National Key Account Manager

Job Location: ​Johannesburg

Job Location: ​Johannesburg

Company description

Ferrero is a family-owned company with a truly progressive and global outlook and iconic brands such as Nutella®, Tic Tac®, Ferrero Rocher®, Raffaello®, Kinder Bueno® and Kinder Surprise®. As the love for our brands continues to grow, so too does our global reach. Represented in more than 50 countries, with products sold in more than 170, the Ferrero Group is loved by generations around the world. The secret to our global success? 40,000  dedicated employees who celebrate care and quality to craft a business, careers and brands we are proud of. Join us, and you could be one of them.

Diversity Statement

Ferrero is committed to building a diverse and inclusive culture in which all employees feel welcomed and appreciated and have the same opportunities. We believe all of our people are equally talented in their own way. In nurturing the curiosity and natural abilities of our employees, we provide them, generation after generation, the means to succeed personally and professionally, enabling them to craft their journey at Ferrero. The diversity of our talents is what makes our work environment multicultural, innovative and highly rewarding.

About the Role:

If you're looking for an exciting opportunity that offers variety and room for growth, this is it! As a National Key Account Manager your main focus will be to drive sales development across a number of clients. You’ll collaborate with a dynamic and diverse team, building relationships with a breadth of clients to define sales strategies, targets, programs, commercial initiatives and promotional policies. 

Main Responsibilities:

* Delivering the company's growth through customer by delivering the product at the right place, right price
• Understanding, translating, and integrating customer strategy into joint business growth drivers
• Good negotiation skills and the ability to foster relationships with customers.
• Facilitate communication with customers and build long-term relationships to achieve business goals.
• Network with key customers to identify and address specific needs.
• Organized and able to analyse performance metrics.
• Set, deliver, and monitor account growth metrics, including ownership of account forecast & promotional effectiveness.
• Playing an integral role in new business pitches and hold responsibility for effective on-boarding of new clients.
• Act as the liaison between customers and internal teams ensuring customer requirements are met.
• Design and sell plans to customer, integrate customer plan to enable regional sales managers and their teams to increase sales and profitability.
• Identify and attract prospective strategic customers.
• Negotiate trade terms contracts.
• Maintain high customer satisfaction levels.
• Work with cross functional teams including Field Sales, Accounting & Finance, Marketing/Trade marketing, Supply Chain and Customer Service departments do deliver customer growth objectives.
• Deliver new products to market successfully.
• Manage and participate in Cross-Functional team targets.
• Lead and participate in design and adjustments of business processes.

Who we are looking for:

•    Proven work experience as a national account manager of 5+ years in top end retail/modern trade
•    Experience in key account management, cross functional team management and customer value creation
•    Ability to identify new business opportunities and execution
•    Understanding industry trends and integrating them into business solutions and strategy
•    Demonstrable experience in negotiation
•    In-depth understanding of sales performance metrics, category metrics and the 4Ps of marketing
•    Hands on experience with full MS Suite
•    Demonstrable experience in story telling through data
•    Good analytical and data understanding skills
•    Solid planning and organization skills
•    Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
•    Excellent presentation skills
•    Great forecasting skills
•    Bias for teamwork and collaboration
•    Digital and Omnichannel savvy
•    Ability to lead self (self-awareness, pressure tolerant)
•    Entrepreneurial-Solution orientated mindset
•    Availability to travel as needed
•    Bachelor’s degree in commercial related field or Business Administration or relevant field experience

How to be successful in the role and at Ferrero:

We encourage all our people to think creatively to set personal targets and objectives and push new, better ways to work. Employee contribution and engagement at Ferrero is based on the individual, team and organization dimension, so should have the ability to work independently, as a part of the team and be able to build proper relations with stakeholders at all levels. A demonstrable consumer-focused attitude and autonomy in managing relationships will help you in building your position among stakeholders and achieving expected sales outcomes.