Trade Investment Planning Manager (Commercial Analysis)

Danone Specialized Nutrition Malaysia is seeking for Category & Channel Development (CCD) Investment Planning Manager. With our global presence, brands and business and our mission of bringing health through food to as many people as possible; we believe that people growth is a key asset to reach a sustainable business performance. To succeed in this journey, we're looking for the right talent and personalities eager to bring their energy and ideas to a meaningful project. Take this opportunity to GROW together and experience a culture that empowers you to express your ideas and share what you're passionate about!

The CCD Investment Planning Manager is responsible for driving effective planning, governance, and optimization of trade investment spending across Malaysia. The role serves as a strategic business partner to Sales and CCD teams, ensuring trade funds are allocated, monitored, and utilized effectively to drive commercial growth and investment returns.

The incumbent will consolidate trade investments across all customer and activity buckets, provide visibility of available and committed funds, validate trade claims, and assess the commercial effectiveness of trade spending against sales outcomes. Beyond ensuring compliance and budget discipline, the role is expected to provide insights and recommendations that support spending decisions, identify risks, and maximize the value generated from trade investments.

Responsibilities:

Trade Investment Planning & Governance

• Consolidate and manage trade investment spending across all approved activity buckets and customer investments.
• Provide visibility on approved, committed, and available funds to support commercial decision making.
• Monitor budget utilization and ensure trade investments remain within approved allocations.
• Support business leaders with accurate trade investment forecasts and spending recommendations.
• Ensure strong governance and compliance over trade investment spending.

Trade Claims & Financial Control

• Review and validate trade claims for completeness, accuracy, and compliance with approved investment plans and pricing agreements.
• Ensure timely submission and reconciliation of trade claims in accordance with company guidelines.
• Partner with Finance to reconcile claims and maintain accurate spending records.
• Challenge and escalate claims or spending requests that do not meet requirements or commercial justification.

Commercial Performance Analysis

• Evaluate the effectiveness of trade investments by analyzing spend against sales performance and commercial outcomes.
• Assess whether trade investments are generating incremental sales, driving customer growth, and delivering expected business returns.
• Identify trends, risks, and opportunities through analysis of trade spending performance.
• Provide recommendations to optimize trade investment allocation and effectiveness across channels and customers.

Business Insights & Investigative Analysis

• Investigate spending variances, unusual claim patterns, and gaps between investment levels and sales performance.
• Identify root causes behind underperforming investments and recommend corrective actions.
• Challenge assumptions and provide fact-based recommendations to improve the effectiveness of customer investments.
• Support decision making through data-driven commercial insights and scenario analysis.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with Sales, Finance, and CCD teams to drive alignment on trade investment priorities and spending decisions.
• Act as the key focal point for trade investment governance, claims validation, budget tracking, and performance reporting.
• Influence stakeholders through commercial insights and sound business recommendations.
• 3-5 years of experience in Sales Operations, Trade Marketing Finance, Commercial Excellence, Trade Claims Management, or Trade Investment Governance within an FMCG environment, with proven experience in claims validation, budget tracking, pricing compliance, and cross-functional stakeholder management.
• Strong understanding of retailer operations, promotional mechanics, trade funding processes, and customer investment management within the FMCG industry.
• Experience analyzing sales performance, promotions, trade investments, customer profitability, or commercial effectiveness.
• Exposure to claims validation, budget management, and cross-functional stakeholder management is advantageous.
• Good commercial acumen and business judgment.
• Confident in challenging claims, spending requests, and assumptions when required.
• Analytical and investigative mindset with strong problem-solving skills.
• High attention to detail and financial discipline.
• Resilient and able to influence stakeholders across functions.
• Strong ownership, follow-through, and accountability.

Danone is a world leading food company built on three business lines; Specialized Nutrition, Waters and Fresh Dairy Products. Danone’s mission is bringing health through food to as many people as possible and we want to invite people to join the movement for a healthier world. We recognize the power people have to impact the world through their daily choices. Each time we eat and drink, we vote for the world we want to live in. We believe a healthy body needs healthy food. And healthy food needs a healthy planet, and this is what our new signature One Planet One Health embodies

Danone is committed to create and live an inclusive & diverse environment, which will drive our growth as a business, as teams, as members of communities & as individuals. Valuing diversity is recognizing and respecting human differences and similarities. Our aim is to ensure that all employees and applicants are given equal opportunity and that our organization is representative of our consumers and society

We commit to foster an inclusive working environment where we celebrate all types of diversity, both visible and invisible, which includes age, race, gender, nationality, disability, background, education, religion, beliefs, thinking style, perspectives and sexual orientation

We believe that our differences will make the difference

For more information, please visit our website at https://careers.danone.com/sea/en/home.html

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