PURPOSE OF THE JOB
The purpose of the Manager Sales & Customer Support is both:
- to implement sales strategies to grow/develop PBE revenues from his geographical area and
- to manage the customer support team assigned to his geographical area.
OVERALL OBJECTIVES
The Manager Sales & Customer Support is part of the Engineering & Maintenance division of Air France and reports to the General Manager “Power By Event” activity based in Paris. He is responsible for all the commercial activities & business development efforts in his assigned geographical zone.
The Manager Sales & Customer Support will have direct hierarchical management of the other customer support team of his region.
In order to succeed, the Manager Sales & Customer Support should:
1. Perform market research & have the correct network on market to participate in the sale forecast
2. Build and maintain strong relationship with customers (airlines, MRO, lessors)
3. Reach the allocated local sales targets with respect to turnover per product
4. Provide reliable & accurate feedback of his sales results
5. Secure the launching of new customer contracts
6. Monitor the activity and performance of our Business Unit in regard to our contractual obligations
7. Contribute to maximize revenue from already existing contracts
8. Measure the customer satisfaction and takes all necessary actions to improve it
9. Mentor & train junior Sales & Customer Support Manager
10. Act as Deputy to the General Manager by taking responsibility & decisions on certain topics
11. Lead & Manage hierarchically the customer support team of this zone
12. Be Responsible for all trade compliance and export control conformity in this zone
KEY RESULTS AREA
1. Perform market research & have the correct network on market to participate in the sale forecast
- Participates in budget drawing up sharing his experience and knowledge of his portfolio.
- Participates in developing and implementing a Sales action plan, in some cases to be shared with the GEMCO
- Makes and updates the ranking of his allocated prospects and customers
- Provides reporting to the GEMCO for turnover achievement and sales perspectives
2. Build and maintain strong relationship with customers (airlines, MRO, lessors)
- Maps his/her portfolio (geographical area) by identifying and characterizing all entities (airlines, freighters, lessors…)
- Build trustful and robust relationships with prospects and turn them into loyal customers
- Regularly visit his/her customer to stay close and be able to anticipate their needs
- Provide unsolicited offers and answer in time to the customers RFPs
- Involve the AFI management when required
3. Reach the allocated local sales targets with respect to turnover per product
- Is responsible for the financial turnover results of his portfolio
- Develops new opportunities and converts these into new leads and organizes and coordinates the offer review when necessary
- Drives the negotiations with the customer and provides with a business analysis of the lead at the end of the negotiation (including risk analysis)
4. Provide reliable & accurate feedback of his sales results
- Ensures management is informed on a regular basis on all matters related to his/her portfolio
- Issue reporting & KPI to the management on revenues & profit margin of his/her portfolio
- Contributes positively to the communication and coordination with the GEMCO
- Reports on his activities including trip reports after each customer visit, meeting, MRO, or social event.
- Fills in and updates the internal database with customer intelligence & info
5. Secure the launching of new customer contracts
- Defines with the customer all particular conditions and procedures to implement the contract.
- Launches the implementation of the contract with all relevant actors in the operational units
- Performs first configuration of the contract within the IT systems (ASTRE, Descartes, SAP) and secures its updates for the contracts of her/his responsibility
6. Monitor the activity and performance of our Business Unit in regards to our contractual obligations
- Measures performance due to his/her customers (KPI)
- Ensures that action plans are taken by operational Business units to reach contractual commitments
- Secures reliable coordination and communication with the Operational Customer Expert (CSE)
- Ensures the measurement of the financial performance of the contract leads the operational units in reducing
the costs linked with the contract and is responsible to secure and/or improve the financial margin of the contract.
- Drives regular “Performance Review” meetings with the customer about the service provided
7. Contribute to maximize revenue from already existing contracts
- Secures that additional and/or excluded services are invoiced and paid accordingly
- Solves invoices disputes with the customer
- Manage directly operational deals for high value or large scope (thresholds TBD)
- Follow the deal operationally (quotation, delivery, invoice, IT update…)
- Negotiate conditions (availability, pricing …) with the Product if necessary
- Contributes to the debt reduction
- Supports the transfer of customers from PBE to PBH, when deemed relevant by the Head of Customer Services: facilitates contacts, provides analyses of customer needs, favors sales speech, and facilitates contract negotiation.
8. Measure the customer satisfaction and takes all necessary actions to improve it
- Presents the customer satisfaction questionnaire to the customers (at least once a year for significant customers), collecting the answers and filling in the related database
- Participates in analyzing and synthesizing regularly the Business Unit satisfaction results for regular reporting in the BU Management meeting and to the Marketing department
- Participates in defining the action plan to improve the customer satisfaction
9. Mentor & train junior Sales & Customer Support Manager
- Mentor & guide younger CSM to learn and progress by sharing his experience
- Leads “lesson learned” sessions and provides debriefing to all the teams, support the whole team continuous improvement
- Gathers the team around the company’s targets and is able to create a positive and efficient team spirit
- Solves any conflicts in the team and create a trusty atmosphere
10. Act as Deputy to the General Manager by taking responsibility & decisions on certain topics
- Cooperation: Go beyond his scope and take the lead on some transversal topics in the benefit of the department
- Leadership: Knows how to convince external shareholders and management to take support our priorities.
- Performance: Get highly involved in helping the department to reach our revenue targets and budget reduction
- Transformation: Always challenge existing process and proactively work to simplify and share good practices
11. Lead & Manage hierarchically the customer support team of this zone
- Be Responsible for all commercial activities & business development efforts in his zone
- Define the commercial strategy for the team to achieve the assigned sale targets
- Hire, Manage, coach, Assess the team members performance to help them for their professional development
- Help the team to become autonomous and to take initiative. Gives clear prioritizes to the team and make sure everybody works in the same direction.
- Follow the workload vs available resources for his team and propose corrective actions when needed
- Solve any disputes, conflict that may occur in the team and make sure the team delivers
12. Be Responsible for all trade compliance and export control conformity in this zone
- As team manager, the Senior Sales & Customer support is responsible for all trade compliance requirements in his zone
- Perform screening and approves every new customer on his zone
- Raise awareness about trade compliance and export control requirements through his team
MAIN INTERFACES
External
• Customers & Prospects (airlines, lessors, MRO, etc.)
• Industrial partners (Airbus, Boeing, OEMs…)
Internal
• Account Sales Managers
• AFI KLM E&M Marketing &communication department
• Legal, Finance and Procurement
• Logistic Centers
• Shop Managers
• Customer Pricing Officers
• Customer Support Experts
• Customer Quotation Officers
REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE
• At least 10years of Component Products knowledge
• Commercial experience in selling component repairs, loans & exchanges
• Very good knowledge of Air France Industries environment & network
• Fluent in French as regular interactions with (French) management and (French) partner Sabena Technics
• Experience in multi-cultural team management
• Political sensitivity
COMPETENCIES
• Customer Focus
• Cross cultural awareness
• Excellence
• Team player
• Curiosity & Autonomy
• Excellent communication skills
• Problem solving minded
