Job Description

Our client is a leading Indian automotive components manufacturer with several decades of engineering excellence and trusted partnerships across the automotive industry. The company has built a strong reputation for delivering high-quality engineered components through a combination of manufacturing capability, technical expertise and customer-centric innovation.

The company is now entering an exciting phase of growth. To support this growth, the company is strengthening its commercial organisation with dedicated key account leadership focused on its most strategic customers.

Responsibilities:

The Key Accounts Manager will own and grow the company's relationships with a defined portfolio of strategic customers — leading two-wheeler OEMs and large Tier-1 suppliers. The role is accountable for account revenue, share of business, programme wins and customer satisfaction across the assigned accounts.

Account Ownership & Growth

• Own the end-to-end commercial relationship for assigned OEM and Tier-1 accounts, including revenue, margin and share of business.

• Build and execute annual and three-year account plans covering existing parts, upcoming platforms and new product opportunities.

• Increase share of wallet by expanding the company's presence across additional part families, models and plants within each account.

• Achieve agreed targets for sales, collections and new business nominations.

New Business & Programme Wins

• Track the customer's new model and platform roadmap and engage early in the sourcing cycle.

• Lead RFQ responses end to end — from enquiry and costing inputs through technical and commercial submissions to negotiation and nomination.

• Position the company's technology-led and JV-sourced products with customer development and R&D teams.

• Coordinate customer-side approvals for new parts, including PPAP, samples and validation milestones, through to SOP.

Commercial Management

• Lead price negotiations, annual price reviews, raw-material cost pass-through and long-term supply agreements.

• Manage contracts, schedules, payment terms and receivables for assigned accounts, keeping overdues within agreed limits.

• Prepare accurate account-level demand and revenue forecasts as an input to production and capacity planning.

Customer Relationship & Service

• Build trusted relationships across the customer's purchase, SCM, development, quality and plant teams, up to senior leadership.

• Act as the customer's first point of escalation for supply, quality or commercial issues and drive them to closure.

• Lead periodic business reviews and monitor supplier ratings, scorecards and vendor performance indices.

• Ensure the company is consistently seen as a responsive, reliable and preferred supplier.

Internal Coordination

• Translate customer requirements into clear actions for engineering, manufacturing, quality, PPC and finance teams.

• Align production plans with customer schedules to ensure on-time, in-full delivery.

• Share customer and competitor insights with the leadership team to inform product and pricing strategy.

Experience & Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering; an MBA in Marketing or Sales would be an advantage.

• 8–12 years of experience in sales, business development or key account management within the automotive components industry.

• Direct, hands-on experience managing accounts with leading two-wheeler OEMs such as Hero MotoCorp, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India, TVS Motor, Bajaj Auto, Suzuki Motorcycle India, Yamaha and Royal Enfield.

• Experience working with large Tier-1 suppliers as customers.

• Working knowledge of RFQ processes, part costing, price negotiations, PPAP/APQP and SOP management.

• Experience with engineered or value-added components; exposure to new product introductions would be an advantage.

Key Competencies

• Strong customer orientation and relationship-building skills.

• Sharp commercial and negotiation skills.

• Ability to understand technical products and speak credibly with engineering and development teams.

• Ownership, persistence and strong execution focus.

• Effective at coordinating cross-functional teams without direct authority.

• Good analytical and forecasting skills; comfortable with numbers and account data.

• Willingness to travel frequently to customer locations.