RGM Manager, Customer Planning bei Lindt USA

Who We Are  

At Lindt, we are a global fast-growing consumer goods company, enchanting the world with premium chocolate. We are driven by our passion for excellence and go the extra mile ensuring that every Lindt experience is nothing short of exceptional. Our collective efforts are geared towards making a positive impact, not only in the world of premium chocolate but also in the lives of our employees, customers, and communities. Our company embraces a culture defined by the core values of Excellence, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Responsibility, and Collaboration, fostering a dynamic and collaborative environment where these principles drive our success.

Position Purpose:

The RGM Manager of Customer Planning will report directly into the Senior RGM Manager and be responsible for implementing the RGM principles at the channel level, including direct customer facing responsibility. Responsibilities will focus on partnering with the Sales organization to assist with translating the strategy into customer specific plans, while staying within promotion guidelines. The RGM Manager will be responsible for sales forecasting, customer planning, promotion planning and optimization, competitive analysis, and customer sales analytics for the National Grocery channel.   The RGM Manager will support larger scale RGM initiatives and process improvements. 

Essential Job Functions & Responsibilities:

Management and Role Development

• Responsible for implementing the RGM principles at the channel level.
• Partner with the commercial business to continuously evolve the sales planning process and embed the RGM approach and mindset.
• Manage and provide guidance to their direct reporting team of RGM Analysts.
• Facilitate RGM awareness through ongoing education across the Sales organization.
• Partner with customers to directly influence customer strategy within the National Grocery channel
• Support executional learning and development plans, administrative tools and processes.

Sales Forecasting

• Conduct monthly sales forecasting for Lindt’s top customers for National Grocery channel; validate and consolidate direct reports’ customer specific forecasts.
• Partner with Sr. RGM Manager through the S&OP process and be the expert on the channel sales forecast with relevant analytics and insights.
• Track deltas to monthly submissions and enter/update sales forecast volumes and customer events/plans; proactively analyze and recommend solutions to gaps identified
• Direct customer responsibility for one top customer, forecasting annual POS, shipment, and trade spend with sales account managers
• Fully represent Sales inputs in planning needs amongst the Finance, Trade, and Planning teams.
• Improve trade spend visibility and forecasting and incorporate into the sales planning process to continuously optimize Channel investments
• Continue to evolve the Trade Promotion Management (TPM) system to be leveraged for stronger and faster revenue management and analytics driven decision making for the National Grocery channel.
• Conduct monthly Sales Forecasting review with direct reports

Promotion Optimization

• Lead customer sell-in of optimized promotional constructs, establishing direct contact and proactively creating effective selling stories for key optimization initiatives.
• Draw upon prior experience to partner with Sales team on understanding customer strategies and promotional plans.
• Support in development of new tools for promotional analytics specific to the channel.
• Provide training and support to Sales Account Managers with promotional planning, sharing new ideas and supporting change initiatives.
• Proactively run and evaluate promotional event scenarios identifying impact to top and bottom-line results.
• Manage total channel promotional events to optimize for sales lift, revenue, profit and margin
• Partner with Sales to execute promotional “test and learns”, measure specific KPIs and plan future scalability to optimize promotional effectiveness.
• Conduct post-mortem analysis to understand deltas to forecast and improve future planning; coach and mentor team to leverage results to continuously improve plans for the National Grocery channel.
• Utilize the data arsenal of promotional details and KPIs to understand and leverage optimizations for the Channel.

Customer Reporting and Tracking

• Develop tools and processes for customer reporting and tracking for the Food Channel, including risks & opportunities, customer dashboards for POS and customer KPI reporting, seasonal and everyday sell-thru tracking, and competitive analysis.
• Monitor compliance to promotional guidelines and guardrails within the channel.
• Partner with Finance team to ensure TPM data accuracy to fully leverage system reporting.

Qualifications & Requirements:

Experience:

• 5+ years of experience in pricing and/or promotion management, preferably in the CPG industry.
• 1+ years of management experience preferred.
• Strong commercial acumen with previous roles in RGM, Sales and/or Commercial Finance preferred for minimum of 2 years.

Skills & Knowledge:

• Confidence presenting and influencing across the organization.
• Ability to use best practices to solve complex and unique problems.
• Excellent project management and organizational skills required.
• Proven quantitative and qualitative analytical skills required, including the ability to analyze multiple sources of data, determine limitations of the sources data and recommend action.
• Ability to prioritize work for self and team.
• Results oriented with a demonstrated commitment to teamwork.

Education:

• Bachelor’s Degree required
• MBA preferred

Other Requirements:

• Travel 20%