Business Engineer / Sales Manager / La Courneuve.

Hello,

My name is Vincent. I work at Eurocopter in La Courneuve in the Sales Department as Area Sales Manager.

My work

I work for the Asian - Pacific Sales Department within the Sales Direction. Here, I’m in charge of several countries (China and Thailand mainly) and I have to identify governmental projects. That simply means meeting and working with the governmental entities to sell them helicopters (civil projects are provided by regional subsidiaries). For that, I rely on EADS support, which has local connections and relationships for local Defence programs. Not to mention that selling to these entities is most of the time very strategic so the pressure is always there and the job is very demanding.
Establishing commercial relationships involves preparing marketing and product presentations, defining technical specifications and building up the commercial offer. Let’s not forget to boot that a commercial relationship is preferentially a customer relationship, which means organising product demonstrations, conducting tours of plants, and also aeronautic show invitations.

My beginning within Eurocopter

My experience in Eurocopter Group began with an internship followed by a temporary contract of 7 months in the Asian – Pacific Sales Department. Since it was essentially a Back-Office job, I didn’t have any direct contact with customers: I dealt with quotations, sale co-ordination and assistance. Afterwards, I began a trainee program (today so called VIE program) within Eurocopter at the Eurocopter South East Asia (ESEA) subsidiary.
During this time I really discovered the real business in thefield: I had a lot of contact with customers, I improved my knowledge about products and different technical and quality aspects (exporting and qualitynorms, logistic support working, and how the whole thing sticks together…). In fact, subsidiaries answer to a demand of civil customers looking for proximity support from Eurocopter.
At the end of my trainee period, the subsidiary offered me a local contract. Before joining Eurocopter,
I worked four years for ESEA first as a seller and then as a head of sales department.

My motivation

When I was a boy, I was fascinated by a red toy helicopter I once received for Christmas… Later on, it became clear to me that a true passion for helicopters had been growing in me for all those years. What I like now about helicopters is their slim shape (especially those looking like dolphins), the variety of our helicopters’range and the pleasure of selling them all over the world, especially on the variety of our helicopters’range and the pleasure of selling them all over the world, especially on the Asian markets which are the ones I prefer most, probably because of the dialog with an extraordinary, ancient and attractive culture.

What after ?

To tell it in a word, working for Eurocopter is working for EADS. A lot of opportunities can be found moving from Eurocopter into EADS, with many more products being sold in that great firm. My wish is to proceed with international sales and I think that EADS can offer me many options to enlarge my knowledge and practice. So why shouldn’t I start a tour in that different world?
Wait and see …