Sales Controller

The Sales Controller is responsible for supporting the Sales organization as a Finance Business Partner, providing financial insights and analysis to drive profitable business decisions. The role combines Controlling, Sales Finance, Business Planning, Data Analytics, and Process Automation.

The position is responsible for analyzing sales performance, profitability, pricing, volume, product mix, trade spend, and key business KPIs. It also supports monthly closing, budgeting, forecasting, and inventory planning, while partnering closely with Sales, Operations, and key stakeholders to identify risks, opportunities, and areas for improvement.

GENERAL

• Guarantees full compliance with the Group Controlling guideline and financial policies.

• Ensures timely distribution of financial information to budget holders through reports, system access and regular meetings.

• Promotes efficiency in Controlling by automating recurring reports and data processes (e.g. Power Query, macros, Python), freeing up time for analysis and insight sharing.

• Supports a true bottom-up planning process and drives high forecasting accuracy across business plans, revised estimates and long-term forecasts.

• Builds trust-based relationships with budget holders, acting as a facilitator that shares insights, highlights risks/opportunities and develops business cases for new projects.

REPORTING & ANALYSIS (MONTH END CLOSING)

• Designs, builds and maintains automated reporting solutions and dashboards (e.g. Power BI, Power Query, VBA/macros or Python scripts) to streamline recurring monthly closing and sales reports.

• Ensures master data quality and prepares the monthly sales statistic, including volume, price and product mix impact by channel.

• Manages the Value Chain, Trade Spend and DP Margin control, and supports Sales in ROI and price control by channel.

• Analyzes key KPIs and customer/channel exposure, suggesting improvements.

• Monitors sales incentives and OnP P&L/investment analysis, understanding and explaining variances vs. plan.

• Proactively identifies opportunities to digitalize and automate manual finance processes, partnering with IT/Data teams to implement scalable, data-driven solutions.

PLANNING AND FORECASTING

• Leads Planning File Input and KAM alignment across all planning cycles, aggregating individual plans into the total plan.

• Supports Business Plan/Revised Estimate data collection and entry, ensuring timing and inputs are met during the budget process.

• Responsible for Volume- and Inventory Planning, aligning with Operations.

BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP

• Acts as a contact and sparring partner for Sales and Operations, challenging assumptions and sharing insights.

• Benchmarks the cost of sales activities and their impact on volume/pricing.

• Prepares scenarios, simulations and ad hoc “what if” calculations (e.g. price increases) to model business impact.

• Supports budget reallocations and adherence; prepares product launch proposals with KAMs down to the basic/advanced exposure rate, and owns Value Chain alignment with Sales.

• 3 years of Experience in Controlling, ideally with hands-on experience automating financial reports and dashboards.

• Intermediate or Advanced English (verbal and written).

• Highly analytical skilled in profitability analysis.

• Strong data analytics mindset, with proven ability to build automated reports, dashboards and models (Power Query, Power BI, VBA/macros, Python or similar) to reduce manual work and increase time for insight generation.

• Good communication and presentation skills. Capable of communicating precisely and effectively with internal stakeholders up to GM level.

• A structured and well-organized individual.

• Must be self-motivated, self-directed and be able to work under pressure in a fast-paced team environment.