Director, Category

About Licious

We are Licious and we are a Bengaluru-based meat and seafood company founded in 2015 by Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, our founders, foodies, and friends. We pride ourselves on being India's most successful D2C food-tech brand operating in 20 cities across the country, delighting over 32 lac customers with our de-licious fresh meat and seafood

Think you have what it takes to be the magic ingredient in the recipe that is Licious? Read on...

What makes the role meaty?

● Consumer: from insights to block buster products - The VA category manager will need to go deep into consumer habits to be able to build a strategy that is consumer first and P&L sustainable. Write concepts & work with insights teams to test and glean actionable insights from them

● Innovation / New Product Development: Write product briefs: Translate winning concepts into product briefs for R&D teams, Run innovation networks, Make business cases for new launches

● Positioning: VA is about new category development. The category manager will need to work with central marketing team to build a category / sub category positioning that clarifies the role of the category for customer and sets up for exponential growth

● Selection: Will craft the ideal assortment for each micro-market, showcasing Licious' full range while managing constraints like discovery and wastage. This demands strong insights into regional consumer behavior and consumption patterns, as well as a sharp understanding of competition across offline and online channels

● Product Quality: Licious is obsessed with product quality, and the Category Manager is central to refining the product range based on consumer and market feedback. This requires close collaboration with cross-functional teams like NPD, Sourcing, and Processing

● Pricing: Pricing is critical to customer conversion. The Category Manager defines and executes micro-market pricing strategies, balancing competitiveness and profitability. This aligns with the assortment strategy, ensuring each product plays its role in meeting business goals

● Catalogue: As the "Meat Expert," Licious aims to educate and guide customers in their meat-buying journey. The catalogue plays a vital role in delivering clear, relevant information - through product images, titles, tags, and more - to help consumers choose the right products for their needs

● Profitability / Cost Management: The Category Manager owns Gross Margin targets and must influence all direct and indirect cost levers - from buying and selling price to discounts, wastage, packaging, and processing costs - to achieve overall P&L goals

● GTM / Channels: While D2C is Licious' core channel, the Category Manager must also leverage other online and offline channels by partnering with Channel teams to drive assortment, pricing, and promotion strategies that align with business goals

● Business Health: As the business owner, the Category Manager must define, track, and review key metrics to monitor overall health and course-correct as needed to achieve goals

We hope that you have..

● Have 8-12 years of experience with a graduation from a Premium B School

● Have a minimum of 5+ years of experience from FMCG/Foodtech with Brand Management/NPD roles

● Have customer obsession and a drive to keep improving the customer experience with Licious Are highly data oriented and analytical in order to solve complex business problems as well as take high quality decisions

● Are able to work with multiple stakeholders

● The Category Manager role will work deeply with Sourcing, Processing, Packaging, QA, NPD, Growth, Marketing and so on to deliver category objectives. Think Big – The ability to come up with large, disruptive ideas to change the way India shops and consumes meat

● Have experience in Category Management / PnL ownership roles in online / offline retail companies

● Have Exposure to digital first business models