PS Procurement - NA Indirect Buyer-MRO

Duracell is seeking a strategic and execution-focused Indirect Buyer to lead the MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operations) and Storeroom category across North America with global coordination. This role is responsible for developing and executing category strategies, managing supplier relationships, improving operational efficiencies, and supporting cost transformation across multiple manufacturing and non-manufacturing sites globally.

The successful candidate will deliver value through total cost of ownership (TCO) optimization, process improvements, global harmonization, and risk mitigation.

• Develop and implement sourcing strategies for diverse spend pools that deliver the best total value (cost, quality, service, innovation, and sustainability).
• Be able to gather internal and external data, benchmarking and competitive analysis, to influence business decisions.
• Close collaboration with manufacturing facilities, R&D/technical resources and other business units on sourcing, delivery technology and design execution.
• Engage and collaborate with the cross-functional Duracell community such as finance, commercial sales and marketing, IT, etc. for sourcing strategies, preferred vendor management and delivery of year over year cost savings.
• Actively participate in loss analysis and savings teams internally and externally.
• Forecasting materials cost for annual budget setting and quarterly business updates, as required
• Act as the point of contact for multiple plant sites globally to align on MRO demand planning, replenishment processes, and storeroom optimization.
• Drive initiatives in supplier performance, availability, inventory turns, and transactional efficiency.
• Lead competitive sourcing events (RFx), contract negotiations, and supplier rationalization.
• Build and manage a network of strategic and transactional suppliers globally.
• Stay current on MRO commodity trends, inflationary impacts, and sourcing innovations.
• Ensure alignment with internal controls, compliance, and sustainability standards.
• Support annual budgeting and forecasting by plant/site.

Job Qualification 1 – Strategic Thinking: Demonstrated ability to develop/execute sourcing strategies and foster involvement of multifunctional counterparts in sourcing strategy creation. Sourcing strategies should ensure that business needs are met: Supply Assurance, Cost Savings, Cash Flow improvement, Innovation.

Job Qualification 2 – Leadership: Strong and proven leadership capabilities to successfully lead and collaborate with multi-functional teams. Demonstrated strong sense of ownership and urgency to advocate in depth for the Best Total Value principle. Be willing to take calculated risks to deliver breakthrough business results. Be able to work effectively in an ambiguous environment that has unusual problems that require creative solutions.

Job Qualification 3 – Collaboration & Communication: Demonstrated strong linking and collaboration skills. Comfortable working in a fast-paced environment, able to manage conflicts. This role will work across different spending areas which, at times, can have conflicting sourcing goals and priorities. Be able to build and maintain productive working relationships within Duracell across organizations and different cultures to deliver results. Must have solid written and oral communication skills. Be an effective listener and with a curious mind seeking to understand. Ability to gain internal alignment for recommendations, strategies, and other business building ideas across functions and within the Global Procurement Team.

Job Qualification 4 – Supplier Relationship Management: Ability to develop supplier relationships and improve existing relationships to support a ‘connect and develop’ approach. Must be capable of managing different types of supplier relationships (new, competitive-based, strategic partnership). Familiarity and experience implementing, developing, and maintaining vendor targeted Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Job Qualification 5 – Negotiation & Competitive Bidding: This business demands negotiation along the entire continuum from Strategic relationships and negotiation to tactical spot Competitive Bidding. The candidate must be a strong performer in this area and have the flexibility to adjust to varying styles of negotiations to achieve the best value for Duracell with some of the most collaborative and most positional markets and suppliers in the industry.

Job Qualification 6 – Industry & Market Analysis: Being responsible for different spending areas implies operational complexity along with market volatility. Must be highly capable and confident in handling and manipulating data to draw conclusions about the industry and market developments in a timely fashion. It is vital to be in-touch with the market and be able to apply market knowledge to develop short-term tactics while driving mid & long-term actions for sustained competitive advantage.

Job Qualification 7 – Prioritization: Must be able to manage multiple simultaneous priorities. Being part of Global Procurement and serving the North American region, conflicts between certain business needs, deliverables and timing of priorities is common and will require a solid foundational approach to time management and prioritization to ensure our business partners’ goals are delivered. High responsiveness and reliability to meet deadlines in a quality matter is a requirement.

Job Qualification 8 – Problem Solving: Demonstrated problem solving and analytical decision-making skills. Ability to manage and balance long term strategic decisions with short term actions required to quickly solve problems while the ideal long-term solution is delivered.

Skills Expected to be Learned in the Job: All Procurement Skills: Linking & Leveraging, Industry Analysis, Supplier Analysis, Competitive Analysis, Sourcing Strategy, Commercial Agreements, Economic Analysis, Policy, Competitive Bidding, Negotiation, Supplier Relationship Management, and Customer Relationship Management. Other Skills: Risk Management, Communication & Collaboration, Problem-Solving, Prioritization.

Preferred Skills & Attributes:

Additional Information:

Travel required – Even though the world is constantly changing due to the global Covid pandemic, and more e-tools are being leveraged to minimize travel, this role will still be expected to travel from time to time for inter-company meetings, market visits and/or vendor meetings. 10–20% domestic and international, depending on business needs.

Flexible location – The location of this Global Procurement role is flexible within North America and Duracell will consider candidates outside of current operating locations (Georgia, Illinois, Connecticut).