Head of Sales Chinese Accounts

Role Purpose: 

This position is responsible to deliver business results for Vietnam Chinese accounts through volume growth, price and mix improvement through an established, loyal and growing customer base. The incumbent should develop the local sales strategy aligned to the global A&F Commercial strategy, and Company goals (e.g. H&S, Sustainability, Digitization) and work very closely with relevant functions such as Global Accounts to deliver GA plans locally, Supply Chain for demand forecasting and service KPI and Finance for collection and cash flow management.

Driving new business opportunities with existing customers and with new customers and successfully implementing NPD activities for commercial benefit to Coats.. The individual is expected to work closely with the Global Accounts & Technical

Service teams to execute the Global Accounts strategy in the defined region/market.

The incumbent is also responsible for developing the sales capability of the team aligned to the sales competency framework and the Coats Commercial Academy curricula. This should be delivered through coaching support thereby creating a robust talent pipeline for the Business while at the same time, embedding and ensuring proper practice and adherence to

Commercial Excellence principles and company policies

Principal Accountabilities and Key Activities:

Commercial Responsibilities:

· Establish and achieve local sales plan through existing customer base, winning share gain and acquiring new business through a clearly defined prospecting strategy

· Manage the implementation of customer segmentation models to ensure resources are focused in the right areas

· Manage the implementation of Key Account planning programmes across the sales team to identify and deliver growth with the priority customers in line with the local business strategy

· Understand the market dynamics & demand trend by end use/segment and translate the insights into the local demand forecast

· Create a broad range of influential contacts and key decision makers across all levels within the customer and internal organization to deliver business objectives 

· Improve Gross Margin through mix improvement with technical selling and deliver price increase plan by value delivery to the customers

· Deliver Operating Cash Flow (OCF) plan by ensuring the collection of the debtors within agreed payment terms

· Periodic review of the credit worthiness of the customer in alignment with credit control team

Marketing and Communication:

· In collaboration with Marketing, contribute to the development of market and customer insights and ensure these are actioned to deliver commercial benefits to Coats and its customers

· Actively support key strategic customer meetings to promote the benefits of the Coats, product, service and digital offers and represent the business as a subject expert.

· Drive global projects and innovations in the local market.

· Keeps abreast of the latest selling techniques and approaches and feeds these into Coats leadership for continuous improvement of the Coats Commercial Academy and the Sales Competency framework

Budget and Analysis:

· Responsible for the defined regions budget and conducting regular reviews against performance and plans

· Use insights to identify strategic synergies between Coats and key customers that can used as a platform for long term collaboration and partnership

· Implement processes and systems to improve sales capability and consistency of customer business planning, in accordance with Commercial Excellence principles and Commercial Academy programmes

· Track key competitors with respect to their business strategy and design counter strategy to drive share gain, and provide feedback to marketing to contribute to a deeper global understanding of competitor strategies & tactics

· Strategic planning skills to set goals and develop effective projects to deliver sales growth

· Work closely with stakeholders like GA, Technical Services, Finance and Supply Chain to sign-off annual business plans

People Development:

· Develop and coach the sales team in accordance with competency profiles and aligned to the Commercial Academy Training programmes

· Coach the front line Commercial team members along with the Sales Manager on how to capitalize company`s key strengths to deliver commercial value

· Build capability and consistency of the team by training and developing and providing coordination to the relevant stakeholder of GA, Technical services , Customer service and O2C team.

· Encourage and engage Sales team to develop a growth mindset based on proactive actions to enhance performance and improve results.

· Drive engagement, motivation and recognition within the team to build accountability to achieve their goals.

· Delivery of Commercial Academy training modules to the local team as part of the overall sales capability development plan

Education, Qualifications and Experience:

· Fluent in English and Chinese

· Graduation from reputed public/private institute with minimum 8/10 years of extensive customer-facing experience preferably, in a B2B environment

· Ability to think strategically and highly results orientated

· Understanding the usage/ role/ impact of Coats products in improving quality and productivity in A&F and knowledge and understanding of the external market

· Experience in negotiating/ liaising with external customers, suppliers, etc.

· Understand and recognize customer needs and possess the ability to build up long term value added partnership with customers in order to help them make better quality apparel & footwear in the most efficient manner.

· Ability to quickly analyse complex data and situations, and present results that are informative, easy to understand, and provide many different layers of complexity.

· Strong organizational and people management skills to handle subordinates and peers of different functions.

· Ability to communicate effectively at all levels of the organization and customers

· Strong selling skills with experience in negotiating and delivery against contract terms

· Energetic and enthusiastic team player, quick to grasp new concepts, with a can do approach to challenges

· Committed to the principles of corporate social responsibility and sustainability