About Coles
Coles is part of the Wesfarmers group of companies and a leader in food, liquor and convenience retailing. They seek to give the people of Australia a shop they can trust, delivering quality, service and value.
Coles operates 2,223 retail outlets throughout Australia across the Coles Supermarkets, Bilo, 1st Choice, Liquorland, Vintage Cellars, Coles Express and Spirit Hotel group. They employ over 106,000 team members and manage over 17 million customer transactions every week.
Why Choose Coles?
Retail is a high-growth industry and is one that never stays the same. It is fast paced, innovative and constantly looking at new opportunities to improve. The skills you will learn are transferable on a global scale, so you will be able to apply your knowledge wherever your life or travels take you. In Australia, retail continues to be a vibrant and dynamic industry, but also a cornerstone of our economic stability.
Coles and team members contibute to helping community groups in need and fundraising activities all over Australia. They also recognise the effect they may have on the envornment and therefore have undertaken a range of initiatives to reduce energy use and emissions. Through key partnerships and support for vital environmental projects they strive to give their customers not just value and quality, but peace-of-mind as well.
Coles and Procurement
The Coles five year transformation plan remains on track and is now moving into the second phase of the three phase strategy with pleasing results.
They want to create the best retail experience for their customers and in order to do this they need innovative and perceptive people to join some of the greatest minds in global retail. As their transformation gathers momentum, so has the need for the company to increase their procurement function in order to support this wider corporate strategy.
In the near future, Coles will be looking to bring talent to the organisation that can contribute significantly to the delivery of the company’s growth strategies by driving key sourcing initiatives and developing sustainable relationships with critical stakeholders.
Coles will be attracted to candidates that thrive in challenging, innovative environments and who work smarter to increase efficiencies and maximise savings opportunities, whilst also maintaining long term partnering relationships with suppliers. Engaging with key decision makers across the business, new employees will facilitate the implementation of objectives and as such their ability to influence and negotiate will be crucial.
In addition to a strong background within corporate procurement, critical skills required will be capabilities aligned with strategic sourcing processes, contract and vendor management, and the analysis and reporting of their outputs. Tertiary qualifications within commerce, procurement or a related field will also be highly regarded as will a history of delivering and exceeding expectations coupled with an astute commercial acumen.
Coles are passionate about what they do and the value they place on their employees. They work together as a team to ensure that the decisions they make at their support centres are delivered all the way through to store level. Ideas, passion, and energy are what help them achieve their goals and if that sounds like you, you should consider a career with one of Australia’s largest retail organisations.
Jigsaw’s Viewpoint
Coles offer procurement practitioners an exciting and rewarding career especially to those who are able to apply commercial initiative to the acquisition of products and services which have traditionally been regarded as more transactional or relationship based sourcing activities.
As part of the business turnaround strategy there is a desire from the business to add demonstrable competitive advantage within procurement in what is a highly scrutinised and highly commercial industry.
This strong focus on ongoing profit improvement operates within an environment consisting of a skilled workforce and a results-based focus on activity, this environment will enable Tier 1 procurement practitioners to fully utilise their hard won technical and relationship skills and be professionally and financially rewarded for their actions.
The Coles offices are located in first class premises where the culture is highly professional, very inclusive and team focused.
From an external perspective, Coles reputation within the procurement industry is growing on the back of a profile raising re-structure, higher visibility and funding within the organisation and a more definitive remit on matching corporate strategy to operational excellence.
Coles are committed to attracting the best talent in the market and to cementing themselves as an employer of choice.
To find out more contact Steve Jamieson +613 9225 5207 or Chris Bray +613 9225 5206