Alex Barlow Email & Phone Number

Crawley, England, United Kingdom

Responsibilities• Leading the commercial and customer service proposition for the Volution Ventilation UK group (VVUK), combined annual turnover of £136m across 6 businesses.• Management of 7 direct reports and 32 secondary reports across call centre, technical support, quotations, export and commercial support functions.• Collaborating with sales directors in new business acquisition and key account management including maintaining customer SLA’s through cross-functional working and continuous improvement.• Order management, pricing and commercial lead on VVUK ERP system consolidation project (Epicor).• Leading the management, upgrading and consolidation of the VVUK trading platform incorporating business intelligence (Phocas), CRM (Microsoft Dynamics) and call centre (8 x 8, Horizon) software.• Representing the voice of the customer in senior leadership meetings through data analysis and effective written and verbal communication.Achievements• Notable new business acquisitions and ongoing key account management: Screwfix, Wickes (Retail), Galliford Try, Redrow (New Build Residential), Efficiency East Midlands (Social Housing), Lindab UK (Commercial), Atlantic (Export).• Jointly led a supply chain and planning project enhancing the quality of customer information and driving repeat sales. Contributed to 11% 5-year revenue CAGR.• Created standard order entry operating and checking procedures improving efficiency by 20% and reducing errors.• Designed KPI reporting pack, encouraging continuous improvement, organisational alignment and efficient allocation of resources.• Implemented and ran a customer service advisor incentive scheme driving customer-centric behaviours and contributing to year on year improvement in net promoter score.• Created a workflow led complaint logging and escalation framework providing actionable, data-led insights to improve.• Customer service leader in the achievement and retention of ISO9001 Quality Management Certification.

Crawley

Responsibilities• Leading pricing, quotations, contractual management and analytical support functions to two manufacturing businesses with a combined annual turnover of £95m (Vent-Axia and Manrose).• Supporting Sales Directors in new business development and account management as the key facilitator between customer requirements and operational delivery.• Creating and owning quotations, contractual rebates and standard pricing approval processes, maximising margin opportunities and minimising administrative effort.• Management of a team of 4 quotations and pricing analysts including 2 direct reports.Achievements • Created and administered a pricing platform delivering an average 3-4% blended price realisation year on year.• Remodelled quotations architecture improving conversion rates by 15% and enhancing turnaround times. • Formulated a standardised contractual and rebate agreement approval framework, significantly reducing duplicated effort and contributing to gross margin expansion of 2% across tenure.• Created a daily revenue and margin reporting pack feeding a weekly forecasting process, this process substantially influenced target delivery and operational prioritisation.

London

Responsibilities• Financial lead on large (between £5m and £80m) IT infrastructure and application outsourcing bids and tenders.• Representing Capgemini to clients in all finance related bid issues including written and verbal presentation of financial models, concepts and proposals.• Excel price modelling and template completion. Examples include volume based unit pricing, contractual gain share calculations, cash flow modelling and open book pricing structures.• Producing written client proposal responses including financial assumptions, commercial options, pricing mechanisms and financial strategy.• Analysing and evaluating client financial due diligence data to ensure correct solution sizing and understanding of required savings.• Representing the financial elements of the bid on all internal sign off calls with business leaders including “What if” modelling.Achievements • Notable bid wins include Ministry of Defence (£55m), PricewaterhouseCoopers (£18m), EDF Energy (£15m), Anglian Water (£8m).• Placed 2nd of 8 in 2012 Bid Analyst Win % performance table with a 31% win ratio.• Placed 2nd of 8 in 2012 internal peer review for Bid Analyst’s overall performance in role.

Coulsdon, Surrey

Responsibilities• Oversee UK Equipment Sales P&L preparation. FY09 turnover £90m.• Direct business partnering responsibility for Corporate and London sales regions with £50m annual turnover and 35 field sales FTE.• Management of a team of 4 (2 Financial Analysts and 2 Accounts Assistants) including regular formal appraisals, establishing annual targets and determining training needs.• Creation of Sales payment plans and commission statements in Microsoft Excel to be used across a sales force of over 175 FTE.• Managing supplier pricing rebates to ensure accuracy and protect profitability.• Full preparation of monthly Oracle P&L reporting including posting accruals and prepayments.• Reviewing and implementing Key Performance Indicators to improve understanding and provide insight on the P&L to key non-financial stakeholders.Achievements • Creation of revised KPI information packs in conjunction with Regional Sales Directors. Used in strategic decision making. Resulted in significant restructure of sales teams during 2009.• Chaired monthly progress meeting program with business leaders to review all aspects of the processes and service offered by the Finance department.

Teddington, Surrey

Responsibilities• Finance Business Partner for Global magazine and website brands such as What Car?, Stuff, Four Four Two and Eve.• Month-end procedures to produce monthly Management Accounts.• Production of rolling P&L forecasts to aid in strategic decision making.• Fortnightly progress report meetings with Publishing Directors focusing on editorial and publishing expenses and promotional spend reviews.• Preparation and sign off of annual Profit Centre budgets.• Invoice control, journal postings and ad-hoc reporting using Agresso.Achievements• Created a more coherent financial linkage between title website and magazine activity.• Assisted in a year on year net profitability increase of 3% blended across titles.

London, United Kingdom

Responsibilities• One of three senior team members below a General Manager.• Staff training in health and safety, cash handling and administration to over 35 FTE with high turnover. • Organisation of client events to increase commitment and drive revenue lines.• Direct responsibility for retention and opex report generation. Analysis of trends and anomalies. • Database administration to a business with over 5000 clients.Achievements • Streamlined expenditure and reduced consumable costs by 18% during tenure.• Reduced attrition rates by 4% in Year 2 through retention initiatives.

London, United Kingdom

Responsibilities• Split Role comprising 4 months of each: Individual and Corporate Sales, Customer Retention, Duty Management.Achievements • Sales: target exceeded in 3 of the 4 months including a campaign for Deutsche Bank that increased membership by 14%.• Retention: Created an Excel based retention analysis model that was used beyond my tenure.• Duty Management: Successfully oversaw a site with 8500 members and a minimum of 8 staff with no significant issues either financially or operationally.

Hayes, Middlesex

Responsibilities • Placement role as part of degree course. Accounts included Mars, Klix and Photo-Me.Achievements • Undertook a full review of pre-delivery processes and systems. Resulted in planning schedules being extended from 3 days to 7 days.

Executive Mba, Business Administration And Management, General

In progress

Cima, Accounting And Finance

All Exams Passed at 1st Attempt

2:1, Business Studies

Education record