Assistant Manager, Regional Planning

Key Accountabilities 

1. Regional Strategy Planning and Business Direction

• Support the development of regional strategies for the Applied Solutions business across ASEAN and Oceania.

• Develop and review mid-term and long-term business plans by country, affiliate, and business unit.

• Analyze each country’s business structure, growth potential, solution business mix, market position, and strategic priorities.

• Support regional management in defining business direction, priority markets, growth sectors, and required organizational capabilities.

• Translate regional business direction into clear action plans with defined ownership, timelines, and follow-up processes.

• Ensure alignment among regional strategies, affiliate business plans, and specialist team activities.

2. Affiliate Business Planning and Budget Support

• Guide and support affiliates in preparing annual budgets, mid-term plans, and strategic business plans for the Applied Solutions business.

• Review affiliate plans and identify gaps in relation to regional growth targets, profitability expectations, and solution business expansion objectives.

• Consolidate and analyze budget assumptions, sales opportunities, order backlog, profitability, workforce plans, and other key business indicators.

• Provide constructive advice and support to affiliates to improve the quality and effectiveness of their business plans.

• Coordinate with regional management and relevant specialist teams to ensure that affiliate plans are realistic, executable, and aligned with regional priorities.

3. Business Performance Management and Follow-Up

• Monitor affiliate performance against budgets, forecasts, key performance indicators, and agreed action plans.

• Track sales, profitability, sales opportunities, order backlog, business mix, and other key performance indicators by country and affiliate.

• Identify early signs of performance gaps, business risks, and execution challenges.

• Conduct regular follow-up discussions with affiliates to understand the root causes of business performance issues.

• Prepare business review materials, management reports, and strategic discussion papers for regional management.

• Support management decision-making by providing clear analysis, insights, and practical recommendations.

4. Affiliate Issue Identification and Support Planning

• Work closely with affiliates to understand their business challenges, organizational constraints, and capability gaps.

• Identify affiliate-level issues in areas including:

• Sales capability

• Service capability

• Engineering and solution delivery capability

• Workforce planning and organizational structure

• Training and development needs

• Marketing and promotional activities

• Sales channel development

• Sales opportunity and project management

• Customer and market development

• Develop practical support measures in collaboration with affiliates, regional management, and specialist teams.

• Coordinate support from specialist teams in areas such as equipment, service, controls, engineering, training, marketing, digital transformation, and strategic market development.

• Monitor and follow up on the implementation of agreed improvement actions.

5. Cross-Functional Coordination for New and Existing Businesses

• Maintain regular dialogue with affiliates to understand business progress, emerging risks, and support requirements beyond periodic reporting.

• Coordinate communication among affiliates, regional management, specialist teams, and relevant corporate functions.

• Clarify issues, ownership, and responsibilities among the regional headquarters, affiliates, and specialist teams.

• Promote the sharing of best practices across countries.

• Support affiliates in strengthening their ability to manage their businesses independently and effectively.

6. Strategic Analysis and Business Transformation Support

• Conduct market, competitor, customer, and industry analyses to support regional strategy development.

• Analyze current-state and future-state gaps by country and identify structural actions required to support sustainable business growth.

• Support studies relating to business model transformation, service business expansion, solution business development, external partnerships, and other potential growth opportunities.

• Support improvements to business unit-based management, reporting structures, and performance visibility.

• Contribute to the development of regional planning tools, dashboards, and reporting processes to improve business transparency and accelerate management decision-making.

7. Management Reporting and Governance

• Prepare regional management reports, strategic review materials, and clear presentation storylines.

• Consolidate inputs from affiliates and internal stakeholders into clear, concise, and actionable management materials.

• Ensure timely follow-up on management decisions, meeting action items, and affiliate commitments.

• Support the governance of regional planning processes, including budget reviews, performance reviews, action plan reviews, and strategic progress reviews.

• Perform other related duties as assigned by the reporting manager or regional management.

Pre-requisites 

Required Qualifications and Skills

• A degree in Engineering, Business Administration, Economics, Finance, Data Analytics, or another relevant discipline.

• Relevant experience in regional planning, strategic planning, business management, sales planning, or business development.

• Strong business analysis skills, including the ability to analyze sales, profitability, forecasts, order backlog, sales opportunities, key performance indicators, and market conditions.

• Ability to understand affiliate business challenges and translate them into practical and executable support actions.

• Strong strategic thinking and the ability to analyze business structures, organizational capability gaps, and mid-term to long-term growth requirements.

• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to work effectively across countries, affiliates, management teams, and functional departments.

• Ability to provide constructive guidance, advice, and support to affiliates.

• Strong presentation, management reporting, and business storytelling skills.

• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and business reporting tools.

• Experience with dashboards, databases, digital planning tools, or business intelligence tools would be an advantage.

• A proactive and accountable approach, with the ability to work independently in a regional and multicultural environment.

• Effective written and verbal communication skills in English.

Preferred Experience

• Experience in air conditioning, applied solutions, building solutions, service businesses, controls, engineering solutions, or business-to-business solution services would be an advantage.

• Experience working with regional affiliates or cross-functional teams across multiple countries would be an advantage.

Key Working Relationships

Internal Stakeholders

• Regional management, Country affiliates, Specialist teams, Sales planning, Service, Controls, Engineering, Marketing, Training and development, Digital transformation, Finance, Human resources

External Stakeholders

• Customers, Business partners, Other relevant external stakeholders, as required