Category Manager - Sanitary & Tile

Aditya Birla Group; Mumbai; On-site; INR 1,200,000 - 1,900,000; Full time

Job summary

Aditya Birla Group is seeking a Category Manager for Sanitary & Tile within the Cement organization. The role oversees procurement strategy, contracts, and supplier relationships, aligning category activities with business goals to drive value and sustainability.

The position focuses on expanding UBS channels, onboarding brands, and strengthening retail network across India. The incumbent will lead market analysis, develop category roadmaps, negotiate terms, and ensure best-in-class sourcing

Responsibilities

• KRA1 Market analysis & Innovation: Thorough market analysis of trends, competitors, and tech to guide category strategy.
• KRA2 Supplier relationship management: Manage OEMs and distributors, negotiate terms, and ensure timely renewals.
• KRA3 Category Strategy & Business building: Develop strategic roadmaps, drive category penetration and GTM planning with partners.
• KRA4 Strategic Sourcing: Create sourcing strategies, evaluate suppliers, and adapt to market risks.
• KRA5 Driving Business & Category P&L: Grow topline and improve gross margins through product mix and partnerships.

Job description

At the Aditya Birla Group, our Corporate Vision is aligned and intricately woven with our People Vision.

Category Manager - Sanitary & Tile

Designation : Manager

Organization : Cement

Job Description:

Job Purpose

Primary role is to strategically oversee and optimize the procurement of goods and services within the category. This includes implementing sourcing strategies, negotiating contracts, and managing supplier relationships to ensure cost-effectiveness and quality. Collaborating with cross-functional teams, the role contributes to overall efficiency and success of the organization by aligning all category-centric dimensions with business objectives and ensure value accretion, innovation, and sustainability within respective categories.

UltraTech Building Solutions format with larger product portfolio and services is better placed to cater to home builders by maximizing mindshare and wallet share to position itself as the leader in Building Solution space. Objective also is to enable retention and expansion of quality retail network and increase retail sales. The business has aggressive plans to expand and evolve this format by enlarging product and service offerings at the outlets. The plans envisage a total footprint of 6000+ stores with retail cement business of 16% of total UltraTech trade sales and 3000 Cr. of non-cement sales by FY 26.
The landscape for building solutions is changing rapidly with customer expectations of trust, convenience, and expertise all at one place for building his dream home. UBS channel has 15+ categories with 65 brands spread across 13000 SKU’s spread across 4000 stores. With every 100 Kms the landscape changing in the country there are plethora of local brands, categories available at multiple price points to cater to the local needs.
The larger objective for the channel is to ensure capturing the maximum share of wallet for an IHB from the store and for that effective sourcing, display and selling capabilities are required to built across every single store. The categories defined in the channel are under three major Umbrellas – UTCL Brands, Birla paints, and Birla pivot platform. There is a large opportunity which lies ahead to ensure the entire portfolio of brands & categories available are onboarded to the dealer store
There are multiple hyperlocal distributors and OEM present in the country from where a local dealer can source his needs for the customers. The task at hand is to bring maximum possible onboarding of these business opportunities on the UBS platform to offer a wide bouquet of products to the channel. There are finer and very critical nuances on the pricing front basis which the decisions are made on ground and high level of coordination and process control are required to ensure process offered by UBS are competitive in the market.
Major Challenges are:
1. Educating the internal stakeholders about the Industry specific Business/Industry Dynamics & Nuances for respective category.
2. Regular updating of industry/product knowledge relating to category and dissemination of this knowledge to all stakeholders.
3. Deal with large number of brands & SKUs in the product category.
4. Confidence building with partner companies regarding the format and how together we can leverage the opportunity.
5. Confidence building to dealers about category potential/profitability and long term benefit.
6. Integrate internal commercial & IT related processes/customization thereof suiting UBS needs as they are currently aligned to cement business practices.
7. Standardization of processes PAN INDIA as the company processes differ across Regions/Zones.
8. Compliance and alignment with service partners business processes which are industry & region specific and most of times are different from the UltraTech’s standardized processes.
9. Integrate the internal UBS processes as per the diverse partner industry processes at Zonal/Regional Level.
10. Collaborating with multiple brands in same category for market expansion and channel penetration.
11. Setting up a strong issue resolution matrix owing to the volume of business at the front end.

Key Result Areas

KRA (Accountabilities) (Max 1325 Characters)

Supporting Actions (Max 1325 Characters)

KRA1 Market analysis & Innovation

• Conduct thorough market analysis to stay informed about industry trends, competitor activities, and emerging technologies.
• Identify opportunities for innovation and introduce new products or services to enhance the category’s competitiveness.
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement and forward-thinking within the category.

KRA2 Supplier relationship management (OEMs & Distributors)

• Allied brand scheme coverage, analysis and payout maximization plan for UBS outlets to be arrived at and communicated.
• Conduct regular performance reviews and collaborate on continuous improvement initiatives.
• Negotiation on terms of agreement with partners and ensure timely renewal of agreements.
• Commercial and account reconciliation with vendors for healthy working capital.
• Resolve supplier issues promptly to minimize disruptions in the supply chain.

KRA3 Category Strategy & Business building

• Development of strategic roadmap (short term/long term) in line with business vision and alignment with stakeholders (category partners, sales team and management) for scaling category penetration
• Work with zonal teams and plan and support the execution of specific zonal tactics to achieve growth, profitability, and sustainability of the category
• Drive the business through B2B platform ensuring maximum order capture through UBS
• GTM calendar for category, brand, product launches in close co ordination with the partners

KRA4 Strategic Sourcing

• Develop and execute comprehensive sourcing strategies for the assigned category.
• Identify and evaluate potential suppliers, negotiating contracts to ensure favorable terms and conditions.
• Continuously assess market trends, risks, and opportunities to adapt sourcing strategies accordingly.

KRA5 Driving Business & Category P&L

• Driving the topline across specified categories as per P&B numbers
• Focusing on improving the gross margins to the channel from the category through product mix/new partner additions, better negotiations, etc.

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