Sales & Services Finance Controller for African Continent providing finance and business support and advice to African sales organisation. Act as a Trusted Advisor to the Africa Management Team and provide quality financial and business recommendations. Ensures that Fiduciary Control is maintained within the country.
Key Responsibilities:
- Financial lead for Africa reporting into Emerging Theater SSF Director
- Drive profitable growth across the business through financial and business analysis to measure progress and trends and so enable optimal management of the business
- Provide critical input and advice into the building of the short and long term Strategy for the region
- Ensure effective Governance and Compliance across the region
- Leverage off and collaborate with with other functions within the region and theater.
- Drive critical operational processes eg forecasting cycles/operational reviews
- Lead and/or play a key role in key SSF initiatives on behalf of EMEAR and Emerging SSF functions
Detailed Responsibilities include:
Cross Functional
Act as catalyst between sales teams and multiple support functions to address business needs including:
• Non Standard Deals, Commissions, Customer Services, Sales Business processes, Credit and Collection, Legal, Corporate Revenue, FP&A, Accounting, Cisco Capital.
Planning & Strategy
• Help African management teams build the Three year and the Annual Business Plan.
• Budgeting, Goaling simulations and Systems Readiness.
• Operations Review Process Support.
• Sales Hierarchy and Organization Structure Management.
Forecasting
• Support Sales Management in managing the short and long range forecasting process and driving forecast accuracy
• Work to push teams to grow and correctly manage pipeline of opportunities
Operational Excellence
• Provide visibility and guidance to management around the key metrics which define Operational excellence in the business eg. discounts, margin, expenses, productivity, technologies, linearity, forecast accuracy, opportunity yield etc.
• Drive monthly finance package review with Sales Directors
• Help drive improvement in current operational processes.
• Ensure the integrity of the numbers in the various systems.
Expense and Headcount Management:
• Budgeting and analysis of expenses and headcount, providing the necessary information for management to be able to exercise expense control and invest in critical areas.
• Manage expense close for your teams, identifying reserve requirements, addressing them with Accounting Department and reporting back to management.
Deal Management
• With the support of the Commercial Finance Team, participate in the deal structuring process, review contractual terms & conditions and provide Finance/Business guidance. Part of deal approval chain
• Monitor revenue recognition requirements, working with Corporate Revenue and leveraging Rev Rec tools.
• Educate sales teams around disciplines required to ensure deal support tool reflects deal characteristics
Asset Management:
• Measure and drive discipline and guidance around Backlog Management, Quality of Bookings and Credit/Collections.
• Monitor the necessary Revenue Reserves to ensure that Cisco Rev Rec guidelines are not compromised.
• Prepare Revenue Assurance in line with company SOX compliance.
Fiduciary Control
• Strong Fiduciary Control in compliance with SOX and Cisco’s policies and procedures
• Educating, review, presentation of Compliance Policies with sales teams
• Support internal audits, reviews, and compliance checklist
• Raising concerns, issues and documenting properly
EMEAR Initiatives
• Participate and, where possible, lead in Regional (EMEAR) and Emerging Market initiatives
Desired Skills & Experience
SKILLS REQUIRED:
• Applies expert knowledge and understanding across all related functional disciplines
• Makes proposals to senior management regarding financial implications of proposed tactical plans and suggests contingency plans/trade-offs for mitigating risks;
• Initiates and leads financial strategy discussions
• Applies knowledge of Cisco's business strategies to proactively anticipate business needs based on industry trends
• Provides strategic leadership within one's functional area
• Participates with other senior managers to establish corporate strategic plans and objectives
• Makes final decisions on administrative or operational matters and ensures the operations' effective achievement of objectives
• Handles controversial situations, customer/client negotiations or influences and persuades senior management
• Responsible for strategic decisions that will affect the success of Cisco's overall business operations;
• Serves as a consultative business partner to client groups on broad or complex business issues, integrating technical expertise/experience, client's business objectives and marketplace factors
• Able to be contributor in developing complex company policies which not only affect immediate operations, but other functional areas, and potentially affect company-wide operations
• High energy proactive team player with ability to both leverage off other functions and drive towards wider Cisco objectives
• Structured in approach with ability to plan work and prioritise effectively
• Strong business partnering skills, with ability to effectively challenge and influence senior Sales and Finance management
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills, attention to detail
• Good communicator, able to discuss issues with teams and management with clarity and diplomacy – able to present to sales teams where necessary
• Strong sense of autonomy and creativity with strong customer service skills.
Company Description
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) enables people to make powerful connections-whether in business, education, philanthropy, or creativity. Cisco hardware, software, and service offerings are used to create the Internet solutions that make networks possible-providing easy access to information anywhere, at any time.Cisco was founded in 1984 by a small group of computer scientists from Stanford University. Since the company's inception, Cisco engineers have been leaders in the development of Internet Protocol (IP)-based networking technologies. Today, with more than 65,225 employees worldwide, this tradition of innovation continues with industry-leading products and solutions in the company's core development areas of routing and switching, as well as in advanced technologies such as:
Additional Information
- Posted:
- April 16, 2012
- Type:
- Full-time
- Experience:
- Director
- Functions:
- Finance
- Industries:
- Information Technology and Services
- Job ID:
- 2863683
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