Head of Commercial - Africa at DataOrbis

Purpose

The Head of Commercial is a technically competent, interpersonally skilled and highly experienced professional who has the overall responsibility for ensuring best practice management of a region’s portfolio of clients, ensuring that the DataOrbis service is entrenched and that long-term agreements with these clients are secured. The Head of Commercial works closely with the Commercial Director in the budget and strategy development ensuring alignment to the total region’s strategic objectives. The Head of Commercial also manages Business Development for the region and is involved in the setting of sales targets and the management of the Business Development Team members.

The Head of Commercial drives the Client Success strategy within the region, both retaining and growing existing clients and guides and supports the Client Success Managers, overseeing their client management and assisting in the top to top engagements, annual review and contract negotiation.

The Head of Commercial has an in depth understanding of the full DataOrbis service offering and the client’s organizations key performance areas and strategic objectives. The Head of Commercial assists in defining the client’s needs and identifies service and solution opportunities including possible customized and bespoke solutions that can provide insights to action and assist the client in meeting their identified needs. The Head of Commercial manages the Client Success team and the Head of DOCatman in the region and works collaboratively with the Data Visualisation specialists and the Delivery Managers in the region in order to ensure accurate and timely delivery of the contractual obligations.

In a management and supervisory capacity, the Head of Commercial is responsible for building, managing and engaging the Client Success and Business Development Teams and is involved in capacity planning, recruiting, training and developing the team members, supervising senior tasks and assignments, reviewing progress and evaluating results to ensure that the clients deadlines and sales targets are met.

The Head of Commercial engages collaboratively with the Data Integration Manager in order to leverage their relationship with the client and introduce the technical team, affording them the opportunity to gain access to the data sources as identified for efficiency gains as required.

The Head of Commercial is responsible for ensuring that best practice is followed and adhered to within the Client Success and Business Development teams and also identifies improvement and innovation opportunities for additional and new service offerings. The Head of Commercial may be responsible for the management of complex and innovative customized solution projects clients and may also be involved in and manage global client contracts that require travel to other regions for client training and engagements. The Head of Commercial would be required to travel regionally to engage with their Client Success and Business Development team members and for top to top client interaction.

Responsibilities
Business Development 

•  Manages the Business Development team and together with them identifies prospective clients and data sources within the industry to engage with.
•  Networks and sets up introductory meetings with the identified prospective clients or uses the Business Development Administrator to coordinate and manage this.
•  Prepares and delivers pitch presentations and effectively communicates the DataOrbis business model and service offerings, either alone or in conjunction with the Growth team and/or Business Development team members.
•  Upon the prospective client’s request, guides the Business Development team in preparation of proposals as they engage with the finance team and other senior members of the required departments in order to correctly cost the proposal.
•  Guides the business development team and ensure that they capture all relevant proposal and contract details in the NetSuite CRM system.
•  Collaboratively engages with the Commercial Director in both the setting of sales targets and also ensuring that the annual targets are achieved.

Annual Review PRocess and Negotiation 

•  Builds strong top to top relationships with the senior and/or executive management teams of the clients organisations.
•  Handles some of the larger tier 1 clients and executes on the review process and negotiation together with the Commercial Director as required.
•  With the regional clients that are managed by Client Success Managers, supports and guides the process and is involved where required as follows:
•  Prepares for the annual review process several months ahead of the client’s contract renewal time.
•  Prepares and presents an update on the DataOrbis business and service offering including a review of the client’s current contract, service offering and delivery.
•  Identifies and presents possible new innovation or service offerings that may be of value to the clients organisation together with a revised quotation and billing schedule for the new contract period.
•  Responds to any questions and queries and makes any adjustments for review and re-proposal as required.
•  Engages with the client’s finance, legal and procurement departments as required for contract sign-off.
•  Follows up and receives signed contract and ensures that it is loaded and captured accurately into SharePoint and NetSuite.
•  Communicates and broadcasts big wins and new clients and sales to the internal team
•  Ensures that the targets as identified and set for contract renewals are achieved.

Oversees and guides the General Management of Regions Clients

•  Understands the client’s strategic business plan and key performance areas in order to conceptualize and identify how DataOrbis information can be structured and used to assist the client in measuring their key performance areas.
•  Guides the Client Success managers in overseeing the monthly delivery.
•  Where required engages with and present or facilitates workshops with clients.
•  Guides and where required manages complex ad-hoc requests being report development, analytics, presentations etc. and ensures that these requests are correctly and accurately briefed into the required Delivery teams for actioning.
•  Ensures that Client Success Managers develop proposals and that clients sign off on ad hoc requests that fall outside of the agreed contract, prior to actioning.
•  Identifies and assists Client Success Managers in identifying further opportunities to expand on the service offering with current clients
•  Is a member of and engages with the EXCO team on any matters that may materially affect the DataOrbis relationship with the client and collaboratively identifies and develops solutions to overcome these potential threats.
•  Ensures that current clients are retained and receive high level of customer satisfaction as reviewed in the Customer satisfaction index.

Customised Solutions and Global Client Set-Ups

•  For customized solutions and new global client set-ups, engages with the client and receives a full brief on the project/set-up and request clarity and additional information as needed.
•  Engages collaboratively with the Innovations/Custom and Projects team and ensures that the project set-up checklist and project plan template is accurately and correctly complete for the project creation.
•  Ensures that the Client Success team completes and updates their project tasks as allocated within the required time frames.
•  Communicates and/or guides the relevant Client Success team member to ensure that they follow up with the projects team throughout the set-up process and ensures that the team receives all the necessary client and data source information and input for the correct and accurate set-up.

