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Stoneridge

Director of Fleet Sales

Stoneridge, Novi, Michigan, United States, 48377


Since 1965, Stoneridge has designed and manufactured advanced, award-winning technologies including driveline and transmission actuation systems, vision systems, emissions control systems, safety systems, and security and monitoring systems for vehicle OEMs in the commercial vehicle, automotive, off-highway and agricultural vehicle markets. We’re focused on the areas of greatest market need – both today and tomorrow. Our core products and technologies are aligned with industry megatrends including safety and security, vehicle intelligence, fuel efficiency and emissions. Join the Stoneridge Team as we continue to build upon our strong history and reputation for quality products to deliver innovative products and systems that address a need, exceed our customers’ expectations, and motivate our team.

JOB SUMMARY:Overall responsibility for the business results achieved by North American customers of the Fleet Products and Services business, and the service delivery teams required to deliver those results. Success achieved through a combination of deep understanding of Fleet customers’ operational processes and business drivers, together with an ability to design, implement and manage highly structured operational delivery processes, leveraging internal and subcontracted delivery partners, to ensure that Stoneridge delivers its product and service processes with a predictable, highly reliable and efficient service operations.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES:Installation Process, Network and Partner Development

Manage the development and maintenance of the “reference models” for how all Fleet Products and Services are installed on customer vehicles, collaborating extensively with related Stoneridge Centers of Expertise (e.g., Juarez for mechanical design and sourcing, Brazil for electrical, Solna/Novi for Software)

Mechanical integration designs, supporting engineering drawings, FEA analysis and validation, installer processes, supporting jig/tool development

Electrical integration designs, including schematics, harness specifications, layout and routing diagrams, installer pinning, routing and physical mounting guidelines

Software integration designs, including all required CAN messaging, vehicle and telematics APIs

Target, identify and manage development and integration partners to realize the growth potential of most attractive adjacent vehicle populations identified/prioritized by Product Management, operationalizing the identified opportunities to expand the addressable market, offsetting the cost of integration engineering required to enter new vehicle types/segments while protecting required margins for ongoing service and support, e.g.,

Specialty vehicle integrators/up-fitters, e.g., utility, energy, construction and military vehicle specialists

Specialty municipal and service fleets

Recreational vehicles

Lead the recruitment and development of Stoneridge’s internal team of “master installers”, including overall utilization, quality/success rate and career progression

Hands-on, highly experienced master installers

Able to provide practical guidance to “reference design” teams, on the implications of design decisions in practice – what makes something more/less reliable, time-consuming to install

Willing and capable of leading training and certification of customers’ internal installation teams and other third-party installers

Lead the negotiation of commercial terms, operational and quality management programs with third-party installers

Terms under which Stoneridge is willing to supply its products, including financial, training and quality management process adherence

Implementation and ongoing utilization of data-driven systems to manage the installer channel (e.g., required registration of individual installers with Stoneridge, and tracking every installation and service activity back to individual installer, product asset ID’s and vehicle VIN)

Active tracking and management of quality, service events, warrantee claims, etc., to ensure that customer success is not compromised by third-party channels and installers’ performance

Customer ROI Management

Work closely with Marketing Analytics and Segmentation function to ensure that the segmentation of potential Fleet customers takes into account the practical realities of how they realize value from Stoneridge products (and how much)

Lead the development of close collaborative relationships with the Operations leadership of Stoneridge’s most strategic fleet accounts (e.g., Trucking Alliance members with >5,000 vehicles) to develop first-hand knowledge of how Stoneridge’s product and service delivery operations impacts their business performance, e.g.,

Maintenance cycles – how do different service processes, preventive versus reactive service policies affect asset availability and other critical business drivers

How are fleet rotation procedures (introductions and retirements) managed, and how does this impact the economics of different pre-wire and other installation models

Operational margin drivers (e.g., fuel, wages, utilization, service levels) – to understand where Stoneridge’s product and service models can have positive (and negative) impacts

Risk drivers – what are their most problematic cases/root causes of accidents, theft and other losses

Innovate in the design and use of data-driven methods (e.g., telematics data from installed Stoneridge products) to begin to measure and track customers’ realization of projected benefits from Stoneridge’s products and services (e.g., accident loss rates, asset availability, fuel performance)

Service Operations

Lead and mentor the Customer Care team in designing and implementing world class customer contact operations

Multi-channel, leveraging digital, app and self-service capabilities to make getting support from Stoneridge as convenient and cost-effective as possible

Building team expertise and internal knowledge management tools to equip front-line service teams (both employee and subcontracted) to effectively qualify and triage customer issues at “first touch”

Actively mine and analyze the support event pipeline to identify service-need reduction opportunities (e.g., in UI, instructions and product improvements)

Appropriate unified support technology platform that allows both efficient resource deployment (e.g., skill-based routing) as well as effective reported issue analysis (e.g., automated recording and transcription)

Design and manage a network of internal and external installation technicians to deliver a defined service level (e.g., max days till install) at a target unit cost and utilization level, within targeted quality levels (as detailed in Installer network above)

Work closely with the head of Analytics Services to design and manage a proactive service monitoring capability, spare-parts and repair network to meet in-service reliability agreements while continuously identifying the most frequent service requirement root causes (and working with the Commercial Products manager to prioritize their elimination through successive product releases)

Ensuring 100% capture and tracking of in-service assets, at the individual asset and vehicle VIN level

Utilizing statistical tools to identify proactively specific assets/vehicles that are sending data that correlates to a higher probability of future failures

Comprehensive capture of historical in-service information linked to vehicle VIN and operational usage data

Continuously improved analysis as the primary driver of continuous quality improvement programs, in conjunction with Product Management team

If required, develop on-demand service/repair provider network to complement base of installation technicians, to ensure adequate coverage of service point network

Design and manage a spare parts network to ensure an efficient balance of working capital, transport cost, part obsolescence and service-level fulfillment

Customer spare stocking programs

Installation and maintenance partner programs

Third-party logistics service providers

Leadership

Lead by example on core cultural promise of the group – we measure our success in terms of the benefits achieved by our Fleet customers from the use of our products and services

Instill a focus on excellence achieved through advanced preparation, customer understanding, planning and capability development – avoiding crises rather than heroics to fight fires

Provide the training, mentorship and support to enable all customer-facing staff to be confident and empowered to solve client issues by doing “what is right” – building their ability to apply principles vs simply follow procedure

EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE:

Bachelors Degree in Engineering, or technical field, Master's Degree or MBA, preferred

10+ Years experience leading teams of >10 staff, ideally with experience of managing through periods of organizational change or other turbulent circumstances

Demonstrated commercial responsibility (e.g., negotiating supplier terms for contracts >$1m as part of overall product or service responsibility)

A learning mindset, with a demonstrated track record of absorbing information and capabilities of new technologies and their impact on business service offerings.

Ideally familiar with Automotive and/or Commercial Vehicle technologies, freight and logistics businesses

LOCATION AND TRAVEL REQUIREMENTS:

25% domestic travel (primarily to major customers and business partners)

10% international (for senior leadership meetings and establishing global product support and quality operations together with Barneveld, Solna and Campinas)

Domiciled in Novi, MI headquarters, co-located with core delivery team members

Stoneridge is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate against any applicant or employee based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, sexual orientation, marital status, mental or physical disability, genetic information, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by the applicable laws in the countries we operate. Stoneridge also prohibits harassment of applicants or employees based on any of these protected categories.

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