Strategic Customer Development Manager

CHARACTERISTIC DUTIES:

Essential

Strategic Business Development and Networking

• Identify, develop, pursue, and close new business opportunities in the data center, technology infrastructure, and other markets aligned with FFM’s strategic vision.
• Build and maintain a pipeline of qualified opportunities through executive-level networking, industry events, trade shows, referrals, customer visits, and targeted prospecting.
• Develop trusted relationships with customer decisionmakers and lead high-level conversations regarding customer needs, future programs, forecasts, growth plans, and commercial opportunities.
• Represent FFM professionally with customers, industry partners, and prospective customers to strengthen the company’s reputation and market presence.
• Lead opportunities from initial contact through qualification, proposal, negotiation, and contract execution; pursue agreed-upon sales goals and milestones.

Strategic Customer Relationships

• Develop and maintain strong relationships with key and strategic customers to grow business, strengthen retention, and identify future opportunities.
• Serve as a primary point of contact for important commercial discussions and coordinate internal responses to customer needs, concerns, and escalations.
• Conduct business reviews with strategic customers to understand performance, future demand, forecasts, and opportunities for improvement or expansion.
• Communicate the voice of the customer to FFM leadership and relevant departments, including emerging needs, market trends, competitive dynamics, and customer expectations.
• Maintain accurate and timely customer, opportunity, activity, and forecast information in the company’s CRM.

Quoting, Pricing, and Commercial Agreements

• Coordinate complex and strategic quotes with Estimating, Engineering, Manufacturing, Planning, and Supply Chain to ensure proposals are complete, accurate, and aligned with FFM’s capabilities.
• Review quote packages and commercial assumptions for completeness and consistency, identifying discrepancies, missing information, scope gaps, drawing or revision conflicts, and potential cost or schedule risks for resolution by the responsible team.

• Work with appropriate internal stakeholders to evaluate pricing, margins, tooling, material costs, engineering changes, expedite requests, cancellation terms, and other commercial considerations.
• Lead or support customer negotiations and the development of long-term agreements, including pricing structures, forecast and volume expectations, lead times, capacity assumptions, and other contractual terms.
• Escalate nonstandard terms, pricing exceptions, margin risks, and significant commercial commitments through established approval processes.

Engineering, Capacity, and Operational Alignment

• Coordinate cross-functional reviews of customer drawings, specifications, revisions, tolerances, quantities, and other requirements to identify errors, inconsistencies, or questions before quote submission or acceptance of business.
• Partner with Engineering to ensure technical questions and potential drawing or specification issues are reviewed and resolved by the appropriate technical owners.
• Work with Manufacturing, Planning, and Supply Chain to understand available labor, equipment, tooling, material, lead-time, and production capacity when evaluating new opportunities and customer commitments.
• Help assess whether proposed business fits FFM’s capabilities, capacity, delivery expectations, and strategic priorities; communicate risks and trade-offs to leadership before commitments are made.
• Coordinate with internal teams on customer changes, schedule challenges, delivery recovery plans, and other issues affecting customer commitments.

Planning, Reporting, and Continuous Improvement

• Maintain visibility to the sales pipeline, quote activity, opportunity status, expected revenue, customer forecasts, and anticipated program timing.
• Provide regular updates to the President and relevant leaders on major opportunities, customer developments, risks, competitive activity, and recommended actions.
• Use sales, quoting, customer, and market information to identify trends, improve processes, and support informed business decisions.
• Monitor developments in the data center, technology infrastructure, and precision fabrication markets to identify opportunities aligned with FFM’s growth objectives.
• Participate actively and positively in Lean activities and support continuous improvement in customer development and commercial processes.

General

• Willing to work overtime when needed.

• Maintain applicable responsibilities of the ISO 9001 system in accordance with the requirements defined in the Quality Manual and procedure-level documentation.
• Assist other team members as required.
• Perform other duties as assigned.