Category Manager

Role Purpose

Join Lactalis at our offices in Western Cape and take on the challenge of the Category Manager role. The purpose of this role is to manage the procurement operations of defined category responsibility, optimize the procurement strategy, drive cost savings, and ensure the efficient and effective sourcing of goods and services. This exciting career opportunity will enable you to apply your business acumen to ensure that the company achieves this challenging objective during the next phase of its growth in Southern Africa.

Requirements

• 3 Year tertiary or similar degree - ideally in Supply Chain Management, Business Science, Industrial Engineering or related
• 3-5 years of experience in procurement, with a focus on category management.
• FMCG experience is preferred
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a keen attention to detail.
• Ability to analyze market data and make data-driven decisions.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Project management skills to handle multiple tasks and deadlines simultaneously.
• Familiarity with procurement software, ERP systems, and other relevant technologies.
• Advanced computer knowledge skills - MS Office (MS PowerPoint and MS Excel) is of advantage
• Ability to travel locally and to sites in neighboring African countries.

Duties and Responsibilities

Driving the Commercial Planning process

• Build and develop channel plans aligned to the marketing strategy and objectives.
• Develop and drive quarterly promotional activity grids with Key Account managers.
• Build effective relationships and processes between Marketing/Sales teams.
• Oversee the deployment of the marketing plan to the Sales and Field Sales teams, including monthly/quarterly cycle planning.
• Create and implement a revenue growth program.
• Demonstrated history of route to market development.
• Monitor and track the implementation of pricing/promotional strategies.
• Lead consumer and shopper insights to deliver accelerated demand growth.
• Coordinate with Supply Chain to drive quarterly sales forecasting and gap closing.

Overseeing Trade marketing activation

• Develop and implement the trade marketing strategy and budget.
• Develop winning channel specific POP solutions to drive brand visibility and sales.
• Develop & implement trade and brand activation plans to drive shopper engagement.
• Implement the Go-To-Market strategy for NPD, including developing the trade proposition, distribution targets, merchandising guidelines and launch plan execution.
• Translate brand strategies into Customer speak to WIN at the POP.

Driving Category management with Customers

• Drive the Category Management agenda with customers, focusing on long-term category growth, distribution, ranging and space management.
• Provide support to the Key Accounts team by conducting regular business analyses and presentations to identify opportunities and deliver incremental growth.
• Utilise shopper research and market intelligence to develop the Category Plan as well as strategic Customer/Top to Top reviews.
• Drive the implementation of Merchandising guidelines, including training Field sales team.
• Provide selling arguments for product-ranging and distribution targets for NPD.
• Monitor distribution levels of KVIs by customer.