Purchasing Manager Career Information and Job Description.Parts 1

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Purchasing Manager and Purchasing Agent Career and Job Highlights

• Nearly half (42%) work in wholesale trade or manufacturing organizations.
• Some work their way up to these positions; others are recruited as college graduates. Regardless of academic training, new employees need 1 to 5 years to become intricately acquainted with their employer’s business.
• Overall employment is forecasted to be slower than the average, but the expected change in employment varies significantly by occupational specialty.
• Those with a college degree should enjoy the best opportunities.

Purchasing Manager, Agent, and Buyer Career Overview and Job Description

Companies hire purchasing managers, buyers, and purchasing agents to find the best merchandise at the lowest possible purchase cost. Purchasers typically buy goods and services for their company or organization to use, while buyers ordinarily buy items in order to resale them for profit. Purchasers and buyers find the best goods or services, choose suppliers, negotiate prices, and grant contracts that ensure that the right amount of the product or service is received when it is needed. Purchasing managers, buyers, and purchasing agents take several steps to reach these goals: they research sales records and inventory levels of current stock, find foreign and domestic suppliers, and stay current on any changes in either the supply of or demand for needed products and materials.

Finding good suppliers is crucial to the work of purchasing managers, buyers, and purchasing agents, who evaluate suppliers on multiple criteria (price, quality, service support, availability, reliability, selection, etc.). Purchasing managers, buyers, and purchasing agents study catalogs, industry and company publications, directories, and trade journals, often on the Internet. Reputation and history of a supplier is important, and future purchase actions may be advertised in order to solicit bids.

These workers use meetings, trade shows, conferences, and suppliers’ plants and distribution centers to inspect products and services, assess a supplier’s production and distribution capabilities, and discuss other relevant considerations. Once they have completed their research, suppliers who meet the purchaser’s needs will receive orders and contracts (which often last several years and may stipulate a narrow range of prices to allow purchasers to reorder as needed). Purchasing managers, buyers, and purchasing agents’ further responsibilities vary according to employer and type of goods or services with which they deal.

In government agencies and manufacturing firms, purchasing specialists typically are dubbed contract specialists; buyers or industrial buyers; or purchasing directors, managers, or agents. These specialists acquire various elements necessary for production: materials, parts, machines, supplies, services, etc. They can obtain anything from raw materials, machinery, and construction services to fabricated parts, office supplies and airline tickets. If the right materials, equipment, or supplies are out of stock when needed, work and production can be slowed or even halted. Effective purchasing specialists need to be deeply familiar with the technical aspects of the goods or services they purchase. Some purchasing managers, known as contract or supply managers, concentrate on negotiating and supervising supply contracts.

In large industrial companies, buyers and purchasing agents are often seen as having a different role from purchasing managers. Buyers and purchasing agents tend to concentrate on standard purchasing tasks; they frequently have a particular area of specialization, such as in a commodity like steel, lumber, cotton, grains, fabricated metals, or petroleum products. Purchasing agents follow market conditions, price trends, or futures markets in order to conduct the more complicated or crucial acquisitions. They also may oversee a team of purchasing agents who deal in other commodities and services. In choosing between the titles of purchasing manager, buyer, or purchasing agent, specific job duties matter less than the particular industry and employer.

The traditional roles of purchasing or supply management specialists in many industries have changed because of evolving business practices. Throughout product development, for instance, manufacturing companies increasingly rely on these specialists to forecast the cost, availability, and suitability of parts and materials. Moreover, conferring with the purchasing department during the early stages of product design can help prevent problems with the supply of materials.

Integrated supply contracts, which involve all members of the supply chain (including suppliers, transporters, and retailers), can also be useful for businesses. Because the nature of these broader and longer lasting agreements affects the buying firm’s performance, companies must be especially careful in selecting a supplier. Purchasers are generally responsible for working out any potential problems with a supplier.

Many firms utilize a strategy known as team buying, where purchasing specialists coordinate with other employees in their own organization when negotiating purchases. For example, before making a purchase, they might consult with company design engineers about the design of custom-made products, seek advice from quality assurance engineers and production supervisors concerning the quality of purchased goods, or tell managers in the receiving department about any shipment problems.

Contract specialists and managers work throughout the government, where their role is to award and oversee various types of contracts, such as providing public services, completing construction projects, and providing office and building supplies. They might, for instance, review a contract for landscaping services of a government-owned property to ensure that all provisions of the contract are being performed. While they do award contracts from sealed bids, they generally negotiate contracts for complex matters. Purchasing specialists in government often use the Internet to post solicitations for services and to accept bids and offers. Strict laws and regulations for government purchasing agents and managers are set up to ensure that they avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Agents and contract specialists must stay current on any changes to these legal requirements.

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