Title: National Sales Head (Domestic Generics)
Location: Mumbai
Industry: Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Experience: 12+ years of experience in the Pharma Industry
OVERVIEW
We seek a seasoned and strategic National Sales Head to lead and scale the Domestic Generics business for pharmaceutical manufacturing operations across India. The ideal candidate will have a strong track record of building, appointing, and managing distributor networks that drive further sales. The role requires strong channel management capability, distributor relationship-building, and the ability to scale a nationwide distribution-led sales organisation.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership
- Develop and execute the national sales strategy for the Domestic Generics business, aligning with organisational growth objectives.
- Drive revenue, profitability, market share expansion, and business development initiatives across India through the distributor channel.
- Identify emerging market and channel opportunities and formulate strategies to strengthen the company's competitive positioning as a generics manufacturer.
- Collaborate with senior leadership to define annual business plans, sales forecasts, and growth targets.
Distributor & Channel Management
- Identify, evaluate, and appoint distributors across target geographies to drive primary, secondary, and tertiary sales of the generics portfolio.
- Build and manage a robust nationwide distributor network, ensuring adequate coverage, credit management, and consistent performance across all regions.
- Monitor and drive distributor performance against sales targets, working closely with them to expand reach into pharmacies, retail chemists, and other trade partners.
- Design and implement distributor engagement programs, incentive structures, and periodic business reviews to strengthen partner relationships and drive mutual growth.
- Ensure appropriate distributor onboarding, agreements, credit terms, and compliance with company policies.
- Continuously evaluate and optimise distributor network structure to improve coverage, efficiency, and profitability.
Sales Management
- Lead and manage nationwide sales operations across multiple regions, zones, and territories through the distributor network.
- Drive achievement of sales targets through effective planning, execution, and performance management at the distributor and field team level.
- Monitor key business metrics including primary/secondary/tertiary sales, distributor productivity, sales velocity, and market penetration.
- Establish robust sales governance frameworks, reporting systems, and performance tracking mechanisms across the distribution chain.
Team Leadership & Development
- Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing sales organisation.
- Foster a culture of accountability, performance excellence, and partner-centricity across the internal team and distributor network.
Market & Trade Development
- Build and strengthen relationships with distributors, stockists, retail chemists/pharmacies, and other trade partners.
- Ensure effective coverage and expansion of the company's generics product portfolio across target markets through the distribution network.
- Monitor competitor activities, market trends, distributor pricing/margins, and trade requirements.
- Drive market and channel intelligence initiatives to support business decisions and product/portfolio strategy.
Business Planning & Commercial Excellence
- Lead annual sales planning, territory and distributor network optimisation, incentive design, and resource allocation.
- Partner closely with cross-functional teams to ensure business alignment and adequate product supply to distributors.
- Optimise distribution and channel sales processes, enhancing field force and distributor effectiveness through data-driven decision-making.
- Ensure efficient management of sales budgets, distributor credit exposure, and trade scheme spends.
Qualifications and Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Pharmacy, Life Sciences, Science, or a related discipline.
- MBA in Marketing, Sales, or General Management preferred.
- Significant experience in Domestic Generics sales within a pharmaceutical manufacturing organisation, with a distributor/channel-led sales background.
- Proven track record of appointing, managing, and scaling distributor networks that drive further sales into pharmacies and retail trade.
- Proven success in leading national or multi-regional distributor-driven sales operations.
- Experience managing large field sales teams across India with a strong focus on channel/distributor management rather than institutional or prescription-based selling.
- Strong understanding of the Indian pharmaceutical distribution ecosystem, trade channels, stockist/distributor economics, and retail pharmacy dynamics.
- Demonstrated track record of consistently delivering ambitious revenue and growth targets through channel partners.
Skills Required
Business Planning, Sales Management
