Sales Effectiveness Director

Our client is a UK subsidiary of a leading US-listed, business services organisation.

The UK operation it itself a business with revenues in excess of £1bn, a strong brand name and an industry leading market share. However, as the industry is undergoing a period of change, this organisation is busy investing in people, systems and processes to ensure its success is sustained over the long term.

The commercial team is responsible for building, developing and managing a broad range of B2B relationships across a number of different channels including ecommerce, contact centres, field sales, a national accounts infrastructure and corporate sales teams.

In addition, as further support for the commercial teams, there is also a large bids and tenders team, a marketing function and a sophisticated sales support and administration group.

Moving forward, to ensure the commercial teams take full advantage of the new systems and processes, whilst also operating as effectively and efficiently as possible, the Chief Commercial Officer is seeking to hire a Sales Effectiveness Director, into a high profile and highly commercial role.

The Sales Effectiveness Director will be responsible for developing and implementing the Commercial Operations plan, helping to deliver and leverage improved systems, processes and technology, that result in better sales efficiency and, ultimately, delivering an improved commercial performance.

Likely responsibilities will include:

• Provide leadership to the team (50+)
• Facilitate the development of the commercial strategy and ensure the commercial strategy and associated KPIs are delivered
• Improve the ongoing efficiency and capability of the Sales Operations function
• Deliver continuous performance improvement of the Sales function; create a clear sales governance framework and a set of KPIs that maximise both efficiency and productivity
• Represent the commercial team on cross functional projects
• Proactively work within Sales Operations and with other functions to introduce technology, process improvement and sales development which enable the Sales team to be connected cross functionally, maximise time and effectiveness in core sales activity with customers
• Responsibility for and development of the end to end bid management function, improving success in creating profitable growth through winning new business and retaining existing customers
• Ensure CRM roll out and development aligns to the overall commercial and organisation objectives. Develop supporting tools and provide analytics back into the business to drive further performance improvement
• Monitor and review the sales structure and support territory planning to ensure the business places resources in to deliver the maximum results out
• Provide clear processes, sales resourcing support and performance management to drive an effective and efficient commercial team
• Design market leading and customer-group appropriate sales incentives schemes that drive and reward high performance aligned to individual goals. Set up formal incentive scheme governance and sign off processes
• Actively build organisational capability, providing sponsorship for key talent and development opportunities for the team whilst contributing to the commercial people development plan

Applications are invited from talented and ambitious individuals with the following profile/skill set:

• Experience gained within a previous sales operations or sales effectiveness team, ideally as a senior leader
• Likely (but not necessarily) to have an earlier background in sales
• Experience leading significant change across an organisation, with a proven track record of leading others (including non-direct reports) through and successfully delivering a change programme
• Strong relationship management skills of both senior internal and external stakeholders in a challenging environment
• Strong commercial and financial acumen and effective business planning
• Strong analytical and strategic thinking skills; demonstrating a track record of initiating and then delivering business initiatives
• Ability to combine strategic view with an appetite for detailed focus
• Experience of working within a complex, service-led B2B environment would be beneficial
• Enthused and motivated by a challenging environment and a willingness to challenge the status quo and initiate change
• Proven leadership qualities and gravitas
• Excellent negotiation, persuasion, influencing and presentation skills
• Driver of results, regularly reviewing deliverables, problems and performance metrics with team and key stakeholders
• Engaging personality, with enthusiasm and confident delivery

In return, this is an exceptional opportunity to join a dynamic and fast-paced business that is undergoing a period of exciting and positive change and transformation. This is the chance for someone to step up into a large-scale Director role or to move to a larger organisation and to make an impact on a business of genuine scale. Longer term career opportunities will be available both within the UK and elsewhere, internationally, for the right calibre of leader.