Aftermarket and Service-Capital Economics — Finance Adviser

The mandate

The investment committee repeatedly faces the same unresolved choice: expand the service footprint, stock more critical spares, or preserve cash for new-product investment. Reported gross margin does not answer it because service availability, ageing equipment and customer downtime create uneven obligations. The adviser will challenge the economics of those choices without taking responsibility for day-to-day service delivery.

Four days each month are reserved for two evidence workshops, one investment review and preparatory analysis, with committee attendance included. Questions supported by a complete evidence pack receive an initial response within three business days. Bengaluru meetings alternate with remote sessions; a planned service-site observation may replace a workshop, not quietly expand the commitment.

The term runs from 19 October 2026 to 18 July 2027. The investment committee chair decides any renewal after reviewing whether challenged assumptions changed capital decisions and whether the internal team can maintain the method. An additional product line or territory requires an expressly repriced scope rather than being absorbed through indefinite requests.

This adviser holds no line authority and carries no executive responsibility. Procurement approvals, customer commitments, accounting estimates and budget execution stay with management. Recommendations will specify where the evidence is adequate, where sensitivity is material and where a technical expert must decide; influence is exercised through a traceable challenge note, not an informal instruction to operating staff.

Up to two non-competing advisory commitments may coexist if their timing does not impede the agreed cadence. A retainer for an equipment competitor, a service-network bidder or an investor examining the same acquisition must be disclosed and may preclude appointment. No commission-linked supplier introductions, deal origination or assurance opinion is included in this engagement.

What you will own

• Challenge service-footprint cases by separating customer downtime exposure, recoverable pricing and the actual cash locked into local inventory before comparing expansion routes.
• Test installed-base assumptions against equipment age, failure patterns and contract renewal behaviour, identifying which forecast claims need independent operational corroboration.
• Press investment sponsors to distinguish spare availability insurance from slow-moving stock accumulation, retaining a decision note for every disputed stocking hypothesis.
• Compare service expansion with new-product investment using comparable cash timing, downside recovery and opportunity-cost assumptions rather than unmatched accounting returns.
• Probe proposed dealer incentives for durable customer coverage, avoiding recommendations that disguise receivables financing or merely accelerate reported bookings without improved collections.
• Shape committee questions around warranty tail, obsolescence and technician capability, marking where finance evidence cannot substitute for engineering judgement or justify unsafe service assumptions.
• Review the internal investment method at expiry, recommending a reduced cadence only if sponsors can reproduce the challenged cases without adviser intervention.

Candidate qualifications

• Show a material industrial service or aftermarket investment decision personally influenced, including a capital request rejected or deferred. Explain the installed-base evidence used, the relevant cash sensitivities and the ultimate operating consequence. Pure corporate treasury exposure is insufficient unless it can be connected to product lifecycle and commercial service obligations.
• Demonstrate the ability to distinguish margin enhancement from cash improvement in service-led revenue. Supply a redacted case with inventory ageing, warranty behaviour, collection assumptions and customer coverage commitments reconciled. Evidence should reveal a judgement you changed when operational facts contradicted the investment narrative, rather than a polished presentation containing only the approved conclusion.
• Bring qualified finance understanding of capital budgeting, management accounting and risk allocation in product support. Explain how you worked with engineering and service leaders without pretending to own their technical assessments. A prior CFO, business-finance or equivalent investment role is relevant; lifecycle cash decisions and challenge of service-capital assumptions must be demonstrated through working evidence.
• Establish genuine advisory discipline: identify a conflict declined, an assumption challenged against executive preference and a recommendation not adopted. Candidates must remain useful without controlling implementation, observe confidentiality across concurrent work and keep committee time within an explicit allocation. Supplier commissions or success fees tied to the preferred investment route are incompatible with this brief.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 12 October 2026. Mandate reference PCT-ADV-2026-IND-21.