. You will need to understand the market and forecast pricing trends to achieve budget and financial goals. You will build relationships in all areas of the business including sales, operations, and engineering.

What Does it Take to Be Part of Our Team?

**You’ll Achieve These Key Outcomes**:

- Perform daily procurement activities related to prototype, development and production orders, logistics, quality and financial flows to the suppliers
- Develop, negotiate, and implement commodity strategies resulting in improved Supplier performance, enhanced product quality, innovative technology, and maximum value
- Drive negotiations and Supply agreements with suppliers within your segment strategy
- Contribute to techno-commercial roadmaps and be an active member in the Autocar LLC Buyer network
- Drive all relevant activities to deliver on Quality, Delivery, Cost, Project management and Risk mitigation towards new and existing products
- Monitor, identify, and mitigate risks in cooperation with the Supplier Development team and Engineering team
- Forecast cost evolution for scope of responsibility
- What We Are Looking For

**You’ll Demonstrate These Competencies for Success**:

- Strategic thinking that analyzes and understands the organization’s competitive position both internally and externally
- Focused yet flexible to support and lead changes that improve effectiveness
- Engaging with a logical ability to inspire support for ideas, proposals, projects, and solutions.
- Analytical excellence with ability to solve problems with a systematic, sequential approach
- Process driven ability to achieve results in a fast-paced environment
- Honest to do what is right, not politically expedient

**Your Background Includes**:

- Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, or related field is preferred.
- Experience in Automotive or Commercial Vehicle supply chain preferred
- 2 years of Purchasing experience. Fresh Engineering graduates may apply.
- Proven supplier negotiation skills
- Experience in the automotive / commercial vehicle industry is an advantage
- Well-developed business acumen, agile in way of working
- Desire to work in a collaborative team towards a common purpose
- Experience in leading supply chain with high complexity environments
- Working knowledge of sourcing process, systems, tools, and methods
- You may have Supply Chain Certification (APICS, CPIM, CSCM)
- You enjoy translating and integrating systems to interpret data analytics and facilitate effective communications with key stakeholders
- You thrive under the challenge to deliver custom solutions for your customers on time, every time - even when customer requirements change

**Where will you work?**

This role is located at GVW Group Shared Services South Africa, LLC headquartered in Durbinville, Cape Town, SA.

About Autocar

At Autocar, we are transforming the vocational truck industry, providing the highest quality, safest, and most advanced technology in the severe-duty class 8 vocational truck segment. Every truck we make is custom-engineered, and custom built to the customer’s specifications.

We are a privately US owned and operated company that expects our team members to act with an owner mindset: Relentless about creating value for the end user. Dogged about finding efficiencies and eliminating waste. Standing arm and arm with the rest of the team until the job is done—and ready to do it again the next day, with a smile.

It is not easy do things differently in this industry. But we do it—because we are passionate about improving the lives of the drivers that use our trucks.