Customer Development Manager at Colgate-Palmolive

Scope of Responsibility:

• The Customer Development Manager is responsible for achievement of Sales targets through excellence in execution at the point of sale. They must develop and support the partnership between CP and the customer(s)/Distributors at the store and regional level by nurturing contacts and negotiating with Store Operations/in-store personnel. They provide feedback on the in-store environment which allows rapid revision of competitive tactics.

The Customer Development Manager plays an integral role in ensuring profitable growth by:

Business Development and Monitoring

• Building and managing relationships with key players in the customer(s) or channel at the regional and/or store level.
• Conducting negotiations as necessary (listings, planograms, displays, promotion execution etc) at regional office and/or store level. They need to conduct regional/national business meetings and take control of pricing and the P&L.
• Implementing and maintaining in-store tactics developed within Category Management partnerships with the Customer(s)
• Co-ordinating special events (store-level sell-in and communication, materials management in-store etc.) in co-operation with the Shopper Development Manager.
• Working with customer service to track orders, troubleshoot and achieve customer service KPI’s.
• Working with Logistics to plan, analyse and forecast customers needs and to ensure on-time and complete delivery.
• Monitoring sales and distribution performance, particularly for new products and taking timely action to drive continuous improvement.
• Monitoring competitive activity at store level, recording and consolidating key activities, monitoring speed and breadth of distribution and identifying competitive best practices and discussing with the BDM so that they can proactively respond with strategic/tactical refinements.
• Establishment of account co-op activity and annual promotional grids
• Regular promotional analysis to determine whether these activities are delivering positive ROI's.

In - Store Personnel Management

• Regularly visiting stores in order to identify areas of improvement
• Monitoring performance vs objectives , providing continuous coaching and feedback and conducting appraisals based on data.
• Reviewing Field Sales and Merchandiser itineraries’ (location, frequency, duration vs plan) and roles to ensure optimal deployment of limited resource.
• Giving direction to in-store staff (merchandisers) and ensuring that they are trained and updated on new products, promotions and merchandising objectives. Identifying training needs and developing training plans with the Team Leader.
• Working with the SDM to develop tools, merchandising materials  and in-store programmes for effective shelf management to induce shoppers to purchase Colgate products at shelf.
• Supervising the consistent and accurate collection of data to allow monitoring of 5P performance vs target.

In – Store Compliance

• Clearly communicating in-store objectives and monitoring execution of 5P targets, product availability, assortment by store format, shelf pricing ( regular and promoted) promotion implementation vs plan , share of shelf and planograms , POP placement vs plan.
• Resolving operational issues at head/regional offices or in-store

Required Qualification :

• A minimum of a Commercial Bachelor's or similar degree is required, Bachelors with Honours is advantageous
• A proven track record of performance with at least 4 years of increasing Marketing/Customer Marketing/Sales responsibility and strong relationships his/her with customer(s)
• Previous experience working in an FMCG Environment with Customer Experience