What is the difference between a project buyer and category buyer?
General management uses very swift the term category buyer, without fully respecting the definitions.
A project buyer needs to buy all packages for his project.
A category buyer works in wholesale and retail. Everything the buyer buys needs to be sold. In fact he is specialized in connecting customer preferences to brands. The buyer is:
- · Part of internal technical sales
- · Back to back with sales orders
- · Long term view of 5 years
- · Market control
- · Locking brands for market share
- · Brand channel control
- · Global market push actions
a category buyer is part of a sales team
In a factory, this buyer controls spend segments. We call him a segment buyer. Apparently this is the same, but this buyer is specialized in supplier markets, without connection to the end customer. The buyer connects mainly with engineering for discovering extra value. The buyer is:
- · Procurement team linked to BU
- · Understanding of assy flow specs
- · Mid term view of 3 years
- · Cost control
- · Squeezing suppliers with targets
- · Supplier consolidation
- · Value engineering with supplier
SIOP is the main tool for a buyer who works in a factory
What about projects?
A project buyer is specialized in linking best fit suppliers with project demand. The project buyer needs to work wall-to-wall for his project to understand the critical path and interconnectivity of the different packages. However, as an extra function, the group of project buyers can divide packages for better supplier management. The package buyer is:
- · Fully integrated in project team
- · Understanding of duty specs
- · Project term view (2 years)
- · Critical path control
- · Build a supplier ecosystem
- · Process integration
- · Focus on owner for synergy
the project buyer needs to control the critical path of the project and quality and cost control and risk management
If our customers do no understand the difference we explain that a factory director is not the same as shop director or a project director.
Please feel free to react and finetune the definitions
Kind regards
Stefan Verhauwen