Guides and Manages the CRM process in NetSuite

•  For the regions clients ensures that the CRM process in NetSuite is managed and that the correct details are captured on a monthly basis prior to the month end billing process.
•  Engages with the Client Success and Business Development team and ensures that the sales pipeline is managed in NetSuite and that all prospects are correctly captured and weighted. 

Client Conference participation

•  Prepares for and participates in client conferences, representing the DataOrbis Brand and presenting the service offering.
•  May be required to travel both regionally and globally in order to train and or meet clients

Data Source Development introduction to Client

•  Oversees the Senior Client Success and BD team and ensures that they set up introductory engagement meetings with the client and or data sources and the Data Integration Team as required.
•  Leverages the client relationship to ensure that the data source development team is able to engage with the data source/ERP partner or relevant IT team in order to gain access to the data source and manage the data feeds in a clean and efficient manner.

Leads Internal Meetings

•  Schedules, attends and participates in internal Client Success meetings ensuring that Client Success best practice is shared and implemented within and across the team.
•  Tracks and manages work progress, deliverables and plans and prioritises projects and set-ups for the greater team.

Drives Innovation and Best Practice

•  Understands and stays abreast of trends, changes and developments in the FMCG and other related industries and identifies solutions and opportunities to investigate
•  Evaluates and researches opportunities in order to understand how to capitalise on and introduce these opportunities and actions these together with other involved team members as required.

Training Role

•  Ensures that all relevant Client Success training material is up to date and current.
•  Oversees the planning and scheduling and ensures that all new regional Client Success team members receive adequate internal training as per the induction process and that all trainers participate in and conduct the training as required.
•  Trains and mentors new senior team members by conducting training and assists both new and other team members by providing guidance in the application of skills and knowledge.
•  Identifies the need for ad hoc training and shares knowledge, learnings and skills on an ongoing basis.

Team Management and People Development

•  Involved in capacity planning for the Client Success and Business Development team together with the Commercial Director and People Director.
•  Involved in the recruitment process and participates in the interviewing, assessment and selection of recruits for the Client Success and BD team.
•  Manages the continuous performance management process with the team and assist team members in identifying and setting goals and schedules and conducts 1:1 meetings and updates.
•  Conducts year-end and other reviews for all team members using the Lattice tool to collate all the necessary feedback and performance data for the year.
•  Drives continuous conversations within the team and engagement levels.
•  Clearly plans senior team member growth against departmental Tiering Specification documents and aligns to annual budget to ensure continuous growth and development of team.
•  Conducts probationary meetings of new senior team members and gives constructive feedback and identifies action.
•  Provides input into needs and skills analysis of team members.
•  Identifies learning opportunities to empower team members.
•  Identifies the need for performance management and assist in putting in place poor performance management processes as required.

Admin Duties

•  Approve leave applications from direct reports.
•  Signs off on teams’ expense claims.
•  Approve team timesheets from direct reports on a weekly or monthly basis as agreed on.
•  Reviews updates on Lattice and participates in team members 1:1 by sending through agenda points and clearly communicating any issues.
•  Complete employee engagement pulse surveys.
•  Other tasks as identified and required.

Requirements
Qualifications & Experience 

School:

•   Matric

Professional/tertiary:

•  Suitable Tertiary Degree/Diploma or Relevant Certification in a Commerce or Marketing related field.

Experience:

•  15 + years professional experience within the FMCG, marketing, data management or related industry. At least 10 years’ experience in a client facing position, consulting or business development role engaging with senior members of client organisations with at least 10 years’ experience in managing a team.

Knowledge & Skills

•  Highly proficient in the use of Excel, Microsoft Office and other DataOrbis software and systems (JIRA, Portfolio, Teams, SharePoint, Lattice).
•  Proficient in the use of the DOplatform.
•  Proficient in the use of Tableau Online and other reporting tools.
•  Knowledge and understanding of the DataOrbis service offering, data warehousing principles, SQL and the DataOrbis reporting tools.
•  Highly proficient in the use of NetSuite.
•  Financial knowledge and strong business acumen.
•  Knowledge of and understanding of Tableau calculations and highly proficient in reading, understanding, analysis and interpreting DataOrbis reports.
•  Knowledge and understanding of the FMCG and/or other related industries.
•  Full understanding of and ability to use the tools in the Client Success and Business Development toolkit.
•  Understanding of the client lifecycle and in-depth knowledge and understanding of the client’s strategic business objectives.
•  In-depth knowledge of the full DataOrbis Service offering.
•  Highly numerate and analytical with problem-solving skills.
• Supervisory and planning skills. 

Attributes

•  Effective time management in order to prioritise and execute tasks to meet deadlines as specified.
•  Excellent and professional interpersonal and communication skills in order to communicate needs and requirements as well as progress, developments and difficulties encountered.  
•  Excellent communication skills with the ability to professionally communicate, train and facilitate workshops and presentations in large groups of varying levels of seniority.
•  Strong relationship-building skills with the ability to build and elicit trust.
•  Strong negotiation skills.
•  Ability to learn and adapt to change in a high paced rapidly changing environment
•  Ability to work on multiple concurrent clients.
•  Troubleshooting ability with the ability to develop logical solutions to fit situations and expectations and/or follow specifications.
•  Strong organisation and administrative skills.
•  Excellent people management skills.
•  Ability to manage growth and work under pressure.
•  Strong team player.
•  Service and delivery orientated.
•  High attention to detail.
•  Innovative and results-driven.
•  Passionate and self-motivated.