Regional Budgeting and Controlling Manager
Del Monte Foods UAE
Total years of experience :13 years, 4 Months
• Department size: 13 senior and junior financial analysts;
• Products portfolio: Fresh Produce, Canned Foods, Processed Meats.
• Markets: Middle East, Levant, North Africa and CIS countries.
• Systems: IBM Cognos Controller, IBM Cognos Enterprise Planning, SAP.
Reporting to the Regional Finance Director and in charge of managing the financial system, my task mainly consisted in maintaining adequate internal controls, and ensuring full compliance with both internal/corporate and internationally recognized accounting policies (GAAP and IFRS).
• The department I'm heading is responsible for coordinating and preparing operating budgets and setting up variance analysis of actual versus plan/forecasts.
The main key points of my function were as follows:
• Business partnering with Senior Management;
• Due diligence of commercial risk of entering new countries and local tax & employment legislation;
• Planning and project managing;
• Implementing the departments procedures across the region;
• Recruiting the team members and setting the departments’ medium and long term objectives;
• Creating and developing all the necessary production, financial and pricing models;
• Studying and deciding the most suitable allocation rule of the company’s manufacturing and distribution overheads.
• Making presentations to the regional and corporate management teams as needed;
• Introduced and documented standard operating procedures for all FP&A related processes;
My main achievements were:
• Build financial models and define strategy and business plans for all the business units.
• Direct strategic initiatives to achieve ERP implementation, system upgrade deployments and improvement.
• Reduce and control expenses by involving all Cost Center heads, implementing appropriate KPIs and reviewing all operations aspects.
• Conducted major cost controls and cost cutting projects, such as:
o change of business scopes from direct to indirect distribution,
o reduction of production lines route to machines,
o rationalization of product SKUs;
• Served as mentor to junior team members, trained, evaluated and promoted them whenever possible.
• Department size: 4 management accountants.
• Products portfolio: Commodities (Flour, Oil, Pulses, Maize) and Derivative products (Pasta, Noodles).
• Markets: Local (UAE) and Export: GCC, Levant, Africa and Asia.
• Systems: Oracle Applications.
Reporting to the VP Business Development, my task mainly consisted in ensuring all sales transactions were achieved with the right pricing strategy and the proper profit.
The main key points of my function were as follows:
• Initiating and leading the implementation of the group’s pricing strategy while proposing and improving pricing models;
• Surveying the competitors’ pricing policies and adopting necessary actions to maintain the company's competitive advantage;
• Conducting value-oriented Pricing and Profitability Analysis for New Products to ensure that sustainable incremental revenues can be yielded;
• Managing non-standard pricing process and related approvals;
• Periodically monitoring inflation, industry trends and the group's fixed costs to preserve profit and marketability;
The department I headed was responsible for
• Liaising with the Sales Department to plan the volumes and the selling prices for each item and in every market;
• Preparing Sales reports;
• Preparing P&Ls per product and market on a monthly basis and analyzing the Gross Profit and Operating Income;
• Tracking and monitoring forecast accuracy while working with all departments to identify and implement changes in forecast methodology and processes to improve the accuracy;
• Preparing the Business Plan for the four different production units
• Receiving, coordinating, and reviewing sales volumes monthly forecasts;
• Determining the labor, depreciation and other production costs;
• Evaluating the performance of the manufacturing activities and Report the variances;
• Coordinating with the production managers to determine the planned Bills Of Material per item, yields and cost per Raw Material;
My main achievements were:
• Develop the department's first incentive performance plan which motivated staff and resulted in a 23% increase in sales.
• Create financial plan covering 3 years and projecting a yearly average of 15% growth.
My duties covered cost estimates, budgets, forecasts and financial analysis. I was also responsible for compiling sales and management reports and summaries, preparing data and analysis for the management.
As a member of the FP&A Department, the scope of my duties covered the following:
• Produce weekly, monthly and quarterly management reports to senior management;
• Analyze variances and investigate potential problems;
• Make appropriate recommendations and advise of their impact on the business;
• Prepare cash flow statements, income and expenditure accounts and tax returns;
• Establish and maintain costing models for the five production plants and all their SKUs;
• Assist in conducting feasibility studies for investment projects;
• Set up and maintain regional branches’ reporting systems;
• Participate in implementing an in-house developed ERP system by:
• Setting the production standards/formulas for each and every SKU;
• Classifying the activities and their costs using the Activity Based Costing methodology;
• Allocating the costs to the products by identifying cause and effect relationship;
My main achievements were:
• Implementing an in-house ERP the system with the help of IT and Production departments;
• Conducting successfully the feasibility study for the introdution of the cream dessert “Danette” into the Moroccan Market.
Courses attented to: Accounting, Finance, Project management, organizational behaviour, Economics, Marketing. Courses to be completed: Startegic management.