The CompanySSP UK are currently recruiting for a Category Manager to join our Commercial team, following an internal move. The Category Manager works with our Commercial Brand Managers or Heads of Commercial to create commercial plans for a brand or small portfolio of brands within a category e.g. Casual Dining and Bars, Coffee and Bakery, Retail. The overall goal is to deliver EBITDA growth from like-for-like sales and gross margin improvement activity. Whilst supporting the brand driven commercial plan, a category driven commercial plan will be developed to meet the same goals.As a senior member of the team the Category Manager will be expected to drive new ideas and improve existing approaches to to drive like-for-like sales growth, via activities such as range improvement, optimisation of price and promotion, upselling and maximisation of the use of space.The RoleAs Category Manager your activity will focus on both cross brand category performance as well as the performance of the brand or brands. In this role, you'll use a range of tools and approaches to achieve gross margin improvement: working with stakeholders to identify and take advantage of supplier income opportunities; drawing upon the expertise of the culinary team to simplify and standardise recipes or develop new ones; and finding ways to reduce the impact that commercial activity has on waste and labour. This role requires a rigorous and thorough commercial modelling and analysis ensuring all commercial activity is profit additive, hence the Category Manager will present regularly to the UK and Global CEOs and other senior stakeholders; Plans must stand up to scrutiny, demonstrating that due rigour has been applied. Success in this role is highly dependent on an effective relationship with the operational teams so that commercial initiatives can be designed with a good understanding of operational processes (including procurement and supply chain) and the impact on front line activity, and in order to support the teams on compliance.The Category Manager may also need to manage external stakeholders in order to ensure that SSP achieves its commercial outcomes whilst satisfying the requirements of the client and our brand partners.Key tasks * Planning * Commercial / category plan - support the Head of Commercial to create the commercial / category plan for each of the specified brand or brands * Sign off - submit proposed sales and gross margin improvement activities to weekly trade / monthly commercial forum meetings for approval * Support Commercial manager / Head of commercial to ensure preparation analysis is completed to support marketing briefs to access marketing services * Modelling * Ensure activities are modelled with clear assumptions and rational to support the assumptions * Test and learn activity is designed with robust control groups and expectations of success are clear before activities are live * New openings, modelling of forecast sales mix at product level working alongside Commercial managers * Support Category manager (or) Commercial manager in preparing proposals for trading or commercial forum sign off * Implementation / Analysis * Reviewing data pre to post or year on year, normalisation of data to ensure seasonal and external factors driving performance are mitigated within reason * Ensure that the true cost to the business of product decisions is considered, within analysis * Post competition review of new openings * Pricing trial and elasticity reviews * Look for optimisation opportunities either in other brands or in other product categories where similar principles can be applied * Support Category manager (or) Commercial manager in preparing proposals for trading or commercial forum sign off * Reporting / MI * Review - report results at weekly trade and monthly commercial forum meetings. Assess whether forecast has been achieved and EBITDA can be banked. * Highlight new opportunities to improve performance through regular reviews of MI * Ensure that opportunities are highlight and discussed with Commercial Executive / Managers * Other * Spend time in the field observing and supporting implementation in operational units The BenefitsSSP is a world-wide retail catering company with operations in 32 countries and employing over 30,000 people. In the UK we operate retail catering sites at railway stations, airports and shopping centres across the county. As Category Manager, we offer you a competitive salary of up to £45,000 plus benefits.We also offer a benefits package including great training and learning and development opportunities and a discount scheme involving lots of high street retailers and service providers.