Group Category Analyst

Group Commercial Analyst

About us:

SSP is a leading operator of food and beverage outlets in travel locations worldwide, with c.42,000 colleagues in over 600 locations across 37 countries. 

We operate sit-down and quick service restaurants, cafes, lounges and food-led convenience stores, principally in airports and train stations, with a portfolio of around 550 international, national and local brands.

These include our own brands Upper Crust, Millies Cookies etc. as well as franchise brands such as M&S, Starbucks and Burger King.

Our purpose is to be the best part of the journey, and this is underpinned by our aim to bring leading brands and innovative concepts to our clients and customers around the world, with an emphasis on great value, taste, quality and service.

About the role:

The Group Commercial team are at centre of all the regions and countries we operate in, sharing best practices, processes and the right way to operate commercial and strategically.

We support the pursuit of opportunities to improve EBITDA performance across specific or multiple markets, with a primary focus on Sales and Gross Profit levers working closely with the wider Group Customer team and regional Analysts/Managers, interrogating, interpreting and presenting back data to support effective decision making.

Building analytical tools and tracking and reporting on key performance metrics across the Group by generating Excel tracking documents showing timeframes against value delivered, forecasting, category and range analysis, sales data and what is performing well, where can we manage waste, where can we increase prices and what opportunities can be had to help SSP achieve our targets.

What you’ll be doing:

• Utilise benchmarking and comparison techniques to identify and quantify commercial opportunities across brands/categories/locations.
• Forecast customer behaviour and impact on sales and profit of changes e.g. menu changes, price changes etc.
• Develop price proposals for the markets to support price increases or promotions and perform analysis to measure local pricing and commercial trials, using a mix of controlled experiment techniques (trial vs control) and ‘ad hoc’ analysis, and track these results when necessary.
• Translate data into actionable insight, and propose data driven actions and course correction where required.
• Build ad-hoc presentations for brands/category/location activity and visits, including P&Ls

To be successful in this role you will need:

• A track record of driving decision-making through analysis and based on evidence, rather than intuition.
• Experience interrogating raw data (eg. EPOS/till data) to identify opportunities and measure impact, drawing out business insights from analysis and presenting findings and recommendations persuasively to stakeholders.
• Experience of using price, range, display and space, upselling, margin and category optimisation to deliver commercial results using an understanding of the impact of external factors on growth, including competition and seasonality, and customer behaviour.
• Organised, with the ability to work under pressure and deliver within deadlines.
• Experience designing and building reports using strong Excel skills with high degree of independence and attention to detail.