Business Development Manager

The biggest brands in the fashion and sporting goods industry are making use of Retailisation’s SaaS-product. The innovative software helps store chains in optimizing their stock management. Thanks to Retailisation’s proposition, out-of-stocks have been reduced drastically, putting an end to enormous stock overages which would have otherwise been sold at end-of-season bargain prices. PE fund Nimbus Ventures was one of the parties that took notice of this immense potential and decided to invest in Retailisation a few months ago. With this kind of backing, the company can realize their growth ambition. The new Business Development Manager will play a crucial role in this process.

A PROPOSITION BASED ON YEARS OF EXPERIENCE

CEO Jasper Zeelenberg started Retailisation eight years ago. The company has grown rapidly over the last few years. Currently, besides the CEO, the company has nine other employees. Before Jasper founded Retailisation, he gained considerable experience in all facets of retail, specifically in fashion and sporting goods. Amongst others, he’s worked at Adidas, Mexx, Foot Locker and WE Fashion. Having worked in Europe, the Middle East, and South Africa has helped him to familiarize himself with both the Dutch and the international retail scene.

Through all his different positions Jasper has gained extensive knowledge in all aspects of retail, such as merchandising, operations and distribution. Based on those insights, eight years ago he realized there was considerable turnover potential for retailers, as long as they’d be able optimize their stock management. This led him to develop software that helps retailers handle their stock management in an automated and data-driven way.

STATE-OF-THE-ART STOCK MANAGEMENT

Brick-and-mortar stores face increasing competition from web shops. Web shops however, can never provide the same customer experience as a physical store. Real shopping is an experience. You experience the store, the music that’s being played and the overall atmosphere. Moreover, you can feel and try on the clothes. Through Retailisation’s technology, stores can organize their stock availability in a way that allows them to compete with web shops and that would help prevent instances where they’d have to disappoint customers with an item being out-of-stock. This way, Retailisation helps retailers fully capitalize on their competitive edge when it comes to the customer experience.

Retailisation’s extensive software offers the retailer a fully optimized stock management process, based on Dynamic Buffer Management. The software helps a store to align the stocking process with the actual demand. Through analyzing data on sales numbers and inventory levels, the system can come up with suggestions regarding the stocking process. On top of that, the software automatically takes care of the replenishment process and it provides immediate insight into the inventory levels through advanced stock analyses and reports.

Retailisation’s software helps successfully combat frequent problems for retailers such as being out-of-stock, high discounts on leftover stock, limited insight into the inventory levels and a time-consuming, manual stock management process. System generated reports immediately show the impact on metrics such as Return on Inventory and Inventory Turnover. Retailisation’s recently launched mobile app allows retailers to easily look up this and other information on their smartphone.

Retailisation’s software doesn’t just benefit the retailers; it also helps keep the customer happy. “Unfortunately we don’t have this sweater in your size at the moment, but we can order it for you”, will be a statement hardly ever heard in stores using Retailisation’s software.

“Retailisation is a prime example of a company with enormous potential for growth. From Nimbus Ventures we can provide them with support and expertise in the areas of financing and upscaling to help realize this growth. Our partnership allows Retailisation to help fashion and sporting goods brands all over the world in optimizing their stock management.” – Auke van der Hout, partner at Nimbus Ventures

THE VACANCY: Business Development Manager

The new Business Development Manager plays a prominent role in realizing the growth ambitions. He/she will works strategically towards the expansion and continual improvement of the customer network. In this regard, Retailisation is much more than a mere ‘software reseller’. The company is a strategic partner and develops long-term customer relationships. This partnership works both ways: on the one hand Retailisation advises customers on improving their stock management, while on the other hand customers, through feedback and user data, help Retailisation in developing and improving their product.

Retailisation supports retailers when it comes to problems they run into regarding their stock management. It’s all about showing the customers in which areas they’re lacking and how Retailisation can help them improve and optimize value in those areas. Retailisation ensures this potential value is converted into cash. This way, the product basically sells itself.

Besides new customer acquisition, the Business Development Manager also focuses on maintaining relationships with existing customers. They’re very important for Retailisation, they help them to constantly improve on their product. This ensures stability in the customer portfolio and in product quality. An important task for the Business Development Manager is to keep inspiring these existing customers with everything Retailisation has to offer, even if they’ve been partnered for years.

CANDIDATE’S PROFILE

For this position we’re looking for someone with at least seven years of experience, preferably in Retail or with affinity with the sector, someone who understands merchandising and knows how to develop a market. The Business Development Manager has to be able to interact with customers at C-level and needs to be able to present him- or herself as a worthy sparring partner with sufficient authority, knowledge and experience.

Strong analytical skills, curiosity and a hands-on mentality are paramount. The Business Development Manager needs to be able to master Retailisation’s product quickly and contribute to thinking about possible improvements. Continued innovation of the product is one of Retailisation’s pillars of success for a reason. Because the Business Development Manager will be playing both a prominent and a strategic role in Retailisation’s further expansion, strategic ability is also important.

“After the successful round of financing in April we can now expand our portfolio and start making moves internationally. On top of that, supported by the data gathered from our customers, we’re constantly working on improving our product. We use the agile methodology. Our team needs to grow for us to realize these steps. Additionally I deem it very important that our people, new team members included, truly believe in our product and take great pride in what we’re achieving here together. We are looking for people who give a damn about the value we – and they – deliver to our clients. They need to really care.” – Jasper Zeelenberg, founder and CEO of Retailisation.

 

Retailisation works with Top of Minds Digital Executives to fill this vacancy. Contact Barbara Sauter via barbara@topofminds.com for more information.