General Trade Sales Strategy & Growth Manager

Job Description: General Trade Sales Strategy \& Growth Manager

Company

Dhampure Speciality Sugars Limited

Brand

Dhampur Green

Department

Sales \& Business Strategy

Location

Delhi / NCR, with regular market visits across key markets

Experience

5–10 years, preferably in FMCG, consumer goods, retail distribution or sales strategy

Reporting To

Head of Operations / Business Leadership

Educational Qualification

B. Tech/ M. Tech or MBA

Role Overview

We are looking for a highly analytical, commercially driven and creatively minded professional to develop and execute innovative strategies for accelerating general trade sales across India.

The ideal candidate will combine AI-powered data analytics, on-ground market intelligence, consumer and retailer behaviour, distributor economics and unconventional sales strategies to identify growth opportunities and improve sales productivity.

This is not a conventional sales execution or reporting role. The individual will be responsible for understanding why products sell or do not sell at the retail level, identifying barriers to growth, and developing actionable strategies to increase retailer reach, product availability, secondary sales, repeat orders and overall market share.

The candidate must be comfortable moving between data dashboards and actual retail markets, validating analytical insights through field visits and translating findings into practical, measurable sales initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

A. AI-Led Sales Analytics \& Growth Opportunities

• Use AI tools, analytical models and data-driven techniques to identify sales growth opportunities across regions, cities, distributors, retailers and SKUs.
• Analyse primary and secondary sales, order frequency, retailer productivity, SKU-wise performance, outlet coverage, sales trends and distributor performance.
• Identify underperforming markets, high-potential territories, dormant retailers, declining accounts and opportunities for increasing the average order value.
• Develop predictive models and actionable insights to forecast demand, identify potential stock-outs, improve sales planning and prioritise high-value outlets.
• Use AI tools to identify patterns, generate hypotheses and recommend targeted sales interventions.
• Build simple, practical dashboards and decision-support systems that help management and the sales team take faster, better-informed decisions.

B. On-Ground Market Intelligence

• Conduct regular market visits to understand the realities of general trade, including retailer behaviour, product availability, competitor activity, pricing, margins and consumer demand.
• Understand why retailers recommend certain brands, what drives shelf placement, and what prevents them from stocking or reordering our products.
• Gather structured feedback from retailers, wholesalers, distributors and sales representatives.
• Evaluate competitor schemes, trade margins, credit practices, merchandising, product assortment and distribution models.
• Validate data-driven recommendations through field experiments and direct market observation.
• Convert market feedback into specific, actionable sales growth initiatives.

C. Retailer \& Distributor Growth Strategies

• Understand the commercial motivations, pain points and expectations of retailers, wholesalers and distributors.
• Develop strategies to increase retailer acquisition, active outlet coverage, order frequency, assortment and repeat purchases.
• Design innovative distributor engagement programmes that improve throughput, productivity and willingness to invest in the brand.
• Identify ways to improve retailer economics and product attractiveness without unnecessarily increasing trade expenditure.
• Develop differentiated strategies for high-potential retailers, low-productivity outlets, dormant accounts and strategically important distributors.
• Improve the effectiveness of the company's distribution network and sales force deployment.

D. Creative \& Innovative Sales Strategy Development

• Conceptualise unconventional, high-impact sales initiatives that can create incremental demand and improve product movement.
• Develop new trade schemes, retailer incentive structures, sampling programmes, visibility initiatives, bundled offers and market activation strategies.
• Explore alternative methods of generating retail demand, improving product recommendation and increasing consumer pull.
• Design territory-specific and channel-specific growth strategies instead of relying on uniform schemes across all markets.
• Run controlled pilots to test new ideas, measure results, understand unit economics and scale successful interventions.
• Challenge conventional FMCG sales practices and continuously identify new ways to improve market penetration and sales productivity.

E. Sales Force Effectiveness

• Analyse the productivity of Area Sales Managers, Sales Officers and field sales teams using sales, outlet coverage, visit and order-conversion data.
• Identify gaps between field activity and actual commercial outcomes.
• Recommend ways to improve productive calls, conversion rates, outlet activation and sales per salesperson.
• Develop data-led outlet prioritisation and beat optimisation strategies.
• Equip the sales team with actionable market insights, outlet-level opportunities and clear growth plans.
• Work with sales leadership to convert strategic recommendations into field execution.

F. Commercial Evaluation \& Performance Measurement

• Establish measurable KPIs for every sales growth initiative.
• Evaluate incremental sales, gross margins, scheme costs, return on investment, repeat ordering and retailer activation.
• Distinguish genuine incremental sales from stock loading, channel inventory build-up or purchases merely shifted between periods.
• Develop a structured process for reviewing experiments, learning from unsuccessful initiatives and