Assistant Sales Manager - Food service

Level definition

ASM tasked with driving distributors to improve market coverage and achieving business KPIs.

Responsible to work closely with distributors and distributors sales force by aligning on joint business plans for the coming year and putting concrete actions plans in achieving the agreed KPIs: Collaborating with head of FS, national business development manager and support functions for on-time and in-full execution; compiling reports identifying insights, growth opportunities and areas of improvement; visiting current and potential customers for new leads, maintaining current volumes, ensuring customer satisfaction and generating sales leads. Resolves day-to-day issues/escalation points for distributors and key account customers.

Key responsibilities

• Plans, directs and monitors the activities of distributors sales team within a specified geography
• Focuses on strategic bets, NPDs and focus products to achieve established sales targets
• Develops sales plans, activities and campaigns and manages the day-to-day activities of distributors sales teams
• Guides distributors in building the right organization and infrastructure to implement Arla’s strategy and to ensure the distributors ability to deliver 2026 strategy by channel, category and geographical area
• Prepares sales forecasts and ensures minimum stock holding by the distributor by SKU
• Monitors sales volume, revenue and costs against forecasts to identify problem areas
• Challenges status quo with the evolving market conditions to reallocate resources to improve the overall performance of the distributors sales
• Negotiates sales with existing and new customers and ensures On-time and In-full delivery by the distributor
• Contributes to the development of selling and chefmanship skills of the distributors sales force
• Coaches distributors sales representatives on the technical aspects of the organisation’s products and services, on marketing campaigns and sales promotions and on sales techniques, procedures and standards that will help them achieve their sales targets.
• Defines/follows guidelines or checklists to answer routine internal and customer enquiries on product availability, prices, delivery times and the status of orders so that enquiries are dealt with promptly and accurately.
• Keeps a keen eye on competitors and industry trends to support the marketing and innovation
• Ensure submission of month-end sell-out data and stocks status from all distributors

Educational background/Experience

• Education at minimum Bachelors level.

• 5-10 years of experience