Commercial Finance Analyst

Job description / Role

Position: Commercial Finance Analyst Department Finance

Reports to: Director of Finance Location Bahrain

Role Purpose: The Commercial Finance Analyst serves as the financial backbone of company commercial operations by providing accurate, timely, and insightful financial analysis and reporting. This role enables effective decision-making, strengthens pricing discipline, protects margins, and enhances overall commercial performance across all channels.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES, ACCOUNTABILITIES AND ACTIVITIES

General Commercial Performance Visibility:
· Build and maintain year-to-date (YTD), quarter-to-date (QTD), and month-to-date (MTD) reports.
· Analyze performance by customer, channel, SKU, category, and salesperson.
· Ensure a single, accurate view of sales and gross profit (GP) for commercial and senior management.

Pricing & Margin Governance:
· Align cost of goods sold (COGS), price lists, and customer deal structures.
· Validate all price changes and commercial proposals.
· Highlight risks and protect GP through disciplined pricing control.

Support on Proposals, Contracts & Tenders:
· Collaborate with the sales team on tenders, renewals, and listings.
· Ensure proposals adhere to approved pricing logic.
· Prepare clear financial summaries for effective decision-making.

Trade Spend & Marketing Investment Tracking:
· Track discounts, free-of-charge offers (FOCs), activations, and customer support investments.
· Assess the effectiveness of trade spending and correlate it with volume and margin delivery.
· Identify areas where investment does not yield a return.

Quarterly Commission Tracking:
· Own complete quarterly commission calculations and reconcile results against targets.
· Prepare structured commission reports for finance and senior leadership, ensuring accuracy and transparency.

Daily & Weekly Reporting Discipline:
· Issue short, structured daily performance snapshots.
· Prepare weekly financial packs for commercial discussions.
· Act as the single source of truth for commercial financial data.

Forecasting & Profitability Analysis:
· Support monthly and quarterly forecasting efforts.
· Analyze SKU-level profitability, mix analysis, and channel reviews.
· Provide insights that shape portfolio and channel strategy.

B2C Focus:
· Evaluate store-level performance, focusing on footfall, conversion rates, average transaction value (ATV), and retention.
· Review eCommerce profitability and home-delivery cost structures.
· Track average revenue per user (ARPU), customer lifetime value (CLV), retention rates, cost per acquisition (CPA), and support eCommerce optimization.

Marketing & Category Insight Support:
· Provide insights into brand and category performance for planning and supplier reviews.
· Deliver visibility on advertising and promotional (A&P) spending versus usage, and track efficiency.
· Analyze SKU mix and shopper trends for data-driven campaign planning.
· Identify category gaps and SKU opportunities.

Qualifications
· Minimum 5 years of experience in FMCG, beverage, or international distribution.
· Strong commercial finance experience across on-trade, off-trade, and retail channels.

Skills
· Advanced Excel skills; experience with business intelligence (BI) tools is an advantage.
· Solid understanding of pricing, promotions, trade terms, and trade models.
· Proven ability to collaborate effectively with Sales, Marketing, Operations, and Finance teams.
· High level of accuracy, ownership, and consistency in financial reporting.
· Ability to analyze complex data and simplify insights to guide decision-making.
· Experience in building comprehensive performance reports and financial summaries.
· Knowledge of trade spend management, margin governance, and profitability analysis.
· Ability to support forecasting, KPI tracking, and commercial proposals

About the Company

Propel Consult delivers a service in step with the needs of both our client companies and candidates. Our ability to add value to all levels of recruitment stems from our wholehearted belief in providing a professional service to both parties.

We have built relationships with many leading indigenous and mulitnational organisations throughout the Middle East and internationally in countries such as UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt and many more.

Concentrating our resources has created 5 distinct specialist divisions:

• Banking & Finance
• Human Resources
• Oil & Gas
• Construction
• Architecture & Engineering