Global Category Manager - Equipment and Maintenance

The Global Category Manager equipment and maintenance services plans and leads all strategic aspects within the category of Equipment & Maintenance, across divisions, on a global level and develops proposals for strategic business decisions. The role provides high value procurement solutions to the business and category strategies; support third party vendor selection, vendor development, technology management and performance measurement activities. The Global Category Manager ensures best-in-class delivery of external services and products in the Equipment & Maintenance category to support projects and to realize year-on-year productivity improvements, cost savings, and process improvements in close collaboration with the stakeholders in the business.

• Implement category strategic goals from overall Procurement strategy / Ecosystem management
• Contributes to the implementation of an end-to-end approach to drive the overall life cycle for vendors, from equipment to consumables, through services, in partnership with the laboratory supplies and chemicals team.
• Planning, organizing and managing projects taking into account priorities, resources, budgets, issues and constraints to achieve desired results; defining clear project scope and objectives; utilizing software and tools to plan, track and report status.
• Mapping the value chain, analyzing it and deriving potential scenarios. Includes the understanding and application of total cost of ownership, and should cost modelling.
• Participating in and / or leading financial discussions. Applying financial knowledge to participate actively, e.g. in budgeting process, including tax aspects in sourcing strategies and structuring sophisticated deals with ecosystem partners.
• Compliance & risk management: supporting reports to determine appropriate compliance level. Monitoring end-to-end compliance (budget, payment, vendor PO, contract invoice, buying channel, etc.) and deriving corrective actions to improve compliance. Applying risk management processes including identifying and evaluating risks, and defining and executing a risk mitigation plan.
• Projecting the dynamics and impacts (e.g. mergers and acquisitions). Extracting, cleansing and consolidating information to fact-based insights for further usage e.g. in category strategies.
• Maintaining and updating Procurement applications accordingly to the Procurement content (e.g. e-catalogs, user portal). Continuous improvement of procurement content and automation.
• Support definition and implementation of Procurement tools and processes.
• Managing data analysis and reporting, e.g. analyzing spend, demand, supply markets and competitors. Extracting, cleansing and consolidating information to fact-based insights for further usage e.g. in category strategies.
• Demand management
• Responsible to ensure the right balance between business needs and Novartis strategy.
• Accountable to work with stakeholders to identify the most cost-effective ways to deliver business objectives.
• Sourcing and supplier relationships management
• Executing the Source-to-Contract process including respective strategies, approaches and methods: Preparing and conducting fact-based negotiations. Adapting tactics from a broad portfolio of negotiation strategies to achieve results that support business and Procurement objectives.
• Proactive assessment of new ways of working, involving innovative scientific & technical solutions by identifying and onboarding the right suppliers.
• Manage relationships with stakeholders
• Analyzing specifications for optimization. Linking specification to customer value, challenging specification confidently. Conveying messages clearly and convincing stakeholders.
• Achieving results by proactively building long-term, sustainable and effective relationships, understanding the stakeholder landscape and demonstrating political astuteness across business structures and networks.

• >10 years of experience in Procurement or similar related experience, preferably within pharma industry or other regulated industry, preferably in global category management, supplier management, or related area, with a focus and demonstrated experience driving Equipment and/or Maintenance domain.
• Track record of successful business engagement at executive level.
• Strong project management or cross-functional, multi-cultural leadership experience. Demonstrated ability to orchestrate efforts across multiple teams, geographies, domains.
• Deep understanding of equipment overall life cycle.
• Well versed in regulated market cost base analysis

• English.