Business Planning Manager

Job Summary:

We are seeking a dynamic, highly organized, and solutions-oriented Business Planning Manager to drive the business planning and data management functions for the KB Signaling commercial team. This role is critical to ensuring strategic alignment amongst the Commercial team and also maintaining a transverse engagement amongst all KB Signaling functions that leverage commercial data. All forms of business data are managed by this function and the team including tender costing data, reference library data, business planning and strategy data, financial baselines and sales projections.

Within Knorr-Bremse, the business planning function is a strategic oriented and market facing role responsible for building out the yearly 5-year strategic plan that consolidates a full commercial pipeline view. This yearly process is continuously updated and validated with finance throughout the year and also is leveraged for shorter term financial budgeting processes. This role interacts broadly with the FP&A financial group as well as the product delivery and project delivery groups.

Key Responsibilities:

• Business Planning process management: yearly process that produces a 5 -year sales projection plan based on order intake, sales conversion based on an order intake pipeline.
• Produce updates to the commercial data (orders, sales) for subsequent yearly tactical budget baselines
• Market research and data analysis of market trends and KB Signaling strategy; produce content to support market knowledge and information, stay up to date on all market trends in NAM and rest of world. This will also include share of market analysis, market sizing for TAM and SAM calculations and competitor analysis and market share.
• Coordinate with Finance, Project Management, and Product Delivery on transverse delivery topics
• Manage the order intake pipeline for all transit opportunities both in the US and rest of world
• Manage a tender costing team that supports the bid management process; consolidation and data visualization of all tender data produced during the pursuit process
• Sales enablement functions: supporting the sales team in analyzing capital plan spending at key accounts, building out strategic account plans with the business development team
• External facing duties as needed: Trade show representation support, attending industry events to understand market trends and changes
  
  

Key Interactions & Reporting to:

• Reporting to: Head of Commercial for the business unit
• Supporting: Business Development & Account Managers, Bid Cost Managers, Customer Service Team
• Interacting with: Finance team, product delivery team, project management team
  
  

Required:

• FP&A and financial data management process knowledge
• PowerBI, excel and other data visualization/management tools a must
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft 365 (Outlook, SharePoint, Teams, PowerPoint, Excel) and familiarity with CONCUR and SAP.
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills; able to communicate effectively across levels and departments.
• Strong analytical thinking, problem-solving abilities, and project management experience.
• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, Operations, Management, or a related field.
  
  

Preferred:

• Advanced degree in business, marketing or related field.
• Knowledge of the Rail and Transit industry a plus
• Experience supporting commercial or sales teams in a fast-paced, technical environment.