Sales Manager - Next Sourcing

The Role
If you have outstanding commercial awareness and apparel & footwear sourcing knowledge this opportunity might be of interest. We are looking for a Sales Manager within Next Sourcing Brands, to nurture and drive our business with Next Own Brand - The Set. This is a great opportunity and the chance to work within a fantastic team.

Next Sourcing is a fully owned subsidiary of Next PLC, operating as its global sourcing office for apparel and footwear. We are committed to excellence across the end-to-end sourcing process, from product development through to production, partnering with suppliers to deliver high-quality products and exceptional value. We have sourcing offices across 9 countries and work with manufacturers based in 11 countries, enabling us to deliver a global perspective and high-quality products efficiently. We support the Next brand, as well as licensed and direct brands within the wider Next portfolio. This role will be based in the Market Harborough UK office and report into the Head of Brands Sales and Marketing at Next Sourcing UK.

Relationship Management:
Effectively manage and cultivate relationships with The Set Brand, Next Sourcing UK teams, and Next Sourcing overseas teams.

Strategic Collaboration:
Collaborating with regional sourcing teams, you will develop pre-season strategies to deliver competitive, brand-specific product offers focused on development, pricing, and speed. Adopting a commercial, solution-oriented mindset, you will drive and measure success across key strategic pillars: protecting and growing our key lines , upgrading value via fabric innovation, and balancing factory and design initiatives. Additionally, you will lead a service strategy to optimize margins, lead times, and delivery performance.

Performance Monitoring:
Monitor Next Sourcing sales performance and provide guidance, motivation, and support to the teams in territories to improve results. This involves tracking and analysing sales targets, identifying areas for improvement, and reporting progress to senior management.

Opportunity Identification:
Constantly identify new product opportunities and areas for potential growth. Sell these ideas to the brands, work towards converting these opportunities into orders, and drive new sales opportunities for the company.

Troubleshooting:
Act as a link between the customer and Next Sourcing teams in territories, assisting with troubleshooting where needed by driving solutions to ensure Next Sourcing remains the first choice to the customer.

Negotiations:
Assist with price negotiations, delivery negotiations, and small quantity order negotiations as necessary. Deliver competitive prices, timely deliveries, and excellent service to our customers.

Critical Path Management:
Manage the Next Sourcing critical path alongside the customers critical path, ensuring products are designed and delivered according to key dates such as range reviews and selections.

Sales and Influence:
Sell product offers to the customer with conviction, using your influence to help evolve their ranges. Drive sales for the company by ensuring alignment with each brand’s needs.

Insights & Strategic Communication
As a vital link between data and strategy, you will leverage strong data literacy to uncover the "why" behind performance trends and gaps. You won't just analyse metrics; you’ll distill them into high level reports that provide a clear pulse on the business. Success hinges on your ability to influence Senior Management by transforming technical data into compelling narratives. With approachable confidence, you will guide leaders through your logic, handle feedback with composure, and build long-term trust through sound reasoning and clear communication.

Product Development:
Be heavily involved in product development, driving new opportunities from concept and sourcing through to ready-to-buy products.

Travel Requirements:
Travel will be required for seasonal territory visits.

What You’ll Take On:
We are looking for someone with a strong understanding of how the sourcing and factory base operate​, from development through to production, including how to challenge a costing,​ effectively negotiate a price, lead time, manage capacities across the globe.

Customer & Territory relationships​
Ability to build and maintain credibility and get the best out of suppliers. Take ownership with a ‘leave it with me, I’ll sort it out’ approach and build credibility and respect through effective solutions.

Resilience & Problem-solving
Solutions focused mindset with strong influencing and convincing skills. Remaining composed and delivering your opinions and ideas with conviction, simultaneously taking on feedback and ideas from others. Always bring solutions, backed by strong influencing skills.

New Opportunities
Work closely with Design and Territories to ​constantly target new product categories, introduce new offers, market intelligence, and innovation.

Trading Initiatives
Drive and monitor progress on QR offer by country and product group and fabric, backing strategy by country and product group.

Team management
Nurture the Assistant​s to help them develop, grow, deputise when needed.

What You’ll Bring
You will need a strong product development background with extensive sourcing knowledge. Experience in a similar role managing branded products and nurturing relationships would be preferable. You should demonstrate exceptional commercial awareness and a comprehensive understanding of trends, along with a solid grasp of product development and manufacture. The ability to work effectively within your department's team while being highly personable and engaging across the business is essential. You should be experienced and capable of presenting new concepts and suggestions to encourage new sales opportunities, as well as selling product offerings to key stakeholders with conviction.

Additionally, you will need the drive and enthusiasm to follow tasks through to completion, along with strong problem-solving skills. You will be agile and available to support in an ever changing department with tight deadlines and high demand. Experience gained within buying, merchandising, brand sourcing, or from a supplier background would also be highly beneficial.

Sponsorship
Candidates wishing to apply who would require sponsorship for this role will be required to meet the Home Office sponsorship requirements. For further information please see: https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa.

We encourage early applications for our roles, as our recruitment process begins as soon as the role is advertised. If we successfully fill the position, this advert may close earlier than planned.

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Benefits