Distribution Manager - L'Occitane Group

INSPIRE | EXHILARATE | DELIGHT

For over six decades, Chalhoub Group has been a partner and creator of luxury experiences in the Middle East. The Group, in its endeavour to excel as a hybrid retailer, has reinforced its distribution and marketing services with a portfolio of eight owned brands and over 300 international brands in the luxury, beauty, fashion, and art de vivre categories. More recently, the Group expanded its expertise into new categories of luxury watches, jewellery, and eyewear.

Every step at Chalhoub Group is taken with the customer at heart. Be it constantly reinventing itself or focusing on innovation to provide luxury experiences at over 750+ experiential retail stores, online and through mobile apps, each touch point leads to delighting the customer.

Today, Chalhoub Group stands for 14,000 skilled and talented professionals across seven countries, whose cohesive efforts have resulted in the Group being ranked third in the Middle East and first in Saudi Arabia as a Great Place to Work®.

To keep the innovation journey going, the Group has set up "The Greenhouse", which is not just an innovation hub, but also an incubator space and accelerator for start-ups and small businesses in the region and internationally. This is just one of the several initiatives taken by the Group to reinvent itself, catalysed by forward thinking and future-proofing. The Group has also been embedding sustainability at the core of its business strategy with a clear commitment towards people, partners and the planet, and by being a member of the United Nations Global Compact Community and signatory of the Women's Empowerment Principles.

What you'll be doing

Distribution managers oversee distribution channel sales and develop strategies to contribute to the growth and profitability of the company. They deal with a range of tasks, including working with internal stakeholders to find ways to build sales, margins, increase market share, control expenses. Distribution managers should have strong leadership skills, be able to analyze data and sales numbers, and have strong decision-making abilities. They should build strong relationships with existing & new clients/ partners, to ensure the expansion of the distribution channel across the Middle East. The position requires the ability to be self-motivated and customer-focused as well as the ability to manage & coach employees.

Key Responsibilities

- Utilize sales data to manage, develop, and serve existing accounts. They also oversee staff training, recruitment, and evaluating team performance.
- Find ways to improve and develop sales numbers, margins, rankings and market share for the distribution channel.
- Analyze performances for all relevant accounts and monitor competitor activities and market trends to find new opportunities and action plan.
- Prepare ad-hoc review budget updates in collaboration with Channel Director
- Producing reports and presenting them to department heads is an important part of a distribution manager's job. Through analyzing sales and data, they can produce distribution forecasts and work towards agreed KPIs.
- Regularly meet with clients to manage the important pathway between the agreement of the sale to the final delivery, as relationship management is a key part of this job.
- Negotiate with clients on extra visibility and shelf space of the brands.
- Manage the team of distribution BAs across different networks, and oversee their operations, performance deliverables, ensuring all procedures are adhered to.
- Work closely with the VM team to align on the visibility of products/ displays, and ensure these are implemented across the distribution network of the brands.
- Liaise with the supply chain team on the sell in and sell out for the brands within the distribution network, to ensure right stock levels in the distribution doors.
- Prioritize and allocate available team resources, make recommendations for improvement and ensure maximum effective service provision

What you'll need to succeed

- Experience in identifying, pursuing and capturing new distribution business opportunities
- Experience in leading distribution businesses of similar kind
- Able to build strong relationships with clients
- Experience of working in a fast-pace, matrixed environment
- Exceptional communication skills
- Experience in managing a team, training, development and coaching
- High attention to detail
- Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration or any related field
- A minimum of 5 years of relevant experience
- Preferably experience in retail beauty distribution in the region
- Someone who is passionate to work on the field, meeting clients externally and visiting the networks on a regular basis (this will primarily be a field job)

What we can offer you

With us, you will turn your aspirations into reality. We will help shape your journey through enriching experiences, learning and development opportunities and exposure to different assignments within your role or through internal mobility. Our Group offers diverse career paths for those who are extraordinary, every day.

We recognise the value that you bring, and we strive to provide a competitive benefits package which includes health care, child education contribution, remote and flexible working policies as well as exclusive employee discounts. To view all our perks and benefits, click here.

We Invite All Applicants to Apply

It Takes Diversity Of Thought, Culture, Background, Differing Abilities and Perspectives to truly Inspire, Exhilarate and Delight our customers. At Chalhoub Group, we are committed to inclusion and diversity.

We welcome all applicants to apply and be part of our exciting future. We ensure equal opportunity for all our applicants without regard to gender, age, race, religion, national origin or disability status.

Department RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION