Software Business Development Manager

Major Responsibilities

Duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

1. Market and opportunity development

• Build target-account and market-segment plans based on the priorities of the software business in China, and maintain a visible, qualified pipeline
• Engage selected customers before tool specifications and the commercial route are fixed, looking for needs related to software, data, quality, traceability, production improvement, and lifecycle services
• Build account, stakeholder, and opportunity profiles covering the customer workflow, business problem, current baseline, budget path, timing, technical environment, and acceptance criteria
• Qualify opportunities continuously. Mark weak or unsupported fits for further discovery or as no fit instead of making an early commitment

2. Discovery and solution development

• Lead customer discovery and define the problem, expected outcome, scope, prerequisites, and next decision
• Bring together the product, technical, project, and service expertise needed to choose the right solution and delivery route
• Keep released products, controlled validation, customer-specific work, and future research clearly separated in customer communication, quotations, and contracts
• Advance demonstrations, technical validation, and paid proof-of-concept projects. Confirm the objective, customer contribution, success criteria, owner, and commercial follow-up before work begins
• Turn technical content into a business case and decision material that the customer can understand and use

3. Commercial execution and closing

• Act as the dedicated commercial driver for software opportunities, managing sales stages, action plans, forecasts, and risks
• Prepare the value proposition, solution narrative, quotation input, and customer proposal, and advance discussions on price, contract, procurement, information security, and compliance
• Build the win plan and move the opportunity toward stakeholder approval, confirmed budget, and an order
• Keep the customer relationship management system and forecast information accurate, and report material changes or unresolved issues promptly

4. First customer cases and repeatable growth

• Select and advance initial projects that can demonstrate customer value. Agree the baseline, validation method, and required evidence before execution starts
• Work with the marketing team to turn successful work into customer cases, demonstration scripts, industry offers, competitive material, and sales training
• Build reusable sales methods and tools that help the software business expand to more customers and industries
• Collect customer and competitor insight, then provide commercially grounded input for product improvement and business priorities

5. Handover, renewal, and expansion

• After an order, hand over the software scope, assumptions, customer prerequisites, acceptance criteria, and risks clearly to the project team
• Follow adoption, value evidence, issue closure, renewal, and expansion after go-live
• Identify cross-selling opportunities across software, tools, automation, location and error-proofing, analytics, and services
• Use delivery and service experience to improve qualification, solution design, and sales material

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree or above in automation, mechanical or electrical engineering, computer science, software engineering, industrial engineering, business, or a related field.
• At least five years of business development, solution sales, or key-account sales experience with business customers. Experience in industrial automation, industrial software, smart manufacturing, manufacturing execution systems, the industrial internet of things, supervisory control and data acquisition systems, quality management, or production improvement is preferred
• A record of developing and closing opportunities with complex manufacturing customers and buying groups that include engineering, production, quality, information technology, procurement, and management
• Strong consultative discovery skills, with the ability to turn a customer problem into a clear business case, solution scope, and action plan
• Enough knowledge of industrial software and integration to discuss connected equipment, data flows, manufacturing execution systems, enterprise resource planning systems, programmable logic controller interfaces, deployment models, and information-security requirements. The role is not expected to develop software or