About the position
Africa Agent performance and relationship management, Identifying and addressing potential risks related to shipping, customs, documentation, or other logistical challenges in the Africa tradelanes, keeping the business up-to-date with African countries' trade regulations, customs laws, and import/export requirements, keeping track of market trends, competitor strategies, and changes in African trade, Problem Solving, support operations with route optimization.
Experience required for this role:
- Proven experience in business processes design and implementation
- Commercial expertise including: Agent management
- Africa Risk management experience will be advantageous
- At least 5 years relevant experience in the clearing and forwarding industry, with a focus on African trade
- In-depth knowledge of trade regulations, customs procedures, and logistics in the African region
Qualifications:
- Matric
- Tertiary qualification in international supply chain essential
- At least 5 years management experience
- Management post-graduate qualification will be advantageous
Competencies:
Knowledge-
- Strong leadership and managerial qualities
- Supply Chain knowledge will advantageous
- Excellent communication and negotiation skills to interact with clients and various stakeholders
- Strong proven working knowledge of International Forwarding and clearing industry with a focus on African trade
- Must be numerate
- Must be familiar with African customs processes
Skills-
- Agent relationship management
- Well - developed inter-personal skills coupled with expert written and verbal communication
- Excellent negotiation skills
- Sound Planning and organisational skills
- Ability to manage and work under pressure
- Customer (internal and external) centric
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to make data-driven decisions
- Must have a high level of emotional intelligence
Key responsibilities of this role:
Africa Agent Network Management-
- Facilitate the signing up of additional agents where necessary
- Cultivate strong relationships with agents by fostering trust and cooperation
- Define relevant KPIs to measure the performance African agents
- Set up a system to regularly evaluate the performance of African agents
- Have regular engagements with African agents to foster continuous improvement
- Facilitate dispute resolution between agents and the operations teams
- Maintain open and regular communication with African agents.
Client Management-
- Understand client-specific Africa trade needs, and support Business Development and Operations to provide effective solutions to meet their requirements
Managing information and Reporting-
- Identify and address potential risks related to shipping, customs, documentation, or other logistical challenges
- When issues arise, such as delays, damages, or disruptions in the supply chain, find solutions promptly and efficiently
- Collaboration on pricing strategy
- Collaborate with sales, operations, and Trade Lane to ensure that Africa pricing strategies align with business objectives and profitability targets.
- Collaborate on pricing strategy development considering market dynamics, competitive landscape, and customer demands
- Provide inputs for the Balanced Scorecard (if required)
- Ensure confidential information is treated as such and put measures in place to ensure it is treated appropriately
- Conduct market research to identify potential trade opportunities, trade patterns, and emerging trends in the African region
- Monitor each African trade lane performance, costs, and revenue to ensure profitability and identify areas for improvement
- On agreed intervals, prepare the following reports: KPI reports (for agents and trade lanes), country market and industry reports, profitability reports, risk management report, rates trends report
- Put in place and maintain processes and procedures to ensure accurate upload of Africa information on internal system e.g. Cargowise
- Utilise relevant Management Information System (e.g. Monthly Dashboard and KPI's) in decision making
- Interpret and use information on system delivery from Service Reports and Customer Surveys
- Interpret and use information from Balanced Scorecard- analyse, interpret trends
- Prepare Africa Tradelane and EXCO reports timeously
- Disseminate information to direct reports and ensure it filters down to teams
Financial Responsibility (if applicable)-
- Achieve Africa budget and forecast
- Maximize Profits by rate negotiations with suppliers and improving profits where
- possible
- Manage cash flows - invoicing, query resolution and collection
- Minimize financial waste
- Safeguard assets
Performance Indicators:
- Client retention and growth
- Timely and accurate reporting
- Meet internal and external client KPIs
- Efficient resource planning and usage
- Meet ESG targets
- Meeting SHERQ objectives
- Adherence to business processes
- Achieve Africa budget and forecast
- Minimize financial waste
- Stakeholder engagement and management
- Compliance
- Agent Query Resolution
Desired Skills:
- Freight Forwarding
- Manager Freight Forwarding
- Freight Forwarding & Logistics
