Description:
If you're driven by the passion to do something meaningful that changes lives, Nestlé is the place for you. Nestlé USA is one of seven operating companies that make up Nestlé’s presence in the United States. We're in 97% of American homes, and as the leading food and beverage company, our goals are to continue to deliver quality food and beverage products, strengthen our local communities, and reduce our environmental and climate impact.
We’re determined to challenge the status quo and be better tomorrow than we are today. As individuals and teams, we embrace our entrepreneurial culture and have created a workplace where collaboration is essential, courage is rewarded, speed is expected, and agility is the norm to delight our consumers every single day. Here, you will find limitless opportunities to learn and advance your career and feel empowered to succeed in the workplace and beyond. Because our focus is not only on nourishing our customers, but also about enriching you.
This position is not eligible for Visa Sponsorship.
The Category Strategy Manager leads category strategy and champions category first throughout the business by collaborating with cross-functional teams to elevate our customer centricity and develop the Category Vision and Strategy, supporting the Commercial Action Plans (CAPs) by providing insights and analysis, and developing and delivering key insights from retailer, market, and consumer information that are linked to clear results/actions.
Responsibilities:
- Develops Category Strategies at the national and channel levels.
- Drives category first approach and knowledge and partners with a broad cross-functional team (HUB, Insights, Field Sales, Marketing, Commercial Development, etc) to build Category Strategies, understand competitive landscape, create actionable insights, and shape relevant 4P business plans.
- Leads category first strategy projects, creates Category competitive landscapes, and guides division education of category dynamics.
- Works in synergy with cross-functional teams on new innovation and business mechanisms that require a category first approach to identify resource, data, customer strategies, and shopper research needs where success is most probable.
- Helps to quantify the size of the opportunity to further prioritize work across, category, sales, and Commercial Development (CD).
- Supports the Commercial Development, Field Sales, and Marketing teams’ understanding of the Category Vision to guide the 3-Year Market Business Strategy and 1-Year CAP.
- Develops and delivers succinct and compelling Category presentations that are field sales and/or retailer facing.
- Clearly communicates opportunities and issues, offers key findings and implications (the “so what”) across the 4Ps, and links to the Category Strategies including monthly Category Corners, upfront stories for New Item Presentations and CAPs, annual/midyear Category Reviews, Joint Business Planning, and ad-hoc projects.
- Spearheads merchandising and assortment to grow the Category and optimize shopability: recommends adjacencies, creates gold standard planograms, determines SKU Priority rankings, and tracks share of shelf.
- Partners closely with Strategic Pricing to develop actionable pricing insights across customers and channels in real-time to capture profitable growth.
Requirements:
- Analyst experience on an account team or with a data partner (IRI/Nielsen) with strong analytical and business acumen to use data and insights to build a sales story and understand the customer.
- Minimum 4 years of experience in Sales or Marketing preferred.
- Demonstrated knowledge of business driving technology solutions (i.e. IRI, Numerator, Sharpr) and internal/external industry insights and trends
- Business strategy experience (Field Customer Account Manager, Field Category Manager, or Marketing Associate) creating and presenting compelling roadmaps at national, channel, and customer levels.
- Understanding field sales or distributor roles and the operating models and differences across Key Classes of Trade and Formats. Examples: Small vs. Large Formats; Grocery/Drug, C-Store, Mass, Club
- Understanding national brands’ versus retailer brands’ (private label) strategies and business models within Consumer Packaged Goods roles
- Experience identifying category growth solutions and opportunities
- Knowledge of interrelationship of key functions and their key initiatives (Sales, Marketing, Finance, HR, Supply Chain, CMI, Technical and Globe & IS/IT)