Our client based in Cape Town is looking for an Account Manager Project Sales to drive sales supported by the local South African sales and service teams and colleagues at our German headquarter; he/she will provide monthly forecasts and account activity analysis using Salesforce as a CRM tool, be a technical product expert towards our customers and assist in developing and executing trainings and workshops for defined target groups on products and system solution from COMPANY.
Qualification
- Minimum of 5 years’ sales and engineering work experience in a technical environment, preferably in the solar industry
- Engineering Degree or similar educational training in an electro-technical field with an additional degree in business or a similar business course.
Experience
- Possess excellent market knowledge and account management skills necessary for dealing with specific, high-level target audiences to push direct B2B sales Understand market, segment and technical requirements and collaborate with COMPANY
- Application Engineer in South African subsidiary and colleagues at German headquarter to offer a compelling and attractive solution
- Ability to deal with short-notice tender bid-submissions for COMPANY inverters, medium voltage components, battery storage solutions and service offerings such as on-site commissioning, warranty extensions etc.
- Knowledge of project development (PPA, licenses, dealing with the lenders and consultants) in a project finance environment
- Continually analyse the market environment for large and medium-sized solar PV projects (nowadays more and more with storage applications as an add-on) in Sub-Saharan and East African countries, assist the Business Unit Large Scale & Projects at headquarter in strategic product and solution offering decisions for Africa by evaluating competitive advantages, performance gaps and gauging emerging requirements
- Achieve annual budgeted project sales targets
- Continuously track business, create sales opportunities and quotations in Salesforce CRM tool on a frequent basis as well as forecast revenue to steer supply chain
- Conduct frequent customer meetings, both on-site/in-country and virtually, with engineers, project managers, procurement staff and other decision makers to promote COMPANY solutions for PV and Battery Storage projects
- Assist customers by analysing system specifications and requirements, reviewing and/or proposing system designs as well as utility interconnection requirements to help select the right products and services, answering technical questions etc. – all with the assistance of in[1]house application engineers and with the drive to win the project for COMPANY
- Be the interface between customers and COMPANY’s German based Customer Project Management (CPjM) and legal department to negotiate project specific supply agreements
- Follow up on purchase orders, payments, deliveries timelines, logistics coordination etc. with order department at German headquarter to put the customer at the centre of our actions and ensure satisfactory project execution
- Attend industry conferences, trade shows and regularly conduct technical trainings or webinars on COMPANY solutions
- Contribute to the creation of sales materials and to the development of marketing material by creating value propositions to be used during meetings with existing and new potential clients
Competencies
- Sales personality with proven track record and ability to close deals
- Possess good knowledge about the solar market in Southern & East Africa as well as relevant regulations, key players and consultants
- Experience in solar industry and a sound knowledge of centralised and decentralised PV solutions would be an advantage • Ideally very good understanding of high voltage and measurement equipment
- Must have excellent communication skills and be able to interact with customers in a positive and professional manner
- Ability to work effectively and independently on one side but be a team-player on the other in order to rope in necessary functions locally and at headquarter to win projects
- Must be proficient using Salesforce and MS Office environment; a basic understanding of IP network technology would be advantageous
- Experience in successfully working within geographically dispersed sales & service teams
- Has at least two years of working experience in a similar role, ideally in an international environment
- Have excellent English communication skills, written and verbal
- Is willing to travel regularly within South Africa and into neighboring countries for meetings and business development activities as well as to COMPANY headquarters for trainings and meetings on certain occasions
- Ability to use data to drive projects that will enhance sales performance
- Strong operational execution experience and ability to meet deadlines
- Flexible, team player
Responsibilities
- The Account Manager Project Sales Southern & East African with profound technical know-how is managing the relationships with all national South African as well as Southern and Eastern African clients.
- Regarding the latter it is understood that building up the markets and respective clients forms an integral part of the role and typical customers or points of contact are IPP’s, EPC’s, project developers, fund managers, and other stakeholders such as engineering consultants, utilities, government agencies and lenders.
- Business relationships shall be developed and nurtured while providing stakeholders with technical and commercial solutions based on a high value proposition from a leading German technology company., and take ownership of finding a resolution to the issues
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