Manager, Category Buyer Travel

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BASF has been operating in Malaysia for more than 30 years, through a number of wholly-owned companies and joint ventures in the country. BASF (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd was incorporated in 1989, and operates main office in Bandar Utama and a manufacturing plant in Pasir Gudang in Johor, as well as an operational site in Kulim, Kedah. BASF Asia-Pacific Service Centre Sdn Bhd began its operation in 2005. Located in Kuala Lumpur, the Shared Services Center provides functional services in the areas of finance, controlling, information services, human resources, real estate and facilities management, communications, environment, health & safety, procurement and import-export order management and information services to BASF Group companies in 20 markets across Asia Pacific. BASF Services (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, established in 1997, provides infrastructure and utilities support services to BASF sites in Malaysia. BASF holds 60% of its joint venture BASF PETRONAS Chemicals Sdn Bhd, which operates a state-of-the-art Verbund production site in the Gebeng Industrial Zone, Pahang, and 50% of Toray BASF PBT Resin Sdn Bhd. BASF posted sales to customers in Malaysia of approximately €403 million in 2022 and had 2,415 employees as of the end of the year. Further information is available on .

Objectives of the Position

• Responsible for purchasing activities of Travel Procurement within Asia Pacific (focus on China/Malaysia/Singapore /HK Regional and SSC offices ) targeted at gaining optimum commercial conditions at the required level of supply security.
• Work together with global category team and shared service center buyers in a way that encourages collaboration and leverages the team's ability to ensure that the purchasing category delivers agreed targets and service standards, on time and within budget. The travel procurement activity broadly covers Air/Train /hotel /and associated local conveyance etc.,

Main Areas of Responsibilities and Key Activities

Category buyer for Travel Procurement

Plan to Strategy -- Responsible for contributing to strategy:

• Provide input of internal customer needs and market knowledge (e.g. supply market structure and dynamics, strategies of suppliers, pricing structures, local specifics, opportunities and threats)
• Support Category Manager on strategy development (e.g. strategic goals, strategic options, implementation plan)
• Strategy implementation & follow-up: tackle action items, deliver progress report to Global Category Manager.

Sourcing to Contract -- Responsible upon delegation by Category Manager:

• • You will constantly demonstrate your negotiating skills - confident, cost-conscious and quality-conscious in RFQ's and price negotiations.
  • Negotiating contracts with local/regional travel suppliers and service providers as part of the Global Travel Procurement Team
  • Cooperation with regional procurement units, global procurement, and the regional travel management of the service units in order to implement synergies and requirements in the procurement of travel services.
  • Implementation of travel policies and processes in regional procurement strategies in Asia/Pacific
  • Coordination & control of travel procurement activities in Asia/Pacific as well as management of problem solutions and special situations for the region
  • Proactive risk management in the regional travel procurement environment
  • Analysis of market- and demand development in the Asia/Pacific region
  • Consulting of BASF Group companies in the area of business travel procurement
  • Identification and tracking of potential savings in the area of the various markets, providers and tools
  • Expansion and maintenance of a regional internal and external network of experts for a professional exchange
  • With your expertise, you advise internal business partners on procurement decisions for travel solutions/processes and act as a central point of contact for both - internal and external business partners.
  • You also break new ground and identify potential for improvement.
  • In close cooperation with the internal Business Partners, Corporate Legal, Corporate Data Protection, License Management, Corporate Finance and Tax as well as the Category Buyers from different regions you live the purchasing processes.
  • As part of Category Management, you drive topics such as Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), the achievement of agreed targets /KPI's as well as the proactive identification of savings potential.
  • Close interaction with the shared service center for the effective management of P2P process relevant to your category.
  • You also break new ground and identify potential for improvement.

Others:

• Functional Responsibility: being led by Category Manager
• At request of Category Manager, align resource allocation for Local Procurement Representative with Hub Management and provide guidance to Local Procurement Representative in selected cases
• Execute Supplier Management according to boundaries and action plan defined by Global Category Manager, manage relationships with key suppliers, evaluate supplier performance, drive supplier innovation
• Execute Risk Management approach with appropriate actions
• Reporting of Performance results

Supplier Relationship Management

Actively manage the portfolio of suppliers for defined categories, strengthen partnership with key suppliers and continuously manage supplier performance. Included activities:

• Establish contacts with the management of key suppliers to acquire information on service offerings and market trends and to enable timely settlement of issues
• Actively monitor the supplier landscape in Asia Pacific with a specific focus to China and build up new suppliers to enable them to meet BASF's standards and requirements in future, to ensure reliable supply at competitive prices and to manage supplier and price risks
• Ensure that suppliers meet the general and country-specific requirements and standards by aligning with internal Business Partners, EHS, Global/Regional Procurement and other relevant internal and external parties
• Address sustainability topics to protect BASF's reputation and reduce business risks from non-compliance with environmental, social or governance (ESG) standards
• Ensure that the performance of all suppliers of is regularly evaluated based on suitable KPIs for commercial terms, delivery, quality and compliance to internal and external regulations, sufficiently documented and that appropriate countermeasures are implemented if necessary
• Manage critical issues and claims with suppliers and affected internal Business Partners, escalate issues further if required and ensure that effective measures are implemented timely to solve root causes and improve customer satisfaction
• Manage the process to delist suppliers if the performance is unsatisfactory and an improvement is unlikely after alignment with internal Business Partners and other relevant internal or external parties

IBP Management

• Map the Key IBP's , collaborate with the requirements and provide solutions , and integrate the expenses management systems with the travel portal, popularize the BASF hotel management portal, publish key results to local management.

Job Requirements

Education

• Master's or diploma degree in economics, business travel management, business administration or comparable qualification

Working Experience

• Ideally more than 8 years of professional experience in purchasing of Travel services .

Technical & Professional Knowledge

• Knowledge in contracting of Travel Services with good knowledge of contract design and negotiations as well as legal principles and basis of compliance at Procurement
• Several years of experience in different areas of the travel industry with a focus on the procurement of travel services (negotiation, contracting, SRM, etc)
• Familiarity with common MS Office applications as well as confident handling of SAP R/3 and SAP Ariba
• Negotiation skills, assertiveness and strong interpersonal skills
• Analytical Thinking: Analyzes complex "what-if" scenarios and prepares contingencies. Identifies and analyses long-term future potential problems to reduce their impact.
• Communication: Communicates comfortably with people at all levels. Fluent in English communication.
• Conflict Management: Prevents conflicts by timely involvement of key-players. When performance problems occur does not avoid conflict but introduces clear steps and implements these resolutely.
• Customer Focus: Plans the development of all aspects of (internal and external) customer relationship.
• Influencing/Impact: Is able to influence even political or sensitive issues.
• Organizational Awareness: Establishes or maintains an international social network with people inside and outside the organization in order to utilize the contacts for the purpose of achieving company objectives.
• Quality Orientation: Ensures that quality processes maintain internal consistency and integrity over time.
• Strategic Thinking: Takes a broad and long term, strategic view of situations, which challenges current thinking or direction and results in actions or projects.
• Collaborate for achievement: collaborate with internal customers and other regional category buyers to achieve the best result