First Line Sales Manager - Coastal

Bayer

Location
Western Cape
Minimum qualification
Bachelor's degree
Closing date

First listed . Last checked at source .

In brief

**Overview** This role at Bayer is for a First Line Sales Manager - Coastal, responsible for leading and developing a high-performing team of Customer Engagement Specialists. The manager will inspire performance, build future-ready capabilities, and drive sustainable, profitable growth, all while upholding Bayer's leadership principles and ethical standards. The position requires providing clear regional strategic direction, navigating the complex healthcare and pharmaceutical ecosystem, and operating with an enterprise mindset to balance regional delivery with end-to-end value creation across various functions. **What you will do** * Demonstrate VACC leadership, adapting behaviors to team needs and fostering a high-performance, psychologically safe environment. * Set regional direction, converting business strategy into clear priorities, customer plans, and execution rhythms. * Contribute to enterprise-wide decisions, connecting cross-functional priorities for optimal business value. * Coach the team to define aligned missions, goals, and success metrics linked to sales plans and Customer Excellence KPIs. * Build succession strength and future capabilities through differentiated coaching, field development, talent reviews, and development plans. * Champion empowerment, collaboration, continuous learning, and a creative growth mindset within the team. * Provide leadership for priority regional key accounts, ensuring strategies are based on customer economics and mutual value creation. * Build credible relationships with wholesalers, corporate pharmacy groups, buying groups, and other strategic stakeholders. * Guide the development of joint business plans, account growth plans, and customer engagement strategies. * Ensure field execution strengthens product availability, stock levels, customer reach, portfolio penetration, and quality of customer engagement. * Enable profitable sales delivery using commercial excellence tools, deep portfolio knowledge, and customer-focused selling approaches. * Translate portfolio, market, and customer insights into robust regional plans, including segmentation, targeting, and resource deployment. * Identify performance gaps early and drive cross-functional corrective action. * Embed sales discipline and executional excellence by coaching the team to deliver defined KPIs and outcomes. * Use data to make evidence-based decisions across territories, customers, channels, brands, and SKUs. * Turn demand, sales, inventory, market, and competitor trends into action. * Improve forecasts using customer and field insights, and escalate risks early. * Mentor and coach team members through regular field visits, formal In Call Quality assessments, and structured business reviews. * Set clear performance expectations and identify gaps for performance management. * Align cross-functional teams to resolve barriers and deliver shared outcomes. * Lead regional change adoption and sustain implementation. * Support digital transformation and a hybrid customer interaction model. * Ensure all sales activities comply with relevant marketing codes, IFPMA guidance, Bayer policies, and legal/regulatory requirements. * Manage sales administration and reporting, continuously simplifying and improving regional operating rhythms, systems, and processes. **Requirements (from the original advert)** * Relevant university degree, for example BCom Business Management, commerce, finance, marketing or a healthcare-related qualification. * Minimum three years of successful sales-management experience in the pharmaceutical or healthcare industry, or substantial internal customer-engagement experience with demonstrated leadership readiness. * Demonstrated ability to create accurate sales forecasts, explain variance and bias, and contribute credible demand intelligence. * Proficiency in Microsoft 365, CRM platforms such as Veeva CRM, and business performance dashboards or analytics tools. **Who should apply** This role is ideal for an experienced sales manager with a background in the pharmaceutical or healthcare industry who possesses strong leadership capabilities, a strategic mindset, and a commitment to ethical standards. The successful candidate will be adept at fostering high-performing teams, translating strategic priorities into actionable plans, navigating complex stakeholder ecosystems, and driving profitable growth. They should have a proven ability to utilize data for evidence-based decision-making, coach and develop team members, lead cross-functional initiatives, and ensure compliance with industry regulations. Proficiency in modern business software and analytics tools is essential. **Deadline** Not specified **Reference** Original posting: https://www.myjobmag.co.za/job/first-line-sales-manager-coastal-bayer-1 Source: myjobmag

Summary drafted with AI assistance from the original advert. The advert itself is the authority — how we use AI.

