Operations Manager
UFIG
Total years of experience :23 years, 9 Months
• Management of 4 brands (Sable Sweets, Roche chocolates, Deek Al Roumi Restaurant, and Planet Donuts)
• Heading all departments including Supply Chain, Marketing, IT, Production, Finance, HR, Administration (including Government Relations), and Sales
• Setting the organization and business plan and ensuring strategy is implemented and monitored for the entire operation
• Assigning budgets for departments and periodically reviewing them with Brand/Area Managers
• Review branch KPI’s and performance and communicate to area managers and branch managers to achieve targets
• Management of E-commerce platforms including end-to-end solutions
• Review salaries and incentive schemes for the branch team in liaison with finance and HR making recommendations whenever required
• Identifying business process re-engineering requirements focusing on automation, digitization, and transformation management
• Maintain, seek, utilize, and analyze management information including EPOS (electronic point of sale) data to manage, seize opportunities and make informed management decisions, taking appropriate remedial action as required to reach and maintain retail budget sales and net income contributions to develop and drive the business
• Understand and identify business-critical issues in order to ensure the alignment of tactics and strategies
• Develop, implement, review and monitor the budget
• Staff planning, recruiting, developing, career path setting, operational & administrative routines setting
• Work closely with the head office and marketing team to implement new marketing and operational ideas. To ensure meeting overall brand objectives
• Set calendar commercial strategy for in-branch/online sales inline with marketing activities and goals
• Constantly training and developing core competencies of staff, identifying individual needs, and setting PDP and KPI’s
• Instigate and implement new policies and working practises in conjunction with the CEO and undertake responsibility of ad-hoc initiatives, as and where appropriate
• Responsible for building a strong synergy and management culture
• Promote a customer care approach within the retail business, investigating complaints or issues of poor customer care, both timely and efficiently
• Supervise visual merchandizing presentation platform based on category/price point/standard store planning
• Constant training and development of branch managers, identifying individual needs and setting PIPS, PDP’s as per annual results
• Ensure all stores adhere to compliance requirements as per local law in all areas of operational activity
• Responsibility of maintaining stores to acceptable standards, complying with both safety standards and planned preventative maintenance
• Working with contractors, to ensure store refits are carried out in accordance with local guidelines meeting relevant time schedules
• Staff planning, recruiting, developing, career path setting, operational & administrative routines setting
• Responsible for demand and production planning, procurement, storage, inventory control, logistics, and P&L management
• Analysis of existing and prospecting new suppliers including monthly performance scoring of suppliers
• Negotiation and implementation of SLA’s
• Played a pivotal role in the design and implementation of ERP & CRM (SAP & Oracle)
• Communication with shipping companies on booking, shipping, and timing of stock movement in line with operational requirements
• Liaison with marketing team to achieve target delivery date of new SKU’s while periodically SKU rationalization
• Responsible for all commercial contracts negotiation, implementation, and follow-up, including problem resolution
• Responsible for all aspects relating to co-packing & private label contracts from negotiation until signing
• Started and chaired the S&OP meeting
• Member of the Leadership Team meeting, head of the procurement committee, and member of the NPD team
• Hedging currencies & commodities in conjunction with finance to reduce payables and achieve below market spot pricing
• Synchronizing quarterly purchase plan to meet treasury requirements
• Monthly scoring of suppliers to ensure compliance with ABC’s strict specifications
• Weekly analysis of market fundamental, technical, and psychological levels to determine entry points for strategic procurement
• Ensuring best quality management systems are carried out and maintained
• Updating processes for ISO 9001 & 22000 to meet ABC’s developmental phases
• Optimization of fleet services and warehousing solutions to best market practices
• Update manuals with latest legal, legislative, and standards in Kuwait and GCC
• Responsible for an annual purchase budget of $78 Million for 2019
• Aggregate reduction in total cost of ownership by $8.6 million over 5 year
• Reporting to CEO
• Adhering to regulations, policies, and procedures of Central Bank of Kuwait with respect to treasury function.
• Setting the treasury strategy and earnings targets to improve overall strategic position.
• Ensuring all transactions comply with risk management guidelines including exposure limit, liquidity limit, and authority limitations set by ICBC Head Office (Bahrain).
• Maintaining healthy business cooperation with counterparties for facilitating inter-bank borrowing and lending.
• Weekly review of BBK's books to balance the assets and liabilities and ensure no mismatch.
• In charge of the dealing room in absence of the Treasurer.
• Intelligence gathering and analysis on banking industry.
• Directly reporting to the CEO and Retail Banking GM on all banking sector activities and devise on competitive strategy to maintain leading position in all deliverables.
• Providing weekly, monthly, and quarterly analysis and reporting on market trends to the Chairman and all branch managers while assessing internal issues pertaining to core banking to minimize risk and increase target base.
• In change of the attrition committee with the sole purpose of maintaining the highest level of client satisfaction in all Gulf Bank branches.
• Carried out qualitative and quantitative research projects for retail, asset management, treasury, and corporate banking divisions. Primary objective is to increase market share, enhance market penetration of NBK's products and services, maximize retention, and minimize cost of funds.
• Supervised a team of 4 market researchers and trained all new data collectors on various techniques on how to break the ice with customers and increase the quality of feedback.
• Played a prime role with product and segment managers in developing and reassessment of all the key segments including Watani Gifts credit card Program, Al-Mustaqbal, Al-Azraq, College Education Plan, Zeina Friends Club, and Al-Jawhara (weekly/monthly/quarterly draws).
• Instrumental in launching 6 branded Visa credit cards for various segments (including the internet shopping card) and communicating customer feedback to the advertising agency for card design.
• Liaison with the advertising dept and leading focus groups in the presence of agencies to achieve targeted ads and promote the product/service well.
• Regular presentations to the CEO and executive management on all surveys conducted and retail market feedback for implementing an immediate action plan.
