Strategic Sourcing & Supplier Quality Specialist

Strategic Sourcing & Supplier Quality Specialist

India Mumbai (Travel within country to suppliers)

About James Walker

A private owned global manufacturing organization, supplying a vast range of high performance fluid sealing products and associated knowledge-based services to virtually every industry sector. With state-of-the-art skills in materials technology, particularly relating to elastomers, polymers, composites and engineering plastics plus extensive expertise in precision machining of exotic alloys for metallic seals, and tension control fasteners for bolted joints.

Your Role

This position is responsible for advancing James Walker's objective to reduce costs through expansion of its supplier base in Asia. The role is part of the Global Procurement team but will be based remotely in China. The responsibilities are divided into two main areas:

Strategic Sourcing - The primary focus (75%) is on identifying, managing, and onboarding new suppliers within the country. This includes developing and executing sourcing strategies for key James Walker categories such as metals, ringjoints, gaskets, polymers, and coated cloth materials. The role involves close collaboration with internal stakeholders and suppliers to minimize risk and reduce costs. Key activities include driving results through competitive bidding, negotiation, and the analysis of data and market trends relevant to these categories.

Supplier Quality

The secondary focus (25%) is on ensuring supplier product quality meets James Walker's standards. This is achieved by auditing suppliers and inspecting shipments before they are dispatched to James Walker sites worldwide.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Sourcing

• Identify and onboard new suppliers within the country for a range of product categories, including metals, ring joints, gaskets, polymers, and coated cloth materials.
• Manage supplier relationships and performance for all in-country suppliers.
• Deliver year-on-year cost savings through competitive bidding, effective negotiations, supplier consolidation, and strategic sourcing initiatives.
• Contribute to the development and enhancement of product category strategies.
• Analyse category data and metrics to support and drive the agreed category strategy.
• Lead strategic sourcing projects, including fact-based negotiations (supplier and industry analysis, benchmarking, cost structure analysis), ensuring process compliance and high customer satisfaction.
• Streamline the supplier base by reducing the overall number of suppliers within the assigned categories.
• Identify, assess, and mitigate supplier risks to prevent any disruption to customer satisfaction.
• Negotiate contracts and manage them throughout their lifecycle.
• Support James Walker Technical teams with New Product Introduction (NPI) and address customer quality concerns related to material supplies.
• Achieve a supplier On-Time-In-Full (OTIF) performance level of 98% for key suppliers within the category.
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of the supply market and supplier capabilities, both technically and geographically, and report on market trends and supply constraints within the category.

Supplier Quality

• Conduct supplier audits and reviews in line with the global quality team's processes and procedures for suppliers within the relevant country.
• Support the onboarding of new suppliers by evaluating their quality standards and capabilities.
• Carry out on-site supplier visits to perform root cause analysis and verify corrective actions for any supplier quality issues. Assess supplier quality data to identify opportunities for process improvement.
• Perform product audits at supplier sites before shipments are dispatched to James Walker locations worldwide.

About you

Essential Experience

• Excellent negotiation, analytical and problem solving skills
• Excellent at building relationships with internal and external partners
• Excellent level of verbal and numerical reasoning
• Strong interpersonal, negotiation and influencing skills
• Ability to communicate at all levels within the organisation
• Advanced Excel skills
• Must be comfortable in working with large amount of numerical data
• Ability to lead projects and work independently on own initiatives
• Excellent organisational and time management skills
• Ability to travel to suppliers within country
• Flexible to work with colleagues across different time zones
• Supplier Quality management experience incl. supplier audit and continuous improvement activity

Qualifications:

Essential Qualifications

• Bachelor degree
• Supply chain certification APICS / CIPS
• Fluent in English, both spoken and written

Preferred Qualifications

• Masters degree
• Another language local within country
• Quality degree

• Application End Date: 15/10/2025