What are the vacancies you are seeking to fill in the Groupe Renault Sales & Marketing Department this year?
We're offering a wide variety of positions in our three main sales and marketing functions:
In sales, we'll be be filling positions in retail, dealer network management, fleet sales management and sales method management.
Marketing vacancies cover a broad range of functions, in products, advertising, pricing, sales forecasting, retail, etc., with an increasing emphasis on digital operations.
In aftersales, an essential business unit, vacancies cover everything to do with spare parts, from design and purchasing through to logistics and sales.
What profiles and skills are you looking for?
Sales and marketing functions inherently cover a very broad spectrum, as regards both the qualifications required and the specialities involved. I myself come from an engineering background, for example. In sales and marketing there are some highly specialized fields that require advanced technical understanding, as in pricing, digital marketing and retail. So we're interested in people with backgrounds in sales, finance and engineering, for instance. That said, there's one common across-the-board requirement, which is that people need a good sense of customer awareness, a good sense of human relations. That's the key characteristic of our job, which is why we encourage all our new recruits, even in the more highly specialized technical areas, to spend some time in direct contact with our customers.
What are the main challenges facing the Renault Group in the years to come, in general and in your department in particular?
I'd say that those of us in sales and marketing will be facing four main challenges.
The first concerns international development. Progress hinges very largely on successful performance in countries such as China, India, Iran, Brazil and Russia. Sure, Europe stands as a solid customer base for us, but new customers will be coming in from new markets, and this will prove increasingly important.
Second, digital technologies are increasingly pervasive across the sales and marketing function, as elsewhere. Traditional television advertising is losing ground to closer-focus operations, with instant purchases increasingly made via digital media. At the same time brand image is increasingly built via the social networks, and customers are increasingly likely to seek out their new cars on the web, rather than doing the dealership circuit as they used to. Then in the very near future, all vehicles will be connected, which means customer contact will be a permanent state of affairs.
Third, the automobile is an increasingly complex product, and this in itself sets considerable challenges for salespeople and aftersales specialists alike. Modern cars are incredibly sophisticated, and the trend toward sophistication can only intensify: autonomous cars will be with us very soon, and sales teams will have to keep up with this very major development.
The last of the four challenges arises from the major shifts and increasing variety in consumption patterns. The car-ownership model is losing ground to the car-usage model. Challenges here arise from the emergence of the new players that this new model implicates, and from the resulting need for sales and marketing teams to work with these new organizations. Customer expectations are changing, especially among the younger generations. I'd say we're facing nothing less than a major upheaval in automobile retail.
What sort of prospects does the Groupe Renault Sales & Marketing function offer as regards career advancement and job satisfaction?
Sales & marketing is one of the automotive industry's three main functions, along with design and manufacturing. The prospects are nothing less than colossal. Careers in the sales and marketing function span a huge range, from the most narrowly specialized through to the most grassroots customer-contact positions. The ability to alternate between theory-intensive and practical-application jobs is pretty much specific to our sector. Then there are very considerable openings for worldwide travel, depending on individual aspirations and capabilities of course. And the sales and marketing function is anything but a silo. A background in our department opens doors to many different functions throughout the Renault Group. For example, at one stage I myself was managing electric vehicle development with Renault.
How would you sum up your recruitment message to future applicants?
Throw out any preconceived ideas you might have about the automotive industry, and come and see us! I can think of no more exciting business sector to work in: we're talking about an ultra-technological product that's nevertheless closely entwined in everybody's everyday lives; we're talking about a global company, which means openings to go out and discover different countries and different cultures; and we're talking about a field that combines extreme technical sophistication with a crucial emphasis on human relations. Then let's not forget that Renault is a very special company, with a strong corporate culture, a strong reputation for wide-open prospects, and a strong capability for integrating in all the countries it operates in, and for forging successful long-term.
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