Commercial Finance Manager, Singapore

What makes this a great opportunity?

Southeast Asia (SEA), comprising of 14 countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Philippines, is a part of the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. This role will be reporting directly to the Senior Finance Manager for SEA. The primary purpose of the role is to support P&L management and commercial activities in Singapore.

Role Responsibilities

Commercial Finance

• Key business partner to Commercial, Marketing and Trade Marketing teams based in Singapore.
• Collaborating with the RGM team to implement pricing per Global/APAC guidelines; analyze commercial data and identify opportunities to optimize pricing in the value chain.
• Drive value chain analysis and understanding on a channel level.
• Support the annual pricing review exercise and pricing benchmarking.
• Lead the simulation of new business cases for potential new customers or channels, including reviewing and optimizing trading terms for profitability & alignment with company goals, that will drive growth and expansion opportunities.
• Partner the commercial team in building promotional plans, evaluating ROIs, validating customer claims and ensuring proper documentation in place.
• Drive conversations between marketing, trade marketing and commercial teams in optimizing trade investments.
• Partner commercial team to optimize sales mix and pricing to drive margin improvement.
• Partner legal and commercial team in reviewing legal contracts to ensure compliance and protect the organisation’s interest from a financial standpoint.
• Responsible for managing customers’ accounts receivable, monitoring credit to minimize risk and maintain cashflow targets.
• Responsible for the ERP system (SAP/V2V) set up, configuration and ongoing maintenance of price group, rebate & customer conditions.
• Support annual joint business plan target setting with wholesalers.
• Instill commercial discipline and upholding compliance standards, proactively reviewing current processes to address control deficiencies.

Month-end Closing

• Complete accruals for trade investments and A&P.
• Monthly journal entry preparation for price support accruals. Ensure timely and accurate recognition of accruals of trade spends.
• Responsible for managing revenue deferral and ensuring accurate sales recognition in compliance with accounting standards.

Business Performance Management

• Maintain a firm grasp on business performance by market/brand performance and provide insights to assist commercial team on business and financial improvement opportunities.
• Review country level depletion performance, shipment plan and stock in-trade.
• Triangulate business performance with understanding of market share and consumer depletions.
• Initiate market specific price builds, pricing reviews and trade terms analysis and ensure reports in place to guide management decisions.
• Track monthly, YTD, Quarterly and FY monthly P&L.
• Monitor market/brand performance expectations, actuals delivery and target achievement.

Forecasting and Planning

• Partner commercial, marketing, and supply chain functions to prepare budget and full-year forecasts in line with planning cycles and deadlines.
• Drive the development of annual budget and 3-year strategic plans in line with market and product strategic ambitions.
• Collaborate with demand planning team to review for market opportunities and mitigating risks in conjunction with every forecast cycle.
• Proactive identification or risks and opportunities and engage commercial team in discussions on gap closing initiatives.
• Review inventory depletion performance against shipment forecast with understanding of market share.
• Complete monthly/quarterly management reporting submissions.
• Report and comment on key variances for actuals, forecast and budget

Role Responsibilities

Process Improvements

• Make recommendations for simplification of processes including pricing maintenance, month end reporting, forecasting and business planning
• Challenge and drive improvements in current processes, internal controls and compliance. 
• Proactively promote financial awareness and understanding within the business

Other

• Develop and manage 1 direct report
• Support projects for Singapore when required
• Support business case for innovation or new business opportunities

Qualifications

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor's Degree in Finance or Accounting. Candidates with relevant industry experience would be preferred.
• Stakeholder engagement and management – demonstrated experience in influencing and managing cross-functional stakeholders across geographies, building mutually beneficial, profit-focused business relationships.
• Possess strong commercial acumen. Analyze and understand the business context beyond financial numbers.
• Systems/software – experience in using advanced Microsoft Excel (essential), as well as previous exposure to ERP and management reporting/consolidation systems (preferable).
• Experienced in writing succinct and insightful business performance reports, and summarizing business analysis.
• Strong in building financial models and value chain analysis.
• Cross-functional working – proven experience in working proactively across commercial functions to deliver total business performance solutions.
• Fluency in English

Job Specific Competencies

• Proactive, high attention to detail, deadline focused.
• Collaborative team player with ability to work in cross-functional teams.
• Tenacity, agility and rigor.
• Strong planning and problem-solving skills.
• Strong commercial skills and high level of business acumen.
• Excellent verbal, written communication and interpersonal skills.
• Culturally sensitive attitude and approach.
• Strong time management, able to prioritize a diverse workload and deadlines.
• Demonstrate a ‘drive for results’ mentality.