Channel Development Manager, Malaysia
About the Role:
Channel Development Manager role drives sustainable business growth through effective channel and customer strategies. This role partners closely with customers, distributors, and cross-functional teams to identify opportunities, enhance commercial performance, and ensure excellence in execution across the market. The successful candidate will play a key role in developing customer plans, optimizing trade investments, leveraging insights, and delivering business results through strong collaboration and strategic thinking.
Main Responsibilities:
- Develop and implement channel and customer strategies aligned with business objectives
- Build annual customer business plans and identify opportunities to accelerate growth
- Recommend commercial strategies, trade terms, and customer development initiatives
- Lead customer business reviews and support strategic decision-making through data-driven insights
- Develop and maintain effective relationships with customers and distributors
- Define customer-specific growth objectives and action plans
- Lead commercial negotiations and manage customer agreements
- Partner with customers to deliver mutually beneficial business outcomes
- Analyze sales performance, market trends, customer data, and shopper insights
- Identify growth opportunities and develop actionable recommendations
- Translate data into activation plans that enhance sales performance and customer engagement
- Monitor business performance and recommend optimization initiatives
- Collaborate with Trade Marketing teams to develop activation and promotional plans
- Lead negotiations of annual promotional programmes and execution plans
- Support the implementation of assortment, merchandising, visibility, and category initiatives
- Ensure commercial plans are executed effectively to maximize business impact
- Manage trade investment budgets in line with commercial guidelines and business objectives
- Monitor spending effectiveness and return on investment
- Evaluate promotional performance and identify improvement opportunities
- Ensure investments contribute to sustainable business growth
- Communicate customer agreements and action plans clearly across the organization
- Monitor implementation of agreed initiatives and support execution excellence
- Track key business indicators, including sales, distribution, stock management, and execution KPIs
- Resolve operational or customer-related issues in collaboration with relevant stakeholders
- Partner with distributor teams to align sales plans, forecasting, inventory management, and promotional activities
- Conduct regular business reviews and planning sessions
- Support the achievement of commercial objectives through effective collaboration and execution
About You:
- University degree in Business, Marketing, or a related field
- Strong experience in Sales, Key Account Management, Trade Marketing, Category Management, or Channel Development within FMCG or consumer goods environments
- Experience managing customer relationships and delivering commercial results, distributor management experience preferred
- Experince in working with Modern Trade and/or Traditional Trade and Impilse channels is preferred
- Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities, ability to translate data and insights into practical business actions
- Effective communication, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills
- Commercial and financial acumen, including experience managing trade investments or budgets
- Ability to manage multiple priorities in a dynamic environment, collaborative approach and ability to work effectively across functions
- Commitment to delivering results through partnership, accountability, and continuous improvement
- Proficiency in MS Office, experience working with market data and commercial analytics platforms, such as Nielsen or similar tools, is advantageous
- Fluency in English and Bahasa Malaysia, written and spoken
What We Offer:
Careers with caring built in - discover our benefits here.
About Ferrero:
Ferrero began its journey in the small town of Alba in Piedmont, Italy, in 1946. Today, it is one of the world’s largest sweet-packaged food companies, with many iconic brands sold in countries all over the world. Find out more about Ferrero at ferrero.com.
DE&I at Ferrero:
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 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.
Find out more here.