Category Manager

Blackmores (www.blackmores.com.au) is Australia’s No.1 vitamin and dietary supplements brand with a legacy of over 90 years and is a publicly listed company employing 1250 people in 11 markets across Asia-Pacific. Headquartered in Australia, Blackmores has its international headquarter in Singapore, a health Innovation Centre in Shanghai, and a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Australia.

As a purpose-led, performance-driven organisation, Blackmores Group strives to create remarkable employee experiences through supporting a diverse and inclusive culture, creating leadership that inspires high performance, and providing everyone with opportunities to achieve their professional, personal and wellbeing goals supported by our flexible work practices and family friendly policies

Purpose of role:

This position is to develop category strategy and tactics including space management, product assortment, merchandising, pricing and promotion. Responsible for driving category growth agenda by clearly define growth levers supported with annual plans to deliver sustainable growth. This will be achieved through planning, the formulation of effective strategies and superior execution in a cost effective and efficient manner.

Responsibilities include:

Category Insights & Strategy

• Provide actionable insights from data & research to identify trends and growth opportunities for category, segment and brand.
• Develop short-mid term (1-3) Category roadmap by defining the key levers and priorities, target and resources to support company growth strategy.
• Conduct regular market analysis / promotion evaluation to identify category issues and opportunities for the different channel with recommendations to maximize opportunities.
• Define In-Store Fundamentals Metrics, Merchandise Principles & Success Criteria.
• Leverage shopper research to provide insights by segment by channel, integrate insights and provide recommendation on category tactics and channel activation plans.
• Collaborate with Sales to develop customer shopper strategy & present insights and recommendations by retailers to drive shopper agenda.

Category Leadership Champion

• Accountable for establishing collaborative category partnerships with key customers that will deliver mutual profitable growth.
• Develop & Lead Category/Range Review process for Key priority customers
• Work towards being the category captain for VDS, be the expert on the shopper & shopping missions and how that differentiates by customers.
• Lead as expert on customer data and proactively present trends analysis & key category opportunities for sustainable growth across all areas from product, promotions & merchandising to shopper needs & behaviour.
• Develop strong relationships with key priority customers - Monthly Meetings to lead actionable insights to deliver customer strategy and drive sustainable category growth with mutual profitability.
• Accountable for the 12 month trade category plans which includes POP strategy - pricing, promotions, product range, merchandising & visibility.

Promotion & Pricing

• Establish promotional & pricing strategies & framework by Channel, benchmarked to key competitor lines with recommendations to maximise Blackmores sales and profitability
• Monthly Shelf Price and competitor price/ promotion tracking, analyse promotion effectiveness.
• Strategic recommendation and review of channel profitability & product mix discount and trade spend.
• Actively participate in the annual pricing review with Marketing and provide recommendations in line with budget expectations.

Range & Space Management

• Conduct SKU analysis and internal range recommendations by channels (including rationalisation)
• Provide POG optimisation recommendation for Key Priority Customers, leverage shopper insights to drive ease of shop initiatives
• Provide recommendation for MSL range, distribution, merchandising/planogram for all major retailers.

Budget & Business Review

• Accountable for Shopper Marketing budget review and recommendation
• Establish monthly Category-Channel performance tracker and dashboard.
• Drive monthly business review agenda with the support from Sales, Marketing & Finance

Who are you?

• Bachelor’s degree Business, Marketing or a related field, or possession of a relevant professional certification
• Minimum five (5) years of working experience in FMCG Category/ Channel Marketing/ Trade Marketing role.
• Good fundamentals of category tactic; product assortment, merchandising, promotion and pricing.
• Advanced Excel, Word and PowerPoint & presentation skills
• Strategic thinking, strong analytical with problem-solving abilities and able to translate strategy plan into actions.
• Ability to work independently in a dynamic, fast-paced environment
• Excellent presentation skills and the ability to communicate effectively with stakeholders at all levels
• Dynamic, result-oriented and self-motivated
• Has demonstrated the ability to work in a team setting and has contributed to the achievement of a team's success.

Agencies please note: this recruitment assignment is being managed directly by Blackmores Talent Acquisition team. We will reach out to our preferred agency partners if required. Your respect for this process is appreciated.