Jobs at Colgate-Palmolive

Job Summary

The Retail Category Management Manager is responsible to develop and deliver the Retail Category Development Services to our customers through:

• Category Knowledge
• Category Optimization
• Joint Category Planning

He / she will be responsible for championing the RCD deployment within the organization, and demonstrates enhanced capabilities working collaboratively with customers. He/ she will play an integral role in disseminating Category Knowledge and will drive retail category focus within the commercial team.

The role requires a strong understanding of the shoppers in different RE’s across categories, needs to identify the category business challenges at a RE level and for priority customers.

The Category Management Manager will develop and deliver shopper based solutions for our customers promoting cross-functional collaboration to address the RE and retailer’s category opportunities.

The successful incumbent will work with Customer Management (CDT’s) to ensure alignment and execution against the category & brand strategies by coordinating the RCD process with customers and providing the tools required to define and deploy the 5Ps and shopper solutions for the category

Responsibilities/Accountabilities
Deliver RCD Services
Getting ready

• Develop a priority matrix to recommended customers for 1-way / 2-way and gain alignment with CDTs/ CDD
• Establish a roadmap for RCD for priority customers
• Define what the RCD services will look like and develop road-map for service delivery (which service to whom, when) – to be updated annually
• Understand the role of the category within all RE’s (one way) and priority customers (two way)
• Gather and document customers’ category strategies and KPIs (for 2-way priority customers)
• Develop local e-guidebooks for the prioritized categories; consolidate Consumer & Shopper knowledge and retail trends in a Category Story, leveraging the global eGuidebooks
• Master information from Global Sites (e.g. Planet Retail, CP Cust engagement center)

Develop and deliver two-way services

• Identify 2-way customers’ category challenges and articulate questions to understand the “why”
• Work with Insight team to develop the insights and opportunity.
• Work with RE Managers, Marketing and Insights team to ensure allocation of resources / budget.
• Develop retail category strategy (using the Category Strategy blueprint)
• Ensure development of solutions that maximize category growth for all RE’s and priority customers.
  • Develop Recommended Assortment and Planogram
  • Coordinate cross-functional team to develop category solutions (e.g. Breakthrough initiatives)
• Coordinate a Customer-CP RCD Workshop
• Responsible for the quality of CP’s Category Review process and output.
• Monitor Category Review outcomes and communicates to commercial organization.
• Monitor and share with customer category results of agreed solutions
• Market RCD services with customer (including Senior Management)

Develop and deliver one-way services

• Develop one-way category knowledge sharing protocol (e.g. newsletter)
• Develop “Ideal Store” recommendation for priority categories
• Develop and deliver training to CP team for “Ideal Store” implementation
• Monitor implementation and results and communicate to commercial team

Share Category Knowledge Internally

• Build category knowledge bundle for internal use (incl. CP Category Strategies)
• Develop and deliver internal category coaching sessions to disseminate category knowledge (annual) and retailers’ perspective
• Provide input to annual commercial planning by highlighting category dynamics and opportunities by RE / customer, including category promotion learning, ASP trends, category portfolio opportunities etc.

Drive Retail Category Focus Internally

Retailers’ category challenges & strategies

• Share two-way customer category challenges / opportunities and retail category strategies (blueprint) with the commercial team (gaining customer’s approval where required by confidentiality agreements)

Customer Category Profitability

• Track Retailer category/brand profitability where possible for each RE/Customer
• Identify ‘at risk’ brands, forms, sizes where there are gaps vs category average performance and average customer margins
• Develop CP Customer margin targets. Ensure commercial strategies are developed to achieve targets by systematic NPD, Re-launches, Resizing, Mix, etc.

GTM/NPD

• Provide key inputs to GTM team for all NP development & new projects
• Develop Category based plan by RE for customers’ presentation.
• Provide anticipated trade acceptance for new products at product concept stage.
   

Level of Education

• Relevant Bachelor’s Degree / Honors will be an added advantage

Years Of Experience

• 4 - 6 years in an FMCG environment

Functional Experience And Technical Skills Required

• Proven leadership to drive the RCD process in the organization
• Analytical experience to conduct deep category assessments and identify category opportunities.
• Business & shopper knowledge to understand category and brand strategies.
• Proven ability to conduct customers presentations and business reviews
• Able to lead the cross-functional collaboration among Retail Shopper Mkt, CDT’s and customers to develop and implement the RCD recommended solutions.
• Work with the insight community to identify the shopper opportunities and answer the questions related to the identified business challenges
• Able to prioritize customers in alignment with RM team leader and CDT to provide RCD services
• Financial knowledge (P&L) to recommend initiatives that brings financial results and understanding the impact on the business and ROI.

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Scope Of Responsibility

The Customer Development Manager is responsible for achievement of Sales targets through excellence in execution at the point of sale. They must develop and support the partnership between CP and the customer(s)/Distributors at the store and regional level by nurturing contacts and negotiating with Store Operations/in-store personnel. They provide feedback on the in-store environment which allows rapid revision of competitive tactics.

The Account Manager plays an integral role in ensuring profitable growth by:
Business Development and Monitoring

• Building and managing relationships with key players in the customer(s) or channel at the regional and/or store level.
• Conducting negotiations as necessary ( listings,planograms,displays,promotion execution etc) at regional office and/or store level. They need to conduct regional/national business meetings and take control of pricing and the P&L
• Implementing and maintaining in-store tactics developed within Category Management partnerships with the Customer(s)
• Co-ordinating special events (store-level sell-in and communication ,materials management in-store etc.) in co-operation with the Business Development Manager.
• Working with customer service to track orders, troubleshoot and achieve customer service KPI’s.
• Working with Logistics to plan, analyse and forecast customers needs and to ensure on-time and complete delivery.
• Monitoring sales and distribution performance , particularly for new products and taking timely action to drive continuos improvement.
• Monitoring competitive activity at store level, recording and consolidating key activities, monitoring speed and breadth of distribution and identifying competitive best practices and discussing with the BDM so that they can proactively respond with strategic/tactical refinements.
   

In - Store Personnel Management

• Regularly visiting stores in order to identify areas of improvement
• Monitoring performance vs objectives , providing continuous coaching and feedback and conducting appraisals based on data.
• Reviewing Field Sales and Merchandiser itineraries ( location,frequency,duration vs plan) and roles to ensure optimal deployment of limited resources.
• Giving direction to in-store staff ( merchandisers) and ensuring that they are trained and updated on new products, promotions and merchandising objectives. Identifying training needs and and developing training plans with the Team Leader.
• Working with the BDM to develop tools, merchandising materials and in-store programmes for effective shelf management to induce shoppers to purchase Colgate products at shelf.
• Supervising the consistent and accurate collection of data to allow monitoring of 5P performance vs target.
   

In – Store Compliance

• Clearly communicating in-store objectives and monitoring execution of 5P targets, product availability, assortment by store format, shelf pricing ( regular and promoted) promotion implementation vs plan , share of shelf and planograms , POP placement vs plan.
• Resolving operational issues at head/regional offices or in-store
   

The Individual
Education

• A minimum of a Bachelor's or similar degree is required.

Required
Experience:

• A proven track record of performance with at least 3-5 years of increasing Marketing/Customer Marketing/Sales responsibility and strong relationships his/her with customer(s)
   

Desired

• Previous experience working in a matrix environment