Senior Category Manager

Senior Category Manager (Product & Supplier Management)

Location : Hybrid (UK Corby, London or Manchester, or Frankfurt Germany)

An exciting opportunity has opened up in our Product & Supplier Management (P&SM) Team for an experienced Senior Category Manager.

You will lead and develop a direct team consisting of Category Managers and Assistant Category Managers – to drive and optimise commercial performance. The Senior Category Manager leads the end-to-end cell incorporating all the relevant functions e.g. Inventory, Content, Own Brand, Pricing, Marketing and Digital etc.

What you will be responsible for :

• Category strategy planning, governance and execution.
• Responsible for the development and execution of supplier strategies and business plans.
• Execution and governance of supplier business plans and value extraction as part of category strategy.
• People management of direct team.
• Management of the end-to-end cells to coordinate and optimise commercial performance across all relevant functions (e.g. inventory, Own Brand, pricing, digital, content and marketing).
• Successful NPI delivery for products within category strategy.
• Communication and collaboration across relevant group stakeholders. Key aspects to cover include : Progress updates on delivery of strategy, performance metrics, range / supplier performance and optimization of strategy / plans as appropriate.
• Development of direct reports and talent pipeline.

What you can expect to be doing :

• The execution and governance of category strategy / business plans with an end-to-end channel understanding. (Instil the use of data analytics and insights to inform the category plan.)
• Manage the E2E team to deliver agreed within Category Strategy : Sales revenue; Product Margin (cost ownership and resale influence); ROI; Customer acquisition while focussing on customer journey; number of customers; number of products sold.
• Drive NPI sales and range expansion in line with strategy.
• Strategic supplier network share growth.
• Continuous alignment with local and regional Supplier Managers enabling and driving a high-performance culture.
• Responsible for negotiating, managing, reviewing and improving all contractual terms and conditions – ensuring that they are applied and respected. (Rebates, Marketing funds, return rights, NPI terms etc)
• Supplier Management of Strategic / Premium suppliers at group level (where applicable)
• Manage supplier rationalisation and associated impact to customers.
• Gain and share external market insight, communicating performance to relevant stakeholders.
• Manage the end-to-end product lifecycle process – ensure the discontinuation of poor performing products, review stocked / non stocked portfolio and manage provision risk.
• Optimise inventory availability, value and health in collaboration with inventory function. Ensuring accurate lead times, delivery performance and stock turn in line with targets. Local sourcing where appropriate.
• Working closely with the Own Brand team (RS Pro) to ensure we optimize the range, using our procurement capabilities and further build and maintain our Own Brand assortment following the strategy and customer needs.
• Knowledge of digital channels to improve product performance and enhance customer web experience.
• Support and Influence the NES and NPS score.
• Engage with Marketing to establish effectively targeted campaigns enabling customer acquisition, lead generation and profitable sales.
• Partner with Pricing to ensure specific resale initiatives are optimised through product, supplier, market and competitor intelligence, with the aim of optimising margin and revenue

What we are looking for from you :

• Demonstrable leadership experience in the wider area of E2E Product and Supplier Management / Operations – with strong digital and technology knowledge, preferably in an international environment.
• Strong adherence to our company values both personally and professionally.
• Experience with content management systems, digital asset ownership and management, data models and governance.
• Strong communication skills; and an ability to manage senior stakeholders.
• Experience of building and delivering a category strategy.
• Proven ability to deliver organisational change and large-scale programmes on time and budget.
• Strategic thinking – scans the external landscape, identifying future trends and implications, and joins things up internally to simplify and align our business to pursue opportunity.
• Managed risk taking – analyse data for insight, seeks diverse perspectives, and uses that insight combined with sound judgement to inform decisions, derive actions that balance risk and reward.
• Collaboration and influencing – a team player, works well across a matrix, identifying and listening to all key stakeholders, building trust, and engaging in open dialogue and constructive debate.
• Strong people management – builds engaged and inclusive teams who have clear expectations and the capabilities and resources to deliver.
• Digital mindset – thinks digitally and commercially, can effectively use technology and enables colleagues and the whole business to foresee possibilities.

RS – who we are

At RS we’ve been solving engineering problems for over 80 years : big ones, small ones, easy and difficult ones. We turn the ‘what ifs’ into the ‘why nots’, the impossible into the possible.

Our purpose? Making amazing happen for a better world.

We send out a parcel every 2 seconds, to over 130 countries. We provide over 700,000 in-stock and over 3 million unstocked products to more than 1.2 million customers. We want people like you, as you are curious about things, you like doing things differently and in a human way with empathy. Because that’s exactly how we partner with people – our customers, suppliers, colleagues, and communities – to solve problems. We’ll also invest in your development and wellbeing – because building a more diverse and inclusive culture, being ethical, responsible, and committed to our Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) action plan is at the heart of everything we do. Come and join us and over 2000 colleagues here in the UK – and we’ll help you to think big, do more and unleash your brilliance, so you do amazing things too.

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