CATEGORY MANAGER SPORTSWEAR
Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization:
Drive and ensure business success for dedicated product division (focus category – Sportswear FTW & Accessories) with focus on key countries Poland and Czech Republic. Support the GTM Director with the execution of a robust category GTM plan, within the strategic framework set by the Global & European BU’s & following the EU PRIORITIES & Cluster Central Europe execution plan.
Key Responsibilities:
GTM:
- Delivers a complete GTM proposition & local category marketing plan (GTM plan) in line with strategic objectives for dedicated product division
- GTM plan contains product, distribution, communication & activation tools, sports marketing, omnichannel
- Product Division expert within the Category
- Represent the brand and BU internally and externally.
- Support the European BU on local ranging, forecasting, and pricing topics (data, mark-up, segmentation, allocation).
- Provide input into SMU for local key accounts.
- Get an early preview of the new season: Collaborate with stakeholders to review product concepts, provide feedback on market alignment, and ensure the product assortment meets demand.
- Work with stakeholders to create activation plans for product launches, determining retailer selection and marketing budget allocation.
- Ensure effective Go-To-Market execution, managing the product journey from HQ creation to retail landing, including retailer selection, activations, and visibility.
- Own the process from product creation (with no direct impact) to its retail landing and activations.
Collaboration & Process:
- Key contact person for Sales as well as cross functional marketing teams
- Develop category plans and drive handover to Sales during Sales & Marketing meetings (SMM)
- Together with Sports Marketing, create and present specific promo ranges and product offers in alignment with Europe BU
- Ensures an efficient execution of the given sample order process & on target/budget
- Engage with a x-functional group of category experts from different marketing & sales teams (“category/master-groups”) to drive the review and steering of the Cluster GTM plan and process for the Category
- Serve as the voice of CZ & Poland towards Europe, ensuring that the needs of local markets are communicated effectively to European counterparts.
- Serve as the voice of Europe within local markets, translating European strategies into actionable local plans.
Commercial & Analytics:
- Demonstrate a “full marketplace” attitude (ALL countries & channels: DTC, WHS, X-border accounts) and stays in close exchange with the relevant AKA teams
- Drives the successful sell-in process (from Category input, over pre-lines to sell-in meetings of identified strategic accounts)
- Develops relevant distribution and segmentation strategies to successfully manage key franchises in the Cluster (MRA tiering, Allocation)
- Uses available market data to build dedicated product division plans (e.g. NPD data)
- Maintain regular analytics on the sell-in and sell-through performance of respective category (analytical support from Finance team)
- Give input to European BU’s on country price-grouping and submit requests exception throughout the pricing process
- Provide feedback on product offerings and suggest necessary adjustments to align with local market needs, particularly for seasonal products (FW/SS).
Key Relationships:
- Brand activation & Sports Marketing teams
- Sales, AKA & DTC
- European BU
- Cluster MOPS
- Business & Sales Development
- Finance teams
- DTC & Cross-boarder accounts
KPIs:
- Net Sales
- Net Margin
- Go In Margin
- Sell out
- Market share development
- Share of search
Knowledge, skills and abilities:
- Consumer focus with deep product and range knowledge (app, ftw, acc) with a strong understanding of seasonality (FW/SS).
- Excellent understanding of the balanced relationship between brand and commercial aspects to develop distribution-channel-specific GTM solutions
- Strong understanding of sports and or lifestyle industry, or at least familiarity with the sports market and its trends.
- Strong organizational and convincing presentation skills
- Passionate about sports & fashion
- Pro- active (engaging & impact-oriented) mindset, ability to think end-to-end
- Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with different international cultures
- Business mindset: Very good numerical and analytical skills, experience in finance
- Good experience to manage projects on cross-functional level
- Manager with advanced cross functional marketing knowledge and market experience in sport and/or fashion/lifestyle categories
- Passionate about sports & fashion
Requisite Education and Experience/Minimum Qualifications
- University degree in business administration, ideally with marketing and sales focus or equivalent professional experience
- 4+ years’ experience in merchandising, cross-functional marketing and/or sales
- Fluency in English (written and spoken), Polish is a great plus.
- IT skills: Outlook and Word: basic; Excel and PowerPoint: advanced
- Competencies also for hybrid teams (remote teams)
- People Connector – inclusive mindset and team player living DEI standards
- Regular travel required (30% within a year across Central/Eastern Europe)
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.