Category Manager

Job description / Role

Position Title: Category Manager
Employment Type: Full Time
Salary: up to 28,000 AED all-inclusive, depending on experience and qualifications
Job Location: Dubai, UAE

About the Client:
- The hiring company is a well-respected group of retail company for multiple divisions such as sports, consumer, healthcare, education, living, properties, services, logistics, and beauty.

Job Role:
- Drives sales from the assigned brand/category by developing comprehensive business plans
- Studies trends from historical data around brand/category sales and market research to assist in the overall planning process
- Manages consumer mapping, and is responsible for brand/category consumer segmentation and differentiation
- Ensures optimum utilization of customer research information to guide brand/category management decisions, including decisions on the introduction of new products, product assortment, promotion and pricing of products in the store
- Collaborates with Retail operations to understand consumer trends, sales figures, etc. to further formulate the business plan for the brand/category
- Ensures access to market intelligence through various sources on competition pricing and business and analysis of trends which may impact the Business Unit
- Monitors and analyses business performance by brand/category sales, sell-out, gross margin and turnover and translates insights into key selling points, or category opportunities
- Manages and tracks brand/category sales planning and forecasting processes
- Ensures effective ‘in season’ management for the given brand/category of products (stock balancing, markdown management, stock analysis, stock vs sales performance)
- Leads and oversees the buying requirements and formulates buying plan and budget for the brand/category and ensures proper monitoring of orders based on the buying plan and follow-ups on merchandise delivery as per the plan
- Manages the relationship and liaises with principals/supplies on matters relating to price negotiations, product launches, marketing campaigns, forthcoming offerings and events
- Coordinates regular meetings with Area Managers/Store Managers to share insights arising from market dynamics and brand/category performance
- Collaborates with the visual merchandising function to provide brand/category guidelines and implementations of the same in all retail outlets
- Collaborates with the retail marketing function, to ensure maximum visibility of their category through retail marketing
- Analyses sales related data for products within the brand/category portfolio and provides insights into enhancing potential sales opportunities
- Works with the Human Resource department to coordinate training related to products and customer service, to ensure personnel knowledge of key product features and benefits across the stores

Requirements

Requirements:
- Open to ANY nationals
- Male/Female, 38 years old and below
- Bachelor’s degree in Business Management/ Marketing or equivalent
- Master’s degree in Buying and Merchandising
- Minimum of 8 to 10 years of relevant experience in the lifestyle retail industry with at least 4 years in managing brand/category of products
- Excellent English communication skills is required, Arabic is an advantage
- Advanced knowledge in content strategy and Digital marketing will be a plus

About the Company

RTC-1 Employment Services is a licensed recruitment firm based in Dubai, UAE. Our team has been in the market since 2004 and we are supporting various industries with their staffing needs across the Middle East and Africa.