The Senior Manager of Business Development holds a pivotal role within the Hublot Of America organization, encompassing oversight of Merchandising, Demand Planning, Strategic Analysis, and Project Management. This position actively participates in all product buying, reporting, inventory planning, and continuous enhancements to the Company's sales tracking tools and programs for Americas wholesale and companyowned retail stores. Additionally, the Senior Manager is responsible for distribution strategy and competitive analysis.
Strengths For Success
- Strong analytical, strategic and communication skills are required to evaluate key issues/trends and recommend next course of action
- Strong understanding of brand positioning, the ability to understand and manage a brand with a disruptive positioning and a strategy based on innovation and watchmaking
- Ability to collaborate across the organization and gain trust and support of peers. Effectively gets things done through formal channels and informal networks
- Technical (system and application) proficiency is required to reconcile information across varied systems and manage large volumes of data
Essential Job Functions
Strategic Analysis
- Drives top line sales and profit growth for Hublot of America through strategic alignment of inventory plans with commercial trends.
- Assesses competitive positioning of all Hublot product in Americas market. Analyzes cost and gross margin by SKU to guide retail pricing strategy and ensure maximum sell-thru.
- Analyzes market data and assesses commercial trends. Works with sales and marketing organizations to develop product, distribution and promotional strategies to respond to opportunities/threats.
- Partners with VP of Retail/Ecom, Director of Wholesale, Director of Stores to define and implement commercial strategies for key accounts.
- Analyzes competitive sales data to make recommendations for future product development and assortment planning and to provide insights to Hublot performance in overall marketplace.
- Creates ad hoc analyses on sales performance and inventory to understand new trends and provide recommendations for overall business strategy.
Strategic Presentations & Reporting
- Oversees monthly reporting of all commercial sales results. Works closely with the VP of Retail, Director of Wholesale, Finance team, Retail Ops/Excellence team to review trends and ensure data integrity on all commercial data and reports.
- Reports weekly and monthly sales results and other ad hoc requests for Americas to Swiss counterparts.
- Prepares all sales presentations for internal business reviews with senior management to provide insights on sales trends, retailer performance, distribution changes, competitive marketplace and product performance.
Demand Planning & Merchandising
- Develops bottom-up forecast at the SKU-level by analyzing recent trends, historical sales, new product launches and seasonality.
- Develops top-down forecast for the budget reviews and on a monthly basis in partnership Operations team for both the wholesale and corporate channels by analyzing recent replenishment trends and new product launches.
- Assists with new product launches to ensure the proper assortment is correctly rolled out to retailers.
- Collaborates with wholesale sales and retail teams to determine proper assortment and inventory analysis of national and regional accounts throughout the year and for holiday planning.
- In partnership with Operation team, monitors inventory levels and purchases all inventory for Americas subsidiary (via Anaplan).
- Collaborates with VP of Retail / Director of Wholesale/ Mexico / LATAM on overall distribution strategy in Americas.
- Manages the ongoing retailer returns and overall year-end product return strategy.
Knowledge, Skills & Abilities
- Expert proficiency in MS Office – particular emphasis on Excel (v-look ups, pivot tables). Access proficiency strongly preferred
- 8+ years of relevant experience. Previous experience in a retail environment required.
- Prior experience with Power BI, COGNOS, Salesforce.com, Anaplan and SAP is a plus
- Proficiency in database management and expert in data/information manipulation.
- Ability to understand different systems and explain business needs to programmers
- Strategic thinking ability to examine data, identify trends and solve problems
- Demonstrated ability to anticipate future consequences and trends accurately and create competitive strategies and plans
- Ability to adeptly manage multiple projects simultaneously with strong attention to detail; Demonstrated ability to communicate regularly with customers, co-workers, and business contacts in a courteous and professional manner.
- Ability to work independently with minimal supervision
Education And Experience
- Bachelor’s Degree, preferably in Business or Finance, MBA is a plus
- 8-10+ years related experience
- Proven track record of driving significant business growth and profitability within a luxury retail or consumer goods environment
- Demonstrated experience in strategic planning and execution, with a history of successful new product launches or market expansions
- Experience leading and developing high-performing teams in a cross-functional environment.
- Extensive experience with merchandising and demand planning best practices, including the implementation of relevant technologies and methodologies.
- Strong background in data-driven decision-making, leveraging advanced analytics to inform business strategies and optimize operations.
- Global or multi-market experience is a plus, given the coordination with Swiss counterparts.
- Experience in the watchmaking or luxury accessories sector is highly desirable