National Distribution Manager | Non Liquor needed at Red Bull

Job Description

• Leading and mentoring a team who is responsible for ensuring that Red Bull is the #1 distributed energy drink in South Africa, by deriving and owning the strategy through horizontal and vertical reach opportunities. Red Bull should be available and within arm’s reach to every consumer in South Africa every day and displayed in a premium way. A key element to achieving this objective includes identifying, selecting, negotiating, and managing the right partners to ultimately deliver profitable and sustainable growth.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Areas that play to your strengths
• All the responsibilities we’ll trust you with:

PEOPLE

• Lead the DPM Team by focusing on their strengths to maximize their performance
• Coach and development team individuals to step up the ladder of mastery in managing their partners / accounts
• Define and execute routines and call cycles for team securing optimal DP management
• Own the relation to the top accounts and business partners
• Be hands-on for building strategy but also demonstrating and showcasing how it is done
• Responsible for analyzing geographic areas to understand outlet and sales opportunity within identified areas through trade visits

ROUTE TO MARKET

• Define new and constantly optimize existing route to market distribution partner model to meet business growth targets
• Define and innovative in profitable way for Red Bull to win market leadership within main market and independents liquor
• Ownership of managing business within the defined pricing and profitability guidelines and budgets

DIRECT DISTRIBUTION PARTNER MANAGEMENT

• Create and develop a model on how Red Bull can improve and win distribution through direct distribution
• Build strong commercial relationship with our partners sales teams across all regions based on a win-win focus
• Drive profitable and sustainable volume growth through distribution initiatives
• Build winning initiatives to drive reach, sales targets, and our execution in all channels
• Define and implement initiatives to constantly improve Red Bull’s in outlet/store visibility and performance linked to perfect outlet/store standards
• Define and negotiate together with your team overall distributor KPIs (broken down from overall sales targets) to meet Red Bulls annual business targets: Volume Sales, Execution, Promotional Execution, Distribution of Red Bull brand portfolio, Price Compliance and Effective Store Coverage
• Fueling passion for Red Bull at customer levels through defining with Trade Marketing efficient and effective recognition and reward programs
• Undertake systematic and regular store/outlet visits to identify gaps and opportunities
• Prepare and lead monthly & quarterly reviews with the DP
• Prepare and lead the contract negotiation process

STRATEGY AND PLANNING

• Responsible for creating a Business Plan in close co-ordination with the larger DPM team
• Set, track, and drive all DP sales regions against the annual business plan
• Responsibility for creating and developing a strong commercial plan to grow distribution and SKU listings, i.e. Horizontal and Vertical distribution

ADMIN

• 20% of time in field and 80% of time spent on analysis, planning and reporting
• Responsible for managing the stock forecast process with the DP and with support from the internal operations team
• Responsible for the correct management of the yearly regional budget and the control of all free goods
• Prepare review meetings (on a monthly/quarterly basis) via his/her team with all responsible sales regions to evaluate performance vs Joint Business Plan Objectives and agree on action plans. This is then reported to head of distribution and shared internally with key stakeholders
• Manage and secure efficient POS stock and handling as well as ROI management
• Close alignment of pricing and promotions with all necessary key stakeholders (MD, Off Premise, On Premise and Finance) to minimize the threat of cross channel cannibalization and to maintain profitability

EXPERIENCE

Your areas of knowledge and expertise that matter most for this role:

• Bachelor’s Degree
• 6–8-years sales experience in FMCG
• Excellent understanding of RTM environment in South Africa / the region (ideally On-Premise RTM)
• Strong track record of growing product distribution in South Africa
• Clear understanding of markets, sales & distribution, competitor activity, consumer behavior
• Strong track record of successful price increase implementation
• Previous management / leadership role
• Strong communications skills (verbal and written)
• Strong analytical and financial understanding
• Excellent problem-solving skills
• Advanced experience with Microsoft Excel
• Self-starter with initiative & attention to detail
• Well organized & able to handle multiple priorities in a relaxed manner
• Able to see tasks through from inception to completion
• Professional, focused, responsible & passionate approach to tasks – Excellent negotiation skills to lead negotiations with our partners