Key Account Manager – Retail UK National Accounts

Our client is a leading provider of Eyecare and Healthcare products across Ireland, UK and US. They are currently seeking a Key Account Manager to join a strong team and will report into the National Sales Manager in the UK. The person can be remote based in Ireland/ UK. This role ensures that interaction with our clients Key Accounts in both the Pharmacy and Health & Beauty channels is collaborative in nature and grows their lifetime value against both revenue, distribution, market share and profitability targets. This will be accomplished by understanding and anticipating the current and future business needs of the key accounts, communicating these across the organisation and presenting technical and business solutions to meet those needs. You will be working with the National Account Manager on Pharmacy accounts such as Well, Asda, Opticians and Pharmacy & other regional pharmacy chains. You will also support the NAM with developing our clients Allergy business within the Health Food Stores channel.

Open to candidates from the UK & Ireland.

Role/Responsibilities
• Developing trusted relationships with a portfolio of key customers, by understanding their needs and delivering solutions that drive their & our business forward
• Expanding and networking relationships within these customers by continuously proposing solutions that meet their objectives
• Devising strategies, recommendations, and briefing documents for working with these key accounts.
• Understand the key drivers behind our business with the key accounts; be able to identify and examine issues with KPIs and bring these to the attention of the national account team or the appropriate internal team
• Work with the Marketing Product Managers to compile specific marketing collateral as required by account
• Flexible attitude to working at all levels with the account panel you have responsibility for, from training key account staff to help them understand, promote, and sell our clients products through to top-to-top meetings in your regional optical accounts.
• Be inquisitive about how the key accounts operate; work at identifying any needs outside of our clients current product offering and flag these with team management and other relevant internal departments.
• Act as a strong customer advocate within our business to ensure that all internal stakeholders understand the key challenges & opportunities in the Optical channel
• Ability to build strong internal relationships to ensure that you have the support required to deliver against your targeted accounts.
• Serve as the link of communication between key customers and internal stakeholders
• Work with Supply chain and customer services to ensure the correct products and services are delivered to customers in a timely manner
• Liaise with Quality and Regulatory to address any issues as required
• Understanding structural and policy changes at our key accounts
• Attention to detail is a must with an ability to summarise and communicate the outputs of complex and lengthy documents
• Flexible attitude to working hours and willingness to travel across Ireland and UK to meet with customers face to face, along with store visits to keep updated on fixtures and promotions.

Qualifications/ Experience:
• Business or Science related third level qualification required
• Professional qualifications and memberships desirable
• 2 to 3 years minimum customer facing experience in a territory or key account role.
• Experience in account management within one or more of the Pharmacy, Health & Beauty or Health Foods stores channels is desirable, specific experience with customers like Well, Rowlands, Lloyds, Superdrug or Grocery customers like Tesco, Morrisons etc and regional chains would be preferable.
• Ability to take on challenging product knowledge
• Ability to prepare and present with influence on all levels within external customers and with internal stakeholders as well.
• Ability to influence and lead others without direct-line management responsibility
• Energy, resilience, and enthusiasm is a key advantage in this role
• Customer focused (both external and internal)
• Ability to work well on one’s own initiative and as part of a cross functional team
• Communication and interpersonal skills - comfortable and capable of communicating with all levels within and outside the business both written and verbal with a high level of professionalism.
• High attention to detail
• Organisational skills - self-motivated and able to demonstrate strong organisation and prioritisation skills in a sales and relationship management environment.
• Personal Effectiveness - must be able to work under pressure and autonomously; successfully manage a very diverse and demanding workload.
• Strong technical and computer literacy; skilled in the use of tools such as Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and Excel.

For further details please contact Karen Shiel on 087 745 2487 or send CV to [email protected]