Commercial Manager

Commercial Manager

Purpose of role: The role holder will provide customer-facing and internal commercial leadership with responsibility for end-to-end commercial activities from bidding and negotiation through to delivery, invoicing, and cash collection.

This role will collaborate across the business and with current and prospective customers to ensure requirements are understood, commercial risks are identified and managed, and to ensure that the business delivers a first-class customer service whilst ensuring high standards of commercial governance.

This role requires excellent commercial acumen including knowledge of contract law and contractual terms & conditions, high standards of numeracy to support contract estimating and pricing, astute communication and interpersonal skills, and a good understanding of business opportunity pipeline management.

Location: Chester On-Site

Reports to: Commercial Director

Responsible for: 1x Direct, 2x Indirect.

Close working relationships:

1. Managing Director
2. Finance Director
3. Sales Administration
4. Planning and Estimating Manager
5. Production Engineering Manager
6. Production Manager
7. Quality Manager
8. Stores Controller
9. Financial Manager

Areas of responsibility:

1. Actively contributes to the development and implementation of commercial and pricing strategies according to the company's goals and appropriate to the marketplace to grow revenue, market share, and profitability.
2. Support the Commercial Director in providing commercial leadership and governance, ensuring sound commercial practices are always applied.
3. Prepares and delivers high-quality bids and proposals in response to customer enquiries, coordinating cost estimates from across the business and applying commercial judgement on pricing strategies.
4. Negotiates with customers to agree contracts that deliver profitable business and applies good commercial judgement to mitigate commercial risk through appropriate contract terms.
5. Monitors and manages contract performance and compliance with respect to the contract's terms and guides the business in understanding its contractual commitments and risks.
6. Provide support to the Commercial Director by managing or advising on contract disputes and other contractual matters.
7. Negotiates appropriate and timely amendments to contracts.
8. Responsible for meeting certain business targets which may include profit, arrears management, quote deliver, sales order book, and customer debt.
9. Prepares, maintains and delivers detailed and accurate management information in relation to commercial performance and KPIs, including business financial forecasts, to support reporting and decision making by the senior leadership team.
10. Identifies and explores new business opportunities in the UK and wider international markets.
11. Qualifies and develops new sales enquiries to ensure understanding of customer requirements both technically and commercially.
12. Oversight and performance management of direct and indirect reports.
13. Through personal example and leadership demonstrates good commercial discipline, and compliance with company policies and code of conduct.
14. Supports the Commercial Director with the development and execution of continuous improvement projects and implementation of best practice within the business including digital transformation, ERP and CRM.

Essential Requirements:

1. Degree qualified or equivalent experience.
2. Significant previous experience in a commercial role in an engineering or manufacturing environment.
3. Extensive direct experience of managing contracts and demonstrable knowledge and understanding of contract terms and their legal implications.
4. Direct experience of negotiating both price and commercial terms and conditions with customers.
5. Highly numerate with demonstrable understanding of pricing methodologies, and capable of creating and interpreting pricing models.
6. Demonstrated collaboration, communication, planning, problem solving, influencing, decision making and continuous improvement skills.
7. Extensive experience using Microsoft Office, especially Excel, and Sharepoint.
8. Willing to undertake occasional business travel in the UK and EU as required.
9. Ability to communicate effectively at all levels of the organisation both informally and formally through appropriate methods, including a high standard of written and verbal communications.
10. UK BPSS clearance is required for role.

What we would like you to bring:

1. Strong account management and stakeholder management abilities.
2. Experience preparing sales financial forecasts and preparing informative management information for reporting and decision making.
3. Able to translate the impact of negotiated terms to P&L, cashflow, risk to delivery, etc.
4. Experience of manipulating and interrogating MRP systems is highly desirable.
5. Experience of using and interrogating CRM systems is highly desirable.
6. WCC or CIPS accreditation is desirable.
7. Ambitious to help grow and develop a small, specialised business.
8. This role would especially suit individuals that have defence or nuclear industry experience.
9. This role would suit individuals with relevant procurement, purchasing, or related experience who wish to move into a customer-facing commercial role.

Important Information: We endeavour to process your personal data in a fair and transparent manner. In applying for this role, Russell Taylor will be acting within your interest and will contact you in relation to the role, either by email, phone or text message. For more information see our Privacy Policy on our website. It is important you are aware of your individual rights and the provisions the company has put in place to protect your data. If you would like further information on the policy or GDPR please get in touch with us here.

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