Regional Category Buyer

Company Description

THE COMPANY Continental develops pioneering technologies and services for sustainable and connected mobility of people and their goods. Founded in 1871, the technology company offers safe, efficient, intelligent, and affordable solutions for vehicles, machines, traffic, and transportation. In 2023, Continental generated sales of €41.4 billion and currently employs around 200,000 people in 56 countries and markets. ContiTech is one of the world's leading industry specialists.

The Continental group sector offers its customers connected, environment-friendly, safe, and convenient industry and service solutions using a range of materials for off-highway applications, on rails and roads, in the air, under and above the ground, in industrial environments, for the food sector and the furniture industry. With about 42,000 employees in more than 40 countries and sales of some 6.8 billion euros (2023), the global industrial partner is active with core branches in Asia, Europe and North and South America. Are you ready to shape the future with us?

Job Description

The role of Regional Category Buyer is responsible for the strategic sourcing and performing all PUR activities of a certain material/service field and its subcategories, with the objective of optimal supply and generating a maximum profit contribution in compliance with the company's policies and purchasing guidelines. This position reports functionally to the Head of Global Category and directly to the Regional Cluster Lead and is expected to steer the implementation of the respective Category Strategy. Your tasks

• Act as interface and represent the interests of Continental and the Purchasing Community towards all internal and external stakeholders (e.g. Engineering, Plants, Suppliers)
• Understands the business and purchasing strategy to derive actions for own managed category
• Guide, support and train local and central stakeholders to execute with the right tools, methods and processes
• Consults internal customers for information regarding provision of goods/services, purchasing constraints and process optimization in his/her area of responsibility.
• Plans and organizes regular meetings with internal key customers.
• Clarifies technical and commercial requirements together with the requester and the supplier
• Give responses or feedbacks through the given tools in an acceptable period of time.
• Develop and sustain (supplier) strategy for respective integrated category in alignment with all relevant stakeholders and supervisors (e.g. Engineering, Regions, Plants) and in compliance with all relevant purchasing processes, guidelines and procedures
• Understand multiple data management systems and manage data analytics for the respective integrated category (identify spend profile and concentration, estimate / predict demand etc)
• Turns strategy into concrete actions and tangible goals as well as reporting relevant KPIs to track progress where applicable
• Ensures stakeholder satisfaction through transparent and early communication / involvement
• Drive the adoption of digital tools and procurement technologies (e.g., e-sourcing platforms, AI-driven analytics) to enhance efficiency, transparency, and decision-making.
• To ensure maintanance of purchasing (and correlated) policies at the locations, clear users questions and escalate topics to other purchasing associates if required.
• Identify and push initiation and tendering of regional Projects in cooperation with our internal Customers and the respective leaderships and/or cluster partners. Supplier Management
• Analysis of the global supplier market and conduction of benchmark analysis to derive actions for the global supplier portfolio
• Implements and maintains sustainable supplier relationship and conducts Strategic Supplier Meetings to deploy the global integrated category strategy
• Responsible for steering the annual supplier evaluation and derives development programs where needed
• Performs annual and regular negotiations to constantly improve the cost situation for respective integrated category, actively drives improvement or Total Cost of Ownership programs with suppliers
• Monitor if supplier acts in line with Continentals Business Partner Code of Conduct (BPCoC), responsible value chain (RVC) rules and processes and takes actions accordingly
• Initiates the New Supplier Introduction Process
• Collect Vendors documents and information for submission into VM platforms
• Share information and escalation level for Vendor Master and Master Data maintenance.
• Support Execution of Market Intelligence studies and ensure the ideal balance of Competition and Pooling through supplier reduction to achieve a maximum cost reduction contribution and best possible synergy effects.
• Detect new suppliers and opt