Strategic purchaser: you see what’ll count tomorrow.
Open, innovative, pragmatic. That’s how you approach procurement. You create new things by enabling sustainable mobility solutions. You decide today what will be important years down the line.
This video is provided by a third-party platform (www.youtube.com). To play the video, accept marketing cookies in the cookie settings then reload the page.
Alongside thorough knowledge of your subject, having a wide network is extremely valuable as the market changes.
FabianKrienbühl
Strategic purchaser and father with a love of cooking, nature, travel and mountaineering.
Passionate about optimisation.
As a strategic purchaser, you evaluate the products or services which fall within your remit. You carry out targeted analysis to find out where there is need for optimisation. You evaluate suppliers and test new products, services or innovations on the market. And you’re always open to change.
In touch with the mood of the times.
You think analytically to scan the market for past developments and future risks. Your precise SWOT and trend analyses guide you on your way. Getting the right service at the right place for an appropriate price: that is what our strategic purchasers are aiming for. So staying right up to date with trends is very important for you.
Public tendering.
With your up-to-date market knowledge, you translate the needs of SBB staff into realistic and feasible product solutions. Together with colleagues, you create a functional specification in which you define criteria for future purchases. Our strategic purchasers evaluate the offers received in the tender process against suitability criteria. With a clear view of your goal, you take pragmatic, well thought-out decisions which pay off in the long term.
As a strategic purchaser, you bring basic training in a technical subject or as a commercial employee. You are also qualified as a Certified Purchasing Specialist or have another, equivalent qualification. Your written and spoken German is impeccable; you also have very good knowledge of English and French.
Your analytical and conceptual thinking, structured and process-orientated working and enthusiasm for IT will lead to successful negotiations. Because preparing and conducting negotiations professionally is the key to your success. Your good knowledge of methods will also help you when procuring. Experience in public procurement (under BöB/VöB Acts) completes your profile.
As a strategic purchaser, you can also follow internal training programmes, such as procurement modules at the SBB Academy. We are also involved in training at universities of applied sciences (e.g. CAS in the areas of supply chain, logistics etc.).
Strategic purchasers master the challenge of long-term planning in a mobility sector in continuous transformation. To take the initiative and go for targeted changes, you need to be resilient and passionately committed to the subject of procurement.
You work independently but are also often in contact with SBB Corporate Law. If you have questions about public procurement, lawful tendering or fulfilling the legal stipulations for processes, the Corporate Law service is available to help.
We promote modern ways of working. Mobile working means being able to work outside the SBB workplace. You can work at home, on the move, when visiting customers or elsewhere within and outside of SBB.
As a strategic purchaser, you work in the office from Monday to Friday or from home if the nature of your work permits. But more or less one day a month you are on the move as you go to visit your customers. You also enjoy travelling within Switzerland (10-20%), and it makes your working life even more exciting and varied.
