darren cooke

Responsible for managing plasterboard & metal product range including product portfolio management, new product roll-out activity and all product marketing activity. Very new to role so focused on building relationships with key stakeholders within the manufacturing plant, support and critically sales. Key achievements to date are; Designed, scripted and administered product branding/packaging research for plasterboard. Key input to project to re-fresh product presentation. Marketing lead on team to implement the key initiatives. Delivered key marketing customer collateral for the business, worked with subject matter experts within the wider Saint-Gobain group and locally to supply technical data for product guides. Scripted the USP’s and got collateral signed off, delivered to channels, published and printed.

Led the product work stream for the Vodafone Equinox Billing, Care and Retail transformation programme which encompassed Fixed, bill pay and prepay mobile products for consumer and business. The goal was to deliver consistent business processes across channels and segments, improve customer experience and drive future business growth whilst reducing operational costs. Key product deliverable to support this was the Product Master Enterprise Catalogue (MEC) which reduced the number of product catalogues from 5 to 1. From a product perspective specifically the goal was to ensure that Vodafone future proofed the design. The key requirements were; simple to edit and maintain, reduced time to market, omni-channel customer experience and the ability to support converged propositions (Fixed and Mobile).

Managed Mobility was focused on security and compliance products for an Enterprises fleet of Smartphones and Tablets. Business at this time was concerned about the proliferation of mobile devices which contained sensitive company data. I successfully managed this project from inception, business case, design, build to launch. Ensured all processes from sales to support were mapped, documented, trained and tested. Worked with a range of internal and external stakeholders to ensure the product met and exceeded Vodafone customer requirements. Achieved on target base of 15k while in role.

I was responsible for the planning and implementation of all activities across business channels for this growing data revenue stream, which I grew +64% while in the role. My main task was driving Smartphone business data add on bundles adoption across SOHO, SME and Corporate customers. I did this by devising propositions, writing business cases and championing with Vodafone business management team. Sell through was critical with quarterly plans in pace to hero specific propositions, engage channels and target customers.

Responsible for management of the Advanced Voice elements of the eircom product portfolio. Essentially this was the strategic management of the Toll Free and Toll Share elements of the business and the development and launch of new products such as eircom Speech Solutions (eSS). Products such as this allowed business customers more flexibility in inbound call management, which enabled them to handle their customer relationships more efficiently.

This position was focused on the growth and retention of revenue in these products within the highly competitive business telecommunications market.

My role as account manager involved me acting as a single point of contact for 40 Corporate Customers. It was my task to promote within that base all the products and services eircom offers.

I joined Cadbury at a time when the role for the sales representative was shifting away from simply being “order-taking” and toward relationship management. I developed sales and stock plans for customers, this involved not only selling product but also planning how the retailer would sell it.