South Africa: General Manager (Wholesale and Retail Store)

To oversee the operations of both wholesale and retail divisions, ensuring alignment with business goals, operational excellence, sustainable profitability, and long-term growth. The General Manager is responsible for leading strategic development, optimizing operational performance, controlling costs, improving gross profit margins, driving sales growth, enhancing customer experience, and ensuring efficient people management across both retail and wholesale channels. Key Responsibilities 1. Leadership and Management Lead and manage the wholesale and retail teams, ensuring effective recruitment, workforce planning, training, succession planning, and performance management. Foster a high-performance culture focused on accountability, operational excellence, customer service, productivity, and profitability. Drive labour productivity and workforce efficiency through effective scheduling, staffing structures, and performance monitoring. Implement effective communication strategies across departments to ensure alignment with operational and financial objectives. Monitor and manage staff turnover, absenteeism, disciplinary trends, and employee engagement levels. 2. Financial Management and Budgeting Develop and manage annual operating budgets for both wholesale and retail operations, ensuring sales, GP%, expense control, and profitability targets are achieved. Monitor and control departmental expenses including payroll, overtime, shrinkage, distribution costs, and operational overheads. Analyse financial performance through sales reports, trading densities, stockholding, payroll ratios, and GP margin reporting. Drive sustainable profitability through effective pricing strategies, promotional execution, category performance management, and cost-saving initiatives. Ensure the financial health of the business by identifying operational inefficiencies and implementing corrective actions to improve margins and reduce waste. 3. Sales and Business Development Develop and implement strategies to increase turnover, market share, basket spend, and customer frequency across wholesale and retail channels. Monitor competitor activity, market trends, customer buying patterns, and pricing movements to identify growth opportunities and maintain competitiveness. Drive achievement of sales growth targets, promotional performance, and category expansion initiatives. Build and maintain strategic relationships with suppliers, wholesalers, retailers, and service providers to improve trading terms, stock availability, rebates, and profitability. Evaluate branch and department performance using key retail metrics including sales growth percentage, GP recovery, stock turn, and contribution margins. 4. Operations and Process Optimization Streamline operations across wholesale and retail divisions to ensure effective inventory management, stock replenishment, logistics coordination, and order fulfilment. Ensure stores and warehouses maintain optimal stockholding levels while minimizing stock losses, overstocking, damages, and stock-outs. Monitor operational KPIs including stock turn, waste percentages, shrinkage, service levels, and distribution efficiencies. Implement and maintain operational controls, standard operating procedures, and compliance measures to improve consistency and reduce risk. Drive continuous improvement initiatives aimed at improving productivity, reducing operational costs, and enhancing overall business efficiency. 5. Customer Experience and Retail Management Ensure exceptional customer service standards across both retail stores and wholesale operations. Monitor customer complaints, service delivery standards, and customer feedback to improve customer satisfaction and retention. Oversee merchandising standards, promotional execution, store layouts, and visual presentation to maximize sales opportunities and customer engagement. Ensure stores consistently achieve required operational audit, hygiene, and compliance standards. Drive a customer-centric culture focused on service excellence and brand reputation. 6. Compliance and Reporting Ensure compliance with South African labour legislation, health and safety regulations, food safety standards, consumer protection legislation, and company policies. Monitor compliance with internal operational controls, stock management procedures, and financial governance requirements. Prepare and present regular operational and financial reports including sales performance, payroll ratios, GP%, stockholding, shrinkage, and profitability analysis. Ensure accurate reporting and interpretation of operational metrics to support strategic decision-making. 7. Marketing and Promotion Work closely with the marketing team to develop campaigns that support sales growth, brand awareness, and customer retention. Ensure effective implementation of promotions, supplier activations, seasonal campaigns, and pricing strategies. Evaluate promotional effectiveness through sales uplift, GP recovery, foot traffic, and return-on-investment analysis. Support digital growth initiatives including e-commerce, loyalty programmes, and customer engagement platforms where applicable. Minimum Requirements 1. Education & Qualifications Relevant Degree or Diploma in Business Management, Retail Management, Supply Chain Management, Commerce, or related field. Additional qualifications or certifications in Retail Operations, Financial Management, Leadership, or Operational Excellence will be advantageous. 2. Experience Minimum 57 years proven experience managing retail and wholesale operations, including multi-site or multi-department management. Demonstrated experience managing budgets, payroll costs, GP margins, stockholding, shrinkage, and operational profitability. Proven track record of driving sales growth, operational efficiencies, and people performance improvements. Strong understanding of South African retail and wholesale market dynamics, trading conditions, and compliance requirements. 3. Skills Strong leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills. Advanced financial and commercial acumen with the ability to interpret P&L statements, GP reports, payroll ratios, and operational KPIs. Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities with sound decision-making capability. Expertise in retail operations, supply chain management, inventory control, and customer service management. Proficient in retail systems, inventory management software, Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and reporting tools. 4. Knowledge Sound understanding of South African labour legislation, BCEA, health and safety requirements, and retail compliance frameworks. Strong knowledge of wholesale and retail operating models, merchandising principles, logistics, and stock management. Understanding of retail financial drivers including turnover growth, GP%, shrinkage control, payroll management, and stock turn. Familiarity with e-commerce platforms, digital retail trends, and customer engagement strategies. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) 1. Sales Growth Achievement of turnover growth targets across wholesale and retail divisions. Growth in market share, basket spend, and customer transactions. 2. Gross Profit (GP%) Management Achievement and maintenance of targeted GP margins. Effective promotional GP recovery and pricing management. 3. Profitability & Cost Control Achievement of branch and divisional profitability targets. Effective management of payroll ratios, overtime, shrinkage, waste, and operational expenses. 4. Operational Efficiency Improvement in stock turn, stockholding efficiency, order fulfilment, and operational productivity. Reduction in stock losses, damages, and out-of-stock occurrences. 5. Customer Satisfaction Improvement in customer satisfaction ratings, complaints resolution, and service delivery standards. 6. Compliance & Audit Performance Achievement of internal operational audit standards and legal compliance requirements. 7. Employee Engagement & Productivity Improved staff retention, labour productivity, training completion, and team performance. Reduction in absenteeism and disciplinary incidents. Personal Attributes Results-driven with strong commercial and operational focus. Strong leadership presence with the ability to motivate and develop teams. Highly analytical with sound financial and business acumen. Adaptable and able to perform effectively in a fast-paced retail environment. Strong decision-making and problem-solving capability. Customer-focused with a commitment to operational excellence and continuous improvement.