JOB POSITION SUMMARY
The Account Manager â Caterpillar Lafayette serves as the single point of contact (SPOC) for all commercial, technical, and strategic engagement at the Caterpillar Lafayette facility. This role owns the end-to-end customer relationship, ensuring alignment between Caterpillar stakeholders and internal teams across sales, service, engineering, modernization, and project execution.
The primary objective is to protect and grow the Caterpillar account by delivering consistent customer experience, proactively identifying risk, and driving long-term service and lifecycle strategies across the crane and lifting equipment fleet.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Account Ownership & Customer Relationship Leadership
- Serve as the Caterpillar Lafayette SPOC across all business lines (service, modernization, equipment, safety, technology).
- Own escalation management, issue resolution, and executive alignment.
- Maintain weekly contact with all assigned Caterpillar stakeholders; document all activity.
- Build trusted relationships with maintenance, engineering, reliability, safety, plant, and site management.
- Conduct annual (or more frequent as needed) business review presentations.
- Represent Caterpillarâs voice internally and Konecranesâ capabilities externally.
2. Strategic Account Planning & Lifecycle Management
- Develop and maintain a multiâyear account strategy aligned with Caterpillar operational, safety, and capital planning goals.
- Lead creation of modernization roadmaps, fleet assessments, and lifecycle planning.
- Identify opportunities for:
- Engineered modernizations
- Controls, automation, and area control solutions
- Safety and compliance upgrades
- Reliability and lifecycle extension initiatives
- Proactively identify operational risks before incidents occur.
3. Commercial Ownership & Opportunity Leadership
- Own the commercial strategy for all Caterpillar Lafayette opportunities.
- Ensure opportunities are properly qualified, scoped, reviewed, and priced.
- Prepare quotes, estimates, and proposals; maintain CRM (Siebel) compliance.
- Move opportunities through the funnel using correct sales stages.
- Support collection efforts for problem accounts.
- Maintain visibility on pipeline, backlog, and forecast accuracy.
- Review and negotiate all non-standard Terms & Conditions.
4. Sales Execution & Activity Management
- Ensure effective sales growth consistent with strategic objectives.
- Engage in direct sales activity to meet/exceed established quotas.
- Participate in weekly sales meetings and required planning processes (budget, forecasting, strategy).
- Participate in required monthly reporting including Rush reports.
5. CrossâFunctional Coordination
- Coordinate internal alignment between:
- Sales Engineers
- Application Engineering
- Field Operations & Service
- Project Management
- Product/Technology/Engineering SMEs
- Ensure technical solutions are compliant, appropriate, and executable.
- Prevent fragmented communication or duplicated efforts.
- Facilitate internal approvals before customer commitments.
6. Safety, Compliance & Risk Leadership
- Serve as advisor on crane safety, compliance, and risk mitigation.
- Ensure recommendations align with OSHA, ASME, CMAA, and Caterpillar expectations.
- Reinforce that solutions reduce risk but cannot fully eliminate it.
- Ensure compliance with local, state, federal regulatory requirements.
AUTHORITY & ACCOUNTABILITY
- Accountable for overall account health, customer satisfaction, and long-term growth.
- Authorized to coordinate and prioritize internal resources in support of Caterpillar Lafayette.
- Responsible for ensuring no work proceeds without proper technical and commercial review.