Business Development Manager - UPro

Function: Customer Development

Work Level:  2B

Reports to: CSP Director Home Care Southern Africa

Scope: South Africa

Location: Johannesburg/Durban

Terms & Conditions: Full-time

ABOUT UNILEVER

With 3.4 billion people in over 190 countries using our products every day, Unilever is a business that makes a real impact on the world. Work on brands that are loved and improve the lives of our consumers and the communities around us. We are driven by our purpose: to make sustainable living commonplace, and it is our belief that doing business the right way drives superior performance. At the heart of what we do is our people – we believe that when our people work with purpose, we will create a better business and a better world. 

At Unilever, your career will be a unique journey, grounded in our inclusive, collaborative, and flexible working environment. We don’t believe in the ‘one size fits all’ approach and instead we will equip you with the tools you need to shape your own future.

JOB PURPOSE

Find your purpose at Unilever. You will lead innovations, big and small, that will make our business win and grow. You will learn from brilliant business leaders and colleagues in a truly global and diverse culture to ultimately become a better you. 

The dedicated HC Professional business (UPRO) unit was created in 2019 with the objective of building a €500M global professional cleaning B2B business by 2025.  The business is now live in 44 markets including LATAM, Europe, SEAA, India, Turkey, and South Africa. The business has focused on forming a deep understanding of professional operator needs, designing a superior professional portfolio that meets those needs better than competitors, and building value-creating partnerships with B2B customers.

With a dedicated and agile team, we pride ourselves on delivering a high-performance culture, while building strong capabilities and talent within the organization and the industry.

This role will lead for exponential growth of UPRO via Distributive Trade (DT) customers who service B2B professional operators. They will be responsible for significantly improving the performance of current distributors (revenue growth, operations, capability and joint business partnering), as well as increase Reach by developing new RTM solutions.

This leadership role is crucial for the successful transformation of the UPRO business as it repesents the most important strategic pillar to grow the business sustainably and profitably in South Africa.

WHAT WILL YOUR MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES BE

• Distributor management and development
• Design and lead for a future-fit distributor sales and support infrastructure that clearly define roles, responsibilities, recruitment, remuneration, training, performance evaluation, and discipline
• Create and implement Distributor Joint Business Planning (JBP) for mutual profitable growth - getting full alignment between distributor and UPRO agreement on the all elements, KPIs and financial incentives
• Establish the rewards and recognition system with clear KPIs that motivates distributors and salesmen
• Management of distributor contracts - design (with legal) and communicate and implement the same. Ensure enforcement of the contract through periodic review with the CD organisation and the distributors
• Distributor profitability - understand the cost structure, computation of ROI, and use the elements of the ROI to achieve the business objective
• Distributor Management – lead target setting and review, management of stock, market credit and working capital, coverage planning and execution, delivery efficiency, invoicing accuracy
• Proactively identify and progress solutions to consolidate the distributor network, for example, setting up a Master Distributor
• Input into, and lead the flawless execution of Pricing, Promotion, Activations and Product Innovation in DT
• Training & Capability Development – raise the bar on  sales reps capabilities in partnership with the global and local UPRO teams - identify skill, competency and performance gaps.
• Overall accountability for the “back-end” operational systems and processes unique to UPRO or shared with Unilever Retail Customer Operations. Lead and influence these shared teams to support UPRO’s requirements.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO SUCCEED

Experiences & Qualifications

• B.Com Degree or equivalent
• B2B Professional Industry experience > 5 years
• Sales leadership experience > 5 years
• Route to Market or Distributor Management experience
• Experience in managing an external sales team

Skills

• Deliver results at speed
• Drive accountability inside and outside the organisation to deliver on commitments.
• Ability to make P&L decisions to deliver profitable growth through Joint Business Planning and Trading Terms management
• Externally connected to operators, customers, channels and markets, used to develop customer-centric plans for growth, e.g.  portfolio, RTM, channel activation
• Ability to build talent and capability within direct team, and extended team (distributor sales reps)
• Ability to implement agile ways of working and flex resource allocation according to business requirements
• Ability to lead for change within UPRO, and with our industry partners

Leadership

• You are an inclusive motivator of people. Your team deliver with real passion, growing and learning from each other whilst delivering quick wins.
• You are still responsible for your own results and as a manager, you also need to motivate others to deliver with passion, creating an inclusive and engaging climate around you. You can balance challenge with support and coaching. You understand the wider business context and you are emotionally intelligent enough to motivate people to deliver what is needed.

Lead for a Winning Culture by embracing and living the Unilever behaviors of:

• Care Deeply
• Focus on what counts
• Stay three steps ahead and
• Deliver with excellence

Unilever is an equal opportunities employer and committed to diversity and inclusivity in the workplace.  We are intentional in employing the best talent that reflects the demographics of our country and which will help build representation of currently under-represented groups. We therefore invite applications from all candidates representing diversity of age, sex, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion or belief. When appointing potential candidates, the South African Employment Equity and Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Legislation will be considered. 

We are required by law to verify your ability to work lawfully in South Africa. If you are applying as a foreign national, please note that you may be requested to provide supporting documents supporting this.

This is an office-based role and requires 100% of time attendance on site.

Unilever is an organisation committed to equity, inclusion and diversity to drive our business results and create a better future, every day, for our diverse employees, global consumers, partners, and communities. We believe a diverse workforce allows us to match our growth ambitions and drive inclusion across the business. At Unilever we are interested in every individual bringing their ‘Whole Self’ to work and this includes you! Thus if you require any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at the time of your application so that we can support you through your recruitment journey.