Category Manager IT Procurement & Strategic Partnerships

Company profile

Are you an experienced procurement professional with a strong background in IT, vendor management, and SAP ecosystems? Do you thrive in a fast-paced, global environment where strategic thinking and innovation drive business success? If so, we want you to help shape the future of IT and digital landscape.

As a Category Manager IT & SAP Vendor Management, you will play a pivotal role in managing and optimizing our IT procurement strategies. You’ll work closely with key internal stakeholders and external strategic partners to drive sustainable value, improve supplier performance, and ensure that our SAP vendor ecosystem aligns with our long-term business objectives.

Job profile

• Develops and formulates, in close cooperation with relevant IT and business stakeholders, a global (sub)category strategy for domains to drive sustainable value with a 3-year horizon;
• Sets up, maintains and leads SRM process with selected suppliers within the domains to realize and unlock value through fact-based performance management, joint business planning and room for improvement and innovations;
• Supports IT to further develop their relationship management with SAP and strategic vendors within the category to a more mature level;
• Ensures internal and external governance structure is effectively implemented and builds these upon trust and performance;
• Supports alignment between IT and suppliers in the SAP vendor ecosystem regarding innovative technology, architecture, benchmarking, audit and security;
• Closes, manages and exits contracts and relationships with (strategic) vendors in the SAP landscape to drive service excellence and mitigate risks in the IT-value chain;
• Support optimization of centralized SAP product ownership and contracting to enable SAP transformation in the next 3-5 years;
• Manage the strategy of the longtail of non-strategic vendors and contracts in the SAP domains in close corporation with IT organization and other offices within Corporate Procurement.

Requirements

• University (master) or postgraduate degree;
• More than 10 years of relevant working experience (IT contract, sourcing, vendor management; managing big IT (services) suppliers);
• Good knowledge and broad understanding of global IT supplier market and specific on SAP;
• Strong communicator with excellent stakeholder management;
• Ability to build, manage and maintain strong relationships with strategic partners to achieve agreed business objectives; ensure regular, coordinated interaction between partners and relevant stakeholders;
• Ability to coordinate between different offices with IT in terms of supplier/ partner relationships to deliver cost reduction and maximum value from key third party contracts;
• Excellent negotiating skills;
• Understanding IT (service) cost drivers and ability to drive a continuous cost optimization effort;
• Strategic thinking and alignment skills (vision/concepts);
• Result-oriented,persuasion, problem solving skills.

Offer

Through our agency, you will receive a 7-month temporary contract.
There is a possibility that your contract will be renewed after these 7 months or that our client will make you an offer of a contract; however, we are not able to guarantee this.

• Salary will be around €6000 - €7000 gross a month, based on a full-time position (38 hours a week), and is based on education and experience;
• Starting on the 9th of February;
• 30 Annual leave days;
• Travel expenses will be covered;
• Pension plan.

What will happen when you apply? Within four working days, we will let you know whether you are qualified for the position. If you do we will schedule an interview (digital or live). In this interview, we will inform you about the vacancy, the company, and the procedure. If we both agree this is a fitting opportunity we will introduce you to our client and continue to guide you through the whole application process. The Independent Recruiters Group has a large team of specialized recruitment consultants. Every recruiter has a strong focus regarding his/her field of expertise. This makes them the ideal sparring partner for both you, as the candidate, and the client.