Our client is a large multi-site food manufacturer who are looking for a Category Manager to drive profitable sales growth through strategic category planning, insight and consumer understanding.
Based in the Midlands at least 2 days a week the successful candidate will be:
- Responsible for providing category expertise to create and deliver differentiated category plans realising growth for customers and the business.
- Demonstrating continuous best in class category management principles and working with cross functional teams to elevate the shopper experience and ensure their business Category are the team of choice.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Key day to day customer contact for bespoke customer category management.
- Conveying expertise that encompasses the market, the category, the customer, and the shopper to identify risks and opportunities for customers and the business to deliver category growth.
- Evaluate the market, category, customer, shopper, consumer, and key initiatives to create and maintain category reports and presentations with actionable insights.
- Build on the actionable insights to create and drive robust plans to drive mutual growth for customers and the business.
- Embed customer & category strategies into differentiated shopper centric plans to influence the key category levers, Range, Merchandising, Price & Promotion.
- Collaborate with cross functional internal and external customer teams, ensuring insights are at the heart of all decision making and initiatives, including the innovation pipeline.
- Work collectively with key contacts within customers, agencies, and internal teams to influence best in class category activation.
- Analyse effectiveness of NPD, campaign launches and activity, making recommendations for future innovation and activation.
- Delight and engage key customer contacts with compelling stories and activities to ensure the business are the category partner of choice.
- Line Manage and development the Category Exec team, who are responsible for capturing market and category intel, shopper behaviour and reporting.
QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE, TECHNICAL SKILLS / KNOWLEDGE
- 4 years previous experience in a Category Management focused role within FMCG.
- Customer and category focused with a core motivation to delight and deliver.
- Excellent interpersonal skills that demonstrate professionalism at all times coupled with an inquisitive approach to category management - always conveying the ‘so what’.
- Excellent data literacy skills, with the ability to illustrate skill in integrating data and insights.
- Enjoys generating creative and effective solutions.
- Ability to present in an engaging manner to a variety of stakeholders.
- Comfortable managing multiple stakeholders that are both internal and external and is a multitasker who works well both independently and as part of a team.
If this sounds like something you are interested in please get in touch for more information or apply today with your CV.