Senior Manager - Sales Excellence

Ace Recruitment & Placement Consultants Pvt. Ltd. · India

About the Role

We are looking for a Manager / Senior Manager – Sales Excellence who will serve as the technology and process backbone of the sales organization. The role will be responsible for driving field-force productivity, sales automation, distributor effectiveness and distribution expansion through hands-on implementation of Sales Force Automation (SFA) and Distributor Management System (DMS) platforms.

The role combines Sales Operations, Sales Excellence, Technology, Analytics and on-ground execution , with a strong focus on improving sales productivity, market coverage, distributor visibility and data-driven decision-making.

This is an execution-oriented role for a professional who can translate technology and data into measurable business outcomes and drive adoption across a large field sales and distributor network.

Key Responsibilities

1. Sales Excellence, Analytics & Governance

• Build and maintain sales dashboards, MIS and performance trackers covering sales productivity, SFA/DMS adoption and market expansion.
• Develop and standardize SOPs, playbooks and best practices for sales automation, distributor management and distribution expansion.
• Analyze sales and distribution data to identify business opportunities, productivity gaps and growth levers .
• Convert data insights into actionable recommendations for the sales leadership team.
• Drive a culture of data-led decision-making across the sales organization.
• Monitor key sales excellence metrics and ensure governance through regular reviews.

2. Sales Force Automation (SFA)

• Own the end-to-end implementation, rollout, adoption and continuous improvement of SFA platforms across field sales teams, Branch Managers and Demand Generation teams.
• Design and optimize Permanent Journey Plans (PJP) based on outlet potential, call frequency, route optimization and market coverage.
• Drive improvement in field-force productivity, call efficiency and outlet coverage through technology-enabled interventions.
• Design and implement gamification, leaderboards, contests and performance programs to increase field engagement and target achievement.
• Lead change management and ensure high levels of SFA adoption, daily usage and data compliance .
• Define and monitor SFA-linked KPIs including:
• Call compliance
• Productive call percentage
• Product penetration
• Range Selling Index
• Outlet coverage
• Field-force productivity

3. Distributor Management System (DMS)

• Drive hands-on DMS implementation and adoption across the distributor network.
• Enable real-time visibility of orders, secondary sales, inventory, billing and stock reconciliation .
• Lead distributor onboarding, training and adoption programs to ensure accurate and timely data capture.
• Work closely with IT, Sales and external technology partners on DMS architecture, integration and system improvements .
• Ensure effective integration of DMS with ERP, SFA and trade promotion systems .
• Monitor DMS health metrics including billing compliance, stock reconciliation and data quality .
• Identify system gaps and lead upgrades, enhancements and re-architecture initiatives based on business requirements.

4. Market Expansion & Distribution Growth

• Conduct whitespace and coverage-gap analysis to identify untapped towns, markets, outlets and growth opportunities.
• Develop a structured, data-driven framework for new distributor appointment , covering:
• Market sizing
• Distributor evaluation
• Commercial benchmarking
• Market potential
• Speed-to-market
• Partner with Zonal and Regional Sales teams to convert identified whitespace into new distribution points and active markets .
• Drive growth in numeric distribution, weighted distribution, outlet reach and market penetration .
• Track key expansion metrics such as:
• New town coverage
• New distributor appointments
• Incremental outlet reach
• New outlet additions
• Distribution productivity

5. AI & Digital Sales Enablement

• Explore and implement AI-enabled sales recommendation tools to improve cross-sell, upsell and range-selling opportunities.
• Leverage technology, analytics and automation to improve sales planning, outlet prioritization and field-force effectiveness .
• Identify opportunities to use AI and advanced analytics for sales forecasting, customer segmentation and productivity improvement .

Required Qualifications & Experience

• MBA / PGDM , preferably in Sales & Marketing, from a reputed institute.
• 8–14 years of overall experience in Sales, Sales Operations, Sales Excellence, Trade Excellence or Commercial roles.
• Minimum 4–6 years of dedicated experience in Sales Excellence / Sales Operations / Trade Excellence .
• Minimum 2 years of Sales Excellence experience within FMCG is mandatory.
• Strong experience working with FMCG, consumer, building materials, consumer durables or other distribution-intensive businesses .
• Proven hands-on experience in implementing and scaling Sales Force Automation (SFA) platforms such as Salesforce, Bizom, M-Assist or similar platforms .
• Strong experience in PJP design, journey optimization, field-force productivity and gamification/leaderboard programs .
• Demonstrated experience in DMS implementation, distributor adoption and distributor data management .
• Understanding of DMS architecture, ERP/SFA integration, data governance and system scalability .
• Hands-on experience in whitespace analysis, market expansion and new distributor appointment .
• Exposure to AI-enabled sales recommendation, cross-sell and upsell tools will be an advantage.
• Strong analytical and data visualization skills with proficiency in Advanced Excel and Power BI .

What We Are Looking For

The ideal candidate will be a technology-oriented Sales Excellence professional who understands the realities of field sales and distributor networks. You should be comfortable working at the intersection of Sales, Technology, Data and Operations , with the ability to take ownership from solution design and implementation through field adoption and measurable business impact .

Candidates who have personally driven SFA/DMS implementation and adoption , rather than only worked as users of these systems, will be preferred.

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