Commercial Executive at RCL Foods

Closing Date:2020/11/05
Description    

• RCL FOODS is currently searching for a Commercial Executive to join our Head Office in Westville. The successful incumbent will lead the provision of strategic, continuous and direct commercial support and insight to the RWS Customer Director and Customer Leadership team; provide guidance around performance delivery and cost control. Further to this, they will play an integrating role for and on behalf of the Customer teams and Business Units within a matrix structure. They drive the delivery of enhanced customer and category profitability and costing information designed to unlock margin opportunities and assist in focused strategic decision-making; set targets & budgets for customer teams, ensuring alignment with business objectives and customer investment strategies and most appropriate target framework for the Customer team. The Commercial Executive will also be responsible for the implementation of tools to deliver enhanced profitability via product/customer mix, support Customer related growth agenda, including alternate Route to Market and lead the ROI agenda to ensure optimization of customer spend. The goal is to drive in Year performance (by managing both sales growth and cost of growth) to target levels, while also business partnering on pricing engagements, terms negotiations, customer joint business planning, and sales overheads.

Minimum Requirements    

• CIMA, Qualified CA (SA), or MBA preferred
• FMCG industry experience essential
• 8 – 10 years’ experience in financial, operational and business partnering roles
• Experience in leading business / cross functional projects
• Excellent analytical and communication skills
• Ability to make an impact in a complex environment, manage parallel tasks and challenge pro-actively
• Strong integrity, objectivity and independence of judgement
• High external customer orientation and engagement.
• Ability to identify and define simplification and automation opportunities

Duties & Responsibilities    
Strategy Contribution and Execution

• Work in conjunction with the Commercial Executive to co-create the commercial strategy, based on a 1 to 3 year view of requirements
• Provide and promote the Commercial perspective in the 3 year Customer growth strategy
• Evaluate the outlook and potential across the portfolio of customer / channel to create the best performance framework for the year ahead
• Assess, articulate & drive actions to address risks and opportunities across the portfolio of customers to optimise in year performance
• Work closely with the Customer and Business Unit Commercial teams to ensure the delivery of their respective strategies

Profitability Analysis & Reporting

• Drive enhanced customer and product profitability information designed to improve Net Revenue, unlock margin opportunities and recommend ways to optimise customer and product profitability.
• Analyse variances in product profitability reports
• Provide support and regular feedback on performance
• Monthly feedback on the financial performance of the Customer performance
• Manage the on-going advancement of a suite of standard commercial reports that will provide insight, stimulate further discussion and assist in decision making for the Customer team
• Identify opportunities for value added reporting to improve the quality and content of reporting and messaging into senior management.
• Provide sustained support to customers, particularly those who raise specific queries.
• Compile and analyse various reports for the month-end reporting as well as other ad hoc reports and presentations for leadership and Exec meetings.
• Ensure that the culture of using information to drive performance management is well established within the Customer RWS team.

Spend Analysis, Cost Control and Management

• Conduct the spend variance analysis by investigating major variances against budgets, targets and prior years.
• Compile appropriate reports that highlight issues to management based on findings.
• Continuously consider cost saving opportunities or areas where waste/inefficiencies can be eliminated and influence corrective action
• Implement uniform, standardized process and controls to manage in year spend and drive governance and accountability with Customer teams
• Drive the design of data platforms to support effective information and insight
• Measurement of promotional effectiveness

Budgeting and Forecasting

• Assume responsibility for compiling key aspects of the annual budget up to the Net Revenue line in the Income Statement
• Ensure adherence to deadlines and timeframes as agreed by the Business.
• Communicate with key internal personnel in order to gather information for analysis and interpretation.
• Plan and allocate tasks and monitor progress according to set timelines and ensure feedback to Senior Management.

Commercial Insight and Technical Expertise

• Provide calculations, detailed analysis and associated recommendations emanating from any and all queries that arise as a result of Customer requests, changes in business operations, or the economic climate
• Provide expertise in cross functional team meetings and recommend solutions based on insights and findings.
• Provide practical commercial expertise and insights to external clients as part of regular engagement and/or ad hoc requests.
• Participate in or lead work streams to drive best practice in key challenge areas such as ROI, gross margin, or sustainability in order to fuel growth
• Proactively seek opportunities to share best practice within wider Commercial team and look at the implementation of best practices.
• Instill a ROI focus across accounts.

Customer Pricing Support

• Calculate and provide prompt and accurate pricing information for price negotiations.
• Attend pricing negotiations where required to settle pricing with customers
• Provide continuous pricing support regarding profitability to ensure that products are sold at targeted margins.
• Drive commercial conversations and answer related queries from customers
• Ensure product and channel profitability objectives are achieved when setting new pricing

New Product Development (NPD) Support

• Business case review for new products and spec amendments, once complied by Commercial Team(costings, risk/opportunity analyses, scenario planning, providing recommendations)
• Review of Customer product strategies post implementation including KPI achievements, mix comparisons and further opportunities
• NPD performance tracking, board reporting and presentation
• Portfolio Analysis from a Customer and Category lens, encompassing product rationalisation, mix comparisons and other business improvement opportunities to drive category and brand profitability
• Cross functional business partnering and key stakeholder management