Category Analyst
Description
Bringing our love of food to families for five generations! Blount Fine Foods is a family-owned and operated manufacturer, marketer, and developer of premium fresh prepared foods. We are an engaging team, bringing restaurant-quality products to America including single-serve grab-n-go fresh soups, mac & cheese, and entrées in grocery stores across the country, as well as for hot bars and restaurants. Help us create the finest food experiences including those with specialty certifications that include organic, gluten-free, and low sodium, among others. Join a proven team for growth, success, and a satisfying career!
Summary – The Sales Analyst is tasked with driving the short and long-term health and success of Blount’s owned and licensed CPG brands. Success will be measured by the development and execution of fact-based dashboards, reporting, and analytical models used to enhance decision making across the marketing and sales function to produce desired results. This role will work closely as part of the marketing and sales teams to track key activities, evaluate their success, and identify how they contribute to the sales pipeline and ensure they are offering an adequate return on investment (ROI). We expect this role to leverage syndicated data sources and weave this quantitative analysis with qualitative information to drive our business forward. Additional internal systems, reporting and portals will be integral to leverage and understand in creating a full view and analysis of the business. The Sales Analyst will work proactively with cross-functional teams, including Sales & Marketing, R&D, Communications, Operations, and Customer Service to understand data points applicable to each group and to advise on areas for tracking data.
Summary – The Sales Analyst is tasked with driving the short and long-term health and success of Blount’s owned and licensed CPG brands. Success will be measured by the development and execution of fact-based dashboards, reporting, and analytical models used to enhance decision making across the marketing and sales function to produce desired results. This role will work closely as part of the marketing and sales teams to track key activities, evaluate their success, and identify how they contribute to the sales pipeline and ensure they are offering an adequate return on investment (ROI). We expect this role to leverage syndicated data sources and weave this quantitative analysis with qualitative information to drive our business forward. Additional internal systems, reporting and portals will be integral to leverage and understand in creating a full view and analysis of the business. The Sales Analyst will work proactively with cross-functional teams, including Sales & Marketing, R&D, Communications, Operations, and Customer Service to understand data points applicable to each group and to advise on areas for tracking data.
Essential Duties:
- Sales and Promotional Analysis
- Conducts category reviews and analysis, including category management, space management, product evaluation and promotional planning for strategic accounts.
- Analyze retailer and shopper behavior, leveraging data and insights for actionable recommendations.
- Identify trends and opportunities for brands and competitors.
- Manages and analyzes syndicated and non-syndicated category data resources.
- Develops and shares best-practices within the sales, marketing, and forecasting teams.
- Identify opportunities to create analytics communications, reports and dashboards for the marketing and sales teams.
- Develop materials and presentations to assist sales team in driving Blount brand across key retailers.
- Partner with Sales team to build A/B testing methodologies to better understand promotion incrementality and fatigue.
- Business Performance
- Lead efforts to define and implement frameworks for measuring, reporting, and analyzing sales performance for Blount and Panera Brands to gain alignment on key issues facing the business.
- Strategically analyze the brand’s strengths and opportunities vs category trends/key competitors and identify growth area or risks for our core franchises.
- Develop dashboards and standardize reporting for Blount and Panera brands to share ongoing insights to key stakeholders (sales, marketing, and operations).
- Active participant and expert in trade planning, allocation, and analysis.
- Forecasting
- Leverage market data and insights to develop forecasting models to project the sales for core brands and new product initiatives.
- Maintain and communicate internally and externally periodic updates to forecasts.
- Strong data skills – must be comfortable analyzing large quantities of data and have passion for data analysis, with a curiosity to get to the root of a problem and solve it
- Demonstrated experience working across marketing functions, collaboratively with sales and sales operations.
- Experience working with retail customers across Grocery, Mass, and Club Channels
- Understanding of marketplace data from syndicated sources and knowledge of resources to obtain information.
- Proven ability to formulate recommendations based upon robust research, market insights, and assessment of risk/rewards.
- Strong presentation skills with the ability to adjust style, content, and format as required to suit the audience.
- Ability to manage multiple priorities in fast-paced environment, work collaboratively with cross-functional teams, and ensure high quality deliverables with high attention to detail.
- Applies initiative and independent judgment to resolve non-routine problems.
Education and/or Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree (B.A.) from a four-year college or university required: MBA preferred;
- 5+ years of related experience in a brand or category management role with a CPG company being a strong advantage.
- Working knowledge of Microsoft Excel (pivot tables, v-lookups and more). Depth of experience with Tableau, Syndicated data sources (IRI/Nielsen) and PowerBI.
Our Total Compensation Package Includes:
- Medical, dental and vision benefits
- 401k with Company match
- Paid time off including vacation, sick time and holidays
- Education Assistance Program
- Life Insurance and Short-Term Disability
- Discounts on Blount products at Company retail locations
- Discretionary Annual Bonus Program