Category Manager

What’s On Your Plate?

• Managing PL & Import portfolio at the National level (responsibility for sales Performance, profitability, availability, inventory, in app availability and merchandising)
• Leading country in managing local PL & Import suppliers, full responsibility over suppliers relationship, sourcing new potential suppliers, while extending the portfolio
• Leading private label development & Import process for new items (assortment selection, suppliers sourcing, packaging creation and launch preparation): multiple projects at the same time
• Necessary skill set:
• Category Management
• Strong understanding of Commercial 4Ps (Pricing, Promotion, Presentation, Product)
• Strong analytical skills - monitoring of import & PL portfolio performance for the whole Country (sales, profitability, availability, inventories etc.), extracting insights from the data to improve and optimize PL performance across the country (action plan recommendations for local market)
• Easiness to work with the data & various data tools and ease of presenting data in a compelling/concise way.
• Suppliers management (negotiations, on-boarding, maintaining good relations) - both local and international suppliers
• Brand Building
• Strong project management skills related to import & leading private label development process for new items
• Ability to work efficiently with external creative agency (packaging creation)
• Assuring maintenance of a consistent brand image of PL portfolio across the region (packaging standards, communication/promotional standards etc.), keeping local markets in line with regional guidelines and country targets
• Knowledgeable of UAE import regulations and processes, able to register products with local Food & Non-Food authorities, Managing relations with clearing ageant.
• Others
• Great eye for details while managing new PL items development processes (lots of steps, grasping knowledge from different areas like legal, quality, design)
• Impeccable time management skills in order to push all the projects efficiently and make sure that other stakeholders involved are following agreed timelines
• Arabic speaker would be a big help in checking Arabic language used on the labels of all PL & import items
• This role should:
• based on sales data take actions to optimize/uplift the import & PL portfolio's performance in UAE
• based on the service level and inventory stocks (final product & packaging) take actions to optimize the logistics and make sure that we never run out of stock .
• analyze communication/promotional activities and take actions to optimize them, share best practices across the region
• create and execute different negotiations strategies to assure manufacturers for all partners project (we are still a growing business with limited volumes to secure, so it can be very challenging to find suppliers willing to be flexible in the areas that are crucial for us - core example MOQs)
  

What Did We Order?

• This role needs very good communication skills:
• the exposure to multiple external (local & international suppliers, creative agency etc.) and internal stakeholders
• indirectly leading a cross-functional team to achieve set targets
• ability to influence others in order to facilitate and achieve targets better and faster
• leading local market and making sure they are in line with all the regional guidelines, so being able to precisely and concisely explain things is crucial.
• You are very detail-oriented, structured and know how to prioritize -- you consider yourself as someone who delivers solutions and not bottlenecks to be solved.
• You are someone energized by the unknown and look forward to learning each day on the job.
• Language skills: Fluent English and Arabic