Category Development Manager Ii - Kroger

Wells Enterprises is looking for an experienced Category Development Manager to lead development of detailed analytics and insights for Kroger. The Category Development Manager II strives to maximize category growth and supports assigned sales divisions in achieving annual and strategic goals. They proactively develop customer relationships and lead the respective sales organization in `best practices` regarding customer category development.

Responsibilities Include:

• Effectively executes the Wells sales process including establishing objectives and developing strong selling stories, anticipating objections, understanding the market and competitive data, and building Nielsen or IRI and other data into presentations, and communicating their meaning to buyers.
• Trains and mentors internal Wells clients in interpretation and usage of insights and analysis specifically related to category development. Through education and consistent reinforcement is able to build category development skills of sales partners to a level of "best-in-class" customer business partners.
• Regarded as a business team partner and supports sales teams in achieving customer goals by leading the development of category reviews, managing planogram creation and execution, assisting in sales presentation development and supporting all other category development functions.
• Manages multiple customer needs and prioritizes work according to best return of effort to the organization. Proactively partners with key customers to develop results-oriented solutions, strengthen business relationships, and assists in establishing Wells as their leading category consultants.
• Leads development of actionable category insights and provides recommendations to both Wells internal sales management and their assigned customer partners that can significantly grow category sales.
• Independently develop and maintain long-term relationships with assigned customers with the goal of achieving Category Validator. Provides insights and direction to customers to influence and reinforce Wells position as the thought leader for the ice cream category.
• Skillfully levers multiple data sources and insights when building customer plans. Incorporates direct customer input along with variety of Wells internal information in business plans. Uses pricing and promotional analysis, competitive analysis, customer insights, and marketing data in most business recommendations.
• Recognized as field-level customer expert. Works with sales team to identify key customer decision makers, strategies, company facts, history and other relevant information, using knowledge to support business recommendations.

Qualifications:

• Skilled at business analytics to identify customer opportunities and can create compelling business stories to support plan execution.
• 5+ years of first-hand experience in category management/ development and proven history of working directly with customers.
• Strong knowledge of Category Management Principles and Terminology near expert level. Knows how to use different software applications for planogram development and analytics. Shows ability to use syndicated data (IRI/Nielsen) to assist in business analytics.
• Skilled at utilizing broad range of data and information in building business plans.
• Effective communication skills - both internally and directly with customers
• Ability to partner with sales counterparts to prioritize initiatives and deliver needs of the business.
• Experience in planogram development, both practical software applications as well as assortment strategy.
• Working knowledge of POG creation/JDA/Apollo
• Have the intellectual curiosity to seek out new insights, and the persistence and sense of urgency to deliver results for the business.
• Experience with 84.51/OnDemand Kroger suite
• Bachelor's degree in Marketing Research, Business or related field required; ideal candidate will have Certifications in
• Category Management/Development.

Wells Enterprises is an EEO/AA employer M/F/Vet/Dis