Buyer

About Us

As part of The Freeman Company, Freeman designs and delivers unforgettable moments that create a bond between audiences and our clients. It’s just one reason why we’re the leader in live events.

Summary

The Buyer is responsible for selecting and procuring quality products and services, including: maintaining supplier relationships, processing purchase orders, limited supplier negotiations, tracking orders, generating reports, creating and maintaining product catalogs and standard ordering procedures, and liaising with the Procurement team and internal stakeholders. The ideal candidate is driven, detail-oriented, and organized, with excellent communication skills, strong analytical skills, and the ability to multi-task and interact with leadership across the organization. The Buyer must work well in a team environment.

This position will support our Global Supply Chain team. It is eligible to work a hybrid schedule, generally requiring work in-office and/or show-site 2-3 days per week. The ideal candidate will be located in McCook, IL; however, we are also open to candidates based out of:

• Dallas, TX

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

• Manages and assists with day-to-day procurement processes
• Identifies new procurement and cost savings opportunities
• Establishes and maintains Coupa P2P catalogs including products and services descriptions, images, and pricing
• Provides transactional support of requisitions, POs, and invoices to ensure accuracy
• Provides buyer role triage support to obtain proper reviews of applicable requisitions that could require sourcing events
• Compiles metric/reporting on all regional and/or category transactional activity
• Enables suppliers by reviewing contracts and setting up the appropriate PO structure to capture spend details in Coupa
• Maintains internally managed catalogs by coordinating with the supplier, procurement team peers and business users
• Assists and/or manages the product price change process in accordance with contract terms and/or negotiated terms
• Tracks and reports on supplier related issues, failures, and quality defects
• Works as a team with other Buyers to cover temporary vacancies and develop buying strategies that can be duplicated throughout the department
• Develops and focuses on continuous improvement of standard operating procedures; trains others on P2P system and Procurement processes and tools
• Ensures excellent customer service to all customers/stakeholders (internal and external)
• Manages efforts to resolve internal/external stakeholder issues
• Manages day-to-day supplier relations and escalations; Communicate updates and issues to leadership and internal stakeholders both verbally and written form
• Promotes Coupa user adoption by improving catalog usability and established, preferred suppliers
• Assist in developing and implementing procurement projects and programs
• Coordinates and facilitates meetings internally as well as externally with suppliers
• Assigned categories and is responsible for developing category plans to include sourcing and contract opportunities resulting in company and/or region-specific savings
• Represents designated regions and categories as a subject matter expert for the purpose of reporting, contract development, supplier evaluations, and development/execution of procurement strategy
• Maintains monthly supplier performance measurement reports and facilitates monthly/quarterly performance review meetings with preferred suppliers
• Performs other duties as assigned

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited 4 year college or university is preferred, High School Diploma or equivalaent with relevant work experience is required
• At least (5) five years of related work experience; trade show, event, retail or hospitality industry experience is preferred
• Experience with a Procure-to-Pay (P2P) platform such as Coupa and SAP SRM as a heavy end-user, technical owner, implementer, buyer or system administrator is strongly preferred
• Procure-to-pay solution experience a plus
• Proficient in Microsoft Office applications including: PowerPoint, Excel, Word, Outlook and SharePoint

Certificates, Licenses, Registrations

CPSM or CSCP Certified is preferred

What We Offer

The Freeman Company provides benefits that aim to empower our people and their families to thrive mentally, physically, and financially. These are a handful of the types of programs and benefits our full-time people may be eligible for. There may be some variances in specific benefits across regions.

• Medical, Dental, Vision Insurance
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Paid Parental Leave
• Life, Accident and Disability
• Retirement with Company Match
• Paid Time Off

Diversity Commitment

At The Freeman Company, our commitment to diversity and inclusion is helping us to create not only a great place to work, but also an environment where our employees, our customers and our communities around the world can reach their goals and connect with each other. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status and other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.