Job Advert Summary
Guided by its purpose to provide products for patients to alleviate pain and suffering and improve their quality of life, NBI’s vision is to be the leading African manufacturer and supplier of quality therapeutic proteins and diagnostic products.
National Bioproducts Institute NPC has a vacancy for the role of a Sales Manager. The successful incumbent will be required to:
Develop, implement and manage sales plans to achieve sales objectives, maximise the company's customer base and ensure the company maintains a high level of visibility amongst the target customer base Locally and Internationally. Recruit, manage, set objectives for, coach and monitor performance of direct reports.
Applications are invited from suitably qualified and experienced candidates.
Minimum Requirements
- Health Science Degree or Diploma
- Marketing or Sales Degree or Diploma
- Minimum of 6 years’ experience in pharmaceutical sales, and 3 years management experience, mentoring and coaching of sales teams in both private and state healthcare sectors.
Duties and Responsibilities
Sales Management
- Implement the sales strategy by developing sales plans, activities and campaigns and manage the day-to-day activities of the sales team for the local market.
- Prepare sales forecasts and budgets, monitor sales volumes and revenues against forecast to identify problems/opportunities and develop plans to address performance gaps.
- Develops and implements new sales initiatives and strategies to penetrate new identified markets whilst maximising sales and visibility opportunities in existing markets
- Identifies requirements for promotional material to support sales strategy and plans; and communicates to Brand Specialist for development. Provides input into the promotions plan to ensure planned, focused and co-ordinated promotional activities that meet the sales and marketing objectives of the company.
- Provides input into promotional material design and where necessary tests material in field.
- Collate internal and external sales data and prepare reports for management as required.
- Provides supporting role to the Marketing Manager for the completion of tender bids.
Sales Activity Management
- Manage the development and performance of the sales team by setting performance goals and tracking and evaluating performance to meet sales forecasts. Managing Sales Supporting staff.
- Regularly assess the strengths and weaknesses of the sales team, customer coverage and territory allocation and manage the sales program accordingly.
- Provide on-the-ground support for Product Consultants.
- Manages internal sales process through discussions with the Head: Finished Goods Stores to monitor sales and develop action plans
- Ensures company achieves the required level of visibility at congresses by assigning the appropriate staff to attend the congress.
- Identifies appropriate Continued Medical Education opportunities for the Information Department and ensures attendance by Product Consultant where appropriate. Refers customer requests to Information Department.
Maintain and enhance customer relations
- Manages key customer relationships through meetings with identified key customers, assessing the quality of the relationship, responding to needs and resolving problems using day-to-day operational decision-making.
- Schedules infield visits with the Product Consultants to assess individual Product Consultant customer relations and maintain customer contact.
- Receives and responds to customer queries or complaints, where necessary referral to Clinical Affairs. Follows up on referrals to ensure resolution of query or complaint. Responds to customer needs and routes the information to the relevant departments. Recommends and implements changes to improve customer satisfaction.
- Continually assess current distribution channels (wholesalers) through feedback from customers, evaluate performance of wholesalers, responds to and resolves problems. Provide regular feedback to Marketing Manager.
Product and market knowledge
- Keeps abreast of trends in terms of competitor activities, pricing, therapeutic trends, new products and diseases, hospital group commercial agreements, healthcare and business environment etc. by reading the latest literature, attending congresses and spending time in field. Continually develops knowledge of the business and healthcare environment, medical knowledge and competitor activities.
- Maintains competitive intelligence database by collating and recording relevant information received from sales team or directly from customers. Compiles monthly competitive intelligence reports which include a summary of competitive intelligence gained during the month, comments on likely impact and recommendations on effective responses.
- Collates customer feedback on product design, product usage and experiences and reports to Marketing Manager.
- Identifies suitable customers for market research projects and co-ordinates involvement of the sales team where necessary.
People Management
- Ensuring the effective management of the department/team by actively contributing to and supporting NBI’s people management agenda, including leave, overtime and resource management, management of misconduct with NBI’s HR framework, promoting employee engagement, etc.
- Setting both departmental and individual objectives in order to meet NBI’s strategic objectives, in the form of individual performance plans.
- Evaluates and manages employee performance and implement corrective or remedial actions as required.
- Identifying, supporting and implementing learning and development needs in collaboration with People Management.
- Providing developmental, coaching and job enrichment opportunities to maximize employees’ potential.
- Support transformation, the execution and achievement of NBI’s EE plan, diversity and inclusion within their respective departments
- Establishes training and development plans for staff in conjunction with People Management Division and Clinical Affairs Department.
Manages departmental budget
- Prepares cost centre (expenditure) budget for approval as part of the Marketing Budget
- Prepares monthly cost centre expenditure report for inclusion in the Marketing Department expenditure report
- Management of departmental expenditure to meet budgeted expenses
Core Competencies
- Leading and Influencing Others
- Managing Relationships
- Personal Leadership
- Business Impact
- Strong project manager
- Sales ability/persuasiveness
- Customer focus
- Planning and organising
- Information monitoring and decision making
- Oral and written communication
- Negotiation
- Aligning performance for success
- Interpersonal skills
- Conflict management
- Leadership