The Category Manager is responsible for developing and executing category strategies across assigned indirect spend areas, driving value creation, risk management, and operational excellence. The role acts as a key connector between business stakeholders, strategic buyers, and operational procurement, ensuring alignment, capability building, and consistent delivery of category objectives.
- Develop and execute category strategies aligned with business priorities, driving value creation and long-term impact
- Lead high value/high impact sourcing projects with excellence
- Drive spend end-to-end and demand management, ensuring cost discipline and optimization of consumption.
- Manage and optimize the supplier portfolio, including leading performance, rationalization, and strategic partnerships.
- Embed risk management and compliance practices to ensure supply continuity and resilience.
- Act as a key business partner for the category, connecting internal needs with external market solutions.
- Serve as a category expert, educating and guiding strategic buyers and operational procurement teams.
- Drive process efficiency, improve user experience and digital adoption (e.g., COUPA) to enhance visibility, compliance, and speed.
- Identify cross-divisional synergies and support high-impact initiatives, new buying channels, catalogues, negotiations, and escalations
Your tasks :
- Category Strategy Development & Execution: Define, maintain, and drive execution of category strategies aligned with business priorities and company targets
- Stakeholder Business Partnering :Engage with stakeholders to understand needs, align priorities, and translate business requirements into procurement actions.
- Spend & Demand ManagementAnalyze spend, challenge demand, bring out-side market intelligence and drive cost and consumption optimization across the category
- Key Sourcing Initiatives & Negotiations: Lead critical sourcing projects and negotiations to secure optimal commercial and contractual outcomes through digital tools such as Coupa, e-auctions.
- Supplier Portfolio & Performance Management : Manage supplier relationships, performance, and rationalization, including development of strategic partnerships.
- Risk Management & Compliance: Educate, guide, and upskill strategic buyers, stakeholder and operational procurement to ensure consistent execution of procurement policy, category strategies, buying channels. Proactively identify and mitigate supplier and market risks, ensuring compliance and supply continuity.
- Digitalization & Process Improvement : Drive adoption of procurement tools (e.g., COUPA), enhancing visibility, proactive contract management, efficiency, and streamline time-to-contract
Your profile :
- 3-5 years experience in similar role, in an international FMCG environment
- Category strategy development
- Market intelligence and benchmarking
- Strategic sourcing & supplier relationship management
- Process optimization and digital tools
- Project management
- Storytelling and change management
- Negotiation and influencing
- Adaptability and resilience
- Agile Mindset
- Situational leadership
- Diversity and leadership
- Risk management
- Advanced level of English, other languages are a plus.
What We Do
Opportunities for go-getters and goal-setters – become part of Villeroy & Boch! Ceramic is our strength. But the ability to perceive things differently is also part of our DNA. For this precise reason, we are looking for motivated colleagues to join our 8,000 employees in 125 countries. People who are eager to make things happen and rise to new challenges. And to work with us to shape Villeroy & Boch's successful future. Find out more about our extensive and varied vacancies offering excellent career and development prospects – in departments including Marketing & Sales, Online Marketing & E-commerce, HR, Finance, SCM, IT and Production. Take your first step on the career ladder with Villeroy & Boch Pupils: build solid foundations for your career with an apprenticeship or a dual study programme. Students: from work experience to student traineeships or dissertation – opportunities are available in many different departments. Graduates: as part of our junior programme, we support you all the way to your first management position. Professionals: we offer exciting opportunities for people at all stages of their careers, from entry-level positions to management roles. You will take on exciting tasks as well as responsibility at Villeroy & Boch from day one. Because we firmly believe that each and every one of our employees has his or her own very individual strengths. We will help to you fully explore this valuable potential, with tailored training and development programmes, a balance between career and family life, an attractive working environment with impressive architecture, modern offices and a friendly atmosphere. And, of course, by rewarding outstanding performance. Visit our careers website now to find out more about the company and our current vacancies. We look forward to hearing from you. Visit villeroyboch.com/career! Legal notice & privacy policy: https://www.villeroy-boch.de/social-media-datenschutz-impressum.html
