I'm in charge of the sale of long products to processing and energy customers.
My daily work is characterised by a great variety of tasks and motivated by the passion for human contact.
By variety, I mean that no two days are alike. The sale of our products starts with the knowledge of our markets and its players (marketing strategy targeting customer types and associated competitive environment), the understanding of their specific needs, the search for optimal commercial and technical solutions (taking account of production and costing parameters), negotiation and lastly the payment of the invoice and full customer satisfaction. These activities are further enhanced by the fact that my markets concern two AD plants – Les Ancizes and Firminy – and products as diverse as a 40-ton lingot to laminate crowns for submarines, tubes for helicopter rotors and bars to make tubes for nuclear steam generators.
Passion for human contact is a must as the Market Manager's success primarily rests on team work: this obviously involves the sales and marketing team dedicated to my markets lead by Serge Bonnard and Laurent Pouzol, but also my production colleagues and technical experts, headed by the Product Manager, a key position held by Jean Noël Locquet for most of my products. Yet, this success would not be complete nor long-lasting without the creation of dynamic relations with customers, often of the partnership type, which must be developed and maintained daily with the help of the network on which I rely. I travel extensively, to see our French and international customers and to the various AD sites.