Finance Business Partner

at  Mars

JOB DESCRIPTION:

In our ambition to gain share and creating value, this position will play a critical role in providing financial leadership and decision support for the respective customer/channel group in line with our business strategies. Along with creating insights on finance performance, the position needs to ensure achievement of NSV target and that trade fund investments stay within budget. The role is co-creating business plans, challenging/reviewing assumptions, spotting opportunities & risks and ensure sustainable value creation. This position ensures that customers and internal clients are respecting the policies and terms of sale established by the various business units and that trade fund investments are utilized as effectively as possible through the reduction of non-working spends.
It is critical that this position recruits, trains and motivates a team of associates to ensure value creating mindset and agile & digital working environment. The role will also be responsible for building a high performance collaboration environment and drive engagement within the team. It is also expected that this position will develop a team of HPB co-pilots to Influence the sales organization with the most efficient use of resources to deliver top and bottom line growth, including efficient management of Trade Spend, other Sales controllable costs and Customer profitability.

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES/KNOWLEDGE

• Strong analytical capabilities and in-depth understanding of business/financial interrelationships between sales strategies, pricing, volumes, and cost structure. Understanding of basic internal financial measures such as Cash and Earnings.
• Cost Accounting and Budget Management - understanding of Mars, Incorporated internal cost structures and practices. Understand the relationship between different costs and cost drivers. Ability to drive cross-functional teams to deliver cost reduction programs.
• Analysis and Evaluation of Business Activities - Advanced expertise in the areas of Competitor Analysis and Benchmarking, Trend Analysis/Modeling and Evaluation, and Score carding/Metrics.
• Statutory Accounting - The knowledge and application of Mars, Incorporated Accounting Policies and Principles, U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, applicable local government regulations, and Mars, Incorporated transaction processing systems to meet business reporting requirements to provide timely and accurate reporting of financial results.
• Financial Control - The knowledge and application of business processes, internal control concepts and practices, and auditing techniques to ensure cost effective protection of business assets and approval of business activities at the appropriate level in the organization.

• S&F business partner for the respective customer group/channel – as such supporting the definition of customer strategy and achieving targets set within operational plan/3 yrs value creation plan
• Member of the Customer/Channel Management Team and accountable with the Customer/Channel Business Director of the business for the delivery, ownership and execution of the Operating Plan
• Develop strategic partnership with the Customer Business Director through spending time in the market to understand the competitive landscape, uncover opportunities for growth, further understand the customer and strengthen the relationship with the Customer team.
• Partner with SRM and the local organization to support and roll out ROI models and best practices to evaluate the effectiveness of consumer promotional activities and trade investments to drive value creation
• Partner with SRM and the local organization to drive portfolio and customer mix as per business strategy
• Partner with the local organization to optimize sales overheads
• Partner with regional FP&A team to efficiently create S&OP+ forecast.
• Initiate, lead, and manage projects which will improve current business processes and deliver against strategy
• Establish and drive digital tools/reporting and a value creation mindset within the local Sales/channel organization
• Ensure, that the trade budget is managed accurately and at the appropriate level of detail in the Trade Budget Systems; work in conjunction with sales to review trade fund use and effectiveness; identify opportunities to maximize ROI and eliminate non-working investments
• Ensure adherence to all corporate policies and guidelines pertaining to internal control with respect to the Trade budget.
• Influence sales and customers to recommend process improvements for the mutual benefit of all parties and to allow for the best use of trade funds.
• Support in ad-hoc activities and customer individual offers via financial evaluation and recommendations
• Support in the preparation of annual trade negotiations and customer business plans
• Evaluation of financial impacts driven by price increase, as well as changes in trade terms/condition