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Senior category manager skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical senior category manager skills. We ranked the top skills for senior category managers based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 13.6% of senior category manager resumes contained category strategy as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a senior category manager needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 senior category manager skills for your resume and career

1. Category Strategy

A category strategy is a strategy that is used to refine the role of the category to achieve scorecard objectives and is designed to increase market share, increase sales, improve gross margin, increase return on investment, gain customer satisfaction, and achieve profitability. It is a means to drive sales of a specific group of products and can be implemented at the store level. It maximizes value, efficiency, quality, and innovation, as well as mitigating risk.

Here's how senior category managers use category strategy:

Evaluated and selected key vendors, partnering with organizations that would support category strategy and initiatives.
Executed category strategy by building and maintaining relationships with internal stakeholders and external suppliers.

2. Project Management

Here's how senior category managers use project management:

Contributed to Company and category growth through development of innovation strategy and project management of new product launches across multiple brands.
Created Property Improvement Plan template that took a systematic approach that improved project management between franchise owners and corporate executives.

3. Strategic Sourcing

Here's how senior category managers use strategic sourcing:

Selected suppliers, negotiated, created strategic sourcing agreements and managed superior supplier performance for multiple commodities.
Collaborated with other Business Units to implement a strategic sourcing plan for vertical integration.

4. Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement is an ongoing process of improvement of products, services, and processes with the help of innovative ideas. It is an organized approach that helps an organization to find its weaknesses and improve them.

Here's how senior category managers use continuous improvement:

Assessed and executed Lean continuous improvement initiatives.
Implemented continuous improvement for Contracts Committee process.

5. Internal Stakeholders

Here's how senior category managers use internal stakeholders:

Led project team through development and execution of communication/change management plan to internal stakeholders and suppliers.
Developed collaborative relationships with senior management sponsors, internal stakeholders, cross-functional and global teams.

6. Supplier Management

Here's how senior category managers use supplier management:

Optimized category-wide supplier management strategy to reduce third party costs by $2M.
Implemented BravoSolution enterprise procurement management system using spend analytics, contract creation and supplier management.

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7. Cost Savings

Here's how senior category managers use cost savings:

Cost savings of over $50,000 to company in negotiating new contract and out sourcing new suppliers for parts and services.
Worked with cross-functional team to drive $12M in annual cost savings while consolidating the supplier base by 18%.

8. Market Trends

Here's how senior category managers use market trends:

Skilled at identifying market trends and negotiating directly with import sources on the development of new profitable products and programs.
Collaborate with Senior VP of Design and Trend Director to ensure designs align with market trends and brand standards.

9. Category Management

Here's how senior category managers use category management:

Manage staff of one manager; performed consultative category management functions for vegetables and tomato categories throughout the country.
Provided overall strategic category management direction for a group of Category Managers and their business teams.

10. IRI

The IRI (Internationalized Resource Identifier) is an Internet protocol standard that allows the use of formats and characters that are apt for national languages except for English. You can use IRIs in place of URLs or URIs, where they're supported by the applications associated with the request and response. While the definition of the IRI is similar to a URI (which is limited to the ASCII characters subset), here, the character set may extend to the Universal Coded Character Set.

Here's how senior category managers use iri:

Managed Price Elasticity Modeling project with IRI; provides projections for the impact price increases will have on volume.
Generate Category Business Plans using IRI data to drive growth in 600 independent stores.

11. RFP

RFP stands for request for proposal and is a document that contains details about a project or bids from contractors who are responsible for completing the project.

Here's how senior category managers use rfp:

Achieved annual savings of $600K+ through a Hospitality RFP and yielded an $800K investment provided by awarded supplier.
Led contingent labor RFP with managed services provider to mitigate risks and leverage Tier 1 suppliers into program.

12. Market Research

Market research is a collective effort to collect information related to a consumer's needs and wants. It is a systematic approach that involves recording and analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data. Market research helps a business to identify a target market correctly and identify the gaps in potential consumer's expectations.

Here's how senior category managers use market research:

Process included spend analysis, market research, stakeholder/supplier engagement and contract negotiation.
Perform supply market research; develop comprehensive industry knowledge of best practices, processes, and technology trends.

13. Consumer Insights

Here's how senior category managers use consumer insights:

Provided Shopper & Consumer Insights along with Analytic findings to create solutions, supporting manufacturer and retailer goals.
Managed and deployed consumer insight learning from dunhumbyUSA, MRI, and Spectra.

14. Supplier Selection

Here's how senior category managers use supplier selection:

Led 10 director-and-above stakeholders per project through Seven-Step Sourcing Methodology to gain unanimous buy-in with overall sourcing strategy and supplier selection.
Developed and implemented global commodity strategy, managed supplier selection, qualification and performance review.

15. Contract Management

Contract management refers to the systematic procedures in governing a contract.

Here's how senior category managers use contract management:

Experience with Ariba Procurement e-Sourcing and Contract Management Modules.
Pioneered the Ariba Contract Management Tool.

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List of senior category manager skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for a senior category manager resume and required skills for a senior category manager to have include:

Category Strategy
Project Management
Strategic Sourcing
Continuous Improvement
Internal Stakeholders
Supplier Management
Cost Savings
Market Trends
Category Management
IRI
RFP
Market Research
Consumer Insights
Supplier Selection
Contract Management
Direct Reports
Business Strategy

Global Sourcing
Cost Reduction
HR
Macro
Business Development
POS
Stakeholder Relationships
Commodities
Strategic Suppliers
Strategic Direction
ROI
RFI
PET
Contract Negotiations
Product Selection
Process Improvement
Pricing Strategy

Competitive Landscape
Spend Analysis
Product Development
Brand Marketing
Lifecycle Management
Category Sales
Digital Marketing
Gross Profit
Cycle Management
Sales Growth
KPI
Wine
Category Reviews
Consumer Research
Product Line

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Updated January 8, 2025

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