Job Title: UK Industry Key Account Manager
Department: Sales
Reports to: UK Industry Manager
Salary: £50,000
Location: Home Based - with occasional travel to site / customers

Role Summary:

• The UK Industry Manager must possess a strong business acumen, commercial sales-driven mindset, extensive customer/category/product sales experience and apply these to manage, grow customer portfolio sales & profits to meet business sector objectives.

Role Requirements:

• A strong demonstrable track record of working with key national industry customers & strong ownership/time management/communication/team working skills are key. Working closely with the UK Industry Manager as well as UK/Group teams, the primary role objective is to manage a portfolio of national Industry accounts, through building strong relationships, balancing key account skills (farming/hunting) combined with cross selling and setting key customer plans (objectives/visits etc) to deliver incremental sales growth, optimising pricing & margins, driving long term sustainable profitable growth.

Full Summary:

• Manage key National key account portfolio across the UK, developing/strengthening relationships through regular face-to-face contact, delivering commercial/pricing ambitions, utilising farming/hunting skills to increase revenues in order to meet set Industry/Portfolio objectives.
• Report on monthly basis to Industry Manager on objective status & portfolio performance alongside Gains/Loss + Sales Pipeline and wider identified risks & opportunities.
• Assist the Industry Manager to formulate and implement long term Industry sector strategic plans in order to deliver future growth & incremental profitability for the business.
• Increase profitable sales across the Ardo product portfolio, cross selling portfolio at all times.
• Take ownership in all cases and communicate strongly to both internal/customer stakeholders.

Leadership & Teamwork

• Create & implement strategic plan for our National Key Account portfolio in order to realise business objectives, including growth opportunities, wider business support requirements & customer engagement/contact framework.
• Take full ownership of sales related activity within your customers, managing & coordinating all internal & external communications.
• Grow and develop strong account relationships within your customer base to the benefit of the Ardo business & Industry sector objectives.
• Work closely with NPD & Marketing Team to define, align and deliver targeted product & marketing communications in order to drive new sales.
• Work closely with Industry Manager and Group where necessary towards collective Ardo objectives within the Industry sector.

Communication

• Take full ownership & manage your customer needs into the business through clear, strong communication, both verbally/written to ensure smooth, fast & efficient flow of information & action.
• Be able to listen, impart information to the benefit of all concerned.
• Act in a manner that portrays confidence and trust with all colleagues and customers.
• Report National key Account portfolio performance, key opportunity & risk areas on monthly basis to Industry Manager + UK Sales & Marketing Director if applicable.
• Build relationships across the National Key Account portfolio, bringing in senior stakeholders where beneficial to strengthen customer relations/reliance towards Ardo, eg Product Development, Industry Manager or UK Sales & Marketing Director) and organising Ardo site visits to underline Ardo core competencies.

Strategic

• Create, & execute commercial strategy (customer/product category) in order to deliver National Key Account portfolio objectives, meeting local UK sector objectives and following Group guidelines (eg unified market price setting, inflationary price increases etc).
• Align your sub-level customer plan to realise wider UK Industry sector objectives.
• Manage, communicate & execute Industry Pricing strategy, either local or Group defined in both your own portfolio.
• Maximise the Cross Sell, eg optimising existing footprint in Herbs to sell Veg & vice-versa.
• Work closely with Product Development in order to organise new product applications across the customer portfolio.
• Manage, monitor market trends & competitor pricing across key sector & strategic product groups (eg Herbs, Garlic etc) bringing the Outside/In approach into decision making.
• Balance the combined sales approach of Farming & Hunting new sales growth mentality in order to deliver new sales revenues through regular customer engagement & optimising supply chain efficiencies.

Analytical

• Manage the National Account portfolio performance measurement, identify trends and reporting key success/risk areas to Industry Manager on monthly basis, taking appropriate action towards adverse trends.
• Work closely with Marketing to understand trends from wider team market intelligence or market data in order to optimise market approach.
• Report on set smart personal objectives on a monthly basis.

Responsibilities and Expertise

• Deliver increased cross-functional engagement and profitable sales revenue growth in National Account portfolio.
• Lead, manage & provide direction to the Industry Sales sector & your customer portfolio.
• Pro-actively manage communication to Industry Manager, escalating issues as necessary in a fast, clear & decisive way
• Work with integrity at all times.
• Promote the Industry Team image/relationship with all departments within the company.
• Demonstrate both internally and externally an in depth product and market knowledge.
• Effectively manage own diary, balancing autonomous & close team working to maximise customer contact whilst avoiding unnecessary travelling

Compliance

• Maintain a full understanding of the legal requirements within the department and also the business and ensure you are operating within that legal requirement.
• Personally comply with all policies, procedures and risk assessments relevant to your role and responsibilities.