National Account Manager (Area Sales Manager, Sales Development Manager, Newspaper Sales Manager)
Company Profile: Newspaper and Magazine Wholesaler. £650m turnover, 2500 employees, 30 sites, delivering to 13,000 customers per day (3,500 multiples, 9,500 independents) via 900 routes.Responsibilities: Reporting to the Retail General Manager with responsibility for the daily account management, sales and Business Plan performance for Tesco, Asda, Morrison's and Co-op. Ensuring the 22-strong Field Sales Team fulfil retail support commitments, including store openings, refits, and merchandising. First point of contact for all analytical national service issues and established a KPI for timely resolution of all queries.Promoted into role.Managed a combined account turnover £199m, which increased by 7.5% year-on-year.Ensured through Critical Path, communication and monitoring that branch based Magazine Sales Teams conformed to promotional allocations and followed sales trends, resulting in improved category availability of 6%.Developed reporting systems to assist Retail Buyers to reduce waste, via rejected credits, by over £250k in the last 12 months.Agreed and Forecasting and Budgetary targets with all Retail Groups with specific segment forecasting.Established National Training Workshops with Tesco, Asda, and Morrison's to ensure store colleagues knowledge of the category and supplier processes improved. Supported by field Sales Team reviews which showed a 25% improvement in store processes.Critical Path development Achieved 100% product availability at new store openings and refits by communicating and liaising closely with Field Sales Team and branch based Magazine Sales Teams.Organised the introduction of Sales Based Replenishment and Electronic Trading to schedule by liaising closely with internal & external resource, and resolving bottlenecks swiftly.Ensuring all aspects of Office, Sales and Field Visits were auctioned within agreed deadlines and timelines.
