Associate Director, Consulting - Automotive Industry

The Company

Cognizant (NASDAQ:CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, dedicated to helping the world's leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant has over 350,000 employees as of January 2024. Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 1000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world.

Cognizant Consulting

At Cognizant, our consultants orchestrate the capabilities to truly change the game across strategy, design, technology and industry/functional knowledge to deliver insight at speed and solutions at scale. Our consulting services elevate the unique abilities and business aspirations of customers and employees and build relationships based on trust and value.

Role Overview

Automotive industry in the Germany is going through a digital transformation journey with the focus on making data-centric Investment decisions, enhanced customer experience (through digital and data enablement), sustainable and reliable infrastructure, digitalisation of the aging infrastructure, visualisation of their disparate decision support systems in a single pane of glass and most importantly disruption from innovative technologies entering the marketplace.

Cognizant has engagements with multiple automotive clients in globally where we are helping them being customer obsessed and lead the transformation initiatives to build new offerings, solutions and innovative business models aligned to the market trends. Our unique industry-based, consultative approach helps clients envision, build, and run more innovative and efficient businesses

We are looking for an experienced Associate Director who is passionate about making a difference for our clients in the Automotive domain. This is an opportunity for being at the forefront of the transformation journey working with the best minds in the Automotive domain at Cognizant.

We are looking for an exceptional Consulting Leader to build and lead a consulting team within our Automotive Consulting practice in DACH. You bring exceptional solution finding, proven leadership and team management skills and strong customer focus. In this role, you will lead the DACH Automotive Consulting team and work for the key market players in Automotive Industry.

Responsibilities:

· Build and Manage the Consulting practice for Automotive Industry for DACH Region - people management, delivery management and client engagement

· Build own team of management consultants within the DACH Automotive practice by recruiting and developing local consulting talent, function as coach and advisor for emerging talent

· Broad functional knowledge within the sector and the ability to connect with a variety of executive level stakeholders on their specific pain-points; build meaningful internal and external relationships.

· Determine, develop, and deliver innovative strategies and tools to target new and current clients

· Front face thought leadership and develop solutions for complex client situations to ensure meeting of goals & objectives as well as deliver results on time

· Accountable for managing & growing a customer base and sustainable revenue stream

· Expand and identify current and new business projects by strengthening client relationships

· Ability to manage and execute large strategic deals, proposals and maintaining a healthy pipeline of opportunities

· Identifies, leads, or oversees the development of customer-facing business solutions and offerings that have an impact on the market

· Accountable for operational/financial metrics and overall business results of DACH Automotive consulting practice

· Work with client business units, IT, and Digital Organization to define the roadmap and keep the idea/initiative funnel moving on regular basis

· Exceptional work ethic, ability to perform under pressure, meet deadlines

· Partner with the different Cognizant practices and integrate Automotive consulting services with Cognizant’s global transformation & delivery capabilities to sell large, integrated, multimillion-value transformational solutions

· Define and drive go-to-market strategy, leverage personal customer network and generate business by commercializing Digital advisory services.

· Represent Cognizant in forums & industry events to demonstrate thought leadership and showcase advisory know-how and industry expertise

· Support the ongoing development and improvement of our consulting frameworks, propositions, approach and supporting tools

· Build and Manage the Consulting practice for Automotive Industry for DACH Region - people management, delivery management and client engagement

· Build own team of management consultants within the DACH Automotive practice by recruiting and developing local consulting talent, function as coach and advisor for emerging talent

· Broad functional knowledge within the sector and the ability to connect with a variety of executive level stakeholders on their specific pain-points; build meaningful internal and external relationships.

· Determine, develop, and deliver innovative strategies and tools to target new and current clients

· Front face thought leadership and develop solutions for complex client situations to ensure meeting of goals & objectives as well as deliver results on time

· Accountable for managing & growing a customer base and sustainable revenue stream

· Expand and identify current and new business projects by strengthening client relationships

· Ability to manage and execute large strategic deals, proposals and maintaining a healthy pipeline of opportunities

· Identifies, leads, or oversees the development of customer-facing business solutions and offerings that have an impact on the market

· Accountable for operational/financial metrics and overall business results of DACH Automotive consulting practice

· Work with client business units, IT, and Digital Organization to define the roadmap and keep the idea/initiative funnel moving on regular basis

· Exceptional work ethic, ability to perform under pressure, meet deadlines

· Partner with the different Cognizant practices and integrate Automotive consulting services with Cognizant’s global transformation & delivery capabilities to sell large, integrated, multimillion-value transformational solutions

· Define and drive go-to-market strategy, leverage personal customer network and generate business by commercializing Digital advisory services.

· Represent Cognizant in forums & industry events to demonstrate thought leadership and showcase advisory know-how and industry expertise

· Support the ongoing development and improvement of our consulting frameworks, propositions, approach and supporting tools

Required & nice to have Skills:

· Over 10 to 15 yrs. of domain experience in Automotive or related industry covering one or more process areas listed below,

o Sales and Marketing including After Sales

o Production process planning and optimization

o Production shop floor management

o Engineering and Asset management

o Sustainability

· Proven experience gained within Consulting within the Automotive sector in DACH Region.

· Evidence of having developed consulting business within the Automotive sector generating over $1m per annum of consulting revenue.

· Experience of managing large complex programmes and delivering digital transformation services / projects.

· Having managed relationship at CxO level (or direct reports of business/digital / IT leadership)

· Effectively and proactively managed client’s expectations, built deep client partnerships, and developed excellent communication and executive presence to connect at all levels in the organisation

· Proven track record of developing new client relationships and generating business development opportunities

· Proven thought leadership within Automotive area of expertise including incubating and syndication of “marketable” knowledge

· Fluency in English and German

· Outstanding communication and cross-cultural skills combined with visionary attitude, exceptional intellectual and analytical curiosity

· Team-orientation and collaborative approach, combined with strong coaching and people-development expertise and determination to always raise the bar to reach “state of art” in client service delivery

· Entrepreneurial drive and ability to drive agendas in fast-paced & innovative environments

· Ability to build effective working relationships with others inside and outside the organization

· Ability to work with multi-cultural and remotely located teams across the globe