Circulation manager

Circulation manager
“I think it is inspiring to know that you make a difference in the world,” says Ettienne Kotze, Circulation Manager of Namibia Media Holdings (NMH), about his job. His daily duties and responsibilities include increasing the circulation and reach of all NMH publications, which affects the revenue from the sales of these publications. Furthermore a Circulation Manager is responsible for marketing and promoting the respective publications in order to create the necessary demand for it. Ettienne is also responsible for providing in-depth information, which he gets through analysing the circulation and data systems, in order to obtain growth in the net sales.

Another part of the job of a Circulation Manager is to maintain customer relations through continuous interaction and support. “We look after all NMH customers and to have a happy subscriber or retail customer is one of the highlights of my job for me”, mentioned Ettienne.

Maintaining the quantity of newspapers sent to retailers, subscription customers, street sales and even free customers on a daily basis is a facet of the job not to be forgotten. For Ettienne this means “we inform, we inspire and we get the news to every corner of the country”. He was inspired to follow this career path when he was working for the Media24 Namibia and acquired a liking for printed media and the excitement that it holds. “Newspapers are an exciting and dynamic world, which is ever changing with the challenges that it holds.” What Ettienne likes most about the job is “not doing the same rhetorical job every day.”

According to Ettienne, useful character traits are to be people-orientated and able to work with all types of cultures and backgrounds, being dynamic, self-motivated, and analytical and focussed on getting the job done. “You must also be willing to spend time away from home,” he adds.

His lowlights of the job are “losing customers due to a fault in service or payment not received”.

Qualifications needed:
-Degree in supply chain management / sales / operations / analytics and project management
-Experience in sales, supply chain management or the distribution field can count towards you.

Where can you study?
-Namibia Business School offers a 1 year diploma in Project Management that will cost N$30 000 for tuition fees and course material
-University of Johannesburg offers a 3 – 4 year Operations Management diploma R16780-00
-National Research University – Higher School of Economics Saint Petersburg (Russia) offers a 4 years Bachelor Degree in Logistics and Supply Chain Management that costs 200 000 RUB (43 508 N$) per year.
-Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin offers a 2 year Masters Degree in Project Management and Data Science. Cost 16,000 EUR for the course.

Beneficial subjects in school to study at tertiary level would be:

    -The normal basic requirement for entrance to degree programmes shall be a Namibia Senior Secondary Certificate (NSSC) with a minimum of 25 points in 5 subjects on the national scale.
    -English is a compulsory subject and should normally be obtained at NSSC (English as a Second Language) grade C or better, or at NSSC (English as a First Language) grade D or better.
    -Mathematics
    -English

    Professional Superpower:
    Time Master as he uses what happened in the past actions to best help him plan for the future circulation he would need to attend to. He is as working on time schedules that everything arrives on time to distribute the newspapers.

    Personal Requirements for a Circulation manager:
    Good with time management
    Making sure all the publications reach all the cliental.
    Good at analysing data relating to trends with circulations
    Maintain good customer relations through continuous interaction and support
    People orientated in dealing with various people from various walks of life