At a glance

    • Microsoft Office

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    Job description

    Job Purpose: * Lead and develop a high-performing team of Customer Engagement Specialists across Gauteng Inspire high performance, build future-ready capabilities and deliver sustainable,profitable growth while embodying Bayer leadership principles and maintaining uncompromising ethical and customer standards. * Provide clear regional strategic direction by translating enterprise, portfolio and customer priorities into focused execution choices, resource allocation and measurable commercial outcomes. * Navigate the evolving healthcare and pharmaceutical ecosystem, including wholesalers, corporate and independent pharmacy groups, public-sector stakeholders, healthcare professionals and other channel partners. * Operate with an enterprise mindset, balancing regional delivery with end-to-end value creation across Sales, Marketing, Market Access, Supply Chain and Medical. Key Responsibilities and Tasks: Enterprise Leadership, Strategic Direction and Team Development * Demonstrate VACC leadership by adapting leadership behaviours to team needs while cultivating a high-performance, psychologically safe environment grounded in trust, agility, accountability and results. * Set a compelling regional direction and convert business strategy into clear priorities, trade-offs, customer plans and execution rhythms for the team. * Contributing to enterprise-wide decisions, connecting cross-functional priorities and making choices that optimise total business value rather than local outcomes only. * Coach the team to define aligned missions, goals and success metrics linked to individual sales plans and Customer Excellence KPIs. * Build succession strength and future capabilities through differentiated coaching, field development, talent reviews, development plans and retention actions. * Champion empowerment, collaboration, continuous learning and a creative growth mindset, enabling team members to own their business and contribute actively to Customer and Product teams. Key Account and Ecosystem Leadership * Provide leadership for priority regional key accounts and ensure account strategies are based on customer economics, channel dynamics, portfolio opportunities and mutual value creation. * Build credible relationships with wholesalers, corporate pharmacy groups, buying groups and other strategic stakeholders. * Guide the development of joint business plans, account growth plans and customer engagement strategies with clear objectives, value propositions, measures and review cadence. * Ensure field execution strengthens product availability, appropriate stock levels, customer reach, portfolio penetration and quality of customer engagement. Commercial Leadership and Profitable Growth * Enable profitable sales delivery using commercial excellence tools, deep portfolio knowledge and customer-focused selling approaches. * Translate portfolio, market and customer insights into commercially robust regional plans, including customer segmentation, targeting, resource deployment, risk mitigation and opportunity activation. * Identify performance gaps early and drive cross-functional corrective action. * Embed sales discipline and executional excellence by coaching the team to deliver defined KPIs, behaviours and customer outcomes. Business, Data and Analytical Acumen * Use data to make evidence-based decisions across territories, customers, channels, brands and SKUs. * Turn demand, sales, inventory, market and competitor trends into action. * Improve forecasts using customer and field insights, and escalate risks early. Coaching and Performance Management * Mentor and coach team members through regular field visits, formal In Call Quality assessments and structured business reviews. * Set clear performance expectations, identify gaps for performance management * Cross-Functional Execution and Change Leadership * Align cross-functional teams to resolve barriers and deliver shared outcomes. * Lead regional change adoption and sustain implementation. * Support digital transformation and a hybrid, future-ready customer interaction model that strengthens engagement with healthcare professionals and other customers. Compliance and Operational Oversight * Ensure all sales activities comply with the South African Marketing Code of Practice, applicable IFPMA guidance, Bayer policies and relevant legal and regulatory requirements. * Manage sales administration and reporting, and continuously simplify and improve regional operating rhythms, systems and processes. Experience, Skills and Qualifications: * Relevant university degree, for example BCom Business Management, commerce, finance, marketing or a healthcare-related qualification. * Minimum three years of successful sales-management experience in the pharmaceutical or healthcare industry, or substantial internal customer-engagement experience with demonstrated leadership readiness. * Demonstrated ability to create accurate sales forecasts, explain variance and bias, and contribute credible demand intelligence. * Proficiency in Microsoft 365, CRM platforms such as Veeva CRM, and business performance dashboards or analytics tools.

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    First Line Sales Manager - Coastal at Bayer | SPANi - South African Jobs