Category Demand Manager

Sainsbury's Supermarkets Ltd; London; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a dynamic Category Demand Manager to lead operations in a fast-paced environment. This role is pivotal in ensuring product availability and driving sales growth while managing a substantial budget. You will collaborate with a network of stakeholders to implement demand planning strategies that enhance customer experiences. The company values innovation and transformation, and offers a supportive culture that prioritizes employee development and work-life balance. Join a team that champions change and strives for excellence in supply chain management.

Benefits

Colleague discount up to 15%

Pension scheme

Private healthcare

Performance-related bonus up to 20%

Annual holiday allowance

Cycle to work scheme

Employee Assistance Programme

Interest-free car loan

Season ticket loans

Maternity and paternity leave pay

Qualifications

• Experience in managing high-performing teams and driving operational excellence.
• Strong analytical skills with a focus on data-driven decision making.

Responsibilities

• Manage day-to-day operations of category to maximize availability and quality.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to drive strategic planning and execution.

Skills

Data Analysis

Stakeholder Management

Leadership

Operational Excellence

Supply Chain Knowledge

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Supply Chain Management

Master's Degree in Business Administration

Tools

SAP

Oracle

JDA

Blue Yonder

Job description

Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: Holborn Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1N 2HT
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Logistics
Closing date: 16 May 2025
Requisition ID: 297822

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work/life balance. That’s waiting for you right here. Supply Chain and Logistics are the engine room for getting thousands of products from farms and factories, through the business and to our millions of customers every day. We plan around events from barbecue weekends to Sunday roasts, and who wants oven-ready cauliflower cheese to those who prefer to make it from scratch. Insight and data are everything. But so is judgement — if there’s an issue or ambiguity anywhere, we’re the first to spot it. There’s a big transformation going on. That calls for people who champion change, bring others with them, collaborate and communicate. Because those people can go a very long way.

As a Category Demand Manager, you will be accountable for day-to-day operations of your category, ensuring market leading product availability, driving sales growth, and optimising our inventory levels and cost to serve (up to C.£2bn in sales per year). In this role, you will collaborate and influence a network of stakeholders to deliver a market leading operating model and demand planning strategies for our customers and colleagues. This role is ideal for a leader who thrives in a dynamic, fast-paced environment and is passionate about driving supply chain excellence to deliver outstanding customer experiences.

What I am accountable for

• Category operations: Own the comprehensive management over category profile, own and drive day to day operations to maximise availability and quality across all channels. Manage a sales portfolio of up to C.£2bn, delivering the customer outcomes whilst adhering to multi-million-pound cost budgets.
• Strategic planning: Collaborate with category directors to set and execute strategic total category development objectives and joint structured activation plans with a 6month+ horizon that deliver the overall food mission and drive market leading performance
• Operational excellence: Lead initiatives to enhance network operations, optimise stock holding, and improve working capital management as part of our strategic business plans with suppliers.
• Programme management and delivery: Manage total category programmes to generate improvements in the top line (i.e. improved service) or drive efficiencies out of the route to market, bottom line and Cost to Serve initiatives.
• Stakeholder management and collaboration: Build, influence and sustain strong relationships with Commercial & Retail leadership, supported by brilliant storytelling and transparent communication. Hold leaders accountable to ensure process compliance and hold the tension between maximising product availability and driving improvements in P&L performance.
• Strategic supplier partnerships: Champion strategic partnerships for our supply base, foster meaningful relationships and build collaborative business plans, with a time horizon beyond 1 year, to position Sainsburys as the preferred partner
• Leadership: Lead and manage Demand Planners, through recruitment, management, succession planning and coaching, including setting targets and creation of development plans.
• Customer focus: Drive a culture of customer obsession and demonstrate a deep commitment to customer satisfaction across all KPIs.
• Root cause problem solving: Understand root causes and apply sustainable solutions that optimise outputs from Demand Planning Software to solve problems and deliver market leading performance across the category
• Culture: Cultivate a culture within the supply chain and broader business to align with strategic objectives and drive collaboration, accountability and continuous improvement.

What I need to know

• Technical & analytical skills:Understands the relationship between data and supply chain systems with experience using complex analytics, data interrogation and root cause analysis to solve problems and drive better outputs from demand planning software (e.g., SAP, Oracle, JDA, Blue Yonder).
• People Management and Coaching: Proven ability to manage and develop a high-performing team, providing effective coaching and mentorship to enhance individual and team capabilities. Experience in fostering a collaborative and inclusive work environment that supports continuous learning and growth.
• Operational excellence: Strong passion for performance and operational excellence by actively engaging and influencing leaders and teams.
• Supply Chain knowledge:Has adeep understanding of supply chain dynamics, inventory management, and distribution strategies specific to the sector. Strong knowledge of best-in-class commercial forecasting methods and tools in FMCG industry.
• Continuous Improvement Leadership:Ability topromote a growth mindset, identifying and driving improvements and efficiencies. Deliver solutions that demonstrate end-to-end thinking.

Leadership Performance Expectations

Obsessed with the customer

• Use data and insight to understand customer needs and solve customer problems
• Use our Purpose to support decision making everyday
• Role model living our customer commitments and guide teams to do the same

Obsessed with performance

• Know and be accountable for your part to play, delivering it brilliantly
• Align team goals and ruthlessly prioritise resources to deliver our Customer Commitments
• Assign clear accountabilities, hold people accountable (in your team and out) and act on performance both good and bad

Lead beyond boundaries

• Actively share and seek to understand the big picture, both internal and external
• Story tell our Next Level Sainsbury’s strategy to drive end-to-end thinking
• Build productive partnership inside and outside our organisation

Lead fearless teams

• Create the environment for diverse perspective and challenge, where we are always looking to raise the bar
• Grow everyone around you (up, down and across) through adult-to-adult feedback and coaching
• Know yourself (strengths, weaknesses and impact on others) and continuously develop

#LI-MS1

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new — whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:

Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to save 10% on your shopping online and instore at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat, and we regularly increase the discount to 15% at points during the year. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 20% of salary, depending on how we perform.

Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy up to an additional week's holiday, and we provide private healthcare. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, salary advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme.

Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.

Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).