WHAT IS A CONTRACT SALES MANAGER?
The Contract Sales Manager will oversee the commercial management of the tendering process within the Industrial Segment, focusing on key equipment and service opportunities. Responsibilities include managing bid activities and providing direct customer-facing support from the initial bid through negotiation to order closeout. The role involves working across various solution and market areas, including power quality, control, drives, and excitation systems for the Energy and General Industry markets.
Need-to-Know Overview of a Contract Sales Manager
1. Contract Sales Manager Duties and Responsibilities
- Presenting and managing the bid through all stages of the 'Risk' process.
- Creating and presenting materials for the bid/no-bid decision meeting and bid submission stage.
- Collaborating with Systems and Field engineering to ensure compliance and sign-off on estimations and 'Bill of Materials'.
- Obtaining internal/external supplier specifications and costings.
- Proactively engaging procurement to secure the best supplier pricing when necessary.
- Conducting regular bid-specific cost reduction exercises to ensure competitive pricing.
- Providing first-stage 'Terms and Conditions' reviews, working with the Risk Manager to finalize 'commentaries'.
- Understanding the account strategy and competitive landscape in collaboration with the sales leader and account sales manager.
- Developing bid-specific proposals to effectively outline the value proposition to the customer.
- Defining offerings in PowerPoint for use in conjunction with bid and customer presentations when necessary.
- Considering the full Industrial offering, including service scope and the after-sales offering where appropriate.
- Assisting in developing negotiation positions with the sales account manager, technical, legal, and senior leadership.
- Supporting sales with the direct presentation of proposals to the customer.
- Providing support for solutions and services delivered from the UK, primarily booked under the UK P&L.
2. Contract Sales Manager Skills, Abilities, and Experience:
- Activity will primarily be in the UK, Ireland, APAC, SSA, NAM, and the Nordics, with some opportunities for overseas travel.
- Assisting in 'selling to win' business, adhering to unit financial KPIs (orders, cash, margin, convertibility).
- A thorough and proactive approach to updating opportunities as entered in SFDC.
- Occasionally aiding the project management team with claims and project variations.
- Reporting proposal activities on a weekly/monthly basis as required.
- Ability to work on multiple bids for multiple customers simultaneously.
- Self-motivated team player with refined and assertive leadership skills.
- Ability to influence others to set and achieve goals and deadlines.
- Capable of prioritizing and managing multiple parallel-path projects.
- Strong written and verbal communication and persuasion skills.