Coca-Cola Company Jobs

Focus, Scope, & Impact:

• The Category Management Director must navigate the complexities of managing global brands in Mexican market, each with its unique consumer preferences and regulatory environments. Achieving excellence in category management at Coca-Cola would mean balancing global brand consistency with localized strategies to maximize both impact and relevance across different regions.

• Responsibilities span across various dimensions of the business, with a primary focus on Leading the CATMAN community across the Mexican bottling system, leading a category vision and building the necessary capabilities within the system to better serve our national and regional business partners. Optimizing product categories to meet consumer demands effectively while maximizing profits. Considering this overarching goal, let's break down the responsibilities into Focus, Scope, and Impact.

• The CATMAN director will be in charge of a team of executives who will be responsible for leading CATMAN's strategy in different channels, customers or categories.

Focus:

• Category Strategy Development: Create and implement strategies for category growth based on thorough market analysis, consumer behavior insights, and trends.

• Product Assortment and Placement: Optimize product assortment, shelf placement, and pricing strategies to improve category performance.

• Collaboration with Sales and Marketing Teams: Work closely with sales and marketing to ensure that category strategies are aligned with brand objectives and supported by promotional activities.

• Data Analysis: Leverage data analytics to understand category dynamics, including sales performance, market trends, competitor activities, and consumer preferences.

Scope:

• Market Research: Conduct ongoing market research to identify opportunities for innovation and growth within product categories.

• Supplier and Retailer Relations: Manage relationships with suppliers and retailers to ensure effective category management practices are applied across all channels.

• Inventory Management: Oversee inventory levels and supply chain operations related to the categories, ensuring product availability, and minimizing stockouts.

• Financial Performance: Monitor and report on the financial performance of product categories, including sales, margin analysis, and profitability.

• Cross-functional Leadership: Act as a category advocate within the organization, influencing and guiding cross-functional teams to achieve category objectives.

Impact:

• Sales Growth: Drive sales growth within categories through effective management and strategic initiatives.

• Market Share Expansion: Increase Coca-Cola's market share in each category by understanding and catering to consumer needs better than competitors.

• Innovation and Product Development: Spearhead innovation within the category by identifying and capitalizing on emerging trends to develop new products or enhance existing ones.

• Enhanced Customer Experience: Improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through targeted product offerings, promotions, and improved shelf presence.

• Sustainability Initiatives: Integrate sustainability into category management practices to align with Coca-Cola's environmental goals and consumer expectations regarding ethical and sustainable products.

KEY SUCCESS PARAMETERS

Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Industrial Engineer, Finance, or related field required 

• 5+ years of experience in Commercial Execution, Market Development and Channel Strategy.

• Problem solving mindset with strong Analytical Skills, and a good working knowledge of digital solutions and machine learning models.

• Outstanding influencing skills and cross-functional collaborative working standards.

• Deep understanding of Value Chain concept.

• Ability to motivate and work well with diverse, global, and cross functional teams.  

Work Focus

The Category Management Director's role at Coca-Cola is to ensure each category's products are perfectly positioned to meet consumer needs, achieve financial targets, and contribute to the global growth and strategic vision of the company. Work focus encompasses several critical areas to maximize the performance and growth of product categories within the portfolio. Here's a concise outline of their focus areas:

• Strategic Planning: Developing and executing comprehensive category strategies that align with Coca-Cola's overall business objectives and market opportunities. This includes identifying growth opportunities, setting targets, and defining the strategic direction for each category.

• Market Insights and Analysis: Leveraging market research, consumer insights, and data analytics to understand market trends, consumer behaviors, and competitive landscape. This insight is crucial for making informed decisions about product development, positioning, and promotional strategies.

• Assortment Optimization: Determining the optimal product assortment and range that meets consumer needs and preferences while ensuring alignment with Coca-Cola's brand and business objectives. This involves continuously reviewing the product mix, introducing new products, and phasing out underperforming ones.

• Pricing and Promotional Strategies: Setting pricing strategies that maximize profitability and competitiveness, and planning promotions to drive category growth. This requires a deep understanding of the price elasticity of products and the effectiveness of various promotional activities.

• Cross-functional Collaboration: Working closely with sales, marketing, supply chain, and finance teams to ensure seamless execution of category strategies. This includes aligning on promotional plans, ensuring supply chain efficiency for product availability, and financial planning to meet revenue and profit targets.

• Shelf Placement and Merchandising: Collaborating with retail partners to optimize shelf placement and in-store merchandising efforts to enhance visibility and shopper appeal. This also involves negotiating for prime shelf spaces and creating impactful point-of-sale displays.

• Supplier and Retailer Engagement: Building and sustaining strong relationships with suppliers and retailers to support category initiatives. This includes joint business planning, collaborative marketing efforts, and aligning on mutual growth objectives.

• Innovation and New Product Development: Leading the innovation pipeline for the category by identifying consumer needs that are not being met and working with product development teams to bring new products to market.

• Sustainability and Social Responsibility: Incorporating sustainability into category management practices, ensuring that products and supply chains align with Coca-Cola's sustainability goals. This includes reducing environmental impact, ensuring ethical sourcing, and contributing to social well-being.

Communication Focus

• Developing and nurturing strong relationships with bottlers for ensuring strategy implementation.

• The Coca-Cola Company, involves a multi-faceted approach to communication. In this position, one has the responsibility for sharing information, influencing others, and negotiating with stakeholders, each of which plays a crucial role in achieving business objectives. Here's how these responsibilities manifest:

• Sharing Information

• Clarity and Transparency: The lead should share information clearly and transparently with all relevant parties. This can include internal updates on project progress, changes in strategy, or sharing insights derived from market analysis and consumer trends.

• Tailoring the Message: It is also about ensuring that the information is tailored and relevant to the audience, whether they are team members, higher management, or external partners.

• Influencing Others

• Vision and Strategy Communication: A key part of the role involves influencing others to buy into the company's vision and commercial strategy. This requires persuasive communication skills to articulate the value and impact of proposed initiatives.

• Change Management: Influencing is crucial in leading change management efforts, encouraging teams to embrace new processes, technologies, or strategies in pursuit of competitive advantage.

• Negotiating with Others

• With Internal Stakeholders: Negotiation within the context of internal stakeholders might involve securing resources, gaining buy-in for new initiatives, or managing internal expectations regarding project timelines or outcomes.

• With External Partners: Externally, negotiating can involve discussions with suppliers, bottlers, or retail partners to ensure favorable terms, addressing issues like execution, communication, and campaigns deployment.

Skills:

Leadership; Sales Process; Account Management; Customer Relationship Management (CRM); Sales Management; Marketing; Sales; Pitch Presentations; Consultative Sales Management; Communication; National Account Sales; Decision Making; Business Development; Negotiation

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