Assistant Manager, Buying
Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization:
This role supports the Franchise Business by driving and executing trading activities, including reviewing buys and collaborating closely with external franchise buyers and in-season trading teams. The focus is on delivering planned sales, optimizing margins, and ensuring effective stock management.
This includes:
- Implementing the country merchandising strategy in alignment with overall business objectives.
- Executing the end-to-end merchandising process to ensure seamless operations.
- Providing guidance on buying strategy and assortment planning for franchise stores.
- Delivering relevant insights and feedback to the Product/ Omni-Channel teams to support continuous improvement.
Key Responsibilities:
- Drive initiatives and provide guidance on franchise store buying, leading the buy process with Franchise Partners to ensure optimal store performance and alignment with company standards.
- Develop product assortments based on share of business, considering store formats, product categories, store types, and gender mix for FRS.
- Support the implementation of key country strategic priorities across all FRS stores.
- Assist the Buying Manager in planning and executing buys in line with OTB across all franchise doors.
- Drive and achieve key benchmarks and KPIs, including productivity and sell-through performance.
- Support FRS partners by providing the right range recommendations per store, aligned with EM/SEA seasonal strategies to ensure an appropriate and effective buy.
- Ensure all orders for FRS are placed accurately and within the required timelines.
- Collaborate closely with external franchise buyers and In-Season Trading teams to ensure product grading and option plans align with space management guidelines for FRS.
- Manage in-season chase models (Best Seller, In-Season Creation, and Planned Responsiveness) to maintain optimal inventory levels for FRS.
- Adhere to the FRS store visit schedule to ensure sufficient time is spent in stores for performance review and execution follow-up.
Key Relationships:
- Internal: Franchise Team, Product Team/OMNI Channel, Brand Comms, VM, Finance
- External: Franchise Partners
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
Competency
- Strong analytical mind set - details and numbers oriented
- Datamining & Presentation skills
- Business Acumen & problem-solving skills
- Category know how - products, ranges, market trends
- Planning & Organizing
- Manage Relationships and diversity
- Big picture thinking
- Process and system understanding
- Learning and self-development
- Collaboration & Influencing skills
- Ability to multitask
Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications
- Professional Background/Experience:
- Functional: Minimum 2 years in Retail Industry
- Industry: Preferably in Sports & Fashion or FMCG Retail
- Commercial or key account sales experience will have an added advantage for this role.
- Education:
- Degree or Diploma in Fashion / Marketing / Retail Management
Microsoft Skills
- Excel: Advanced
- PowerPoint: Advanced
- Word: Advanced
Language Skills
- English: Advanced
- Local Language: Fluent
At adidas, we strongly believe that embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into our culture and talent processes gives our employees a sense of belonging and our brand a real competitive advantage.
– Culture Starts With People, It Starts With You –
By recruiting talent and developing our people to reflect the rich diversity of our consumers and communities, we foster a culture of inclusion that engages our employees and authentically connects our brand with our consumers.