Commercial Finance Manager in Halifax

Role: Commercial Finance Manager
Reports to: Head of Business Insights
Based: Southall (On-site)

About Delice De France:
Delice is the largest specialist distributor of premium frozen bakery products operating in the UK with a rich history underpinned by a focus on innovation and customer service.
Established in London in 1984,primarily focused on the food service sector, with notable success in retail, leveraging its established strategic supplier network to navigate global food trends and develop a holistic understanding of the food market in conjunction with its own multi temperature UK logistics network.

On 4 October 2019, Delice became independent through a management buy out. Through increased but measured agility and flexibility Delice optimised its assets, grew new sales channels, and further enriched its own fleet to benefit its customers. Delice is led by an entrepreneurial experienced management team with a demonstrable record of delivering performance, supported by years of industry knowledge and insight. The Company has a proven track record with strong financial performance.

Delice management responded quickly to the pandemic, speedily right-sizing the business by July 2020 and saving c£8m a year. Delice has since developed new business channels, built a successful dark kitchen and established its own multi-temperature UK fleet, whilst completing its full separation from Aryzta. Today, Delice is a stronger, fit-for-purpose business in a robust financial position and well placed for future growth.

The Role:
The whole Finance team at Delice are very commercially driven and get the opportunity to get involved in all aspects of the business at many different levels. At Delice finance is at the heart of the business, with an Entrepreneurial spirit.

We are looking for an exceptionally commercial candidate to join our Business Insights team in our Southall Head office. Business Insights is exceptionally entrepreneurial, and no two days are the same. It's an exciting time to join us and be a part of the team designed to drive the business forward through business partnering the sales team and being an integral part of our Customer's Journey. You will also own the financial view of our product journey, from supplier through freight, storage and distribution to the customer, making sure every product is accurately costed to deliver its margin. You will be involved in a variety of fast paced change projects and initiatives into our customer centric independent business. For example, relaunching our Customer Concepts and the Delice Brands.

You are excited by the opportunity to work at different levels within the business and driven to learn more about an FMCG food business, bringing strong business acumen. Driven and a self-starter, you will lead continuous improvement across our Customer Journeys, striving for efficiencies and excellence whilst maintaining the highest standards of performance and promoting our Food Safety Culture. You will be an extended part of our Sales team and part of the Delice Family delivering the Delice core values.

Key Relationships:
Reporting into the Head of Business Insights, the Commercial Finance Manager will be a key business partner to the sales team who look after the Retail, Out of Home, Catering, Wholesale, Distribution & Multiples channels.

Other Key Contacts: Sales, Marketing, Procurement, Supply Chain, Hardware, the rest of the Finance team.

Responsibilities:

As the Commercial Finance Manager, your responsibilities will include:
Lead the financial review and challenge of business cases (e.g. new customer contracts, tenders, pricing investments, new product launches and capex), including post-investment reviews to track ROI delivered against plan.
Strategically and tactically support the Sales team across all sectors, end-to-end on areas such as accurate pricing, maximising Return on Investment, accurate forecasting, Finance support in tenders, contract review, trade terms management, and customer joint business plan meetings.
Drive profitability, growth and cash improvement with a customer and product lens by working with the Head of Business Insights and Head of Finance, to identify key trends and actions with these channels. For larger tenders also working with the CFO and CEO.
Lead regular finance and sales performance reviews to drive accountability, efficiency and clear communication.
Promote cross-functional working to build a balanced customer, cost and cash-focused culture.
Deliver sales analytics, including price/volume/mix, customer and product profitability and promotional effectiveness, and develop timely, accurate, insight-driven commercial reporting and Power BI dashboards.
Working with the Head of Business Insights, own the Sales month-end commentary, providing a clear understanding of business sales performance and outlook.
Prepare the Executive KPI report, bringing together key metrics from across all departments, summarising performance and highlighting key changes and trends for the Executive team.
Build a working technical understanding of each department's KPIs to sense-check the data and explain key movements.
Champion data literacy and self-serve reporting (Excel, Power BI) across the commercial team, promoting continuous improvement throughout Delice.
Own landed product cost modelling as part of the product journey, keeping product costs accurate and analysing variances to inform pricing and margin decisions.
Support the Strategic Sector Pricing Strategy for Delice working closely with the Channel Team, Sales Operations Director, President and Marketing.
Work with the Head of Business Insights, Chief Financial Officer, President and the Sales Operations Director to understand how market insights can be used with pricing tactical strategies to gain market share.
Evaluate new financing and business model opportunities to increase market penetration for Delice de France.
Lead and support cross-functional projects and provide ad hoc commercial finance solutions as business needs evolve.
Benefits:
Company Pension.
Life Assurance.
Free Onsite Parking.
Referral Scheme.
Long Service Award Scheme.
50% Discount Off Company Purchases.
Eyecare Vouchers.
Employee Assistance Programme.
Essential Experience and Qualifications:
Business or numerate degree (or equivalent).
At least 3 years' commercial finance or financial reporting experience, with a commercial, value-adding mindset.
Proven business partnering experience, with the confidence to challenge and influence senior stakeholders.
Strongly analytical, with excellent communication, collaboration and interpersonal skills.
Customer and solutions focused, turning financial insight into practical commercial solutions for customers and the business.
A strong, resilient and flexible personality, comfortable adapting to changing priorities and holding their own with senior stakeholders.
Excellent planning and multitasking skills, able to manage varied day-to-day priorities and deadlines.
Advanced Excel skills, along with strong MS Office skills.
A proactive self-starter with clear, independent thinking, able to work flexibly both independently and as part of a team.
Experience of an integrated ERP system (ideally Microsoft Dynamics 365) and Power BI is preferred
ACCA/ACA/CIMA qualified or finalist is preferred.
FMCG, retail or fast-paced entrepreneurial background preferred.
Enjoys a fast-paced, changing commercial environment where no two days are the same.
Key Performance Measures: Business partnering and key stakeholder management.
Timely, accurate and insightful commercial reporting and sales analytics with a value-added focus.
On-time, accurate delivery of the Executive KPI report with clear, actionable commentary.
Rigour of business case review and tracking of ROI delivered against plan.
Accuracy of landed product costs and overall margin delivery against target.