Business Development Manager Advanced Services

Purpose and Mission

Bekaert is a leading provider of advanced steel wire solutions, serving a diverse range of industries worldwide. With a rich history spanning over a century, we pride ourselves on innovation, quality, and customer satisfaction. As we continue to expand our offerings, we are seeking a dynamic and results-driven individual to join our team as a Business Development Manager to grow and professionalize our rope services business.
This role is pivotal in transforming rope services—from reactive, often free technical support—into a value-driven, profitable, and scalable service offering.

You will focus on selling inspection, monitoring, installation, lifetime management and digital rope services to customers operating in safety-critical environments.

Key Activities and Responsibilities

Key responsibilities

Business development & sales

• Lead the transformation of our business from a product-centric model to a service-oriented one, driving the development and implementation of a comprehensive service strategy across key industries (offshore, mining, ports, renewables)
• Grow stand-alone service revenue
• Convert pilots, inspections and one-off jobs into long-term service contracts
• Identify and develop new service opportunities within existing key accounts

Customer & market engagement

• Act as a trusted advisor to customers on rope safety, lifetime management and asset integrity
• Engage with maintenance, engineering, HSE and operations stakeholders
• Translate technical and safety challenges into value-based service proposals
• Position services around risk reduction, uptime, compliance and total cost of ownership

Internal alignment

• Work closely with product sales teams to ensure clear commercial boundaries between free support and paid services
• Support and educate sales teams on when and how to sell services
• Collaborate with service operations, inspectors and digital teams to shape scalable offerings
• Provide market feedback to support service portfolio development

Governance & performance

• Build and manage a robust sales pipeline
• Develop account plans for key customers
• Contribute to budgeting, forecasting and pricing strategies
• Track KPIs related to service growth, contract penetration and profitability

Profile

Experience

• 8–15 years of professional experience
• Minimum 3–5 years in business development or service sales
• Background in one or more of the following:
• Lifting equipment, cranes, rigging or hoisting
• Steel wire ropes, chains, slings
• Inspection, NDT, asset integrity or certification services
• Offshore, oil & gas, ports, mining or renewables

Skills & competencies

• Comfortable operating in complex, multi-stakeholder environments
• Structured and disciplined approach to pipeline and account management
• Strong communication and influencing skillsConfident and assertive, without being aggressive

• Able to challenge customers and internal stakeholders constructively
• Entrepreneurial, hands-on and results-driven
• Patient and resilient in long sales cycles
• Team player with a strong sense of ownership