Commercial Excellence Manager - Sandton, ZA

Job Purpose

• The Commercial Excellence Manager is responsible for driving sustainable commercial performance by enabling best-in-class sales execution, pricing discipline, forecasting accuracy, and data-driven decision-making across the South African business. The role partners closely with Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Global Commercial Excellence teams to embed standardized processes while adapting them to local market needs
• You will have the responsibility of developing and managing performance management for the South African subsidiary and you will own a range of commercial processes.
• The role requires strong financial acumen, project management expertise, and the ability to build and maintain strategic relationships
• You will be report to the Head of Finance and Business Support.

Profile

• The ideal candidate will support design and implementation of commercial strategies, enhance pricing and margin management, and ensure best-in-class sales processes. Strong analytical skills, experience with Excel, Business Intelligence software and data-driven decision-making skills are essential for success in the role.
• You should have a structured approach to work, are structured by nature and can manage many activities and deadlines simultaneously and deliver business results. 
• You are ambitious yet down to earth, approachable and collaborative, a loyal team player. The ideal candidate should have a dynamic, creative, proactive and open mindset and enjoy exploring new ways of doing things and thrive in a fast-changing environment.

Sales Force Effectiveness

• Drive sales force effectiveness through territory design, target setting, and incentive management.
• Lead CRM adoption, data quality, and usage to improve customer engagement and productivity.
• Monitor call note quality, customer visit reporting and CRM compliance across the sales organisation.
• Conduct regular CRM audits and provide corrective actions where required.
• Monitor sales representative productivity metrics including days in field, customer coverage, call activity, territory penetration and achievement against sales targets.
• Identify underutilisation of sales resources and recommend actions to optimise territory coverage, travel efficiency and customer engagement.
• Conduct territory and workload analysis to ensure equitable distribution of accounts, opportunities and travel requirements.
• Develop and maintain productivity scorecards for both sales developers (sales representatives) and sales managers.
• Monitor and report on sales management effectiveness, including coaching days, co-travel days, one-on-one reviews and performance management activities.
• Measure sales manager effectiveness in meeting agreed field coaching targets and maintain high-quality coaching standards across the sales organisation.
• Assess the effectiveness of coaching interventions and measure the impact on representative performance and customer engagement.
• Drive consistency in sales management practices and field execution across all product portfolios and geographical regions in South Africa.

Forecasting & Performance Management

• Manage and support performance management - Performance Review Meetings, Quarterly Regional Meetings, Sales Dashboards
• Own the sales forecasting process and improve forecast accuracy.
• Analyze trends, risks, and opportunities, providing clear recommendations to leadership.
• Lead the annual sales target-setting process, ensuring targets are aligned to business strategy, market potential and territory opportunity.
• Design, implement and continuously improve sales incentive schemes that drive the desired commercial behaviours and business outcomes.
• Calculate monthly, quarterly and annual sales performance against targets for sales developers, regional sales managers and key account managers.

Commercial Strategy & Execution

• Develop new processes, tools or projects to improve commercial performance
• Translate global and regional commercial excellence frameworks into actionable local initiatives
• Support the development and execution of the South African commercial strategy
• Develop and follow-up on business cases
• Act as a sparring partner to senior leadership by providing business and sales insights

Pricing & Profitability

• Support pricing strategy development in line with global guidelines and local market dynamics
• Monitor pricing compliance, discounting, and margin performance
• Collaborate with Finance and Marketing to ensure profitable growth

Capability Building

• Build commercial excellence capabilities through training, tools, frameworks and best-practice sharing

Professional qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Economics, or related field
• 3-5 years in a commercial management, business development or similar role
• People Leadership Experience - The role has 1 direct report (Business Analyst)
• Medical devices, pharmaceuticals, or healthcare industry experience preferred
• Strong business acumen and commercial understanding
• Strong project management skills across functions and cultures
• Excellent numerical skills with an analytical approach and the ability to construct fact-based recommendations and business cases
• Fluent in English (written and spoken) – ideally combined with one more language
• Highly effective communication and presentation skills
• Salesforce experience preferred
• Proficient computer skills including MS Office Suite (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and Business Intelligence software

Additional requirements:

• Own transportation and valid driver’s license.
• This role is office based with a one-day per week work from home allowance.
• Occasional co-travel required.