Sales Manager Electrical Tapes & Automotive Protective Solutions

Company Overview
With more than 110 years of experience in the tape business, American Biltrite tape division (ABI Tape) has enjoyed an era of excellence designing some of the world’s most valued tape solutions. Today at ABI and Ideal Tape, that belief continues to drive us to produce top-notch tape products for a multitude of markets. 

ABI Tape is headquartered in Moorestown, NJ, USA. At this coating facility we produce protective and transfer tapes. A second coating plant, Ideal Tape, located in Lowell MA, USA, is home to the products serving the HVAC, leather wear, electrical and composite bonding industries.

The division operates facilities in Belgium, Singapore and Italy, where master rolls are converted into smaller sizes and die-cuts and are distributed. Sales offices at the Belgium, Singapore and Italy locations and sales representatives in Shanghai, Bangkok and Seoul enable quicker response to customer demands worldwide.

Electrical Tapes and Automotive Protective Solutions
The right candidate is responsible for electrical tapes, that service various different markets such as the composite molding, PC boards, spray painting, thermal management for transporting liquids & gasses through pipelines and many others. Sector wise, these tapes are used in a wide variety of in-dustries like aviation, automotive, energy, transport, infrastructure, medical, electrotechnical, etc. 

The other part of the job will be another growing segment, namely Automotive Protective Solutions. Most carmakers deploy one or a combination of the protective products out there: films, full -or- par-tial covers. ABI Tape has a long and successful history; today we service 15 out of the top 20 OEMs and Tier 1s alike. 

ABI Tape EAMER is looking for a Sales Manager Electrical Tapes and Automotive Protective Solutions
For our location in Ronse, Belgium, from where we service Europe, Africa, Middle-East and Russia (EAMER), we are looking for more commercial power for our highly skilled and motivated team.  

Sales & Margin Targets
According to the Plan-Do-Check-Act principles:

• Plan - set ambitious targets (long-term margin optimization) that make sense from a top-down as well as bottom up perspective. Outline a coherent and clear strategy with plans, KPIs, milestones and assumptions needed to meet / exceed your targets ;
• Do - execute relentlessly on your agreed upon plans.  In your time allocation, distinguish what is urgent and what is important. Dare to experiment, you learn more from mistakes than from success. Go the extra mile in understanding the needs of your client and how to answer these ;
• Check - provide timely a monthly, quarterly and annually topline report on the actual vs. budget developments. Take the time to understand what drives what and what is your part in that ;
• Act - don’t adjust the target nor the strategy immediately. Adjust your plan, KPIs, milestones and/or assumptions. Only in case of repeated failure abandon strategy. In case of a budget deficit, provide a “bridge the gap” plan with targets, needed resources and timeline. Find – if any – consistencies in the reasons for both success and failure and plan & act accordingly. Share your findings with colleagues.

Product Management

• Rationalize our portfolio in the market we operate in ;
• Drive New Product Development from the market perspective ; 
• Understand the competitive advantage and disadvantages of our products in the market. Evidently, this means knowing and understanding the client’s applications and our competitor’s products. 

Account Management

• Define/update a margin growth plan for each of the top 5 customers ;   
• Keep the customer data up to date (in CRM, by customer visits and customer complaints) ;
• Responsible for the RFQ process with customers.

Business Intelligence (BI)

• Actively prioritize your BI / reporting needs and help develop these tools ;
• Datamine the historical data + market signals to drive further innovation with our customers ;
• Visit and actively participate in applicable fairs, exhibitions and congresses.

The successful candidate can prove to possess at least 3 of the following set of skills and experience

• (technical) product knowledge of surface protective products / tape (4 years +) ;
• Experience in the HVAC, composite molding or thermal management industry (4 years +) ;
• International account management experience including different cultures (3 years +) ;
• Successful track record in developing new business (3 years +) ;
• Experience in (technical / new product development ) project management (2 years +) ;
• Experience with tape, surface treatment, high temperature (200+ °C) production and sealing (2 years +) ;
• Experience dealing with international suppliers and /or business partners (2 years +) ;  
• Experience in the die cut industry (2 years +) ;
• Fluency in English is essential, Dutch, German & French preferred. Spanish would be advanta-geous. 

This role is an excellent opportunity to join an international dynamic organization, part of a larger American owned family business, with an eager yet very supportive company culture. There are excel-lent prospects to develop further.

Compensation package
2400 - 5000 euro gross / month pending relevant work experience & skill set, incentive program, company car (Audi A4 or similar) + petrol card, maaltijdcheques, group insurance (4% employer / 2% employee), health insurance (medical + dental), laptop, cell phone for business and personal usage.

Interested? Please email your CV and coverletter to jacques@abitape.eu.