Customer R&D Technical Manager

Valeo; Chennai District; On-site; INR 1,800,000 - 2,800,000; Full time

Job summary

Valeo in Chennai is seeking a senior professional to lead Business Development for the BRAIN Division's Specific Customer Group. You will align customer needs with product groups, craft competitive quotations, and act as the main technical liaison with R&D and customer management.

You will oversee R&D projects, manage cross-functional teams, enforce process standards, and promote Valeo values while delivering on time and budget.

Qualifications

• Must have a strong technical background and vision with the ability to engage customers at both high-level and grass-roots.
• Excellent clear communication skills, both internally and externally, to unify and manage technical disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Lead business development with the Indian customer team, aligning trends and needs with BRAIN Product Groups.
• Identify and support advanced development projects and NPAs; ensure customer requirements are captured and understood.
• Input to business case strategies based on market knowledge; craft competitive quotations technically and economically.
• Serve as single-point technical interface with customer R&D management for strategic collaboration.
• Drive VA/VE initiatives to meet regional cost objectives while upholding safety standards.
• Define technical customer strategies with R&D; oversee product development for specific customer groups.
• Manage cross-functional teams, arbitrate project priority, and deploy reuse strategies to minimize cost and effort.
• Ensure delivery on time, on cost, and with expected quality; enforce product development and industrialization milestones.

Job description

Must have a good technical background, strong vision, ability to work with the customer at a high level as well as grass-roots, and someone who can communicate clearly internally and externally. This position will unify and manage all technical disciplines within BRAIN Division PGs for Specific Customer Group

Business Development

• Work with the Indian Customer business development team and ensure customer/market trends and needs are identified and aligned with BRAIN Product Groups
• Identifies and supports advanced development projects and NPA
• Ensure customer business is accurately captured in MTP/TDE effort
• Ensure that the customers’ requirements are all identified, negotiated and well understood by the project teams
• Input to business case strategies according to knowledge of the market and competitor’s position
• Lead and conduct all possible actions in order to be able to submit, within the time limits, a competitive quotation technically and economically.
• Single point of contact and key technical management interface with customer R&D management to align on strategic collaboration
• Drive and facilitate VA/VE initiatives to achieve rigorous regional cost objectives while maintaining full adherence to safety standards.

R&D

• Define with R&D teams the technical customer strategies
• Oversee product development of specific customer group related business
• Manage and communicate with cross functional teams
• Define & arbitrate on project priority and resource allocation
• Ensure a reuse strategy for product development is deployed to minimize cost & effort
• Ensure compliance to the project budget ( R&D ), ensure the team has all the tools and infra to execute specific customer group projects and ensure delivery of the project on-time, on-cost and with quality expected.
• Strong knowledge on Product development process and industrialization and vehicle development milestone is preferred
• Possess knowledge of Indian Automotive Industry Standards (AIS) and emerging regional ADAS regulatory frameworks and BNCAP/ E NCAP details

Team Management

• Provide operational leadership in helping teams identify, develop synergy, efficiency and coordinated actions that meet customer demands and BRAIN objectives.
• Adhere to and coach team for application of all the standards and process applicable for the Product Group and Customer Group
• Promote Valeo Values and mindset of continuous improvement with project team
• Ensure adherence to all Valeo policies including Code of Ethics, Compliance, Anti-trust, 5 Axes, Health & Safety and R&D Development and Quality Assurance Policies

People Mgt

• Regular review of the staffing needs.
• Define personal development plans
• Conduct yearly performance reviews as per Valeo’s HR procedure
• Identify expertise needs in the team, incl. the competence matrix and the definition of training plans, proposing individuals for expert path etc.
• Conflict resolution and negotiation skills