Sr. Category Manager – Lokworx & Prepworx

Shaw•Dalton, GA

4d•Onsite

About The Position

Shaw Industries Group, Inc. is a leader in flooring and other surface solutions designed for residential housing, commercial spaces and outdoor environments. Leveraging strengths in design, innovation and operational excellence, the company takes a people-centered, customer-focused, and growth-minded approach to meet diverse market needs. It creates differentiated customer experiences through its expansive portfolio of brands: Anderson Tuftex, COREtec, Shaw Floors, Patcraft, Philadelphia Commercial, Shaw Contract, Shaw Sports Turf, Shawgrass, Southwest Greens, Watershed Geo and more. Headquartered in Dalton, Georgia, Shaw is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. with more than $6 billion in annual sales and 18,000 associates worldwide. The Category Manager’s primary aim is to execute all critical go-to-market and product management initiatives to ensure sales and NDC (Net Divisional Contribution) success. This will be accomplished with specific focus on product and brand management, product assortment analysis, key business metrics development and analysis, sample/expense/inventory control, and support of Territory Managers and TotalWorx Business Development Managers in the field.

Requirements

Minimum of 5 years of experience required in flooring adhesives and/or floor prep products, including solutions for LVP, hardwood, carpet, carpet tile, moisture mitigation, patch, and self-leveling applications.
Working knowledge of flooring installation systems and the technical requirements that influence product selection and performance.
Background in vendor management, cost negotiation, pricing strategy, and margin delivery for a product category.
Ability to serve as the internal subject matter expert and provide technical guidance and sales support across the Lokworx and Prepworx categories.
Consistent customer/salesperson interaction via travel, telephone and email. Having significant customer/salesperson relationships is a requirement.

Nice To Haves

4 year degree

Responsibilities

Work with all disciplines that drive Shaw’s Lokworx & Prepworx profitability and growth. This will require key relationships throughout the company.
Develop and manage a strategic plan for growth and profitability of our Lokworx and Prepworx businesses through all Shaw selling channels with particular focus on the products manufactured by Shaw.
Responsible for all product management requirements associated with Lokworx and Prepworx products sold by Shaw’s Commercial Division with the exception of the Commercial go-to-market strategy. This involves vendor engagement, product curation, coordinating product testing and evaluation, sku set-up and pricing.
Supporting Shaw’s Commercial Division will require close collaboration with the Director of Shaw Commercial’s TotalWorx business.
Assist in the development of the business model and budgeting for the quarterly and annual business plans.
Work passionately and with high energy to lead change and drive innovation in each category.
Work seamlessly with global sourcing to ensure we are developing the appropriate supply partners and providing our customers the necessary tools to grow their business. The goal is to have long term, profitable relationships with each vendor.
The primary contact for the field marketing organization on product, training and marketing related issues. Communicate the product and marketing plans to the field in a consistent and effective manner.
Travel with field salespeople to visit key customers to learn what is important to them and develop programs that best support their business.
Help manage inventory levels and turns in concert with sourcing, inventory management and forecasting.
Help manage and minimize excess inventory by monitoring the levels and promoting excess with the highest possible recovery, proactively seeing and correcting issues while they are still manageable.
Attend all key markets, events and meetings at the field level to understand the market and develop relationships.
Consistent customer/salesperson interaction via travel, telephone and email. Having significant customer/salesperson relationships is a requirement.
Develop and meet sample inventory metrics.
Work closely with Marketing Technology to ensure that these categories are an integral part of our digital marketing effort.
Develop and maintain accurate price lists and support our DVP’s and TMs with our pricing strategies.
Develop key measures for the sales force and monitor them regularly.
Responsible for establishing profitable, market competitive pricing on all Lokworx and Prepworx products to enable achievement of the department’s NDC objective while achieving our MAS (%) targets.
Successfully manage the product assortment to minimize the negative effects of sku obsolescence. Plan for attrition and addition in a managed fashion.
Work closely with Technical Services and Quality to ensure that the products we source are thoroughly vetted prior to onboarding and that they are consistently evaluated to maintain our quality standards.
Must have a keen understanding of the competitive landscape to know how our products fare against comparable products in our field. This understanding should involve product features & benefits, technical performance, market pricing and origin.
Follow our New Product Introduction protocol/process when curating new products to onboard.
Provide guidance and leadership to the Category Manager (direct report) and Coordinator (direct report) to ensure that they’re managing the product portfolio from a systems perspective.