Director- Merchandising - Retail Industry

Tata Consultancy Services; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 163,800 - 226,200; Full time

Job summary

A leading consulting firm is seeking a Director of Merchandising to manage a team focused on supply chain planning for retail customers. This role involves overseeing KPIs, improving category management processes, and collaborating with customer leadership. Ideal candidates will have strong retail category management experience and excellent communication skills. The position is based in Chicago, Cincinnati, or Boston, with a competitive salary range from $163,800 to $226,200.

Qualifications

• Strong experience in retail category management functions, specifically around supplier and item onboarding.
• Ability to work with senior customer leadership to report on performance.
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills.

Responsibilities

• Manage and guide the merchandising team to meet KPIs.
• Lead and mentor the team for continuous improvements in processes.
• Collaborate with customer leadership to drive improvements in category management.

Skills

Retail category management experience

Strong communication skills

Analytical skills

Problem-solving skills

Education

Bachelor’s Degree/MBA

Tools

SAP

Oracle

Job description

Director Merchandising for Retail – Tata Consultancy Services

Location: Cincinnati, Chicago, or Boston.

Job Description

• Manage and guide the team of item specialists, pricing analysts, category analysts and floor planners/planogram analysts that provide supply chain planning business services to our retail customers around Item & Supplier Setup, Pricing & Promotions Management, Planogram & Floor Plan Maintenance.
• Responsible for the TCS merchandising team meeting and exceeding KPIs such as on time performance and accuracy around item & supplier onboarding, planograms & floor plan design & changes as well as price and promotion changes.
• Work with customer leadership across merchandising, planning, supply chain and store operations to drive improvements in the category management processes.
• Lead and mentor the team to identify and execute continuous improvements across process, people and technology that drive efficiency and improvements to business KPIs.
• Work with team leads to project workload impact of upcoming seasonality and help plan/manage workload effectively to meet customer needs.
• Participate in customer senior leadership team meetings to provide an update on TCS performance for merchandising functions, understand customer strategic priorities and implications for the merchandising function and translate that into actions for the TCS merchandising teams.
• Provide thought leadership around best practices in category management for grocery retail.
• Proactively work with sales teams for category management opportunities to define the solution and effectively position TCS capabilities in this area.
• Interface with industry analysts to detail our capabilities and experience in category management.
• Collaborate with other functions within TCS to conceptualize category management offerings.

Qualifications

Must Have

• Strong experience in retail category management functions, specifically around supplier and item onboarding, space & range/assortment and pricing/promotions processes.
• Familiarity with DSD processes.
• Ability to work with senior customer leadership to report on performance and collaborate on upcoming events/initiatives.
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills, self-starter.
• Extremely strong communication & interpersonal skills to work effectively with customer leadership and various TCS departments to drive issue resolution, reach agreements, and collaborate on strategic initiatives.
• Ability to create impactful presentations to articulate key messages to internal and customer leadership.

Good to Have

• Retail Merchandising consulting experience.
• Experience working with and managing globally distributed diverse teams.
• Knowledge of any of the leading merch solutions including BY, SAP, Oracle, Symphony, Relex, etc.

Educational Qualifications: Bachelor’s Degree/MBA.

Salary Range: $163,800 - $226,200.