Sr Category Manager :: Leading Consumer Electronics MNC

Role & responsibilities

Job Title: Sr Category Manager

Location: Gurugram, HR

Full time permanent role

Role Overview:

As the Senior Category Manager - Marketing, you will have end-to-end strategic, financial, and operational ownership of your assigned product category. You will blend consumer insights, product strategy, and data-driven marketing to launch new products, optimize the existing portfolio, and drive market share.

This role requires an agile leader who can seamlessly navigate between long-term product roadmapping, rigorous P&L management, consumer research, and ground-level trade enablement. You will be fully accountable for driving market share, optimizing product mix, and ensuring flawless go-to-market execution.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Annual & Long-Term Strategic Planning

• Annual Business Planning: Draft and execute the annual category plan, taking absolute ownership of core metrics including market share expansion, volume growth, and margin delivery.
• 3-Year Product Roadmap: Define and maintain a robust 3-year product pipeline and portfolio roadmap, backed comprehensively by consumer learnings and competitive insights.
• Data-Driven Growth: Continuously analyze primary and secondary market research data alongside market share trends to identify untapped growth opportunities.

2. Financial Management & Project Accountability

• Project Financials: Own the financial decision-making process for category projects, evaluating and passing them based on stringent ROI and payback period benchmarks.
• The Project Triangle: Direct and manage product development and marketing initiatives to ensure all projects strictly satisfy the Cost-Quality-Time triangle.

3. Consumer Insights, Positioning & Communication

• Direct Consumer Engagement: Regularly meet and interface with consumers on-ground to extract deep insights on how to improve existing product offerings and identify pipeline innovations.
• Value Proposition & Brand Control: Define and validate the right consumer proposition for the category. Retain end-to-end control over all marketing, brand, and product communication to ensure messaging consistency and brand compliance.
• Competitive Pricing & Fit: Monitor and analyze competitive landscapes continuously to ensure Whirlpools offerings are perfectly positioned regarding product-price fit across all segments.

4. Demand Optimization & GTM Execution

• Demand Forecasting: Partner closely with supply chain and commercial planning teams to ensure highly accurate demand forecasting, balancing optimum market availability against inventory costs.
• Robust GTM Strategy: Architect and lead end-to-end, high-impact Go-To-Market (GTM)