Manager, Category Management

Job description

Business context The Cooling Line of Business designs and manufactures the thermal management portfolio that keeps data centres running — from chillers and CDUs supporting high-density liquid-cooled AI racks, through to in-room, InRow and Fan Wall air cooling. Demand in this segment is growing faster than the supply base can naturally absorb, while the refrigeration component market is simultaneously being reshaped by low-GWP refrigerant transitions, A2L safety requirements, regional trade barriers and extended lead times on critical items. The F7 category group covers the core refrigeration and thermal content of these products and represents roughly €250 million of global annual spend. It is one of the highest-leverage categories in the Cooling LoB: it drives a large share of product cost, it sits on the critical path of every offer lead time, and it carries the highest technical qualification burden. Category Managers in this group are part of the Cooling LoB Procurement team and operate globally, across all five manufacturing sites and their design centres. Purpose of the role Own the end-to-end performance of an assigned portfolio within HVAC Category — cost, quality, continuity of supply, supplier risk, innovation and sustainability — by building and executing a global sourcing strategy and a qualified, competitive, resilient supplier panel that supports both the installed base and the new-product pipeline. The role is expected to lead, not administer: to form a point of view on the market, to challenge specifications with engineering, to consolidate demand across plants that have historically bought independently, and to secure supply for a business whose volumes are scaling rapidly. Key Responsibilities Category strategy and market intelligence • Build, own and refresh the global category strategy for the assigned portfolio, including segmentation, make-vs-buy, supplier panel design, share-of-category (SOC) evolution, supplier reduction and concentration targets, and a 3-year roadmap. • Maintain a live view of the supplier market: capacity, capability, technology roadmaps, financial health, ownership changes, capacity expansions and regional cost positions. • Run structured cost-driver analysis — raw material indices (copper, aluminium, steel), energy, labour, freight, currency — and translate movements into negotiation positions and price-adjustment mechanisms. • Benchmark landed cost across regions and identify low-cost-country and localisation opportunities, taking tariffs, duties, logistics and qualification cost into account. • Consolidate demand across the five plants and across brands; eliminate duplicate part numbers and fragmented buying of technically equivalent items. Cost and productivity delivery • Own the annual productivity target for the portfolio and build a bottom-up, project-level plan to deliver it, with named actions, owners and dates. • Deliver savings through the full lever set: negotiation, competitive re-sourcing, volume consolidation, design-to-value/QVE, specification simplification, alternate makes, localisation, logistics redesign and payment-term improvement. • Build and use should-cost and clean-sheet models for the main component families; open supplier cost breakdowns rather than negotiating on lump-sum price. • Manage inflation and raw-material exposure actively — index-linked clauses, hedging support, timing of price agreements, cost-avoidance tracking. • Validate savings with Finance and Controlling and ensure they land in standard cost and in the P&L. Supplier panel and relationship management • Establish and maintain the qualified supplier panel; decide regional panels in alignment with the global strategy and drive migration of spend towards preferred suppliers. • Lead sourcing events end to end: RFI/RFQ preparation, technical and commercial evaluation, TCO comparison, award recommendation and internal approval. • Negotiate and maintain the contractual framework — LTSA/LTA, frame agreements, pricing schedules, capacity commitments, tooling ownership, IP, warranty, liability, spare-parts and end-of-life terms. • Run formal supplier relationship management for strategic suppliers: quarterly business reviews, scorecards, joint improvement plans and escalation paths. • Develop suppliers rather than only selecting them — capacity ramp-up plans, process capability improvement, cost-reduction workshops, co-investment where justified. Supply assurance, risk and resilience • Guarantee continuity of supply for a fast-ramping business: capacity reservation, long-term supply assurance plans, buffer and safety-stock strategies, and lead-time reduction programmes on critical components. • Maintain a risk map for the portfolio covering single-source dependency, geographic concentration, sub-tier and raw-material exposure, financial distress, geopolitical and trade risk; define and execute mitigation plans. • Drive dual-sourcing and alternate-make qualification for all critical and single-sourced items, with a defined target coverage. • Lead crisis and shortage management — allocation, expediting, escalation to supplier senior management, and recovery plans agreed with plants and Supply Chain. • Anticipate obsolescence and end-of-life announcements; secure last-time buys or qualify replacements ahead of impact. Quality and supplier performance • Own the supplier performance matrix for the portfolio — quality (PPM/DPPM, escapes, 8D closure), delivery (OTIF, lead time, backlog), responsiveness, productivity and risk — and drive corrective action where performance is off target. • Partner with Supplier Quality and Plant Quality on new-supplier qualification, PPAP/FAI, process audits, change control (PCN/ECN) and containment of field issues. • Support warranty and field-failure investigations with commercial recovery from suppliers where accountability is established. **New product introduction a