Category Strategy and Insights Manager - FMCG Food

To £55,000 plus benefits

Buckinghamshire

/

Permanent

Category Strategy and Insights Manager - FMCG Food

Exciting and challenging opportunity for smart insights & category specialist, with client-side and/or agency experience, to bring their drive, energy and commercial savvy to this exciting role with a major FMCG business, using strategic category & consumer/shopper insights (EPOS, consumer panel and store data) to identify future revenue growth streams for food brands with significant retail presence and a place in millions of cupboards across the UK. You’ll also work alongside the brand marketing & NPD team, advising on NPD, new brand propositions and range extensions with a clear and compelling category, consumer & customer rationales and validations.

Key responsibilities include:

Insight Generation & Expertise:

  • Sharing industry trends, competitive landscapes and market intelligence with the UK business team, and EMEA and US teams where relevant
  • Analysing market, consumer and shopper data and turning it into actionable Insights
  • Building an in-depth understanding of shopper & consumer behaviour across key categories and channels/retailers
  • Developing and sharing external strategic insight presentations with key retail partners to drive thought leadership and optimise industry credibility for the business
  • Assisting with ad-hoc category, shopper & consumer research projects in conjunction with the consumer insight teams

Category Vision & Strategy

  • Co-creation of category vision and strategy for a portfolio of brands with over 200 SKUs across different categories
  • Identifying category & brand growth opportunities aligned to business objectives and feeding into the long-term commercial planning process

NPD & Innovation Projects

  • Working in conjunction with consumer insight teams to agree and develop UK specific research & insight projects, based on market gaps and customer requests
  • Leveraging category & consumer/shopper insights to co-create relevant NPD concepts which meet consumer and shopper needs and deliver incremental category growth
  • Supporting the UK consumer brand team to manage strategic planning and build compelling brand & NPD sell-in stories for key retail customers

Customer & Shopper Strategy

  • Ensuring that channel and customer strategies are clearly identified and integrated into category & brand/NPD recommendations
  • Building strong collaborative partnerships with category management and shopper marketing teams to secure mutually beneficial gains across all brands & categories
  • Ensuring that brand/NPD initiatives are aligned to retailer launch windows where possible

Cross-functional Collaboration

  • Working cross-functionally with Category, Consumer Insight, Marketing, Shopper Marketing and Commercial teams to define and agree growth platforms and category strategies to deliver sustainable and profitable growth
  • Building relationship with teams across the EMEA region and US HQ, to encourage sharing of relevant insights and initiatives to drive industry best practice and secure mutually beneficial brand and category wins for the business

Supplier Relationship Management:

  • Building collaborative relationships with third party agency partners and data/insight suppliers
  • Securing optimum SLA’s, deliverables and terms for the business

Skills & Experience Checklist

This role presents a fantastic opportunity for someone looking to further develop their career in a leading FMCG business, with lots of potential for career development and growth.

  • Robust experience gained in a leading FMCG company, or perhaps in a major insights or data/insights agency
  • Knowledge of Nielsen, IGD, TFP, dunnhumby, Quantium and Kantar data and relevant data platforms
  • Possibly some experience of working with ad-hoc consumer insight data and research finding
  • Strong strategic thinking and problem solving skills with business acumen, able to unpick business issues and identify growth opportunities
  • Exceptional interpersonal, communication, presentation and influencing skills
  • Commercial savvy and a good grasp of the grocery retail environment.
  • Strong team player with a can-do attitude and drive for achievement

If you are excited by this challenge, talk to us now. This is a super opportunity to bring your exceptional analytical, creative and data skills and experience to an exciting and challenging role, in which you will be able to make a significant impact on the organisation. Contact: Adam Tarsh at adam@tarshpartnership.co.uk