{"id":3870920,"url":"https://alion.io/job/zeppelin-category-manager-indirect-materials-professional-services","title":"Category Manager – Indirect Materials Professional Services","company":{"id":2205654,"name":"Zeppelin","domain":"zeppelin.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/zeppelin-com","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":77,"open_postings":111,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.739,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":74,"computed_at":"2026-11-09T06:03:00Z"}},"role":"Customer Success","role_family":"Customer Success","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["Steinhausen, Switzerland"],"countries":["CH"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-06T14:23:38Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-06","last_verified_at":"2026-11-09T20:46:46Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":3,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":3},"description":"Category Manager - Indirect Materials Professional Services\nLocation: Steinhausen (Switzerland)\nReporting Line: Head of Category Management Indirect Materials\nRole Summary\nAs a Category Manager Indirect Materials & Services, you will be responsible for the global strategic management of the indirect spend categories “Professional Services (incl. Human Resources)” across the Zeppelin Group. You will lead sourcing strategies, supplier management, contract negotiations, and cost optimization initiatives while collaborating closely with stakeholders and suppliers worldwide. The role ensures procurement activities support business requirements and long-term corporate objectives.\nYOUR TASKS & RESPONSIBILITIES\nEstablishing, maintaining, and managing supplier relationships to ensure competitive terms and a stable supply chain\nDeveloping and implementing sustainable category strategies to optimize the quality, cost structure, and availability of materials and services\nConducting comprehensive market analyses to identify potential suppliers and technologies\nRedesigning and implementing strategic supplier management\nDesigning and implementing forecasting systems for suppliers based on S&OP processes\nPreparing requests for proposals, conducting bid comparisons, and leading price and terms negotiations, including preparing corresponding framework agreements to leverage economies of scale\nDrafting and negotiating contracts, confidently handling contract law and correspondence with attorneys\nEstablishing targeted sourcing specifications for materials and services and developing KPI-based risk management for the assigned category\nCoordinating interfaces between Operational Procurement, Master Data & Operations Planning, Product Management, Engineering, Logistics, Quality Management, and Finance & Controlling\nWHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR\nA degree (Bachelor’s or Master’s) in Business, Engineering, Economics or equivalent qualification\n5+ years of experience in strategic or project-specific procurement\nStrong negotiation skills, analytical abilities, and expertise in cost and risk management\nA strong service-oriented mindset and an awareness of working as a strategic procurement professional in a highly cross-functional organization\nUnderstanding technical requirements, project workflows, and agile working methods, as well as knowledge of contract law and negotiation skills\nResilience, initiative, and the ability to take on responsibility in a dynamic and global environment\nFluency in English and German, knowledge of further languages is a plus\nWillingness to travel\nWhy Join Zeppelin Procurement?\nWe are creating a procurement organization that moves beyond transactional purchasing, becomes a strategic business partner delivering measurable competitive advantage and generates measurable value and impact to our business. If you want to shape the strategic direction for indirect category management and drive lasting value creation across an international organization, we would like to hear from you.","description_format":"text","description_chars":3027,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"German","level":"Advanced (C1)","optional":true},{"language":"English","level":"Advanced (C1)","optional":false}]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"Switzerland","iso":"CH","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Wholesale","Farm Machinery","Industrial Machinery"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-06T14:23:38Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":60,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.602,"p_room":1,"age_days":2,"expected_fill_days":74,"reasons":["conf:0","stale_co","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-09T06:03:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/zeppelin-category-manager-indirect-materials-professional-services","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/zeppelin-category-manager-indirect-materials-professional-services.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-10T06:57:26Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":16190,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-11T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":2205654},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=2205654"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fzeppelin-category-manager-indirect-materials-professional-services"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fzeppelin-category-manager-indirect-materials-professional-services"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fzeppelin-category-manager-indirect-materials-professional-services"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/zeppelin-category-manager-indirect-materials-professional-services\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fzeppelin-category-manager-indirect-materials-professional-services"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3870920}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"zeppelin.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3870920},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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