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French to English translations [PRO] Bus/Financial - Business/Commerce (general)
French term or phrase:approvisionneur
Context : The Vice President for Purchasing of a major IT service provider is in charge of a coordinating "les équipes Achats décentralisées qui représentent une cinquantaine d'acheteurs et un peu plus d'approvisionneurs".
As far as I'm concerned, "acheteurs" would be purchasing agents. But oh surprise, according to several Canadian sites, "approvisionneurs" are "purchasers"... (I think they're maybe "buyers" or "procurement agents" or "supply managers" - client tells me they're below "acheteurs" on the corporate ladder).
Does anyone have the answer ?
Thanks !
Explanation: Though what the difference between purchasing officers and procurement officers is, I really don't know! I know we had both in my old company..... Maybe purchasing officers have the actual buying power and decision-making abilities whereas the procurement officers merely proces the orders and deal with the actual mechanics?
I work in the field of purchasing and supply.
Acheteurs are called buyers. Achats seems to be purchasing.
Where I had trouble is translating Approvisionneur.
As Google came up with 12,000 hits for "procurement agent", that's good enough for me and the purpose of this translation.
Yes, the difference seems to be that "purchasing agents / acheteurs" negotiate the deals with suppliers, and that "procurement agents / approvisionneurs" are the "worker bees" - as Dusty says - that make sure the orders come in properly.
Once again, thanks Claire (et al).
Personally, I'd tend to avoid 'agent', as it might be confused for some kind of 'external intermediary'
Yes, dear old 'procurement' is brought back in these shiny new e-times of ours... :-) Cheers, Claire!
I think I'll ride with "procurement officer" (would "agent" be OK instead of "officer" ?).
In this case, definitely not suppliers - and for those who think procurement is weird, you've heard of "e-procurement", right ?
Will grade after 24 hours (as proz.com "encouraged" me to do).
Thanks, Claire !
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
3 mins confidence:
maintainer
Explanation: s'occupent des pièces une fois qu'elles ont été achetées à partir de leur livraison
Termium:
Domaine(s)
– Storehouses and Warehouses
Domaine(s)
– Magasins de stockage
maintainer Source
approvisionneur Source
OBS – achats et magasins. Source
Francis MARC Local time: 10:31 Native speaker of: French PRO pts in category: 145
Explanation: I think that what they mean is that the purchasing department has so many "buyers" and a slightly higher, corresponding number of "suppliers", from whom the buyers are responsible for purchasing.
Leveleki France Local time: 09:31 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 24
Explanation: Well, I don't have THE answer, but from all the information you've given, I would suggest that you use 'purchasing managers OR agents' for your 'acheteurs' and simply 'buyers' for the 'approvisionneurs', in order to maintain the hierarchical sense your client has given you.
It seems to me that the 'acheteurs' are the people who negotiate the deals with suppliers, whilst the 'approvisionneurs' are simply the worker bees who place the orders...
Although it is occasionally found in the sense of 'suppliers', this doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me here, given the context you've explained.
Tony M France Local time: 09:31 Works in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 413
22 mins confidence:
procurement officer
Explanation: Though what the difference between purchasing officers and procurement officers is, I really don't know! I know we had both in my old company..... Maybe purchasing officers have the actual buying power and decision-making abilities whereas the procurement officers merely proces the orders and deal with the actual mechanics?
Claire Cox Local time: 08:31 Works in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 87
Grading comment
Thanks again for your answer, which not only helped, but was very reassuringly professional.
The translation workplace 
peer agreement (net): +1
