Category Specialist at Red Bull

• The Category Specialist will play an integral role in building, developing and maintaining credible, long-term relationships with Red Bull’s retail partners.
• The Category specialist will work with the National Account Sales team in order to accelerate the growth of Energy drinks & Red Bull respectively. In doing so the Category specialist will need to analyze multiple data sources in order to identify strategic & actionable opportunities and solutions.

Responsibilities

CATEGORY & SHOPPER EXPERT

• Develop an unassailable level of energy category & shopper insight through thorough analysis of multiple data sources (offtake sales data, shopper data, market demographics, local & global shopper insights, and internal cooler data).
• Support Category Manager in regular category reviews, plans and strategies with retail partners via gaining a thorough understanding of the following;
• Energy Drinks category & shopper, Assortment optimisation & Effective Planogramming, Merchandising principles, Current category project success & identification of further category growth opportunities.

PROJECT ANALYSES & MANAGEMENT

• Track performance of current category projects utilising multiple data sources (offtake sales data, shopper data and internal Cooler door opening data) in order to report success back to retailer.
• Manage the rollout & maintenance of category projects in retailers; ensuring a smooth rollout & that the units are always looking premium in store.
• Support Category Manager with sign off of further category project rollouts into store through strong sales and shopper data analyses supporting reason for rollout.

TURNING INSIGHTS INTO ACTION

• Identify key opportunities for Red Bull and educate the field team on how to capitalize on these opportunities through training days.
• Further equip the field team to action in trade in form of insights one-pagers that help sell in shelf space allocation of category and Red Bull, new item listings, disruptive display placements, additional cooler placements and other identified category opportunities.
• Support category team in managing and planning the annual “retailer meets shopper” conference, giving our retailers a competitive edge through understanding the latest shopper and retail trends through a day of influential speakers.
• Training of retailer’s broader teams on Category management through training days in order to further position ourselves as the category & shopper experts.

Experience Needed

• Minimum 3-5 years experience in Category, Insights analyses or Key Account sales in the FMCG industry.
• This highly analytical, organized, and self-motivated individual must have the ability to draw insights from multiple complex data sources.
• Excellent analytical skills are needed not only to evaluate, but to provide useful, actionable tools that are clear, meaningful, and delivered in a timely manner.
• Experience working with syndicated data (Nielsen & IRI), Nielsen Panel (homescan) and shopper metrics.
• Customer-facing experience a must; travels up to 25% of the time working with retailers.
• Familiar with Planogram software, such as JDA is an asset.
• Highly proficient in Microsoft Office, especially Excel and Powerpoint.
• In-depth knowledge of the FMCG industry and South African Retail Industry.
• Strong project management and planning competencies.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills are required to express analytics and deliver presentations to various levels in the organization.

Education Requirements

• University – Bachelor’s Degree
• Fluent in English