About Coats Digital
Coats Digital is the software business of Coats Group (FTSE 250) the world’s leading industrial thread company delivering innovation, digital solutions and sustainable value to c. 40,000 customers in over 100 countries around the globe.
We leverage deep industry and technology expertise to create business critical software solutions specifically for fashion brands, retailers and manufacturers delivering tangible improvements in speed/ agility, productivity/cost, and sustainability across the end-to-end supply chain. Our industry leading solutions allow customers to optimize, connect and accelerate key processes from design and development, to costing, sourcing and production planning and control.
Coats Digital supports customers on the digital transformation journey, solving their key pain points in the supply chain, which is critical to achieving their strategic objectives. Specialist, business critical solutions, created for fashion businesses and proven to deliver significant, measurable, and sustainable improvements in operational and financial performance, while concurrently delivering on compliance and CSR commitments.
Department
Coats Digital Sales
Role Purpose
The global nature of Coats Digital requires each sales manager to be a strong leader, exhibiting an entrepreneurial mindset, with a proven background in sales delivery, a history of building and leading teams and excellent interpersonal skills to take a hands-on approach in ensuring that the strategic drivers from the global plan are executed in country, by leveraging relationships internally and externally.
The sales manager is fully responsible for the revenue contribution of their specific country, covering software and services to new and existing customers. The role requires both individual contribution to the Business Generation function in the territory as well as intimate collaboration with the partnerships, implementation, customer success and solution consulting teams to ensure a consistent, profitable, and exceptional customer experience is delivered.
The sales manager should be a highly competent sales executive who consistently converts complex opportunities within new and existing customers into sales. He or she should be comfortable presenting both internally and externally to senior stake holders and drive collaboration across the business to drive excellence in the customer experience.
Principal Accountabilities and Key Activities
The Sales manager will be responsible for building and leading a strong pipeline, ensuring the consistent achievement of all measurable objectives, follow SOPs and company policy, and consistently deliver sales targets and KPI’s.
Directly and with your team, manage the entire end to end business development process from lead generation through to close, including:
Sales Functions
- Manage and drive both personal and team lead generation activities, including the identification and qualification of prospects, key decision makers and influencers, via direct prospecting, working with partners, customer success, marketing, and Coats commercial teams.
- Manage and maintain a sales pipeline of sufficient value to ensure that the sales target is achieved in line with the current KPI’s.
- Manage and maintain details of all sales activities and prospect status in the CRM system. Maintaining full, accurate and up to date information relating to the latest status of all sales prospects in CRM including, the sales stage, copies of any visit reports, proposal documents etc.,
- Forecast across the teams monthly and quarterly opportunities accurately, within a +70% accuracy.
- Conduct initial sales meetings / presentations to build credibility, understand prospect needs and drive the strict adherence to the mandated sales methodology and process.
- Orchestrate discovery sessions with the prospect, with solution consulting, to understand current process and identify problems/issues with existing processes (Pain Chain/business process analysis)
- Review findings of discovery sessions and agree structure/scope of custom demo, building custom demos with solution consulting and presenting them to prospects as an impactful business case through a customised demo.
- Create compelling solutions based on the technical information from solution consulting, presented to the customer through SPIN closing and our standard proposal templates.
- Prospect follow up, negotiation and close (ensuring that the terms of the software license agreement are acceptable to both parties)
- Completion of sales contracts and other required documentation, ensuring correct signoffs and approvals through the business
- Obtain a press release and an agreement for a case study for all successful sales and referrals to other potential prospects.
Management Functions
-
- Work with team members from across the other departments locally and globally to drive strategic initiatives.
- Identify key areas of improvement in process, procedure, and material.
- Localise all content across sales and marketing for domestic consumption.
- Work with the regional sales director to mitigate any risks within prospects, opportunities, or key accounts – ensuring that they are visible and being communicated across the business.
- Develop a full country marketing plan for budget approval, including key strategies, initiatives, events – including calculated ROI, resources required and execution plan.
- Act as a local spokesperson (where authorised) on behalf of Coats Digital with media or customers
- Ensure training across corporate policy, latest products and services is consistent with expectations and certifications in country.
- Be responsible for the personal growth and development of the business development executives and annually complete the performance review.
Key Relationships
Internal
- (Regional) Sales Director
- Sales Manager Peers
- Internal Team
- Coats Sales Teams
- Solution Consulting Team
- Customer Success and Professional services team
- Partner Development Director
External
- Customers
- Prospects
- Partners
Education, Qualifications and Experience
(Include skills and competencies required to perform the role competently)
Essential
- Fluent in English
- Individual Contributor with a strong hunter mentality, proactive and independent, willing to lead by example and go the extra mile.
- Experience of consultative, B2B software and solutions sales up to C-Suite and in large, complex global businesses.
- A proven and consistent track record of success delivering >20% YoY revenue growth.
- Strong commercial and negotiation skills.
- Best in class sales operating model and sales process management.
- Excellent communication and people skills, including face to face, over the telephone and in writing; confident in dealing with individuals at all levels of an organisation.
- Strong desire to excel in a dynamic and challenging environment.
- Able to work and stay organised in a fast-paced environment.
- Technically adept and capable of learning new software.
- A capable and independent operator, with a high level of personal ‘drive’ and ‘ownership’, but also the ability to work effectively as part of a team.
- Systematic and process driven with an analytical approach to problem solving / overcoming barriers. Ability to listen and interpret user needs (apart from user wants) and provide workable solutions to problems.
- Able to combine strategic sales management and ‘hands on’ direct sales activity with the ability and willingness to learn technical detail and present/demonstrate software effectively.
- High personal standards, integrity, and attention to detail, able to demonstrate effective judgement and decision making.
- A willingness to travel throughout the territory and beyond as required.
Desired
- Background knowledge and / or direct of the fashion industry, including current market dynamics, also the positioning and value of supply chain solutions (and/or similar) solutions in this environment.
- Knowledge and experience of relevant supply chain software solutions e.g., Process manufacturing, ERP, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) / Merchandise Planning, ERP, Production Planning, 3D, CAD, Quality.
- Experience of building, developing and leading successful sales/business development teams, including managing people, setting, and managing of budgets etc.
- Experience of using Microsoft Solutions including Dynamics CRM.
