If you love shopping and are good at negotiating & bargaining, you can make a career in Purchasing management as a Purchasing officer. You must be able to acquire or purchase all the goods and services that your company offers if you opt for a career as purchasing officer. This involves negotiating with sellers, checking quality standards, running tenders,maintaining files, and so on and so forth.

What is a Purchasing Officer?

A purchase officer is a person in the purchasing department who is responsible for sourcing and buying goods or materials that are later resold or used in daily operations. In retail business, the procurement officers source products for the business and then sell them to make profit. However, if they work for businesses who make their own products, the procurement officers source materials for the businesses and use them in the manufacturing process.

Purchase Officer Duties and Responsibilities? 

If you opt for a career as purchase officer, then you will be responsible for several tasks like evaluating suppliers, negotiating contracts, reviewing product quality, and checking if they match the company’s standards. It depends on the size of organisation; procurement officers may specialize in a particular type of product or a certain aspect of the buying process.

Here are some of the works that fit the Job description of the Purchase Officer.

• Sourcing Products 

The first aspect of purchasing involves sourcing products. It is the duty of the purchasing officer to liaise with sales,marketing,product development, manufacturing and warehouse departments to establish their purchasing needs.They also research and evaluate vendors to find the most suitable products and prices.

• Negotiating purchasing terms 

After sourcing suitable inventory, the purchase officers must negotiate with the buyers for the best possible prices and terms.They must make it possible to negotiate for bulk discounts and price breaks. Factors like dispatch times and return policies also play a key role in these negotiations. The officers can then prepare a contract and formally make purchases after they have reached an agreement.

• Receiving Products 

It is the responsibility of the purchase officers to track orders and monitor deliveries to ensure that their employer receives products correctly.They also must check the quality off the materials or goods and communicate with the vendors if a problem occurs. Also, they must update the stock database after receiving the goods and coordinate with warehouse staff to ensure that these goods are stored correctly.

• Monitoring stock and costs 

Purchase officers must monitor stock levels so they can easily and quickly make future orders.They even must prepare reports to help understand the stock’s movement in and out of the business to optimize order size and frequency. Additionally, they are required to perform routine cost analysis to help the business calculate profit margins and make improvements.

Types of Purchase Officer 

• Purchasing Assistant 

The purchasing agent’s job is to assist senior buyers or purchase managers in carrying out their day-to-day activities. He assists them in filling contracts, evaluating the supplier’s track record and several other tasks that are involved in the entire purchase process.

• Senior Buyer 

Senior buyers have an experience of 3-5 years’ experience in the field of the company’s purchasing department. He is responsible for managing his team under him. He assigns several jobs and responsibilities to the juniors.

• Purchase Manager 

The purchase manager forecasts the level of demand and supply for a product or service in the market. He also conducts research to find the best suppliers in terms of quality, price and delivery of the product.

• Logistician 

Every company or business requires a Logistician. It is up to the organization if it wants to outsource the logistics work, which is to hire a company which has expertise in the field of logistics, or the organization could have a logistics department of its own.

 

How can you become a Purchasing officer?

 

A Purchasing Officer is a great career in business. As a purchasing officer you will be responsible for buying the products and services that your company needs to operate. The first thing that you should know to become a purchase officer are the skills. Here are some of the purchase officer skills that you need to possess or learn.

• Communication Skills 

Purchasing Officers must have good command of their language.They must possess excellent written and verbal skills to liaise with various interpersonal departments and vendors. He must be able to communicate comfortably and effectively whether on phone,E- Mail/Post or Face to Face. Effective communication diminishes the probability of errors which can prove costly while making purchase orders.

• Negotiation Skills

As a strong negotiator, a purchasing manager must be typically strategic, persuasive, and highly skilled in building rapport with others. He must be able to negotiate well with the suppliers to provide his company with supplies it requires in its daily operations. He should be able to convince and persuade his suppliers to his terms and get the best possible deal for his company.

