You are working as a Buyer for Sainsbury’s. Part of your role's responsibility is to line manage an Assistant who has been in the role for six months. They are a very popular team member and their friendly, helpful nature has enabled them to build a good network across the business. However, their pace of work is slow and their attention to detail poor which can have serious implications on price alterations and store deliveries.

You have had many 1-2-1's with the Assistant in which you have set objectives and suggested training modules. However, despite saying that they want to improve, they repeatedly failed to follow these leads up saying they are too busy. Consequentially, you assigned a below-average performance grading at their most recent performance review. You have just found out that your department is going to be looking after an additional product area and as a result, you can expect your team’s workload to increase.

You are working as a Buyer for Sainsbury’s. All Buyers in your category have been advised that they need to make a 2% margin improvement on last year; you therefore conduct a review on supplier terms.

You have a long standing relationship with a supplier who is halfway through a two year contract. The supplier is small but supplies one of your best selling lines. Their contract does not stipulate a fixed cost price, you therefore ask if the cost price can be improved for future orders. The supplier advises you that they cannot reduce their costs further.

You are working as a Food Buyer for Sainsbury’s. Last year you determined that a particular product range would be a large growth area. You, a Developer and a Technologist spent six months sourcing the best products to better your competitors’ ranges. You went through an extensive sign-off process which was escalated up to Director level. It cost a huge amount of money to develop and launch the range. You followed up by engaging with stores to gain their buy-in.

Now, a few weeks after the launch, it has become clear that many of the products in the new range are performing way behind expectations. Your Supply Chain Analyst has also raised concerns about the level of waste driven by the unsuccessful products.

You are working as a Food Buyer for Sainsbury’s. Just over three weeks ago, the factory equipment of one of the largest suppliers in your product area went down for two weeks. They are a long-term supplier to Sainsbury’s and supply a quarter of the products in your range; consequentially, the factory closure resulted in massive sales and profit loss for your category.

You arranged to meet with the supplier as soon as production began again to discuss recuperation of your lost profits. The supplier did not sign the Sainsbury’s T&C’s around loss compensation, despite this, you calculate a large compensation figure based on a variety of factors: loss of profit; increased labour to deal with the in-store problem of empty shelves; impact to stores and customers. You advised the supplier of this compensation figure and explained your rationale. However, the supplier’s calculations conflict with yours and they only agree to pay 10% of the compensation figure you specified. After a month of further negotiations the supplier consented to pay your compensation in full if the following terms are met: an increase in the distribution of their products within convenience stores, launch a new range they have brought to the market, increase stocking points and run extra promotions in the second half of the year.

You carried out a range review using customer data three months ago. The data showed that the supplier had too high a share in the category which led you to reduce their overall SKU counts and distributions.

You are working as a Buyer for Sainsbury’s. One of your sizeable suppliers has just contacted you to advise that, due to commodity price increases, they will need to increase their overall product costs. They have given you a decision deadline of six weeks time as otherwise they will need to halt supply. The last in-house commodities report highlighted a price rise for this particular commodity in-line with the supplier’s increase.

You are working as a Buyer for Sainsbury’s. Your category was involved in a complex strategic base review project to reduce the number of suppliers. The lengthy review process resulted in your department going from using nine suppliers to just four. The final four were selected because of their proven, direct relationship with producers. Each supplier was given a larger percentage of the business. Your department's Directors were heavily involved in the supplier review process and signed off the final four.

It is now six months into the new supplier structure. You have just received a call from one of your suppliers, they inform you that they have gone into administration and have been forced to stop all production in their factories. They advise that the administrators are hopeful of a buyer very soon.

You are working as a Buyer for Sainsbury’s. Various departments have been working together for several months on an upcoming in-store promotion which will include a variety of different products. The promotion will run for three weeks in 500 stores, offering significant discounts on any products included within the promotion. You have included one of your supplier's products in the promotion giving your customers a significant saving. The supplier has paid £1,000 for pictorial barker cards (additional promotional signage for shelves) to be made up by your external advertising agency.

Eight weeks prior to the promotion going live in store there was a company-wide decision to round up retail prices to make Sainsbury's prices simpler for customers. The prices on the systems were changed and all promotions had the prices updated. The promotion went live in stores today. A store employee has contacted your team to advise that there is an error on the barker card; the barker card advertises the original product price as 1p cheaper than the shelf edge label which gives the newly rounded up price.

There isn't time to get the advertising agency to produce amended barker cards as they require a minimum of 6 week’s notice. Stores are able to produce image-free barker cards on-site but this takes time and you are aware that store employees are currently very busy.

You are working as a Food Buyer for Sainsbury’s. You recently met with a new branded supplier wishing to present one of their products. You rejected the product as you already have an agreement with your own brand supplier regarding growth targets and believe that listing the new product will put the targets at risk due to it being a similar product. You have a target to drive own brand participation and as a branded supplier this goes against the objective.

Unbeknown to you, the supplier then arranged a separate meeting with your line manager. Your manager has just come out of the meeting and asks to meet with you; they tell you that they believe the product will appeal to customers and therefore strongly urge you to reconsider your decision and list the product. Your manager explains that the supplier has offered exclusivity and marketing investments which they feel will drive in new customers to the category.