Sourcing Specialist

(Full time, 38 hours per week)

Do you want to work for a highly successful, fast expanding international retailer with many growth opportunities? Come and join our Buying Team as a Sourcing Specialist at Action and play an important role in supporting the overall growth of our company. 
 

About Action Sourcing

The Sourcing department is responsible for managing, developing, improving, and setting direction in the areas of sourcing from Asia, Turkey Region and within Europe. 

A part of the sourcing activities has impact on other departments such Buying, Commercial Planning, Commercial Operations, Quality, Sustainability, Supply Chain, Finance and Customs, which implies that the sourcing departments has a central and coordinating role. It is the ambition to make these Sourcing oriented activities as efficient, scalable, and resilient as possible to achieve a clean and neat handover to Supply Chain.

The European Sourcing team has been created in 2023 to build up a network and way of working for directly sourcing at European manufacturers.  First focus is to build and track our Polish supplier base.
 

Purpose of the Job

As an additional activity for Buying, Sourcing is responsible to secure Action’s purchase by finding out the best production partners with the capability and capacity to support Action’s network and growth ambitions, as well the most competitive offers for our customers. 

The Sourcing Specialist will be the main link and coordinator between Action’s Buying team, internal stakeholders and our suppliers. 

He/she will 

• be responsible from identifying the most suitable suppliers for Action.
• play an active part in managing the supplier search activities, pre-qualification of suppliers and product offers and the post-order process (a.o. sample flow, artwork flow, logistical flow). 
• act independently as the Action representative and counterpart towards new and existing suppliers. 
• travel independently to visit suppliers and trade fairs to establish new contacts with suppliers or manage existing relationships.
• will be supplier’s first point of contact and will act as the coordinator for order management from the buying moment till orders are being shipped/transported. 
• facilitate/unburden buyers as much as possible on their non-core activities for sourcing new suppliers, thus enabling Buyers to focus on the category management, product selection & quality and pricing.
   

Areas of Responsibility

Sourcing

• At own discretion and/or upon buyers needs and requests, explore the different sourcing channels to build and maintain a network of European direct manufacturers. 
• Independently travel to Trades fairs to source new suppliers and meet existing suppliers. 
• Pre-qualification of potential new suppliers based on their general set-up, products assortment, production capacity & capabilities, quality & sustainability set-up, and logistical set-up.
• Independently travel to suppliers in different countries for pre-negotiation, supplier onboarding and factory screening. 
• Facilitate and coordinate Factories evaluations & audits in collaboration with our quality and sustainability team.
• Prepare, and participate in buying trips together with Buying teams (quotations, sample arrangement and tagging, trip planning, meeting management as well transport and accommodations).
• Manage the whole sourcing administrative aspect including collection, verification and recording of all necessary supplier & product data.
• Monitor production trends and development, novelty items as well competitors to identify opportunities / threats and translate them in recommendations for the buying teams. 
   

Order Management

1. Timely and accurate coordination of the administrative process for orders including direct data input to Action systems (Mendix, P.I.M, Product IP, Finance, etc.),
2. End-to-End Order follow up (contract, shipment plan, sample arrangement, artwork arrangement, inspection follow up, shipment follow up).
3. Vendor management via follow up meetings and monitoring.
4. The Sourcing Specialist will be supplier main point of contact for: 

• Product quality & conformity controls with our quality team (Including technical audit, test protocol and inspection),
• Product sustainability & conformity controls with our sustainability team (including audit, test reports collection and verification),
• Artwork management & coordination with our marketing team (Including Die cut, Print, and colour proof), 
• Logistic management & coordination with our supply team

The Sourcing Specialist actively works with multiple stakeholders in different departments (Buying, Quality, Sustainability, Artworks, Supply Chain, Finance, etc) to ensure managed orders will be  executed according  to internally agreed timelines.
 

Action Values

• Customer oriented
• Cost consciousness
• Teamwork    
• Discipline
• Simplicity
• Respect

Competencies

• Organized, responsive and proactive.
• Result orientated.
• Strong communication competences
• Relationship management

Skills

• Bachelor’s degree in Purchase, Commerce, Supply Chain or Management.
• Over 3 years of work experience in sourcing / purchasing, preferably within retail.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office.
• Experience in cross-functional cooperation.
• Excellent oral and written knowledge of English. Polish as a first or second language preferred
• Be organized and responsive.
• Excellent administration skills and an eye for detail.
• Demonstrates a high level of pragmatism.
• Cost-conscious considering all involved costs