Associate General Manager_Buying_Buying House Hold Concept.Home Centre.UAE_JAFZA_Home Centre

Role Overview

Associate General Manager – Buying, Household Concept Home Centre, located in JAFZA, UAE, reporting to Land Mark.

Role Purpose

Drive overall business management of assigned Soft Goods product category and department. Develop, implement and manage comprehensive business plans to maximize sales and profits across the category.

Key Responsibilities

Category Growth and Profitability

• Drive sales from the assigned category by developing comprehensive category business plans.
• Monitor gross margins for the category and ensure alignment with the organization's position, business plan and budgets.

Category Merchandise Planning

• Prepare annual plans for the assigned category and provide inputs to the Merchandising Development and Buying Head to assist in creation of overall merchandizing budget.
• Study trends from historical data around product category sales and market research to assist in the overall planning process.
• Ensure adherence to financial plan in all key areas: sales, markdowns, margin and average inventory.
• Discuss, decide and freeze the merchandise plans (pricing, promotion, assortment, etc.) for the category with the Merchandise Planning department.
• Manage in-season operations across territories including stock balancing, markdown management, stock analysis and stock versus sales performance.

Category Design and Quality

• Optimize utilization of customer research information to guide category management decisions, including decisions on introduction of new products, product assortment, shelf layout, promotion and pricing of products in the store.
• Formulate design and development plan in consultation with the Design Head with specifications on product features, functions, packaging and resource requirement across categories.
• Ensure all design and development activities are carried out within budget.
• Verify that all merchandise procured and received meets the quality standards.

Order and Vendor Management

• Establish an adequate vendor base for the organization through active scouting and negotiation or renegotiation.
• Maintain relationships with key vendors who are critical for the long-term success of the business.
• Review the financial and credit services agreement with the key vendors in order to maximize profit and positively contribute to cash flow.
• Determine buying requirements and formulate buying plan and budget for the assigned category.
• Monitor orders based on the buying plan and follow-up to ensure merchandise delivery as per the plan based on the agreed service level agreement.
• Pursue cost reduction measures through centralized bulk buying and/or selecting appropriate vendor mix, scanning the environment for benchmarks and constantly improving the purchase process.

People Management

• Monitor team development and facilitate complaint resolution.
• Set KRAs for direct reports and conduct performance appraisal.
• Oversee staff deployment and drive motivation levels of the direct reportees.

Competition Research

• Acquire market intelligence through various sources and analyze trends which may impact business.
• Map competition prices and products and provide qualitative inputs to the business.

Qualifications & Experience

• Postgraduate or Graduate degree.
• 12+ years of relevant experience in Home Retail, Fashion Apparel, or Textile Industry.
• Strong Fashion Education background is an advantage.