• Decision Making Skills 

A purchase manager must be decisive. He must take effective decisions that require strong decision-making skills. He must be able to calculate the risks and must be able to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of different options when making decisions.

• Analytical Skills 

The ability to interpret data and make decisions based on the information you have is called Analytical Skills, purchasing officers must have strong analytical skills to review data about a company’s budget, analyse the cost of materials and make purchasing decisions. These skills are also utilised to evaluate the quality of the products or services a company provides.

• Attention to Detail 

A purchasing officer must pay extreme attention to detail. He should not miss out on anything while doing their research and while evaluating for the right kind of supplier. He must take every step carefully and with every detail noted to avoid any kind of errors in the future.

• Computer Literacy 

Purchasing officers must be computer literate as they have to use computers in all their work like inventory management,communications,purchasing order and reporting. He must be able to work on complex software packages.

 

Formal Training to become a Purchase officer 

Apart from the above skills you must complete your formal education and a purchase officer certification to qualify for the post of purchase officer.

Get a degree as undergraduate 

After passing their 12th in any of the subjects like science,arts,commerce,humanities and social science from a recognized board, you are also required to complete your graduation.

Here are the education qualifications as an undergraduate that is best suited for the career as purchase manager.

• Diploma in Supply Chains management
• Bachelors in business administration (BBA)
• BBA in supply chain management and logistics.
• BA economics
• Purchasing and supply

Post graduate courses for purchase manager

• MBA in Logistics and Supply chain management
• PGD in supply chain management etc.

Here is the list of the top colleges where you can pursue your studies in purchase management. Many of these institutes have their own entrance examinations which you must qualify.

• Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
• Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
• Faculty of Management studies, New Delhi
• Indian Institute of Management, Indore
• National Institute of Securities market, Indore
• MICA Ahmedabad
• Indian School of Business, Hyderabad
• Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
• Vidyasagar University, Midnapore

It is necessary for the Purchasing officer to have Certified Public Professional Buyer (CPPB) and Central Public Procurement Officer (CPPO) certification. Both these certifications are issued by The Universal Public Procurement Certification Council (UPPCC).

Purchasing officer Job Scope

At present the purchasing officer career is very promising for the aspirants. There are many job openings in various fields. Here we are not only talking about big multinational companies who need purchasing officers to find the right product and services for the company but also for smaller companies who have begun to hire purchase managers.

Rapid Industrialization is also increasing the demand for purchase manager jobs. The wave of start-up companies and venture capitalism has led to the formation of new companies which in turn is leading to the rise in demand for purchase managers.

The job openings growth rate is about 6.4% for purchase managers which is higher than the average of various other fields.

Here are some of the top recruiting industrial sectors where you can start your career as purchase manager.

• Manufacturing Companies
• Departmental/convenience store
• Export Houses
• Production Houses
• Fashion Retail
• Healthcare products and service delivery companies
• Educational Institutes

Top Recruiting companies for Purchase officer jobs 

Here are some of the major companies in India that recruit purchase managers.

• Tata
• Mahindra & Mahindra
• Reliance Group
• Pantaloons
• Spencer group 
  

PayScale/Salary of Purchase Manager 

The purchase officers get a good salary package, and they have plenty of scope at the later stage. At the entry level the purchasing officer get a salary in India is Rs 2 to 3 lacs per annum. However, the salary grows with experience and training. The average salary earned by a purchase officer/manager is about 8 lacs per annum. Purchase officer holding positions at senior level is about 10-12 lacs.

Conclusion

The Purchase management career is filled with excitement and responsibilities. You cannot afford to miss out on details as it affects the overall functioning of the organization. The job is very stressful as it involves managing multiple things in the purchase sector.

Those of you who wish to become a purchase officer will experience a significant growth in your career path. Purchase officer career is vast and there are plenty of job growth opportunities in the career path as you gain experience and knowledge.