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About Us
Operating in nearly 40 countries across the world, our purpose is to be the best part of the journey. Whether our customers are flying abroad on holiday, heading off on a business trip or commuting to work by train, we aim to offer them food and drink experiences that meet their many different tastes and needs.

What You’ll Get from Us
Our Commitment to learning and development is our commitment to unlocking our people’s success. We strive to provide a wide range of resources that boost our people’s skills today, and help them fulfil their potential tomorrow. No matter where you join us, you’ll have all the tools you need to take charge of your development. Surrounded by like-minded colleagues and guided by industry experts, it’s your career, your way at SSP.

Category Analyst

About the Role

To work with the Commercial manager(s) / Head of Commercial to ensure EBITDA delivery to budget targets by;

Weekly review of trading performance and recommend actions to improve performance
Perform analysis to design and measure local pricing and commercial trials using a mix of controlled experiment techniques, market research and ‘ad hoc’ analysis
Post-trial analysis of impact
The identification of key commercial opportunities and priorities for testing
Develop analytical tools and templates

The role holder will be expected to use a variety of levers to drive like-for-like sales growth, such as range improvement, optimisation of price and promotion, upselling and maximisation of the use of space, and will drive category performance e.g. hot drinks, as well as the performance of the brand or brands. 


What you'll be Doing:

  • The commercial performance of the brand or a small portfolio of brands (LFL sales and gross profit) – deliver stretch EBITDA target
  • Commercial / category plan – support the Head of Commercial to create the commercial / category plan for each of the specified brand or brands – Focused on ensure plans will drive sufficient value to deliver corporate stretch targets
  • Work closely with finance to ensure budget and Quartey forecast capture planned impacts ensure budgets are realistic and deliverable based on pipeline commercial activity
  • Sign off - submit proposed sales and gross margin improvement activities to weekly trade / monthly commercial activity meetings for approval (background, financial value and suggested next steps) 
  • Support Commercial manager / Head of commercial to ensure preparation analysis is completed to support marketing briefs to access marketing services - marketing services such as NPD, creative design, marketing planning and brand development are provided by the Group Marketing function. 
  • Ensure activities are modelled with clear assumptions and rational to support the assumptions
  • Test and learn activity is designed with robust control groups and expectations of success are clear before activities are live
  • New openings, modelling of forecast sales mix at product level working alongside Commercial managers
  • Support Category manager (or) Commercial manager in preparing proposals for trading or commercial forum sign off
  • Work with Commercial executive / manager to ensure consistent implementation of the agreed strategy at brand level. E.g. Tracking compliance of activities prior to detailed reviews
  • Reviewing data pre to post or year on year, normalisation of data to ensure seasonal and external factors driving performance are mitigated within reason
  • Post completion review of new openings
  • Support Category manager (or) Commercial manager in preparing proposals for trading or commercial forum sign off
  • Review - report results at weekly trade and monthly commercial forum meetings.  Assess whether forecast has been achieved and EBITDA can be banked.  (Course correct where necessary)
  • Spend time in the field (c. 1 day/week) – observing and supporting implementation in operational units


To be successful in this role you will need:

  • Knowledge, skills and experience required
  • Track record of analysing commercial data to drive insights and change in businesses
  • Good grasp of commercial issues in a consumer/retail environment
  • Must be able to drive decision-making through analysis and based on evidence, rather than intuition
  • Evidence of building effective working relationship with commercial teams
  • Must be able to develop innovative ideas to drive top and bottom line, testing, learning and refining and then operationalising them

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