Position Summary
The General Trade Manager is accountable for leading the growth and profitability of the General Trade channel in Vietnam. This role is responsible for developing and implementing channel strategies, managing distributor partnerships, overseeing sales planning and forecasting, and optimizing trade investments to achieve business objectives. The incumbent collaborates closely with distributors, Marketing, and Trade Marketing teams to ensure effective execution, strengthen customer relationships, maintain optimal inventory levels, and drive strong market performance. In addition, the role provides regular business insights and performance updates to senior management, proactively adjusting strategies and plans to support the company's overall goals and priorities.
You will play an essential role to:
1) Sales Strategy and Planning
- Lead and develop the General Trade channel by implementing comprehensive sales strategies to achieve financial targets and drive sustainable, profitable growth.
- Develop annual sales forecasts and evaluate market trends to support strategic decision-making
- Develop and present annual sales budgets, including volume targets and trade investment plans.
- Define detailed action plans, monitor performance against targets, and adjust execution plans as necessary while maintaining strategic objectives.
- Develop strategies with Marketing and Trade Marketing to achieve strategic goals and projects.
2) Leadership
- Lead and mentor a high-performing with distributor sales team, fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability, entrepreneur mind set and continuous improvement.
- Capable to outlining clear objectives & ensuring a transparent, effective incentive mechanism.
- Drive the implementation of sales training programs to enhance the capabilities and skills of the sales team.
3) Sales Process and execution excellence
- Develop, monitor, and recommend continuous improvements in sales processes & cross functional collaboration to ensure alignment with overall business strategy.
- Monitor sales performance, generate business insights, and provide recommendations for continuous improvement to senior management.
- Manage distributor sales forecasts in line with promotional activities, product launches, and distribution expansion initiatives.
- Defines short-term and long-term sales objectives and ensures the accomplishment of these objectives and the delivery of business results.
- Ensure key outlets are perfect representations according to 4 key areas execution excellence – Range & distribution, Shelf Management, Promotion compliance and trade partnership.
4) Financial Management and Budgeting
- Closely monitor by distributor & accountable for accounts receivable & reconcile distributor's expenses claims.
- Define and monitor trade spending by distributor, managing promotional pricing and distributor value chain & distributor incentive within company guidelines.
- Spend within budget and drive for optimization of investment spending ensuring effective allocation of resources.
- Prepare yearly budget planning.
5) Distributor Management and Negotiation
- Supervise distributor's sales team in developing and servicing GT channel
- Ensure effective distributor management and maintain a healthy inventory system.
- Conduct regular business reviews with distributors and key customers to identify key opportunity.
- Negotiate distributor contracts and distributor trade compliance according to the sales plan.
- Problem solving on day-to-day operation issue.
- Maintain regular communication with Distributors/ key customers.
6) Market Analysis and Product Development
- Evaluate product gaps and improvement proposals, recommending new or enhanced product solutions.
- Maintain sales volume, product mix, and pricing by staying updated on market trends and competitors.
- Develop actionable recommendations from post-evaluation analyses to inform customer strategies.
- Manage product assortment to cater to diverse customer needs.
7) Market Operations and Support
- Analyze market trends, competitor activities, and consumer behavior to identify opportunities and threats and formulate appropriate action plans to ensure the company remains competitive and compliant.
- Regularly visit market or traveling outside home base to ensure trade execution excellent as per plans.
To be successful in this role, you will need to have:
- A minimum of a bachelor's degree in business administration, Marketing, Economics, or a related field is required.
- Minimum of 5 to 10 years in senior sales or trade management roles, specifically within the FMCG industry. Strong understanding of General Trade dynamics, Distributor management, market trends. Experienced in Hygiene, Homecare, Personal Care or Consumer tissue category is a plus.
- Proven ability to lead and manage distributor's sales teams to achieve targets, with dedicated team leadership and performance management capabilities.
- Expertise in developing and implementing strategic sales plans, including market analysis, identifying growth opportunities, and optimizing trade spending.
- Exceptional negotiation skills and the ability to build and maintain strong relationships with distributors and stakeholders.
- Strong financial management skills, including budgeting and managing trade spending, combined with the ability to analyze market trends and sales data to derive actionable insights.
- Equipped with strong resilient in the face of working under high - pressure, fast-pace, multi-tasking environment and result oriented.
- Familiar with the Brand owner and Distributor model in Vietnam.
- Hands-on person and can expand company business with limited resources.
