Perfetti Van Melle - Area Sales Manager

Role Purpose: The Area Sales Manager is responsible for driving business growth, strengthening market execution, and ensuring superior availability and visibility of company brands across the assigned territory. The role involves leading distributor operations, managing frontline sales teams, building strong trade relationships, and delivering sustainable business performance in line with the organization's sales objectives. Key Responsibilities: Business Delivery & Market Execution: - Drive primary and secondary sales to consistently achieve volume, value, and market share objectives across the assigned territory. - Ensure maximum distribution, availability, visibility, and merchandising of all company brands across relevant trade channels. - Execute regional and national sales initiatives, promotional activities, and line plans with excellence. - Monitor market trends, competitor activities, and customer insights to identify opportunities for business growth. - Develop and implement territory development plans to expand market reach and improve outlet productivity. - Ensure adherence to coverage norms, productivity standards, and sales operating processes. Distributor Management: - Manage end-to-end distributor operations to ensure efficient business execution. - Ensure timely execution of distributor orders and collection of payments in line with company policies. - Identify, evaluate, appoint, and onboard new distributors or facilitate replacement of existing distributors whenever required. - Regularly review distributor business health, financial viability, investments, infrastructure, and service capability. - Monitor inventory norms, pipeline stocks, and closing stock levels to maintain optimal inventory across the distribution network. - Drive distributor profitability while ensuring high service levels and operational efficiency. Sales Team Leadership: - Lead, coach, and develop frontline sales teams, including Distributor Sales Executives (DSEs), Sales Representatives (SRDs), and Pilot Sales Representatives (PSRs). - Set clear performance expectations and regularly review team productivity and achievement of key performance indicators. - Build capability through field coaching, regular feedback, and on-the-job training. - Drive employee engagement, accountability, and a high-performance culture within the team. - Partner with distributors to recruit, onboard, and develop distributor sales personnel and contractual sales staff as required. Planning, Governance & Reporting: - Prepare accurate sales forecasts, business plans, and market development plans for the assigned territory. - Monitor key business metrics and ensure timely submission of sales reports and management dashboards. - Ensure compliance with company policies, commercial controls, pricing guidelines, and trade schemes. - Collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams to drive business priorities and improve execution excellence. Education: - MBA/PGDM from a premier business school. Experience: - Minimum 2 years of experience in FMCG field sales. - Experience in distributor management, frontline sales leadership, and market execution is preferred.