(Senior) Manager Procurement Excellence and Digitalization (m/w/d)

Your mission

This role ensures procurement operates in a standardized, data driven, and scalable way. It connects strategy, operations, and systems, enabling faster decisions, lower costs, and better compliance. The role supports the ongoing SAP transformation and drives digital and AI adoption across the function. Connector between Strategy and Ops: sits in the middle of the function - takes strategic direction from the Head of Procurement and makes sure Ops executes against it. Surfaces blockers, misalignments, and capacity issues back up. Owner of procurement excellence: process quality, governance, KPIs, compliance, and continuous improvement all live here. Not a one-time project - an ongoing standard-setter for how procurement operates. Central coordinator: primary point of contact across internal stakeholders (IT, NetOps, NetDev, Finance) and external partners (suppliers, SAP/tool vendors). Manages dependencies, aligns expectations, keeps things moving. 

Core responsibilities:
Process and governance 

• Define and enforce procurement policies and standards 
• Align processes across categories and regions 
• Ensurecomplianceandcontinuousimprovement

Digitalization, SAP, and AI 

• Lead procurement input into SAP transformation 
• Translate business needs into system requirements 
• Implement digital tools and automated workflows 
• Drive AI use cases such as spend analysis, demand forecasting, and supplier risk assessment 

Performance and KPIs 

• Define and track KPIs such as savings, lead time, and compliance 
• Builddashboardsandstandardizereporting
• Identifycost and efficiency opportunities through data insights 

Supplier management 

• Define supplierperformanceframeworks
• Supportstrategicsupplierreviews
• Strengthen risk and due diligence processes 

Team coordination 

• Alignstrategicand operationalteams
• Support workload balance and capability growth 
• Act as escalation point for procurement issues 

Your profile

• 6–10 years in procurement operations, excellence, or transformation roles 
• Direct SAP experience in a procurement context (MM, Ariba, S/4HANA) — ideally during an active implementation 
• Proven ability to translate business requirements into system/IT specifications 
• Experience building and owning procurement KPI frameworks and dashboards 
• Track record of driving process adoption across peers without direct authority 
• Experience coaching or structuring work for more junior colleagues 
• Business fluent English; German a strong plus 

Strong differentiators 

• Has been the procurement-side owner in an SAP go-live — not IT, not consulting 
• Hands-on experience with AI or automation in procurement (spend analytics, supplier mgmt, demand forecasting) 
• Project Management certificates  
• Pan-European or multi-country procurement exposure 
• Supplier performance framework or SRM experience