We are looking for a Trade Marketing Customer Manager for a family-owned, global company with iconic brands that get kids and adults enthusiastic!
About the role:
You will ensure the full execution of the trade marketing strategy across all assigned channel customers, becoming the main point of contact for sales and marketing in the development of the business plan (Bottom-up). You will be responsible for developing the team’s capabilities and tools in order to have full control of commercial opportunities and monitoring the execution of the current strategy.
Main Responsibilities:
Company Plan (Bottom-up)
- Develop the Trade marketing Plan, prepared by Marketing based on strong consumer insights, providing the key selling story for the customer engagement on the main strategic areas (i.e. shelf, out of shelf, check out, permanent placements, etc)
- Facilitate the customer engagement harmonizing tools availability in order to assess, negotiate and monitor the business opportunities
Business Performance and Opportunity Identification
- Ensure an understanding of the overall performance across different categories and customers vs competitors, highlighting key performance drivers, risks / challenges and opportunities at customer level.
- Set up pre-defined reports that are cascaded to all the relevant functions together with key insights and recommendations.
- Define and share with sales team main business targets across all customer P&L, ensuring also a proper follow up overtime.
- Continuously monitor the Company performance at customer level and highlight any issues / opportunities (e.g. sell-in, sell-out, Gfk data, ad-hoc studies and analysis, etc…), establishing also within his/her team a strong mindset to identify business potential and improvement across different categories at customers / channels level, setting accurate kpi’s to quantify the potential.
Continuous improvement mindset
- Identify gaps in term of Commercial related business processes and tools in order to define concrete and time-based action plans to ensure a step change in the effectiveness of the company ways of working (both internal and vs the customers).
- Cascade new processes to all Commercial and Marketing community and ensure an immediate and effective execution.
Customer management
- Ensure a proper preparation for his/her team to support Sales team during contract negotiations with customers, ensuring a concrete link between customer opportunities and negotiation strategy.
- Ensure the establishment of a proper and effective customer offer process end-to-end from the preparation of the generic selling story until the tracking and the follow up with the customers.
- Management of promotion on daily basis for the specific customer (on activity builder tool), simulation of promotion, follow up specific KPI and recommandation to do. Promo analysis to do after deployement.
- Follow up of tailormade activation.
Who we are looking for:
- Master in Sales/Marketing or other Business Field.
- Minimum 7 years of experience in a sales (KAM) and/or trade marketing (category or customer management) role. Experience as Brand Manager is a plus.
- Knowledge of FMCG dynamics & understanding of the BeLux food retail and Hard discount environment and/or e-commerce / impulse – OOH channel.
- Category management expertise (promo, assortment analysis, planogram, etc.).
- P&L management.
- Analytical skills from category & customer performances to financial dimension.
- Familiar with data management (Nielsen, GFK, etc.).
- Team player.
- Skilled communicator, at ease with social interactions with internal (Sales – Catman – Marketing – Forecast) and external clients.
- Fluent at minimum in one local language – Dutch or French. Fluent in English is mandatory.
- Depending of the customer portfolio, you could have the management of one trainee or VIE (external).