Field Sales Manager – Ewekoro at HBM Nigeria Plc (Formerly Lafarge)

Lafarge Africa Plc is a leading Sub-Saharan Africa building solutions Company and member of the LafargeHolcim group. The vision of Lafarge Africa Plc is to be the most trusted and preferred partner of African construction professionals and home builders by delivering cement, concrete, aggregates and other building solutions that are best in quality, environmentally sustainable and nationwide available at affordable cost. Making urbanization a success is one of the challenges of this century and at LafargeHolcim, our ambition is to contribute to Building Better Cities. As a world leader in building materials, LafargeHolcim supports the metamorphosis of cities with innovative solutions that provide cities with more housing, making them more compact, more durable, more beautiful and better connected. For many years, Lafarge Africa Plc has been committed to a deliberate strategy of sustainable development that combines industrial know-how with performance, value creation, respect for employees and local cultures, environmental protection and the conservation of natural resources and energy. We put certain values at the forefront of the way we do business viz: health and safety, environmental protection, corporate governance (Ethics) and social responsibility (in the areas of education, health, youth empowerment, and shelter). We develop a highly competent workforce to operate our plants and businesses, through intensive training and exchange programmes. The company is committed to progress and attentive to the ever- changing needs of local communities. This is demonstrated by contributing to the improvement of their quality of lives in a sustainable manner through setting up local development programmes in key areas that have direct impacts on socio-economic well being of the people and their environment. More importantly, Lafarge Africa Plc endeavors to create more value for our customers, providing them with innovative and high quality products and solutions. Our well-known brands – Ashaka Portland Limestone Cement, Elephant Cement, Powermax Cement, Supaset Cement, UniCem Cement as well as Readymix Concrete and Aggregates – all stand for quality, consistency and long term strength which help deliver solutions that contribute to more housing for people, more compact buildings, better connected communities, more beautiful structures and more durable construction. For our concrete operations, we leverage on the Group's 50 years of experience in innovative concrete solutions and this puts us in the position to provide quality solutions that are designed to meet the specific needs of today's builders. Today, Lafarge Readymix operations have a production capacity of 3.5 cubic million metric tonnes in Nigeria. Building solutions Lafarge works with all actors in the building industry of Nigeria, from do-it-yourself builders to large construction companies, architects and local artisans. Whether supplying high-quality cement to a craftsman or helping leading architects explore and deliver creative possibilities, Lafarge Africa Plc is committed to providing solutions that fit the needs of all its clients. Lafarge Africa Plc's clients benefit from the technical expertise and product innovation that are the hallmark of LafargeHolcim, an international leader in building materials with a global presence in 90 countries and decades of experience. In Nigeria, LafargeHolcim offers a range of innovative and high-performance products.
The role focuses on demonstrating leadership in Health & Safety (H&S) and Diversity & Inclusion (D&I), actively promoting related actions within the function. Responsibilities include enforcing safety policies, identifying prospects, visiting and building customer loyalty among large and medium companies, masons, developers, and home builders. The role also involves providing technical product solutions to meet customer needs, strengthening the Lafarge brand in the manufacturing sector, and securing concrete product sales while aligning with company strategies and policies. Additionally, the role includes tracking construction activity and collaborating with colleagues to maximize commercial opportunities for Lafarge Africa Plc's concrete operations.

What You'll Be Doing
 

Safety:

Apply and manage the safety policy, drive policy standards and adversaries already put in place for role holder, colleagues, subcontractors and all others who are on the site or plant.
Report all incidents/VPC/BOG and near misses
Ensure access to jobsites is in line with safety standards for pumps, electrical lines and space

Sales Functions:

Implement the area commercial strategy, and sales action plans to achieve sales target and profit margin
Organize and control commercial operations for respective region/Area to achieve given sales target and profit margins.
Evaluate the quality of Lafarge's relationship with customers, assess their evolving needs and proactively manage and handle complaints and feedbacks
Work closely with Marketing, Quality Control, Production and Legal departments when necessary to improve and promote quality and service.
Work with the Marketing Department to develop & implement communication materials and messages to customers
Develop action plan to drive the sales of value added products(VAPs) and new products launch in the territory.
Organize and coordinate the Area sales activities to ensure all customers are satisfied and ultimately meet target
Negotiate prices, volume with customers and other extra services and take proactive decisions in critical situation (prices delay and claims).
Represents Lafarge Africa Plc. at meetings including trade exhibitions, building expo and trade fair to promote Lafarge products especially (value added products – VAPs)
Keep to the sales policies and procedures put in place for him and ensure on time delivery of products (concrete) to the customers.
Ensure all backlogs/pending orders are cleared and necessary documents are met.

Placing & Finishing Service:

Ability to propose placing & finish service policy when it is relevant
Write and give placing & finishing service prices for swift closing of jobsites
Follow jobsites, applications, deliveries, invoicing, and funds collection to a completion.
Advisory Functions: Understand standard concrete and range of VAP (specifications applications) and make adequate recommendations in term of (production, transport, pouring).
Advanced understanding of applications and building systems. (individual hosing, commercial & institutional, industrial and civil works roads/utilities)
Suggest adapted products, services, solutions with proper consideration of the technical abilities and financial situations of each customer.

Reports:

Key sales indicators and reports main action to Line Manager for close out.
Monthly Customer relationship Management in terms of issues, new lead/closed out sales.
Regularly scheduled reports from sales database monthly and report to Area Manager
Report all market intelligent activities weekly, with clear understanding of trade activities.

Competition law:

Adequate knowledge of competition law and apply it when needed.
Production, Transportation/Plant Daily Support: Monitor monthly purchase and sales are in line with pumping and delivery unit scheduling and business target
Environment: Ability to respect and enforce procedures in place to indicate a non-compliance of environmental incident and report to line Manager for daily decisions and cascade such information to plant Operator/Batcher.
Credit, Administrative, Invoicing functions:
Identifies creditworthy customers, following the in house process, negotiates payment terms and the implementation in collaboration with the credit department for debt recovery and billing.
Establish new customers are smoothly registered on the database.
Ensure all pre-invoicing to avoid claims and manages the cash (price and payment terms) with the credit department
Ensure all procedures are in place for cancellation of orders and deliveries
Participate in credit meetings for adequate resolution

Requirements

Minimum of a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Building Technology, Architecture, Marketing, Humanities and Social Science with Master’s degree as added advantage.
At least 3-4 years working experience and above in sales
Good knowledge of construction materials In the industry
Good presentation, communication and networking skills Vision, business sense, basic financial knowledge and negotiation skills
Strong customer focus Result oriented, proactive, capable of delivering under pressure
Basic knowledge of concrete and production tools
Knowledge of Value Added Product and Ultra Series products.
Knowledge of transportation management
Knowledge of computer tools: SFDC, CG Mix (if possible BC Mix), Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Ready-soft and pricing matrix.
Knowledge of quality management.
Ability to use social media platforms to drive sales