IFE Customer Success Director - Middle East

Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

In fast changing markets, customers worldwide rely on Thales. Thales is a business where brilliant people from all over the world come together to share ideas and inspire each other. In aerospace, transportation, defence, security and space, our architects design innovative solutions that make our tomorrow's possible.

Thales has built a presence in the United Arab Emirates for over 35 years, and today has over 300 employees. Thales in the UAE is part of our Middle East business that has 1,800 people across Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, KSA, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar and UAE. Together we delivered technology for the Dubai metro, the longest driverless metro network in the world and a fare collection system that processes up to 250,000 transactions per day. We make UAE a safer place by providing secure electronic payment solutions, cyber security systems and communications as well as security systems for Dubai International Airport and air traffic management and navigation systems for Abu Dhabi’s airport.

Missions & Responsibilities

BUILD COUNTRY GROWTH STRATEGY

• Understand the market: context, stakes, market evolution(including services and digital business), current business footprint (including projects, challenges, opportunities…)
• Build and share a vision: the image of Thales leadership in the country, goals and objectives
• Prepare & schedule country growth plan: Market share, allocated resources (strategic workforce planning, budget, anticipating risk analysis, alternative scenario, tools ..)
• Provide focus and priorities to the Team, set up and monitor objectives
• Organize periodic team meetings addressing OI and revenue follow-up, ongoing opportunities coordination and action plans with clear accountability
  
  
  

PUT CUSTOMER-FIRST

• Capture and formulate specific customer insights as basis for Thales leadership with the customer
• Develop and foster cooperation across Thales entities and functions (GBUs/BLs/Countries/SAM/KAM…) to facilitate a win-win approach and develop a “One Thales” strategy
• Drive the definition and execution of ambitious account plans (Strategic & Key)
• Work closely with Value & Bid and Capture functions to shape opportunities, in order to deliver differentiating value propositions and winning bids. Coordinate and influence with other Group functions such as legal, finance
• Act as THALES group representative of accounts, orchestrate the Customer Experience across touchpoints and foster its improvement (end-to-end experience)
• Establish and develop high level trust-based relationships with his/her key customers to improve capture rate
• Anticipate complex negotiation closing including partnerships
  
  
  

ENGAGE SALES PEOPLE

• Build a high-performance sales culture
• Coordinate team efficiency and sales team involvement to ensure customer satisfaction
• Manage performance with guiding sales organizational principles and key metrics across sales channels and markets
• Provide managerial leadership to ensure initiatives and deploy relevant practices (Value proposition, Black Hat, Price to Win…)
• Engage and develop people through regular feedback, coaching attitude. Act as a role model for coaching teams, helping team members find their way
• Promote diversity and create an inclusive environment
• Select, recruit sales team members, propose allocation of resources
  
  
  

MANAGE RISK TAKING & FOSTER ENTREPRENEURSHIP

• Create value for customers and Thales in the relationship
• Encourage digital, disruptive and innovative offers
• Mitigate the risks using appropriate lessons learnt from successes and failures
  
  
  

DECISIONS OWNED / KEY DELIVERABLES

DECISIONS OWNED

• Sales organization : selection and development of Sales profiles & objectives of each sales team member
• Allocation of resources on Gate 0, 1, 2
• Winning price
• Bid/no Bid at country level
  
  
  

DELIVERABLES PRODUCED

• Country OI forecast
• Account plans for strategic, key and selected segment accounts
  
  
  

KEY INTERACTIONS

• Sales Team
• Sales Operations
• Value & Bid
• Account Teams
• BL Managers
• Finance
• Quality & Customer Satisfaction
• Legal
  
  
  

Skills & Experience Required

• Experience in building a high performance Sales culture
• Knowledge in running Sales operations in complex markets and constantly improving them
• Analytical skills to identify growth opportunities in markets at an early stage
• Demonstrates entrepreneurship
• Sound understanding of customer segment
• Promotes diversity and creates an inclusive environment
• Strong communication skills, partner relationship skills, and team leadership skills
• Negotiation and influence at executive levels
• Coaching and mentoring people to reach success
  
  
  

KPIs

• OI & GMOI mid-term growth (3 to 5 years) growth in line with accounts plans
• Profitable OI for the fiscal year
• Customer satisfaction
• Employee engagement
• Sales expense ratio
  
  
  

At Thales we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working. Great journeys start here, apply now!