Account Manager, Nissan

About the Company

Founded in 1912, ITW (NYSE: ITW) is a global industrial company built around a differentiated and proprietary business model. The company’s seven industry-leading segments leverage the ITW Business Model to generate solid growth with best-in-class margins and returns in markets where highly innovative, customer-focused solutions are required. ITW’s approximately 44,000 dedicated colleagues around the world thrive in the company’s decentralized, entrepreneurial culture.

ITW Deltar Fasteners is a large division within the Automotive Segment and serves all the major OEMs and their tier suppliers with plastic fasteners. Locations include: Frankfort, IL; Chippewa Falls, WI and our Commercial Sales and Engineering in Troy, MI. The division drives profitability by leveraging its innovative solutions and application engineering. In addition to ITW’s industry-leading research and development capabilities, ITW Deltar Fasteners enhances our customers’ competitive advantage by maintaining advanced engineering and manufacturing facilities in North America, exchanging product, process, and benchmarking information with sister units worldwide, and continually improving processes, material, and designs to ensure every product exceeds customer specifications while providing unparalleled value.

About the Role

The Deltar Fasteners Account Manager is responsible for sales and account management for Nissan and related Tier suppliers. They will report to the North America Sales Manager and receive additional support and guidance from global counterparts. The Account Manager is responsible for growing existing accounts, developing new business opportunities, and establishing strong, long-term customer relationships. This position will initiate and follow up on new product development activities and identify growth opportunities to support the division’s strategic objectives.

Responsibilities

• Along with the Sales Manager and Product Market Managers, establishes the goals for customer penetration to ensure growth with core type products on selected Focused Platform launches.
• Leverage local and global market knowledge to focus on growing products and introduce new ones applying an “outside – in” ITW discipline.
• Nurture customer relationships that provide insight and a landscape where ITW has a competitive advantage through our “cradle to grave” relationships.
• Own comprehensive market research aligned with the strategic growth priorities to understand the market niche and growth opportunities within ITW products.
• Maintain a continuing analysis of product reports for each of the products that the Product Market Managers will own.
• Develop and manage a funnel of new business opportunities, prioritizing key opportunities to achieve annual sold order targets in collaboration with ITW’s global team members.
• Drive customer engagements through value-add activities, including Lunch & Learns, product benchmarking, vehicle teardown events, customer line walks, tech shows, and wellness visits.
• Increase customer intimacy with both OEM and Tier customers through routine engagements, while fostering relationships across various organizational levels and functional areas within the customer base.
• Take ownership of products on future Focused Platforms within the Long Range Planning (LRP) periods.
• Work closely with the Regional Sales Manager and global counterparts to develop local growth opportunities by leveraging the global portfolio to proliferate opportunities that may be new to our region but still fit within our product portfolio and manufacturing capabilities.
• Support Sales Manager and team with product forecasts such as Monthly/Quarterly reporting as well as in Capacity management, Long Range Plan, and Annual Plan.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree (B.A./B.S.) from a four-year college; Master’s Degree a plus.
• Minimum 5-7 years of sales experience in the automotive industry.
• Sales experience with Japanese OEMs (e.g., Toyota, Nissan, Honda); proven track record of product knowledge including plastic fasteners is a plus.
• Requires overall knowledge of all areas of the vehicle – interior/exterior, body/chassis, doors, fluid, and electrical routing.
• Ability to develop project budgets where cost, value, and profit are fully understood.
• Excellent interpersonal communication, project management, and presentation skills with the ability and willingness to communicate and work with other regions and locations.
• Proven ability to deal with changes in the business or its environment.
• Inner drive to understand, communicate, and exceed established, agreed-upon goals.
• Proven ability to generate respect and trust from staff and external customers/contacts, including the ability to collaborate with colleagues and staff to create a result-driven, team-oriented environment.
• Knowledge of 80/20 Toolbox and its principles or proven ability to focus and prioritize tasks and objectives.
• Excellent personal computer skills in Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
• Willing to travel; primarily domestic and occasionally worldwide.