Books Category Manager at Text Book Centre (TBC)

We will endure by reinventing ourselves, striving to satisfy our customers and delighting our consumers, while remaining true to our mission and values. We are therefore looking for an experienced, talented and customer-focused Books Category Manager to lead the evolution and growth of one of our largest category in a rapidly changing environment and marketplace.
As the Books Category Manager, you will focus on delivering a world-class customer experience and exceptional sales and margin growth for the sub-categories that you are responsible for as we rapidly expand our selection both locally and from around the world. Furthermore, you own defining new selection, building deep understanding on assortment management processes, category planning with internal partners, driving efficiencies into our processes on selection onboarding, in stock improvement and producing a best-in-class experience for our customers across each of our wholesale and direct-to-consumer distribution channels.
Our future colleague must share our passion and commitment to serve our customers and the community and should ideally have experience in forging and building relationships along with excellent understanding of planning product cycles in an omnichannel environment (wholesale, stores, e-commerce). The right candidate will be curious, action and results oriented, and have strong analytical skills. S/He must have a proven track record in taking ownership, driving results and moving with speed to implement data-driven decisions and ideas in a fast-paced environment.
In this role, you are an entrepreneur, a head of business unit, a team-leader and an operator who both knows how to be scrappy while operating as part of a larger team and business. You are a strong leader who is analytical and data-driven, can prioritize well, communicate clearly and compellingly, and who understands how to drive a high level of focus and excellence.

Main Responsibilities and Accountabilities

• Owns the Books category end-to-end across all our channels (wholesale, owned stores, franchised stores, e-commerce) and is responsible for the performance of the category: assortment, financials, merchandising, pricing and consumer experience
• Leads the category from selection of the suppliers, sourcing of the products, definition and distribution of the assortment, inventory management, along with merchandising and marketing/promotional activities
• Owns the commercial calendar for the books category in order to maximize each commercial opportunity to grow sales and visibility of TBC
• Creates and develops a data-driven category business plan and strategy for development of the category and leads its execution
• Builds and leads a team to execute on business area or category objectives
• Coaches, drives and inspires team members and provides feedback to enhance skills, knowledge and work performance
• Defines success for the category and engages team to deliver business results consistent with category strategy
• Ensures premium merchandising standards across all channels to enhance consumer experience, including product presentation, content, customer reviews and enhancements
• Evolves and elevates the category's assortment strategy through in-market expertise and identifies assortment gaps and opportunities
• Optimizes the product sourcing mix across manufacturers, distributors and third-party retailers
• Works with planning and supply chain partners to manage owned inventory in the books category
• Owns vendor relationships, including negotiating product costs and supplier funding
• Ensures holistic price competitiveness and adherence
• Collaborates with marketing and creative teams on category messaging
• ·Leads category management projects to optimize ranges and related merchandising
• Fosters trust relationships with vendors to achieve better pricing and quality of services and places appropriate orders to ensure product availability that meets consumer demands
• Works alongside wholesale and retail teams to translate customer insights into strategies which drive performance
•  Manages P&L and ensures achievement of category financial targets and identifies levers to achieve these targets

Experience  

• Masters degree in Business, retail or related fields
• 8-10 years experience in business, retail or related fields in the FMCG sector
• 5 years non-food category management in an omnichannel retail environment
• Strong negotiator with proven experience in setting negotiation strategies and conducting negotiations
• Extremely customer-focused and takes the time to understand the evolution of the market and the needs of the business
• Deep expertise in inventory Management, Planning, and Merchandising both in physical and digital retail environments
• Strong analytical skills including the ability to quickly synthesize, distill and draw conclusions on large amounts of disparate data
• Ability to manage multiple simultaneous projects requiring frequent communication, organization, time management, and problem-solving skills
• Analytical thinking and the ability to analyze retail insights and break down the components but still be able to see the bigger picture
• Excellent written, verbal and presentation skills