Commercial Financial Analyst at Lindt and Sprungli

Position Purpose

Responsible for working with various departments at Lindt South Africa with focus on - Retail and Marketing, assisting with day-to-day queries, analysis on sales/profitability, providing support as well as producing information to enable management to make key decisions. Responsible for elements of the month end process, budget process, financial forecasting and assessing investment opportunities.

Key Responsibilities

• Review the forecast monthly by brand, channel and customer in collaboration with sales leaders and supply chain;
• Support the CFO and Head of Commercial Finance with budget and forecasting processes, month end reporting, and ad-hoc reporting requirements and IT related projects;
• Support the Director of Retail, D2C and Business Development via business partnering, analysis, opportunity assessments and quarterly performance reviews;
• Develop and maintain accurate retail store contribution statements;
• Ensure all pricing, promotions and for retail stores are reflected accurately in SAP;
• Investment requests for new retail stores;
• Forecasting and reporting on entire retail store P&L;
• Develop and maintain trackers on retail KPIs (e.g. labour hours, OT tracking, promo tracking etc.);
• Monitor monthly marketing and trade spend in comparison with Budget and latest estimates;
• Forecasting and reporting on entire L&S South Africa advertising and consumer promotion spend;
• Parter with the Director of marketing to assess the effectiveness of current processes and to suggest and implement improvements;
• Assist product managers with the costing for new product development;
• Administrator for the business intelligence warehouse (IBM Cognos);
• Analyze and recommend promo mechanics across brands to improve efficiency and uptake;
• Provide accurate views on risks and opportunities

Personal Characteristics

• Needs to have excellent attention to detail;
• A high level of interpersonal skills and ability to engage, communicate and influence internal and external stakeholders at all operational levels;
• Methodical and structured approach to tasks;
• Able to set priorities and clear targets;
• High flexibility; and
• Able to grow with the level of responsibilities and with the size and structure of the business.

Requirements

• University degree and ideally studying towards the CIMA degree;
• A minimum of 2 years experience in a finance analytical role;
• Highly numerate with excellent analytical skills and attention to detail;
• Experience in the area of Accounting/Controlling or internal / external audit with strong retail and marketing interest.
• Excellence Excel skills.
• SAP experience considered to be an advantage.