Sr Global Category Manager, Logistics

At Fresenius Medical Care, we are the global leader in kidney care, committed to improving the lives of patients with chronic kidney disease. Our mission is to deliver high-quality, innovative products, services, and care across the entire healthcare journey. Guided by our vision—“Creating a future worth living. For patients. Worldwide. Every day.”—we work with purpose and compassion, supported by a global team of over 125,000 employees.

Purpose and Scope

The Global Category Senior Manager is responsible for developing and executing procurement strategies with 3rd party suppliers in support of Fresenius Medical Care’s One Procurement strategy. Responsible for category management, strategic sourcing, supplier negotiations, contracting, and ongoing supplier management for assigned category. Coordinates with Procurement Partner(s) and key stakeholders to ensure alignment of procurement strategies.

Your Responsibilities:

• Drive, develop, and implement multi-year category and subcategory plans for the assigned category, including demand aggregation, definition of buying channels, strategic relationship management, and supplier risk management.
• Maintains knowledge of current trends, supplier capabilities, innovation, and changes within the technology landscape
• Identify, develop and lead/support opportunities to optimize spend, reduce costs, mitigate supply risks, improve services, bring innovation and assure supply.
• Leads or supports cross functional supplier selection activities and management of formal strategic sourcing and RFx processes.
• Performs proposal analysis, including price analyses, “Should Cost” modelling, benchmarking and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
• Develops negotiation strategy, including targets for costs and key commercial/business terms.
• Working in conjunction with Legal, drafts and negotiates key legal and commercial terms
• Evaluates financial stability of suppliers and manages supplier risks as needed.
• Actively manages key supplier relationships in collaboration with the VMO, including resolution of issues and disputes.
• Build relationships and work closely with the Procurement Business Partner(s), other Category Managers, and cross-functional teams to share and implement procurement strategies.
• May include cross-regional people management responsibilities, including hiring, developing, and terminating employees.
• Leads and participates in supplier business reviews

• Champions use of eSourcing, Spend Visibility, and R2P tools within category; leverages and utilizes eAuctions where appropriate
• Acts as an ambassador of Procurement and a champion in the function for all Procurement policies, processes and tools to ensure compliance
• Demonstrates the highest ethical standards and ensures Fresenius procedures are adopted and followed
• Drives the category management process to develop strategies that include diversity, sustainability, risk assessment, currency, and overall continuity, in alignment with business KPIs
• Knowledge of GPO’s, medical distribution approaches and clinical consumable acquisition best practices
• Able to partner with clinical stakeholders (e.g. nursing/physicians) on best value solutions
• Cost Reduction Payment terms Supply base rationalization
• Relevant relations with other Areas: Procurement Business Partners, COE’s, Shared Services and stakeholders, Compliance, IT Security, Legal, Finance, HR, BUs, and other functional stakeholders. Local and international suppliers.

Your Profile:

• Bachelor’s Degree in either Technical or Business field
• MBA and/or CPSM/CPM desired but not required
• Minimum of 5 years' related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or a Master's degree; or equivalent directly related work experience
• 2-3 years of direct industry or company experience preferred
• Working in a multi-national, multi-cultural environment
• Strong leadership and effective business partnering capabilities – influence without authority
• Requires ability to deal with ambiguity and the corresponding capacity to make decisions or recommendations based on potentially incomplete information
• Experience with hands on analysis and data interpretation; proficiency in Microsoft Office Suites required
• Strong negotiation, communication, and presentation skills
• Robust knowledge of the strategic sourcing and category management process
• Technical knowledge of purchasing, strategic sourcing, category management, bidding processes
• Experience in procuring goods and services with the ability to understand the total cost of ownership to generate cost savings
• Comprehensive knowledge of Procurement policies and procedures from the field of Logistics with a focus on warehousing and transportation
• fluent English (written and spoken)

Our Offer For You:

There is a lot you can discover at Fresenius Medical Care, regardless in which field you are an expert and how much experience you have - all dedicated to your professional journey.

• Whether in front of or behind the scenes - you are helping to make ever better medicine available to more and more people around the world
• Individual opportunities for self-determined career planning and professional development
• A corporate culture in which there is enough room for innovative thinking - to find the best solution together, not the quickest one
• A large number of committed people with a wide range of skills, talents and experience
• The benefits of a successful global corporation with the collegial culture of a medium-sized company