Business Development Manager - UPro at Unilever

• This role will lead for exponential growth of UPRO via Distributive Trade (DT) customers who service B2B professional operators. They will be responsible for significantly improving the performance of current distributors (revenue growth, operations, capability and joint business partnering), as well as increase Reach by developing new RTM solutions.
• This leadership role is crucial for the successful transformation of the UPRO business as it repesents the most important strategic pillar to grow the business sustainably and profitably in South Africa.

WHAT WILL YOUR MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES BE

• Distributor management and development
• Design and lead for a future-fit distributor sales and support infrastructure that clearly define roles, responsibilities, recruitment, remuneration, training, performance evaluation, and discipline
• Create and implement Distributor Joint Business Planning (JBP) for mutual profitable growth - getting full alignment between distributor and UPRO agreement on the all elements, KPIs and financial incentives
• Establish the rewards and recognition system with clear KPIs that motivates distributors and salesmen
• Management of distributor contracts - design (with legal) and communicate and implement the same. Ensure enforcement of the contract through periodic review with the CD organisation and the distributors
• Distributor profitability - understand the cost structure, computation of ROI, and use the elements of the ROI to achieve the business objective
• Distributor Management – lead target setting and review, management of stock, market credit and working capital, coverage planning and execution, delivery efficiency, invoicing accuracy
• Proactively identify and progress solutions to consolidate the distributor network, for example, setting up a Master Distributor
• Input into, and lead the flawless execution of Pricing, Promotion, Activations and Product Innovation in DT
• Training & Capability Development – raise the bar on  sales reps capabilities in partnership with the global and local UPRO teams - identify skill, competency and performance gaps.
• Overall accountability for the “back-end” operational systems and processes unique to UPRO or shared with Unilever Retail Customer Operations. Lead and influence these shared teams to support UPRO’s requirements.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO SUCCEED

Experiences & Qualifications

• B.Com Degree or equivalent
• B2B Professional Industry experience > 5 years
• Sales leadership experience > 5 years
• Route to Market or Distributor Management experience
• Experience in managing an external sales team

Skills

• Deliver results at speed
• Drive accountability inside and outside the organisation to deliver on commitments.
• Ability to make P&L decisions to deliver profitable growth through Joint Business Planning and Trading Terms management
• Externally connected to operators, customers, channels and markets, used to develop customer-centric plans for growth, e.g.  portfolio, RTM, channel activation
• Ability to build talent and capability within direct team, and extended team (distributor sales reps)
• Ability to implement agile ways of working and flex resource allocation according to business requirements
• Ability to lead for change within UPRO, and with our industry partners