National Account Manager

Job description

Purpose

Responsible for the management of the mass business for the ASDA, Amazon, Waitrose, CO-OP, Day Lewis accounts.

Key Responsibility

Promotional Planning

• Responsible for building annual business plans for brands, translating the National plan into customer specific requirements
• Reporting the business plan via a National Account Brief with the appropriate detail and maintaining this accurately and up to date at all times
• Working closely with key store management to develop plans at store level
• Developing customer specific marketing activities with Brand Managers in support of major brands activities
• Controlling & monitoring promotional trade funds in line with budget, so as to secure planned new net sales
• Controlling & monitoring of point of sale material
• Completing pre & post promotion profitability assessment
• Submitting promotion proposals to relevant account contacts in an accurate and timely manner
• Liaising with marketing & POS department to ensure appropriate POS/ display is developed to support promotion activity
• Auditing customer stores to ensure agreed activities take place and are implemented and agreed and paid for

  Finance

• Ensuring all invoices/ Debit notes for activities associated with your customers are signed and approved by yourself/ Sales Controller/ Sales Director within 7 working days of receipt
• Working with customer services team to promptly resolve and any outstanding queries that may be delaying payment from customer over and above their agreed payment terms
• Assisting where possible and relevant to improve payment terms for your customers

  Pricing

• Agreeing price increases with your customers
• Negotiating pricing for new products or ranges that are listed
• Submitting necessary pricing notification/ administration to customers (new line forms) in an accurate and timely manner

  Sales Forcasting

• Updating sales forecasts monthly into essbase to reflect:
• Changes in retail sales performance
• New listings/ discontinuations
• Promotion changes
• Changes in distribution
• For all forecasts, where EPOS data is available from customers, this should be used to build forecasts
• Monitoring stock levels with retailers on a regular basis

  Category/ Competitor Information

• Taking photographs in store of relevant/ major activities
• Securing where possible, epos data from customers on a weekly basis and report to business in a relevant format
• Understanding and utilising market data to fully understand our categories and gain competitive advantage in negotiations for additional space and distribution
• Securing plannograms for your customer's fictures at each review and analysis

  Distribution

• Presenting to customer's new product launches or existing ranges appropriate for listing and in line with company account sepcific objectives

  Annual Planning Process

• Completing and compiling an annual customer strategy document to drive sales growth with your customers
• Implementing a joint (strategic) business plan with your customer where possible with agreed annual business targets and action plan towards achievement of this
• Contributing information for your customers (promotion plan, sales forecasts, trade funds requirements) to the Sales Controller to allow compilation of total sales plan for the year ahead
• Working closely with Area Managers to insure implementation of the National Account Plan, this should involve a field visits accompanying an Area manager on a regular basis

  Desired Skills and Experience

• Account Management experience and a passion for the Health and Beauty sector
• Communicates effectively, delivering impactful presentations and is able to negotiate and influence
• Shows a strong sense of individual accountability and able to work with autonomy
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills and can manage cross functional relationships
• Proficient Excel, numeracy and analytical skils with strong attention to detail
• Is a change champion and pioneers new ideas and approaches
• Committed to deliver results and goes after the stretch target
• Demonstrates a sense of urgency and knows when to act and when to wait
• Has a flexible approach and adapts to challenges and changing priorities as needed
• Organises own work and that of others, taking responsibility for the quality of all deliverables
• Strong team player and collaborates easily with others, willing to help and learn from others and shares relevant information with the team
• Focuses on the needs of the customer
• Commercially aware with experience in P&L management, budget planning, and customer management
• Embraces and accelerates change, thinking outside the box and bringing fresh ideas, in a fast paced environment
• Makes fast decisions balancing intuition and facts