Strategic Business Partner - Merchandising

STRATEGIC BUSINESS PARTNER

Raymour and Flanigan's Strategic Merchandise Initiative Leader will be laser focused on helping the company create the most simplistic, convenient, and engaging customer and associate experiences in the retail marketplace. The Strategic Merchandising Initiatives Leader is guided by our mission of designing seamless experiences and supporting the simplification of our consumer journey by enabling our associates to exceed customer expectations with best-in-class merchandise programs, services, offerings, tools and capabilities.

Support the company goal of creating exceptional customer & associate experiences:

• Leaders of Strategic Initiatives are the organizational advocates that are guided by our mission of designing the services, functionality and support that simplify the shopping experience.
• Think out-of-the-box to provide our associates best in class tools and programs to exceed every customer expectation.
• Ensure merchandising initiatives are vetted through the customer and associate lens while aligning ROI to fiscal expectations.

Relationship Focus

• Work closely with all levels of the organization to align merchandise and enterprise initiatives with company goals.
• Collaborate with business leaders and field associates to drive initiative prioritization, consensus and alignment across the enterprise.
• Initiate and foster strategic vendor relationships through decision making, vendor negotiations, contracting, discovery and ideation phases.
• Partner with critical departments to drive cross functional support and execution of critical initiatives.

Innovation Through a Data Driven Approach

• Identify and drive Proofs of Concept (POCs) to explore new growth and innovation opportunities for the company.
• Support strategic development partners through strategy and POC engagements.
• Explore, evaluate, and assess new offerings, solutions and platforms that enhance associate and client experiences through RFI, RFP, SOWs etc.
• Collaborate with Business Intelligence and Insights Team to;
  • Promote a data first mindset across the merchandising organization enabling it to evolve into a data-driven organization.
  • Drive data-driven business decisions by leveraging actionable insights, competitive knowledge, and analysis.
  • Understand opportunities and challenges of internal business teams, and drive reporting and analysis to meet those needs.

Merchandise Strategy & Roadmap

• Support the creation and implementation of a merchandise strategy and roadmap that supports organizational goals.
• The creation of the merchandise strategy will consist of but not limited to product, pricing, promotions, services, communication.
• Support the growth of brick and mortar and digital sales by partnering with the critical departments and leaders.
• Identify and prioritize programs and projects focused on driving sales, customer experience and associate experience.

Qualifications

• A strong inclination to work in a transformative business environment.
• Experience in business strategy, Road mapping, program management, business case development.
• Experience in strategic planning and demonstrated consistent, timely and impactful delivery of business solutions through major organizational initiatives.
• The ability to rapidly build knowledge, understand critical issues, analyze and formulate recommendations.
• The experience with financial negotiations and legal process working with vendors and third-party contractors.
• Retail Industry experience with demonstrated history of driving profitable product/program adoption and growth.
• Marketing and Ecommerce experience
• Supply Chain, forecasting experience
• Excellent relationship building/management skills.
• Excellent ability to lead a team and work under pressure.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Impactful senior-level communication (oral, written).
• The ability to influence and build consensus among leaders.