Business Development Manager

What will you do?

• Santam Specialist Solutions has a career opportunity for a Business Development Manager (BDM) in the business area which will be based in KZN, Durban.
• The position will report to the Business Head: SA Market Business Development
• The primary purpose of this position is To build, maintain, and solidify relationships with Key Brokers, representing all lines of business within Santam Specialist Solutions (SSS).
• This strategic role is focused on leading & driving key business development objectives to achieve the Strategic Goals and delivering on primary KPIs through a holistic and collaborative approach across the organization.

What will make you successful?

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Engagement: Building and Solidifying Relationships:

• Communicate the SSS message to our intermediary market, including team & people updates, product updates, and risk appetite.
• Actively listen to our intermediaries to gather feedback on expectations, problems, service, and market intelligence (changes, competitor analysis, rate changes, and opportunities).

Creating Broker profiles with a comprehensive analysis to understand the broker holistically:

• Strategic Objectives: Understand the broker's own business goals, target markets, and growth ambitions.
• Financial & Operational Metrics: Analyze their GWP, client portfolio size, areas of specialty, and operational strengths.
• Current Relationship Mapping: Assess the volume of business placed with us, the specific clusters/products used, and our overall share of their wallet.
• Key Personnel & Structure: Identify decision-makers, influencers, and day-to-day operatives within the broker firm.
• Competitor Landscape: Determine which other insurers they use, the competitor's share, and the perceived strengths/weaknesses of those relationships.
• Perception & Feedback: Gauge their view of our service, underwriting appetite, competitiveness, and overall value proposition.

Business Development: Transactional Focus 

• New Business: Identify and validate true cross-sell opportunities through a review of the Top renewals per business unit/cluster.
• Retention: Work with Business Unit Heads to promote business retention and packaging of SSS offerings within appetite, ensuring clarity on strategic accounts and timeous access to renewal lists.
• Lost Business: Analyze lost business data to understand market positioning and inform strategies to re-obtain submissions.
• Build, manage, and optimize a pipeline of prospects, tracking progress and forecasting accurately.
• Drive business development visits to establish new relationships and maintain the existing broker network.
• Implement structured engagements with agendas, action items, and tracking, maintaining records in shared folders/systems.

Business Intelligence and Data: Reporting Focus 

• Conduct monthly, quarterly, half-year, and full-year analysis, concluding data and present agreed reports to management.

Deliver Monthly, Quarterly, Half-year & Full Year feedback to Head of Business Development SA, including:

• GWP Data (New Business, Lost Business, Retention Ratios).
• Competitor Feedback (new entrants, exits, key personnel changes, products/capacity).
• Cross-sell opportunities.
• Work with Data Warehouse and Finance to ensure data accuracy, integrity, and that reporting rules are understood and aligned (e.g., for Broker Dashboards).
• Provide market intelligence relating to people movement, product competitiveness, coverage, and other pertinent aspects.
• Ensure provided data aligns with what each internal team reports on.

Qualifications and Experience

• Insurance-related qualification or relevant degree.
• FAIS Compliant
• Regulatory exam compliance.
• 5 to 10 years' experience in Business Development in a Strategic role involving Specialist and/or Niche classes of insurance.
• Experienced in maintaining and growing a profitable portfolio of Corporate/Commercial Insurance.

Skills and Competencies

• Core ability to think and act on a strategic level.
• Technical ability across various specialist insurance product lines.
• Excellent interpersonal skills to develop and maintain understanding and working relationships with key selected brokers at all levels.
• Ability to identify new business and target cross-sell opportunities with a focused strategy.
• Proficiency in leveraging data and analytics tools to update dashboards and derive insights.
• Strong analytical skills for pipeline management, data analysis, and reporting.
• Ability to co-ordinate monthly and quarterly internal/cross-cluster meetings to ensure strategic alignment.
• Maintain a working knowledge of targeted industry groups and underwriting appetites.
• Assist in formulating, implementing, and coordinating a business development strategy as agreed with Clusters.
• Proactively lead all engagements specific to business development.
• Co-ordinate collaboration between respective Clusters to lead the pipeline management process.
• Work hand-in-hand with the Business Head to refine strategy, prioritize targets, and ensure alignment with company goals.
• Assist in preparing a budget for the relevant business/cluster area that aligns with the overall SSS strategy for growth and financial sustainability.
• Adhere to the approved budget through the generation of income and control of expenses, complying with internal expense policies.