Associate Market Manager, Africa at Expedia, Inc

Associate Market Manager, Africa

Manages and develops a segment of the portfolio to deepen customer relationships and grow accounts through strategic planning. Acts as trusted advisor to accounts in portfolio. Takes ownership of customer problems, including leading and driving internal and external solutions. May lead contract negotiations for smaller accounts. Shares best practices across teams and regions.

What You'll Do

• Establishes new and fosters existing trusted relationships with key decision makers/influencers on customer accounts
• Contributes ideas regarding how to create business opportunities (e.g., progress meetings, fact-finding/exploratory meetings) to strengthen and grow customer account
• Looks for signals that the customer may need additional products/services and navigates through the appropriate organization channels to ensure important customer account business issues are identified and acted upon
• Completes and manages dynamic local-, regional-, or chain-level account plans based on an understanding of customer need and industry trends; prioritizes time based on the account’s value for the organization or likelihood of success
• May be required to develop market/territory plans, represent company at industry events, or build company profile in location
• Demonstrates understanding of how the organization does business (e.g., business model and operations, financial performance, and key success factors)
• Applies understanding of the policies, practices, trends, and information (including competitor) that impact the organization and its customers to anticipate and plan for each step of a project
• Demonstrates a deep understanding of the financial impact of decisions/solutions and how own role contributes to positive outcomes
• Prepares and articulates a business issue impacting own team and helps develop the rationale for addressing it (e.g., impact on satisfaction scores or team revenues)
• Assists in the identification and analysis (e.g., cost/benefit, risk) of potential solutions to address the business need
• Helps determine the recommended solution, documenting the business case for change and sharing with team leadership
• Understands the market dynamics and how that is used to spot overall trends; uses this knowledge and understanding to influence customer decisions and business outcomes
• Helps customers understand the company’s standard contracts and terms and conditions; asks questions of peers when appropriate
• Builds productive relationships with legal resources; partners to develop appropriate contract terms for simple contracts
• Seeks assistance from senior staff to negotiate simple or short-term contracts
• Replaces simple/short term contracts with complex multi-year contracts for account or regional account
• Demonstrates compelling rationale while explaining ideas to gain support to resolve issues and effectively influence others.
• Offers alternatives and suggestions to address areas of differences to find a common ground, ability to handle objections, disarm tactics effectively, elegantly move out out of deadlock situations and achieve favorable outcomes in each negotiation
• Considers the situation from the point of view of the other party to identify a common ground; calculates the costs and benefits of possible solutions and the implications of not reaching an agreement
• Ability to align products, technology, and offerings to account and market needs, driving strong business outcomes
• Understands the full array of the company’s offerings and areas of expertise; applies this knowledge to meet the needs of the customer
• Builds and maintains a thorough working knowledge of products, technologies, offerings, etc.
• Demonstrates a working knowledge of competitors’ products and services as well as their strengths and weaknesses
• Builds relationships with key individuals within the team, department, and organization
• Strategically builds relationships to support total portfolio and organization needs
• Builds relationships within industry outside of account
• Builds working knowledge of customer industry, including market trends and economic challenges and competitive market
• Meets with customers to discuss needs and seek feedback on value of products or services
• Supports the interpretation of the data relative to the performance of products, services, and solutions against customer needs/expectations
• Provide ongoing input to senior management in developing effective and scalable solutions to improve process efficiencies

Who You Are

• Experience of 5+ years for Bachelor's
• Experience of 3+ years for Master's
• Bachelor's or Master's in a related filed; or equivalent professional experience
• Proficiency in English (+ French ideally)
• Impactful communicator
• Impactful in sales techniques
• Portfolio management, negotiation with Director and C-suite levels, cross-selling, and managing operational complexity