M&S Commercial Optimisation Manager – FTC

M&S Commercial Optimisation Manager

Contract type: Fixed Term Contract (until Feb/March 2027)

Location: Hatfield (Hybrid working – 3 days in the office)

Working hours per week: 40 hours

Level: Manager (Equivalent to Senior Buyer)

Application Closing Date: Wednesday 13th May

About Us

Our mission is to deliver joy in every shop, through unbeatable choice, unrivalled service, and reassuringly good value. We’re also on a mission to empower our business with smart technology; we’ve recently launched our AI Academy, providing a tailored AI learning journey for every colleague. We’re Ocado Retail , a market-leading joint venture between Ocado Group and M&S, and the world’s largest dedicated online supermarket, ocado.com . Not only is Ocado the only place to shop a full range of M&S food online, but it’s also the home to the widest online supermarket range in the UK and champion of small, independent brands. We’re also the brains behind Zoom by Ocado , our same-day grocery delivery service.

About The Team And The Role

As an integral part of the M&S Partnership team, this role is key in driving continuous momentum in our close relationship. We have an ambitious agenda of tapping into multiple cross-functional opportunities to maximise the benefit of M&S for our customers. We’ll do this by creating further joint value, aspiring to grow M&S ahead of the total business on ORL, grow our joint market share, facilitate closer touchpoints to uncover efficiencies and better ways to collaborate all across the business. In the last year, we’ve celebrated our 5-year partnership and have made significant progress. Key highlights include: joining the M&S winning choices transformation programme; improving the scoping & performance of the addressable range; co-creating with our merchandising team an always-on M&S visibility plan; ensuring M&S is front and centre for test and learn opportunities; supporting a reset with both customer teams; and driving NPD availability with our SC teams.

You would be joining the M&S Partnership team to maximise the performance of the M&S proposition on Ocado. This role is replicated in the M&S structure, and both roles will help ensure we are maximising how we drive the performance of M&S online. You will work most closely with M&S – we see our M&S counterparts each Wednesday and co-work at Waterside fortnightly. In addition, you will work closely with our trading teams and the newly created trade planners, to align priorities and agree on action plans to optimise the performance of the existing M&S ranges, as well as ensure major transformations and campaigns land as strongly as possible. Our aim is to recreate the M&S magic in store online, and you will drive to execute this in line with in-store timings. There could be scope to line manage our strategic partnerships associate, depending on the successful candidate’s experience and prior line management track record. This would involve taking responsibility for their professional development, setting performance objectives, conducting regular 1:1 meetings, and managing their day-to-day workflow. This management responsibility would be a key aspect of the role, complementing the core commercial optimisation duties. The extent of this management responsibility would be a point of discussion during the interview process to ensure alignment with the new manager’s capabilities and aspirations.

Our key objectives for the M&S Partnership in H1 26/27 are:

• Improve the data integrity & process controls for managing M&S margin
• Improve the M&S NPD availability & visibility online
• Deliver commercial optimisations & continue to participate in the Winning choices programme
• Accelerate joint sourcing & ambitious overhead dilution to recover investments we make in reducing price points for customers

What You’ll Do

• Be the M&S champion inside ORL and interpret data from multiple sources to identify and understand drivers of over- and under-performance
• Analyse and understand M&S performance online, create weekly/ monthly reporting & performance updates, and work with M&S to identify priority areas for deep dive analysis and commercial optimisation recommendations
• Build and run the agenda for the weekly partnerships meeting, shape the content for the Commercial Working Groups and support analysis and prep for the bi-monthly Top to Top Steer Co
• Align with M&S on the category visibility priority plans and calendar of execution
• Work closely with merch to build execution plans for all levers across the site, heroing M&S and maximising OSP opportunities to test and learn
• Collaborate with our M&S partnership lead in Customer to ensure strong ways of working with M&S Marketing, and to align trade & campaign plans as much as possible
• Facilitate delivery of the M&S & ORL joint commercial objectives and support execution through workstreams (NPD and range extensions, optimising M&S cat trans on Ocado, improve availability, improve ways of working)
• Support M&S in building internal capabilities to understand performance and trading on Ocado using Beet and customer research
• Work with M&S counterpart to build out and manage the communications & engagement plans
• Support the strategic partnership associate to land launches in line with stores through working with 1. M&S to optimise the product set-up processes and 2. Ocado supply chain to optimise product launch and ramping of NPD sales.

Who You Are

• Collaborative: Building relationships is one of your strengths. Whether it’s within your team, with your stakeholders, or with the wider community, you realise the importance of working together to deliver successful outcomes
• Commercial: Have a strong understanding of how to drive performance on site, ideally with experience utilising the ranging tools and merch levers available (e.g. ORL buying experience, category insights experience would be highly valued)
• Analytical: Able to proactively seek out data sources, interpret data and identify key drivers for performance, and make compelling recommendations to stakeholders
• Rigorous: Strong attention to detail and ability to prioritise workstream based on commercial performance gains
• Results-oriented: Able to consistently deliver against KPIs within an evolving landscape
• Customer-focused: Putting your customers at the heart of everything you do

What’s In It For You

By joining Ocado Retail, you’ll have the chance to experience life at the world’s largest online retailer, work with an amazing bunch of people who challenge what’s possible each day, and grow your skills and career in online retail. You’ll also be part of our AI Academy , a dedicated learning journey designed to empower every colleague with the smart technology skills of the future. If that’s not enough to tempt you, you’ll also get access to loads of great benefits to sweeten the deal. Here’s a taste of what we offer:

• Health & Wellbeing: Private medical insurance with option to add your family, Digital GP appointments, market-leading family policies, mental health support, discounted gym memberships, dental insurance, and more.
• Spend & Save: Recognition with reward platform, up to 7% matched pension contributions, 15% Ocado discount, 20% M&S discount, free breakfast every day in the office, electric vehicle leasing scheme, and free shuttle bus from Hatfield station to the office.
• Never miss the moments that matter: Hybrid working, 26 days holiday plus 8 flexible bank holidays, options to buy extra holiday, 2 weeks work from anywhere, and lifestyle break opportunities.

Our Hiring Process

Lucky for us, we receive a high volume of applications and genuinely appreciate the time and effort invested by every candidate. To ensure a fair and thorough process, every application is reviewed by a member of our team. If your skills and experience are a strong match, a Talent Partner will contact you to discuss the role and guide you through the next steps of our hiring process.

Your Application and AI

In the spirit of innovation, we welcome you to use AI tools in your application, just as we use them in our own business at Ocado Retail. However, as you leverage this technology, please don’t lose sight of the most important element: your unique self. Your experiences, passions, and personality are what truly set you apart. Ensure that your application still authentically conveys who you are and why you’re a great fit for us.

Everyone’s welcome

We’re an equal opportunities employer, which means that we make sure all potential colleagues are treated fairly and equally. We want to ensure everyone has a fair chance to apply; if you need this job description in an alternative format (e.g., larger print, different document type, etc.), please reach out to us at careers@ocadoretail.com and we’ll be happy to assist you, and if you require reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know on the application form.