Commercial Excellence Manager at Lafarge Africa Plc

Lafarge Africa Plc is a member of the LafargeHolcim Group – the biggest building and concrete solutions company in the world. It is a publicly quoted company on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and serves Nigeria with a wide range of building and construction solutions designed to meet housing and construction needs from small projects like individual home buildings to major construction and infrastructure projects.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Commercial Excellence Manager

Location: Opebi, Lagos
Job type: Full time

Job Summary

• The overall purpose of role is to lead the Commercial Capability Strategy and implement the defined action plans for capability development for the Sales Force Effectiveness, Marketing team performance, Customer Service team improvement and other commercial units’ performance, in line with delivering the Business Objectives.
• The job holder will identify needs, implement and facilitate learning solutions which will enable the Commercial organization to continuously improve business performance, in line with Best practices.
• The job scope will range from meeting the learning needs of individuals to developing a learning strategy supporting the function.
• The role supports the development of the following teams:
• Sales unit - National Sales Manager, Head of Sales, CRMs, KAMs, SOPs
• Marketing unit – Head of Marketing, Brand Communications Manager, Channel Development Managers, Pricing Manager
• Product & Technical unit – Head of Technical & Innovation, Product development manager, Technical Service Engineers,
• Road segment – Head and Road Technical manager
• Customer Service unit – Head and team
• 3rd Party Sales force and Technical Marketing team
• Distributors and their staff.

Responsibilities

• Optimization of sales force productivity;
• People development agenda and processes;
• Fully embedded world class sales skills within Field sales force and corporate sales team;
• Lead person to work with the LH Corporate Sales Excellence team to deploy the Sales academy program for the Commercial function
• Drive the deployment of Train the Trainer programs
• Build coaching capability for Commercial leaders and measure the effectiveness
• Drive Value-Selling mindset within the Sales force
• Overall responsibility to drive the effectiveness of the Salesforce.com CRM tool through training and monitoring.

Operational / Technical / Professional Results:

• Plan & ensure the implementation of development solutions such as the Sales Academy program to provide the opportunity for people and teams to learn and improve their performance while ensuring LH best practices are consistently applied & integrated into the Commercial function.
• Help Sales Department to master the Sales Management cycle and deploy the full Commercial Strategy from A-Z: Customer Portfolio analysis, targeting ABC, Sales & Customers Action plans, Monitor Regional Management scope of work. Conduct diagnosis on activities and focus on areas to improve.
• Drive consistency in the approach to Customers visits, Value-selling, Pricing & Margin Management, Project based sales + “Leading the Sales Force” for HOS & CRM to roll-out Commercial Strategy Continuously align actions with Marketing Plan/initiatives
• Facilitate development programs to ensure that learning objectives are agreed & achieved while creating & managing a pool of competent facilitators.

Leadership Results:

• Develop coaching competence & culture within the Commercial function to promote a positive learning climate to ensure learning outputs are directly relevant to local organizational requirements to deliver the growth ambition. Drive coaching of the Commercial team to deliver targets and support the leaders to drive all performance management issues to close the gaps.
• Demonstrates high integrity, communication, and effective listening skills, ability to set standards of performance and ability to adapt leadership styles, exhibiting the Lafarge leadership values.
• Drives the Lafarge health and safety policies. Understands the environmental impact of self and other’s work, ensures personal safety of self and others.
• Internally, works with Head of Commercial units, Commercial Performance & Planning, Segment Heads, HR Business Partner, Regional Sales Managers and Talent Manager, and cross-functionally to identify and deliver solutions to meet team and individual capability needs.
• Support the Career development and Talent review process for the Commercial function to ensure a healthy talent pipeline.

Management Results:

• Maintain learning & development budget to ensure that resources are used in the most effective and efficient manner.
• Evaluate learning outcomes from the development solutions to ensure that results are achieved cost effectively.
• Provide feedback on the effectiveness & efficiency of development programs.
• Monitor & support individuals & teams as they progress through development process.
• Leverage the support of HR and Procurement to manage the process of selection and deployment of Training/development companies/agencies to drive efficiency.

