Senior Category Merchant Manager
Pros
1. The company culture and leadership principles are truly lived day in and day out in the company. It really is work hard, have fun and make history. It's never boring and the work life balance is OK for a guy like me with a wife and 1 baby (8:30am to 7:30pm), in line with any corporate company in Spain. The team is great, you work with a top-notch peer group which keeps you learning every day and becoming a better, more versatile, professional in the long term. 2. It is the closest I have seen to a true "merit-o-cracy" where good people get promoted, and the senior management team has very few (to none) of the people you would ask "how did that guy managed to get so high in the organization?". 3. Decisions are REALLY made with data, data is available, you are trained to get the data. Customer is REALLY first.
Cons
1. Given the vast availability of data, the amount of reporting that is required is only limited by the (good) questions management can think of asking; nevertheless the relatively little action that this reporting drives, is at times frustrating. 2. The email culture results in unnecessary long email threads, misunderstandings, and sometimes taking days to discuss a topic which could be closed in 2 x 1 hour meetings. 3. The business is reviewed on a weekly (not monthly) basis and thus, the amount of recurrent weekly meetings and business reviews, and updating for these, leaves little bandwidth to do project work.
