Sales Operations Director EMEA 1

Job title: Director Sales Operations EMEA

Line manager: Vice President Sales Operations

Location: Dordrecht / The Netherlands  

Purpose of the role: The Sales Operations (SO) regional teams provides support to the sales force and customers

in the region on the electronic products/publications and drives for Sales (Operations) Excellence.

Need to do

Key tasks/ Main result areas:

The Director Sales Operations EMEA will manage 5 teams responsible for providing support and follow-up for all

activities related to the sales process (pre- and after sales) of Springer Nature’s (SN) e-business. The daily activities

apply to both new and renewal sales. The role includes working in very close cooperation with the other regional SO

directors, the Sales VP/Directors, business controllers, product development and other stakeholders to ensure the

end-to-end sales process is executed in the most efficient and effective way for both Springer Nature and the

customer.

The responsibilities cover a very diverse set of aspects and relate to many (international) departments, both internally and externally, alongside the daily management of the 9 direct reports and their teams. The teams (27 Account  Support and 8 License Control) are located in Dordrecht (The Netherlands) and Heidelberg (Germany) All activities should lead to a state of Sales Operations Excellence globally.

Business Goals:

• Ensure all sales business (new and renewals) is processed and invoiced in time according to the yearly
• defined targets
• Increase customer satisfaction scores
• Be a strong gatekeeper for the defined business models and procedures (incl. IFRS compliancy)
• Keep high accuracy/data quality
• Align closely and proactively with all stakeholders involved to achieve the results (for example sales, legal,
• finance, collections, product development, system development, etc.)
• Work closely together with counterparts in the other regions, including our BPO vendor in Manilla, and achieve goals by global alignment.

People Management:

• Manage the day-to-day operation of the Sales Operations EMEA organization, 31 FTE
• Hire, retain, motivate and develop employees with appropriate skills and service orientation in order to
• achieve agreed business goals
• Oversee development and implementation of training programs for all teams (Account Support and License Control)
• Conduct annual performance and salary reviews
• Manage the Personal Development Program and career progression process

Projects and Continuous Improvement:

• Define and Implement Sales Operations Strategy (especially the role of Account Support) for the EMEA REGION

in accordance with the short and long-term objectives of overall Global Sales / Springer Nature strategy

• Work closely together with the Directors of SO Effectiveness & Intelligence, Global License control &
• Invoicing and Centre of Excellence to create global synergy and improve systems/processes structurally
• Evaluate “Lead to Cash” workflow processes continuously and proactively define and implement improvement projects

• Direct and evaluate daily activities to maintain and improve service levels to customers, both internally and externally. Expand the flexibility in response to changing business needs and new products.
• Support/lead projects in system updates/implementations
• Monitor quality control, perform trend analysis, signal issues and provide recommendations to ensure the delivery of business objectives
• Contribute to the development and maintenance of database information
• Establish best-in-class customer service standards and service levels and ensure they are met
• Overall, be innovative and focus on improvement to drive Sales Operations Excellence

Key relationships:

• Sales organisation
• Account Support teams
• Finance organisation
• Technology team
• Legal team
• Customer Service
• Marketing

Core Competencies/Skills:

• Staff management
• Project & change management focus
• Change management focus
• Understanding of business requirements, processes and being results driven
• Knowledge on sales functionalities
• Analytic & data driven
• Relationship building & interpersonal understanding in a changing, matrix driven and global environment
• Customer-Service orientation
• Proactiveness, flexibility & innovatively
• Leadership, teamwork and international cooperation
• Strategic & critical thinking combined with the ability to translate this in operational detail
• Collaboration abilities in a changing, matrix driven and global environment
• Creativity and result driven

Qualifications & Experience:

• Master level education (e.g. MBA or University degree)
• Strong communicator (verbal and written)
• Fluent in English with local language capabilities both conversational as in writing
• Strong organizational abilities and analytical skills
• Sales and services background
• International and multiple location staff & project management
• ERP (SAP), Sales systems and Microsoft Offices professional skills
• Excel, PowerPoint and process flow charting advanced competencies
• 8+ years of relevant work experience
• Inter cultural sensitivity and international (global) work experience