<p><strong>Regional Category Planner</strong></p> <p>Grocery Food is one of the most exciting categories at Sainsbury’s, and with millions of customers&nbsp;<i>every week</i>, our products are essential whether you’re having beans for breakfast or cooking up the latest cuisine. But it's within our Speciality areas that we see the biggest untapped growth opportunities, and this role exists to grow our total Food and General Merchandise business in Scotland and Northern Ireland.</p> <p>This is not a traditional category planning position; this is a strategic, high-profile opportunity for someone who can leverage their network, their influencing skills, and their understanding of customers, commercials, and colleagues to deliver against the huge opportunity we believe exists in our regions.</p> <p>In this pivotal role, there is the chance to scope and shape our strategy to create and deliver a market leading proposition for our regional customers. We already have a strong regional product range in Scotland and Northern Ireland, however there is headroom to drive other elements of the customer experience to match and surpass our competitors and win greater market share.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>As a Regional Category Planner, you’ll:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Use data and insights, our suppliers and existing regional team to set the strategy and develop a market leading proposition for our customers</li> <li>Identify and prioritise opportunities for growth across range, channels, legislation, operations, buying and selling strategies</li> <li>Design and deliver this growth programme to achieve the fair share opportunity across our Food and General Merchandise business</li> <li>Set project milestones, deliverables, ARCIs and measures of success</li> <li>Engage senior leaders across the business to ensure their teams' support, covering Marketing, Commercial Operations, Trading and Retail Operations, to name but a few</li> <li>Utilise your strong network and ability to drive change through others</li> <li>Track and review progress against KPIs, continuously iterating the programme to engineer market share growth</li> <li>Regularly update senior stakeholders on progress and further support required</li> <li>Lead a C4 Range Planner, contributing positively to their growth and development and delivery of KPIs</li> <li>Have a relentless focus on spotting opportunities for growth and efficiency</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Essential criteria:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Demonstrated success in end-to-end strategic planning, from setting defined project objectives aligned to the customer, commercial and operational outcomes, to embedding the plan with teams and delivering results</li> <li>Excellent stakeholder management, ability to build strong relationships and deliver through cross-functional teams</li> <li>Confidence and experience in engaging and influencing senior stakeholders across the business, required to gain support for key initiatives</li> <li>Proven customer-centricity, <span>underpinned by the ability to interpret and apply data and insights to drive decision-making</span></li> <li>Commercial astuteness, with a laser-sharp focus on delivering against KPIs</li> <li>Highly organised and efficient, with a passion for planning, coordination, and successful project delivery</li> <li>A highly analytical mind, capable of interpreting multiple complex sources and communicating the ‘so what?’ simply and impactfully</li> <li>Comfortable in working with a high degree of ambiguity and the need for ongoing reprioritisation</li> <li>A solid understanding of Food retail and commercial operations</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p>