Customer Relationship Manager

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Asahi UK (AUK), part of Asahi Europe & International Ltd, aims to enrich consumer experiences through innovation, high-quality service and an exceptional portfolio of premium beer, ale and cider brands including, Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Asahi Super Dry, Meantime, Fuller's London Pride and Cornish Orchards. Our aim is to be the leading super premium beer business in the UK, through a brand mix that creates a compelling proposition. At AUK we operate as an end to end business unit responsible for sales, marketing, customer operations, production, supply chain and wholesale operations in the UK & Ireland. For further information, visit

Asahi Europe & International is a subsidiary of Asahi Group Holdings Ltd, a global beverage and food company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Japan. Employing > 12,000 people, Asahi Europe & International is the custodian for leading super premium lager brands Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Grolsch, Asahi Super Dry, plus international Czech lager brands, Pilsner Urquell and Kozel. The business has world-class brewing and production facilities in 8 markets - UK, NL, ITL, PL, CZ, SK, HU, RO. In most of these markets, we are the leading brewer with full portfolio of famous brands. Commercial operations in other parts of Europe, USA, Canada, LatAm, Africa and Asia are served through our global distribution network. With state-of-the-art facilities, some of the best brewers in the world, quality ingredients, and a culture based on innovation and collaboration, Asahi offers the best quality of beer to beer lovers worldwide. More information can be found at

Customer Relationship Manager

The Customer Relationship Manager will be working in a high performing team within Supply Chain. You will be accountable to lead and pursue excellence in supply chain for a set number of customers developing and delivering best service at the lowest cost with extensive exposure to internal and external senior stakeholders.

Accountable for managing the order to cash process for their customer(s), ensuring supply chain service offering and operations are aligned with the commercial teams, mutual supply chain costs are optimised and opportunities for service enhancements are delivered.

You will be accountable for ensuring robust, assumption based demand plans are generated for a set of customers. Direct responsibility for high levels of customer service to this set of customers, working closely with supply planning colleagues.

Key Accountabilities

The Customer Relationship Manager is responsible for the following key outputs and accountabilities:

• Delivering 95% service performance in all aspects of Service as measured by the customer- case fill rate and delivery on time and supporting the customer in securing on shelf availability
• Be the Supply Chain face of AUK to the customers and own the AUK service level into their depots, including FTA (Failure to Arrive) trends and other operational service impacts. Ensuring Timely capture of stock availability service incidents to enable accurate reporting of AUK Service Level KPI measures.
• Owns and drives Customer Engagement - targeting top quartile in the Advantage Group Survey. Develop support and enable the team to deliver customer specific plans to achieve the target.
• Accountable for the order management process, ensuring deliveries to customers are made On Time in Full (OTIF) and supporting OTC activities.
• NPD implementation to be launched on time in full and no customer shorts
• Effectively own and manage the stock write off process to ensure we reduce the exposure within Supply chain
• Educates customers on rules of supply such as lead times, MOQs, product information and delivery dates and develop joint plans to deliver cost efficiencies
• Development and maintenance of order capture and consumption tools to enable the "perfect order" as well as telephony or alternative contact strategy systems to delight our customers and consumers
• Responsible for the development of Supply Chain Partnerships through an appropriate customer contact strategy to support AUK service objectives.
• Demonstrate high personal integrity to develop / manage the customer relationship so that we are recognised by them as a best practice supplier.
• Identify and communicate to the sales and customer any short term supply issues
• Build a customer supply chain relationship deliver cost and service improvements by influencing operational behaviours of our customers to optimise joint supply chain practices (e.g. Order Management, Vehicle Utilisation, set delivery windows
• Develop, implement and improve collaborative forecasting with customers and demand planning team
• Action plans in place to improve forecast accuracy and bias to continually achieve set targets
• Influence and obtain cross functional forecast consensus across Sales and Customer.
• Building strong internal and external relationships with our Customers- Sales- Customer Service- Demand and Operations.
• Responsible for providing demand control through monitoring supply against forecast for all SKUs, making adjustments where necessary
• Liaise with the Customer to optimize product replenishment and successfully enabling events (new sku's- promotions).
• Monitor actual orders against your demand forecast, speedily investigate significant variances, understand root causes and impact across wider Supply Chain Increasing customer and Asahi supply chain value - identifying and implementing supply chain value projects- for both removing cost or enabling value creation
• Weekly, Monthly and Quarterly Service Review meetings providing inbound service, including root cause and resolution with documented "SMART" minutes and actions which are circulated in a timely manner

Experience Required

• Graduate calibre, ideally in a relevant area
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Highly analytical and able to use data to drive insight
• Customer relationship management experience
• Experience in a high volume, detailed and process driven organisation
• System experience in an ERP environment and strong excel skills
• Highly organised with excellent attention to detail
• Knowledge of either FMCG or UK or international supply chain logistics
• Experience of working cross-functionally at an operational level, with demonstrable evidence of influencing your peer group and above, and strong examples of relationship building and creation of collaborative, customer-focused plans

Key Attributes of the Successful Person

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Able to clearly and productively communicates ideas, plans and priorities to others in a commercially sensitive manner
• Is able to tailor the manner of communication to take into account the very different groups of people communicated with.
• Strong analytical skills able to make the connections in data, events and trends.
• Highly organised with excellent attention to detail
• Strong interpersonal skills
• Ability to work under pressure
• Drive and determination with a willingness to learn

What we offer:

• Private Medical and Dental Insurance
• Life Assurance
• Pension
• 25 days annual leave
• Beer allowance

We are committed to nurturing a workplace where we celebrate and respect difference, and support everyone to be true to who they are At Asahi Europe and International we believe you can SHINE AS YOU ARE - no matter your age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disabilities, religion, or beliefs. We want to support you to be courageous in your individuality and to know that whoever you are and whatever your circumstances, you can belong with us without having to conform.