The posting
Job Summary
The Worldwide Demand Manager (Hydraulic Excavators) leads global demand planning, supply execution, and Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) for Caterpillar's Hydraulic Excavator portfolio across all regions. Supporting Vice Presidents of Product Management for Small, Medium, Large, and Wheeled Excavators, this role manages a team of regional demand consultants and is responsible for balancing worldwide demand, production capacity, inventory, and profitability objectives.
What You Will Do
Key responsibilities include developing global machine supply plans, coordinating production schedules across multiple manufacturing facilities, leading monthly S&OP processes, supporting forecasting and planning systems, driving inventory and shipment planning, partnering with finance on business reporting, and leading continuous improvement initiatives. The role serves as a critical liaison between product management, operations, manufacturing, finance, and regional commercial teams to ensure accurate forecasts, optimized supply, and achievement of business goals.
The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in S&OP, forecasting, production planning, and inventory management, coupled with strong leadership, analytical problem-solving, and executive communication skills. This position offers the opportunity to influence worldwide business performance, shape long-term growth strategies, and lead cross-functional teams in a fast-paced global environment.
What You Have Customer Focus: Knowledge of the values and practices that align customer needs and satisfaction as primary considerations in all business decisions and ability to leverage that information in creating customized customer solutions.
• Facilitates creation of the 'right' products and services to resolve customer business issues.
• Fosters strong customer relationships via delivery on commitments, open communication, and on-going feedback/improvement.
• Advises others on creating customer focused environments in various scenarios.
• Anticipates customer needs, focusing efforts to proactively meet needs and exceed customer expectations.
• Measures and observes customer satisfaction levels to ascertain and implement service improvement alternatives.
• Communicates and models the criticality of customer focus as an organizational strategy.
Decision Making and Critical Thinking: Knowledge of the decision-making process and associated tools and techniques; ability to accurately analyze situations and reach productive decisions based on informed judgment.
• Differentiates assumptions, perspectives, and historical frameworks.
• Evaluates past decisions for insights to improve decision-making process.
• Assesses and validates decision options and points and predicts their potential impact.
• Advises others in analyzing and synthesizing relevant data and assessing alternatives.
• Uses effective decision-making approaches such as consultative, command, or consensus.
• Ensures that assumptions and received wisdom are objectively analyzed in decisions.
Effective Communications: Understanding of effective communication concepts, tools and techniques; ability to effectively transmit, receive, and accurately interpret ideas, information, and needs through the application of appropriate communication behaviors.
• Reviews others' writing or presentations and provides feedback and coaching.
• Adapts documents and presentations for the intended audience.
• Demonstrates both empathy and assertiveness when communicating a need or defending a position.
• Communicates well downward, upward, and outward.
• Employs appropriate methods of persuasion when soliciting agreement.
• Maintains focus on the topic at hand.
Negotiating: Knowledge of successful negotiation concepts and techniques; ability to negotiate successfully across the organization and with external vendors and clients in a constructive and collaborative manner.
• Works to achieve win-win in negotiations, rather than taking a win-lose approach.
• Focuses on issues rather than personalities.
• Uses active listening and probing techniques to surface problems, issues, and interests.
• Demonstrates a willingness to examine own position.
• Presents own position and listens attentively to position of others.
Problem Solving: Knowledge of approaches, tools, techniques for recognizing, anticipating, and resolving organizational, operational or process problems; ability to apply knowledge of problem solving appropriately to diverse situations.
• Ensures capture of lessons to be learned from a problem-solving effort.
• Organizes potential problem solvers and leads problem resolution efforts.
• Uses varying problem-solving approaches and techniques as appropriate.
• Contributes to standard practices for problem-solving approaches, tools, and processes.
• Analyzes and synthesizes information and devises alternative resolution strategies.
• Develops successful resolutions to critical or wide-impact problems.
Relationship Management: Knowledge of relationship management techniques; ability to establish and maintain healthy working relationships with clients, vendors, and peers.
• Communicates to clients regarding expectations of all parties.
• Participates in negotiating the terms of the business relationship.
• Conducts periodic reviews of work effort, progress, issues, and successes.
• Maintains productive, long-term relationships with clients or vendors.
• Creates opportunities to educate support teams on client priorities.
• Empowers others to establish collaborative, healthy relationships.
Project Management: Knowledge of effective project management strategies and tactics; ability to plan, organize, monitor, and control projects, ensuring efficient utilization of technical and administrative resources to achieve project objectives.
• Utilizes preferred tools, techniques and methods for estimating project cost and time.
• Plans, estimates, staffs, organizes and monitors significant projects.
• Identifies risks and vulnerabilities; creates contingency plans.
• Conducts regular and ad-hoc project reviews with project team, sponsors, and clients.
• Maintains open communication among project participants and interested parties.
• Communicates reporting requirements; creates monitoring and control mechanisms.
Value Selling: Knowledge of the principles and practices for selling products, technology and services; ability to provide overall product/service 'value' and to differentiate support offerings that address clearly understood customer needs.
• Presents product, technology or service costs and benefits in reaction to prospect or customer requests.
• Describes general concepts, practices and benefits of value-based versus product selling.
• Documents proposed product/service solutions to be presented to potential customers.
• Pursues additional 'value selling' education or training to enhance traditional sales practices.
Additional Information
• Business travel required for this role - approximately 10 - 15%.
• This position requires working onsite five days a week.