Relationship Results:

• Diagnose individual and team competence gaps across the Commercial function, communication agencies & 3 rd party sales force.
• Assess the quality of the talent pool to promote targeted learning and development initiatives and ensure cost effective solutions to meet requirements
• Ability to develop win-win solutions, knowledge of goals and needs of other function, cross functional team building and show understanding of the “greater good Externally, works closely with Channel Partners across country, to deliver training solutions and enhance their capabilities in line with company objectives
• Responsible for business development efforts, including Statements of Work (SOW), proposal development, client presentations, etc.
• Development of training interventions to improve the Business performance and sustainability of our distributors and their staff.

Innovation Results:

• Regularly develop and implement programs & solutions to improve the Commercial organisation’s capabilities in the use of Sales & Marketing tools to making our people more professional and efficient.
• Acquires and applies new knowledge, empowers self and others, gives open feedback, lead learning events and coach others effectively.
• Contributes to team development through participation in business development, training, methodology and toolkit development, and recruiting Support Career, learning path and recruitment process with unique effective solutions that enhance the Commercial function effectiveness.
• Sharing best practise: Local initiatives versus regional versus global best practice and keep abreast of the changing/dynamic environment.

Accountabilities:
Financial Scope:

• No direct P&L responsibility
• Indirect People Relationships:
• HRBP & L & D Manager
• Commercial Leadership team
• Commercial Performance Manager
• All members of the Commercial team (Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Technical, Product, Road segment)
• Corporate Commercial Performance or other Corporate

Budget & KPI Responsibility:

• Manages the Commercial Training budget
• Responsible for training related KPIs

Experience Requirements
Critical Knowledge:

• Sound understanding of B2B / B2C Sales, marketing, product management and trade execution
• Solid business understanding (construction materials) and business acumen
• Candidate requires commercial astute and Business development competency

Critical Experience:

• Sales and Marketing Experience
• Excellent communicator with good cultural awareness - all level
• Change Management expert
• Customer Relationship Management experience and Solution selling model knowledge
• Excellent interpersonal skills to manage Head of units
• Demonstrate ability to coach and influence
• Ability to form strong partnership with key stakeholders and transfer these understandings
• Experience in a matrix organization across different functions.

Functional Competencies:

• Ability to translate strategy into operational action plans
• Resilience and stamina with an emphasis on solution seeking
• Proven management skills
• Competency assessment (individual & organizational)
• Motivated and results orientated with the drive to achieve targets
• Innovative and creative with the ability to translate ideas into effective action and outcomes
• Clear and accurate written and spoken communication and presentation skills
• The ability to influence, build and maintain effective relationships
• Strong IT skills and project management capability

Leadership Competencies & Behaviors:
Vision and Purpose

• Set go to market strategies
• Know the business and its trends
• Creative

Leading People:

• Communicate clearly and effectively
• Mobilize people
• Inspire commitment.

Driving for Results:

• Sets and works towards “stretch” goals.
• Focuses on effective implementation

Leading Change:

• Build trust and get people’s buy-in
• Challenge and be open to be challenged
• Motivate.

Critical Success Factors

• Ability to get strong support and buy-in of Commercial leadership team
• Ability to challenge the Commercial leadership team and earn their respect professionally
• Ensuring positive short and long term feedback on development programmes
• Meeting agreed customer satisfaction criteria
• Receiving positive feedback from facilitation sessions
• Effectively implementing BAT initiatives.
• Meeting the people development needs arising from the strategic business plan
• Assessing the competence of the marketing function
• Closing the competency gap
• Improving the level of coaching competence amongst managers
• Planning and working within agreed budget guidelines

Organizational Change:

• The Commercial Excellence Manager must be in a position to constructively challenge the Commercial Leadership team while providing direction for the capacity development of their teams, with an appropriate level of authority and autonomy.
• He /she directly reports to: Commercial Director.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply