Business Manager for the North of England & Scotland (care homes)
A demanding but very exciting role. Reporting to the General Manager - Care Homes, will be a key member of the Care Homes senior leadership team. and responsible for delivering accelerated growth in their region.
We are looking for an ambitious individual with a growth mindset, entrepreneurial flair and the ability to engage from kitchen to the boardroom. Within the agreed strategy for the Care Homes Business Unit, the Business Manager will set clear objectives for their team and ensure outstanding execution of these. We expect Business Managers to be able to act with speed and agility, to work and collaborate with other senior team members to continually learn from mistakes.
The success of the business has been based upon a continuing ability to re-invent the way we do things.
We have identified the opportunity to accelerate growth by further re-focusing our commercial teams on the complete business opportunity within defined geographical areas.
We have 3 regions and are seeking to appoint a Business Manager (following a promotion) in the North of England and Scotland to drive our growth ambitions. The Business Managers are responsible for both the capture of new business and the ongoing retention of homes. They will be expected to ‘own’ their region, ensure achievement of clear targets and KPIs and be accountable for the profit and loss account for their region. They will also be expected to provide a first-class retention service to the National Account Team.
The ideal candidate will have experience of leading a sales team to deliver their targets and goals.
apetito is the UK’s leading food supplier to the health and social care sectors serving more than 1,300 care homes, health care and education settings.
Our meals are expertly crafted by our dieticians and chefs, and then frozen to lock in the goodness.
Wiltshire Farm Foods, our sister company, is the UK’s largest ready meal supplier cooking and delivering over 330 different delicious frozen ready meals across the UK.
The care homes division was created in 2008 and we have achieved significant and consistent growth each year since in both sales and profit. Based upon building long term partnerships, our team has developed and grown significantly, and we have a great mix of experienced managers, food professionals and graduates. Every member of the team is positive and passionate about what we do and adopts a very forward-thinking culture that really helps us to accelerate growth. We insist upon a Growth Mindset from every member of the team!
Our aspiration and complete commitment is to double the growth of the business in the forthcoming 5 years and to thereby ensure we maiximise the opportunity within the £400m + market for food provision.
The Business Manager will have responsibility for recruitment, day to day management and ongoing motivation and development of their regional team. The team will include new business development (Key Account Managers) and the leadership of our retention team (Client Development Managers).
• Input and shape business strategy
Working with the General Manager – Care Homes and the other key members of the senior team, the Business Manager will be required to input to the creation and shaping of the strategy for developing the business in line with doubling aspirations.
• Drive new business strategy to deliver £1m+ per annum
Each Business Manager and their team will be expected to generate new business of £1.3m+. They will need to create a unique sales strategy designed to achieve long-term accelerated growth in line with our vision. The role will offer an exceptional candidate the opportunity to build, develop and deliver their own business plan for their area. The Business Managers across the UK will work closely to support and challenge each other and share great ideas.
• Networking and engagement
At the very heart of the commercial structure is the objective of creating real focus and ownership of the apetito care home business within a defined geographic area. As such the Business Manager will be required to identify and network across their area. Within their area they will be tasked with being the face of apetito and the ‘go to’ for food.
• Accelerate business retention above 95%
Develop and promote a culture of making a real difference to our partners. Driving growth financially and enhancing our senior stakeholder relationships. Support the team of CDM’s with key negotiations and how we continue to evolve our retention strategy that aligns us as dedicated experts in the industry. Opportunities for creating competitive advantage should be sought at every opportunity.
• Evolve our care homes proposition
Internally at apetito the Business Managers will have the opportunity to form great working relationships with cross functional departments and drive projects to support the care homes vision of continually evolving and re-inventing our proposition.
Essential:
Desirable:
Personal Qualities:
The successful candidate should have gravitas and must possess confidence, enthusiasm and passion. They must be able to inspire and motivate others, both customers and those they are leading within apetito (directly and indirectly). They will be entrepreneurial and driven by the success of building a very special business that truly ‘makes a real difference’ They will have the will to win and be able to learn from their mistakes.
They must understand the agile approach – speedily building, measuring and learning. They must demonstrate a strong work ethic and an ability to plan and manage their time and that of their team effectively. In addition, they must be able to develop, implement and evaluate key strategic projects within their area of the business.
In summary, we are looking for someone who is:
• Passionate, energetic and enthusiastic
• Someone who is diplomatic, but assertive. Able to command respect at all levels of the business from board directors to operatives and direct reports.
• An individual with the vision to take the role to another level
• Demonstrates good organizational skills
• Driven by building strong long-term business
• Self-motivated and resilient
• Pragmatic operator
• A strong communicator, internally and externally: articulate, both verbally and in writing
• Personable; has well developed influencing skills
• Good team player
• Strong work ethic
• Good critical thinking skills, including numeric.
Due to the geography of this role and the nature of working with customers in care home settings, flexibility with working hours will be needed.
Travel to customers across the region and to national events, including overnight stays, will be a regular requirement - typically 1 night per week.
A company car is provided to facilitate this and a clean (or virtually clean) driving licence is essential.
As this role involves working with elderly and vulnerable customers, it is exempt from The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and requires a Standard DBS Disclosure.
As a family-owned business, we take great pride in being a company that makes a real difference and is dedicated to creating outstanding meals to be proud of.
We develop a range of products designed to enhance health and well-being for all our customers.
We are driven by a passion for service and dedicated to feeding some of the UK’s most vulnerable people.
We proudly support British food and farming, focusing on using the best ethical and sustainable produce in alignment with our goal to reach Net Zero by 2040.
Our ethical standards are recognised by the ETI and we are an accredited Living Wage employer.
Learn more about apetito’s commitment to a more sustainable future.
We embrace inclusion, empowering individuals from diverse backgrounds.
Our commitment to making a real difference extends to customers, communities, and staff and we're on a mission to build an inclusive workplace where everyone reaches their full potential.
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