Market Development Representative - Vegetable Seeds at Bayer East Africa

Key responsibilities and tasks

• Demand creation: Work cross functionally to implement local launch activities of new vegetable varieties (NVIs) and/or solutions. Demonstrate value and provide technical recommendations that supports customer success. Organize events to generate demand.
• Solution development: Coordinate and conduct agronomic trials for product placement and tailored solutions under local farming conditions with internal and external commercial stakeholders including customers.
• Innovation & Digital: Embrace digital tools and technologies, utilizing data and insights to offer customer focused solutions and enhance dealers’-partners’ capabilities; generate high quality data and insights to strengthen the company’s understanding of our customers.
• Product Portfolio & Agronomic Knowledge: Use agronomic and portfolio knowledge to provide market and competitor insights, advise stakeholders on crop production/management best practices and Key Tasks
• Conducting Trials & Product Positioning: Provides timely completion of data on trials, placement of trials to meet the local market needs, and integrity of the data collected. Communicate actionable insights from this applied research that are based upon sound data analysis. Positioning tailored solutions. Coordinate and conduct PCM4 trials under local farming conditions with business channel partners (distributors) and customers (growers) for various crops. Provides placement of trials to meet the local market needs, furthermore secure integrity of the data collected.
• Complain management: Assist with technical information on the crop and/or variety and field/location affected.
• Launch Excellence: Ensure product Launch Excellence and proper product deployment with the countries of operation.
• Knowledge Transfer: Provides timely, consistent guidance and feedback to help strengthen crop and agronomy specific knowledge and skill areas needed among diverse stakeholder groups to position products, demonstrate value and provide technical recommendations that supports customer success. Executing the technical training of internal teams, dealers, distributors and growers on key Features, Advantages, Benefits (FABs) of the vegetable product portfolio and innovative solutions
• Business Engagement & Planning: Secure alignment to the relevant commercial strategy and influence the strategic direction of the breeding and research programs through analysis of market trends, competitive landscape and new technologies.
• Collaboration: Build strong-collaborative relationships with internal stakeholders and strategic influencers across agriculture and technology industry to provide technical solutions beyond advancements in genetic gain. Work cross-functionally on events (field days, grower summits, grower meetings, etc.) to generate demand for the vegetable portfolio at customers’ level.
• Key Working Relation: reporting to the squad (both CFS and CSS), External Customers, Channel Partners, Growers, Industry Partners and Research Collaborators. Vegetable seed functional partners in Sales, R&D Testing, and Marketing Teams

Key Working Relations:

• SH squad
• Africa Commercial Unit
• Africa Support Squad
• L2 Units/Squads
• Product Supply and Customer Interface
• Cluster Commercial/ Business Strategy
• Major customers (Farmers/ Distributors/Dealers/Plant Raisers), Regulatory Authorities
• Official and external stakeholder community (market influencers and opinion leaders, general public)

Experience, Skills and Qualifications

• Minimum Bsc. in Agricultural or Life science; Horticulture, Genetics, Plant Pathology, Entomology or Agricultural Business
• Proficiency English and Swahili Language
• Self-motivated and assertive with a strong results orientation
• Strong agronomic experience preferred (product development, agricultural consulting, agricultural production, promotion, research)
• Operational experience in customer facing positions
• Strong customer focus and strategic mindset
• Agricultural knowledge and understanding of local market environment
• Able to convert data to practical-applied knowledge and solutions for partners and customers
• Demonstration of strong results and sales orientation, with dedicated customer focus
• Ability to perform successfully in a fast-paced, dynamic, team-based environment
• Willingness to do frequent across country and occasional regional travels
• Excellent overall computer skills and understanding of digital tools.
• Valid Driving license and a frequent road user
• Influence without Authority
• +5 years’ experience