Country Manager France

COUNTRY MANAGER FRANCE

ABOUT THE ROLE

As the Country Manager France, you’ll drive the success and growth of the France country unit by focusing on financial performance, customer relationships, team development, and operational excellence in a dynamic tech environment. Your primary focus is on aligning business objectives with customer needs and financial goals to drive overall unit performance while taking a keen interest in employee development and satisfaction. Currently, the unit is expanding into Spain, a market which offers great growth potential.

Additionally, as a country manager, you will play an important part in assessing market trends and business opportunities in the region. The France country unit has a sizeable existing customer base and still offers ample potential for commercial growth. It’s headquartered in Avignon and has additional offices in Paris and Madrid. You will be expected to travel between the offices as well as to spend time regularly at the Belgian global headquarters in Ghent.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategic management of the French country unit:

• Translate strategic company goals to unit strategic and operational goals and tactics, budgets and action plans.

• Provide strategic oversight and insight to direct reports, allowing them to take appropriate steps and initiatives within their respective teams. Articulate and represent company strategy and values within the unit.

• Keep abreast of and analyze industry trends, competitor activities, and economic developments to identify market opportunities and assess expansion potential.

• Collaborate closely with (regional) management and internal stakeholders, including Sales, Delivery Excellence and Customer Success Management to achieve alignment on strategic priorities and approach affecting the customer and way of doing business.

Financial Management:

• Manage the unit’s profitability

• Monitor appropriate financial and business targets, KPIs and performance metrics. Analyze unit results and provide feedback for detailed financial reports on a periodic basis, including billability of individuals, teams, and clients/projects.

• Provide regular updates to senior management on financial performance, including forecasting and variance analysis, and risk assessments.

Business and Product Growth:

• Collaborate with Sales to align go-to-market strategies and drive business growth. Provide market driven insights into pricing, service offerings, and potential risks to optimize business strategy.

• Have full accountability of upselling with assigned key accounts and local customers

• Take ownership for local product developments and the country solution standard.

• Advocate and apply the Product First mindset in the unit, ensure contributions are made to the generic product stemming from Projects and Professional Services.

Customer relationship management:

• Customer Professional Service Delivery: be E2E accountable for program success and Customer Success, working within the unit and with indirectly allocated teams.

• Build and maintain strong relationships with clients to understand their needs and expectations.

• Monitor customer road maps to ensure deliverables meet client objectives and timelines.

• Organize and participate in strategic client meetings to discuss collaboration, address concerns, and plan capacity.

• Act as escalation point for critical issues, such as delivery delays or significant quality issues, and ensure proper measurements are taken internally to resolve or mitigate.

Team management:

• Formulate the optimal internal team structure and resource allocation in line with company organizational models.

• Build strong customer teams that can operate effectively.

• Guide and mentor direct reports; develop and enhance their capabilities as team leaders and coaches. Take end responsibility for growth in the unit.

• Support knowledge-sharing training initiatives and community building around companywide or team specific topics.

• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous learning within the team, processes, and practices.

• Own performance management, hiring, and succession planning for the team.

• Monitor and address adherence to company and team policies and values within the team.

• Drive employee engagement and success by fostering a positive work environment that enhances employee satisfaction. If applicable, this extends to all people at the location.

• Organize regular unit meetings and encourage appropriate unit/team-level activities

Operational:

• Collaborate with team leads to translate unit goals to clear team and operational goals.

• Ensure plans are executed, manage risks, measure team-level outcomes, and advocate data-driven decisions. Delegate work to the appropriate levels.

• Align unit activities with organizational strategies, ensuring consistency and effectiveness.

• Lead change initiatives to adapt to new technologies, workflows, or organizational structures.

• Drive continuous improvement in the processes and practices within the Operations department, with a focus on scalability and standardization.

• Promote cross-functional alignment by ensuring strong collaboration between internal and external stakeholders.

YOUR SKILLS & INTEREST

You are a strategic thinker with a strong customer-centric mindset and financial acumen. You thrive in high-paced environments and excel at building relationships, analyzing data, and driving performance. You have strong affinity with delivery of software implementations and are familiar with the complexity of the ERP industry.

What else is expected:

• Native level French and English

• Proven experience in a leadership role within a tech environment, preferably delivery management, customer relationship management, or IT management,

• Familiar with commercial and go-to-market principles.

• Ability to assess market potential, track industry trends, and collaborate with Sales on business development strategies.

• Good understanding of financial processes.

• Excellent client-facing and stakeholder management skills.

• Ability to handle escalations and solve complex related issues.

• Experience in coaching and mentoring team leads or managers.

• Proficiency in planning and capacity management.

• Strong organizational and communication skills.

• Adaptability and a solution-oriented approach to challenges.

• Experience with transitions to SaaS, cloud, or hosting is a plus.

WHAT WE OFFER

• Attractive salary package with growth potential

• Meal vouchers for extra net benefits

• Long term pension plan

• Comprehensive health insurance and additional coverage

• Flexible working hours supporting a healthy work life balance

• Up to 2 days per week of remote work

ABOUT SOFICO
We would like to welcome you to an international and multicultural company that has been operating for over 30 years and is doubling in size every 5 years. Growth is our middle name, while we strongly adhere to our horizontal and open company culture.

You're in the drivers' seat of your own career, that's our motto. Your personal development is therefore paramount. During an extensive onboarding program of six months, we make you, with the support of your job coach, familiar with our product and the organization. Even after this period, you will continue to get opportunities to learn and develop yourself further. You’re never alone.   

At Sofico you will also work in a modern state-of-the-art office that is easily accessible. We are strong believers in the power of a good cup of coffee. Water or soft drinks are of course also on the menu. We love our team events. Think after-work drinks, a BBQ, a family day, a company weekend, or a walking dinner with the whole company.