Global Category Manager: Industrial Water Equipment

Saur Group; Doetinchem; Hybrid; EUR 51,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

Nijhuis Saur Industries, part of Saur, leads global category management for engineering and equipment in the water sector. Based in Doetinchem with flexibility across NL and Europe, the role blends strategic sourcing with hands-on supplier management and cross-functional collaboration.

We seek a seasoned professional to drive category strategies, cost optimization, and ESG-aligned sourcing across regions, delivering measurable value while leveraging digital procurement tools and KPIs.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in supply chain, engineering, or business administration.
• 5–8 years of procurement/category management experience in industrial, engineered solutions, or water sectors.
• Proven experience in supplier development, strategic sourcing, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Strong understanding of equipment and technical categories (e.g. pumps, valves, instrumentation).
• Proven experience delivering cost savings and negotiating supplier contracts.
• Knowledge of digital procurement tools, supply chain analytics, QHSE standards, and sustainability practices.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills
• Hands-on, practical, and results-driven approach
• Fluent in English; additional European languages are an advantage

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute global category strategies across engineered systems, industrial solutions, manufacturing, and life cycle services.
• Perform market analysis, benchmarking, and risk assessments to drive cost optimization, supplier innovation, and resilience.
• Align category strategies with engineering, operations, project execution, and life cycle service requirements.
• Lead contract negotiations, contract management and regular Supplier Performance Evaluation sessions using performance KPI’s, to enhance supplier performances.
• Utilize digital procurement platforms (ERP, SRM, AI analytics, Market Intelligence) for strategy setting, spend visibility, demand forecasting, and risk mitigation.
• Drive data-informed decisions and predictive insights to optimize category performance.
• Deliver measurable and sustained cost savings across direct spend categories (mechanical process equipment, electrical, instrumentation, chemicals and filtration equipment) and meet or exceed annual savings targets.

Skills

Stakeholder management

Cross-functional collaboration

Data-driven decisions

Negotiation

English fluency

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in supply chain/engineering/business

Tools

ERP

SRM

AI analytics

Market intelligence

Job description

Nijhuis Saur Industries, part of Saur, leads global category management for engineering and equipment in the water sector. Based in Doetinchem with flexibility across NL and Europe, the role blends strategic sourcing with hands-on supplier management and cross-functional collaboration.

We seek a seasoned professional to drive category strategies, cost optimization, and ESG-aligned sourcing across regions, delivering measurable value while leveraging digital procurement tools and KPIs.