Category Advisor

Lactalis USA is currently seeking candidates to join our Category team in Bentonville, AR.

Lactalis, the world leader in dairy, is a family-owned business with more than 85,000 pragmatic and ambitious professionals worldwide, committed to nurturing the future by providing healthy and delicious dairy products that bring people together every day. We produce award-winning dairy products that bring people together every day. We offer an enviable range of dairy brands including Galbani®, Président®, Kraft® Natural Cheese, Cracker Barrel®, Black Diamond®, Parmalat®, Siggi’s®, and Stonyfield Organic® in addition to several brands imported from our affiliates in Europe.

At Lactalis, our core values of AMBITION, ENGAGEMENT, and SIMPLICITY are at the heart of everything we do. We are dedicated to building a safe, diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace and we know that our candidates come from many different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job posting, we still encourage you to apply and share with us your STORY, your PASSION, and your EXPERTISE! You may be just the perfect candidate for this or other roles within our company.

From your PASSION to ours

The Category Advisor is a customer-facing position that supports the Walmart and Sam’s Club advisor teams by developing and presenting strategic plans in collaboration with the customer, internal insights, and research resources. This position will leverage advanced technical skills and resources to unearth insights specific to the customer and category that provide the necessary building blocks to cultivate the modular relay strategy. This position also has ownership of the strategic thought leadership recommendations through optimized assortment for the modular relay processes. This role will straddle two Lactalis USA business units (Lactalis America Group & Lactalis Heritage Dairy) with visibility to both Dairy and Deli/Specialty Cheese, with the priority being the Specialty/Deli Entertaining Category Advisorship.

From your EXPERTISE to ours

Key responsibilities for this position include:

• Become a trusted partner and expert for the buyer and act as advisor on key categories to create and implement strategic recommendations on improvements in selling strategies for the account
• Elevate best in class category management principles driving efficiency and effectiveness
• Deliver fully integrated consumer, category, and market insights to guide Walmart’s strategic choices and tactical actions
• Develop impactful customer-specific selling stories in support of category business building initiatives and resulting in market leading growth
• Analyze syndicated data (scanner, HH panel, etc.) to identify key insights and business recommendations on distribution, assortment, pricing, and promotion.
• Develop and integrate consumer, shopper and retailer insights to better inform targeted strategies, plans and decisions
• Leverage insight resources to prioritize consumer and shopper needs and opportunities
• Lead broader space initiatives across aisle and store
• Analyze planograms to optimize assortment based on productivity, pricing, promotions, product, or placement
• Identify and measure promotional & competitive activities
• Maintain the confidentiality of Wal-Mart category and competitive data

Qualified applicants will contribute the following:

Education

• Bachelor's degree is required

Experience

• 3 years consumer package goods (CPG) experience is required.
• 3 years JDA/Blue Yonder or other Space Planning experience is required.

Certifications and specific knowledge

• Strong capability in analyzing data, formulating recommendations, and developing presentations
• Strong knowledge of consumer products and developing partnerships with national accounts
• Strong strategic planning, organizational, interpersonal skills; must be able to work effectively in teams with high customer focus
• Able to communicate effectively (verbal, written, and presentation skills), manage time effectively, build relationships across disciplines, and exercise varying degrees of judgment, independence, and discretion
• Self-starter, motivated and intellectually curious with the ability to manage multiple initiatives simultaneously
• Strong syndicated and panel data knowledge
• Space management software skills (JDA Space Planning)
• Ability to comprehend and sell space management concepts within the context of category management
• Working knowledge of computers and related systems including proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Power BI as well as Retail Link, Luminate, Madrid and Third-Party Syndicated Data such as IRI
• Ability to Travel (up to 10-15%)
• Candidate is ideally located in Northwest Arkansas