Senior Buyer

Job description / Role

Job Summary
• The role holder is responsible for developing strategic buying plans for the assigned brand/category.
• The role holder also ensures smooth buying operations in compliance with the principal/supplier contract principles to achieve the strategic and financial objectives of the brand/category.

Accountabilities

Core Responsibilities
• Determines the buying requirements and formulates buying plan and budget for the assigned brand/category, based on the analysis of the historical trends and future forecasts
• Creates buying plans to ensure profitability by maintaining and building consumer focused brand/category lines and managing SKU performance and efficiency
• Aligns the buying plan to the overall business unit plan and strategy as laid down by the brand/category manager
• Tracks and evaluates brand/category sales performance, market sales trends and competitor trading activities to identify critical business factors and proposed action plans to increase sales and profitability
• Consolidates and analyzes actual sales results to plan and forecast in-season sales/inventories on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis to drive sales, bottom-line profitability and inventory targets to meet or exceed financial goals
• Helps meet the profit targets by ensuring timely procurement of the merchandise
• Oversees and manages placement of orders based on the buying plans and ensures merchandise is delivered as per the plan based on the agreed service level agreement.
• Ensures identification of buying opportunities to source products and to ensure that business unit maintains its competitive edge by constant renegotiation
• Ensures effective communication, collation and follow-up on various product requirements and findings obtained from the sales/store data
• Ensures maintenance of principal/supplier contacts; product demonstrations, procurement of product samples and literature
• Keeps abreast of the latest trends in buying and discuss the same with the brand/category manager to assess realignment of existing processes
• Ensures the development of periodic reports on consumer behavior, consumer trends per product etc. to facilitate decisions to maintain, liquidate or dispose-off products or continue/discontinue with the product lines
• Manages and monitors the day to day activities of the buying team, providing guidance as and when required
• Participates in capacity planning to determine the capacity required and ensure smooth supply of products

People Management
• Defines goals and key performance indicators for each member of the team and ensures effective implementation of the GMG’s performance management process
• Develops talent within the team by providing guidance, mentoring and coaching to achieve the defined goals
• Drives a culture of feedback and coaching in the Business Unit by providing feedback on an ongoing basis, identifying development needs and coaching the employees on the areas of improvement

Requirements

Educational Qualifications and Certificates
• Bachelor’s degree Buying and Merchandising or its equivalent

Experience
• A minimum of 5 -7 years of relevant experience with at least 2 years in product buying

Skills

Language skills
• Written and spoken English is essential, Arabic is preferred

Additional skills
• Planning and Organizing
• Data Gathering and analysis
• MS Office and Tools
• Knowledge of ERP (relevant)
• Capacity Planning Knowledge

About the Company

Established in 1978, by the Baker family who still own and manage the company today, Gulf Marketing Group is one of the Middle East's leading, family owned companies. Gulf Marketing Group operates regionally, across the GCC and boasts a diverse portfolio of brands, retail outlets and services. Gulf Marketing Group subsidiaries operate in key sectors such as retail and distribution of sporting goods and lifestyle brands, health and fitness, food and food processing, integrated 3PL logistics, real estate, healthcare and pharmacies, education and technology. Since 1978, Gulf Marketing Group has introduced more than 90 international brands into the Middle East, as well as building the reputation of our homegrown brands as reliable and quality driven companies.

We are proud to be one of the top 10 retailers in the Gulf region with:

• More than three decades experience managing international brands in local environments
• A prestigious portfolio of world class brand partners
• Anchor tenancy in all major GCC shopping malls
• A proven track record of securing exclusive retail and distributor agreements
• An experienced management team
• Strong customer relationships