Harman

About the Role

You will build and manage a Business Development team responsible for generating sales growth of the Harman automotive product portfolios (aka Spaces) in EU. Reporting to Rajus Augustine – VP Business Development, Automotive Products – you will lead your team in establishing and developing partnerships with our EU OEM customers driving the pre-sales of Harman’s new strategic product portfolio. You will build a high-performance team with a winning mentality that is relentless in its pursuit in winning new business.

This role demands a strategic mindset, exceptional leadership capabilities, and a proactive approach to navigating complex market landscapes. You will have the opportunity to drive direct sales initiatives in unexplored territories, build and nurture strategic partnership, and contribute significantly to the definition and execution of Go-To-Market (GTM) strategies. If you thrive in a dynamic environment and possess a passion for pioneering new product paths and business opportunities, we invite you to join us in shaping the future of Harman.

What You Will Do:

• Drive the pre-sales engagement of Harman automotive products with EU OEM customers; you will work collaboratively with the product and sales teams, influencing the OEM customer to embrace Harman product offerings. You and your team are critical in helping earn OEM confidence, seeing Harman as a strategic partner for these products than just another supplier.
• Understand how each OEM prefers to work with suppliers, identify the key customer contacts and players covering all appropriate cross-functional disciplines, build relationships, formulate, and implement pursuit specific strategies to win new business with these OEMs.
• Develop a deep understanding of the OEM needs and drive the voice of the customer into Harman product and technology roadmaps thereby ensuring that the products consistently enjoy market leadership, offering our OEM customers value unmatched by competition.
• Identify and evaluate new business opportunities, set the OEM specific sales strategy, and build value propositions for each product offering, catering to respective OEM pain points and pleasure points.
• Collaborate with product marketing team and drive OEM product awareness, through demo-cars highlighting product maturity, and marketing campaigns (e.g., tech days)
• Maintain strong knowledge of the automotive landscape, OEM transformations and competitor offerings and partnerships.
• Make winning a habit – Build a team of hunters, relentless in pursuit of results and excellence, guide and mentor the team.
• Create, contribute, and provide oversight to customer facing proposals, content, and strategy, guiding the sales team to win customer pursuits.
• Develop and maintain a pursuit pipeline for each customer, providing overview of the opportunities, and customer engagements. Provide monthly feedback on customer engagement status to Harman leadership. Establish partnership objectives by forecasting and developing annual targets by OEM and region, projecting expected sales volume for each of Harman’s new strategic products.
• Monitor performance of the business development team using a set of agreed key metrics for delivery.

What You Need:

• Prior business development experience with at least 15+ years focused in automotive sector. Energetic, forward thinking, and creative individual. Strategic visionary with sound technical skills, analytical ability, good judgment, and strong focus on business development.
• Business acumen, to gauge not just what can be done but to know what can be profitable, is a key requirement for this role.
• Team player and coach, who can communicate a compelling vision and is committed to what needs to be done. This person inspires others, instills a make-it-happen mindset.
• Experienced and skilled in building relationships, selling to, and negotiating with customer executives.
• Results Driven: Has a proactive, goal-oriented approach to decision making. The person is capable of handling multiple projects / initiatives simultaneously and executing to completion.
• Must have strong organizational and planning skills. Excellent time management skills with ability to prioritize and multi-task and work under shifting deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
• Able to drive change in a multi-dimensional matrix organization. Must also be able to adapt to changing demands and conditions.
• Language Skills - English: Ability to read, analyze, and interpret common scientific and technical journals, financial reports, and legal documents.

What We Offer

• HARMAN offers a diverse and inclusive work environment that fosters and encourages career development opportunities, professional training and competitive market base compensation
• You will also receive top-notch employee discounts on Harman’s Consumer Audio (JBL, AKG, HARMAN Kardon) and Samsung products
• Flexible work schedule with a culture encouraging work life integration and collaboration in a global friendly working atmosphere and good work-life-balance
• Attractive salary package and an Employer contribution towards a company pension plan
• Professional development opportunities through HARMAN University’s business and leadership academies which also includes extensive technical trainings
• Internal talent management leadership acceleration programs
• “Be Brilliant” employee recognition and rewards program