Buyer
Join a purchasing team where you will support high-level decision makers.Build long-term relationships with suppliers and establish the best possible conditions to optimise spending, service quality and contractual risk management while ensuring the satisfaction of internal partners.
Do you wish to develop your career within an innovative team, recognised for its performance and responsible commitment? Are you a committed team player?
As a buyer, you will be a real business partner of our business lines looking for the most appropriate and reliable solutions to meet their needs.
Your responsabilities
- Design and roll out a purchasing strategy for your category
- Support your internal partners with their transformation projects in France and abroad
- Define the best market consultation strategy to obtain optimal service/product conditions in terms of cost, deadlines and quality
- Build lasting and responsible relationships with our entire ecosystem, particularly with suppliers
- Identify the risks related to your category and manage them
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE JOB
You should be…
You are ready to listen and spearhead proposals to persuade decision makers
You are curious with an analytical mind and ability to summarise
You are an excellent negotiator with good interpersonal and listening skills and enjoy contact with others
You have a keen interest in concluding contracts and risk management
You have a good level of business English
5 years of higher education, business or engineering school, Masters in Purchasing
Hi, my name is Lisa. I have been a buyer in the Real Estate division at Societe Generale since September 2018. The buyer's job is to find the best response to a need that has been expressed. This involves four major points. The first is understanding the need expressed and challenging it. The second is knowing how to address this need on the market, which means building a purchasing strategy with allocations and an appropriate panel. The third is carrying out the act of purchasing, from consultation to negotiation, right through to the contract. The fourth, which is very important, is monitoring and deploying this service. We are a true business partner for our professions, enabling them to optimise their cost/quality ratio, while controlling the risks of their processes.
One of the highlights of the buyer's business is being on the front line when it comes to innovation. Thanks to the special relationship we have with suppliers, we can regularly visit their factories, challenge them when it comes to new needs, participate with them in discussion groups and have them work on prototypes. It's a very interesting environment and you get out from behind your desk. The first of three key points that make a good buyer is being a category leader. This means having mastered the category of your purchase, knowing your product and service. This goes with the second point which is knowing your market well, knowing whether these are markets with many players, few players, whether they are strategic, if they have a lot of power, if they have little power, whether this is a market to develop. Obviously the third point is knowing your internal partners and their needs well and supporting them in the challenge created by this need.
To be a good buyer you have to have a good team spirit because you have to work with a whole range of services, both internally and externally. You have to have a good level of English because you are working in an international context. You have to be pragmatic because you can't forget that you're purchasing for a purpose. What's really lovely when you arrive as a new hire at Societe Generale is that you go through an extremely well-developed on-boarding process. Right away you meet the departments and people with whom you are going to work, so you are operational quickly. Secondly, the strength of the Group and its size is that it offers us a multitude of opportunities for development and mobility. We have an extremely well-developed HR career path. Don't wait any longer, come join us.
How to join us
To get to know each other and make sure you will be happy as part of Societe Generale, please follow the below steps.
01
By responding to our job advertisement.
02
We’ll contact you for an initial exchange
and online tests.
03
You’ll meet our operational team and human
resources partners.
04
The job is yours, and you’re ready to start the adventure.
The adventure has just begun!
At Societe Generale, we ensure that everyone can build their own career path according to their aspirations and abilities. After taking on the role of Buyer, new opportunities will open up for you:
- Head of Purchasing Department
- Contract Manager
- Project manager for worldwide purchasing development
- Logistics and real estate businesses
- Project Manager/COO
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