Collaboration and Partner Management

Leverages their understanding of and relationships with Business Strategy Leads (BSLs), Business Development Managers (BDMs) and Partner Development Managers (PDMs) to plan, orchestrate and execute customer opportunities, and inform house of industry. Drives engagements with Industry Solutions Delivery (ISD), FDE and partners (e.g., solution architect, solutions-sales professionals, cloud-solution architects) and external stakeholders to design and illustrate envisioned solutions (e.g., pilots, proof of concept, rapid prototyping, minimum viable product). Collaborates with the account team unit (ATU) and partners to drive GTM strategy and drive together customer opportunities. Collaborates with commercial and legal teams to establish formal partnership. Collaborates with partner teams (e.g., Global Partner Solutions [GPS]) to carry out competitive recruiting of new partners and helps current partners to understand the industry and develop/deliver truth for the solutions within that industry. Drives team efforts to identify and engage partners for targeted solutions and articulates the case for developing solutions on top of the Microsoft cloud.

Industry Expertise

Completes the required training and seeks additional learning opportunities to obtain relevant industry expertise and certifications pertinent to the role and the industry itself. Proactively builds and maintains knowledge of Microsoft's and other industry-relevant solutions and other capabilities. Proactively builds strong knowledge of the industry, including trends, policy implications (e.g., privacy), and competitors to act as a subject matter expert and inform decisions on pursuit or withdrawal. Leads communication to provide feedback across the ecosystem (i.e., cross-pollinating information across teams/industries) to other teams (e.g., sales, marketing, engineering) on future product trends or sales blockers and to guide industry solutions team members in a wide variety of specialties, leveraging deep industry knowledge to articulate nuances and anticipate gaps. Advises and presents at industry communities. Provides recommendations on accounts and establishes a learning baseline for less experienced colleagues. Proactively seeks out additional training to build on career competencies, including information that adds to the understanding of customers' businesses, and shares it with team members.

Planning and Engagement

Leads multi-horizon planning to outline an approach for industry-oriented solution selling with the customer. Creates segment-focused three-horizon roadmaps for impactful accounts based on business and technology priorities, as well as deep understanding of their industry. Identifies appropriate resources to execute on digital transformation plan to support mid- to long-term customer plans. Drives internal and customer envisioning and articulates business and program changes in the roadmaps around new and groundbreaking capabilities. Proactively continues to build and maintain mutually influential relationships with external senior- and executive-level decision makers and partners, leveraging targeted stakeholders at assigned customer. Builds an understanding of who the most influential decision makers are in potential and existing customer accounts to engage with them and develop a relationship, understand their motivations, and open up new opportunities. Defines an engagement strategy for identifying customer stakeholders (e.g., executives) with the most influence. Ensures effective procurement relationship with stakeholders to understand buying habits of customer. Supports broad and specialist teams in determining who to contact and connect with (e.g., detailing that a logistics challenge in the retail space starts with merchandising). Supports definition of holistic strategy for account and individual stakeholder. Engages in regular and continuous communication to act as an industry advisor to the executive-level business decision makers at the customer's business by applying deep understanding of their business strategy, market dynamics, relevant technology trends and Microsoft’s Industry point of view (POV). Orchestrates V-team in executing plays that support relationship building. Navigates complex corporate and/or political environments specific to the customer's industry to drive business value-case creation. Serves as the industry subject matter expert in digital transformation account planning. Engages with internal and external stakeholders on account planning and partner business planning (e.g., Key Business Leaders (KBLs), Global Systems Integrator [GSI], Independent Software Vendors [ISV]) and reviews industry plans, lending credibility from an industry perspective. Brings a multi-year strategic perspective to digital transformation account planning by identifying where the industry is, where the account is, and what Microsoft has to offer that is new. Provides thought leadership via focus on broad global industry trends (e.g., emerging customer needs and competition) to activate and evangelize worldwide industry strategies and/or large ecosystem plays into local market and/or must-win accounts. Drives stakeholder mapping to identify the most influential stakeholders and decision makers in the customer business. Partners locally with ISVs to inform industry knowledge. Participates in small-scale iterative planning rhythms with core account team and other team members to discuss operational elements (e.g., tactics, execution, roles, and orchestration) needed to deliver on the account plan. Ensures alignment with account roadmaps by determining how to drive growth/reduce cost and help direct the account team to what business decision makers (BDMs) pair. Increases the speed of adoption of Microsoft technologies by plotting the strategic, long-term vision of the customer's/partner's business strategy and driving appropriate actions to bring it to fruition.

Sales Execution

Identifies needs and industry readiness of customers and influences stakeholders. Leverages internal resources (e.g., account team unit [ATU], partners) to land value propositions for solutions with customers and solution plays in a repeatable manner. Leads work to open customer opportunities based on industry objectives, best practices, and new stakeholder relationships. Identifies and advances high-impact, high potential repeatable use cases and scenarios for reuse across customers. Envisions product scenarios that do not currently exist to identify and open white spaces. Leverages industry expertise to help craft and modify prioritized services and solutions that align with customers' needs and innovation-centered initiatives with an industry narrative. Makes and proposes solutions to customers and competitors in the industry. Identifies corporate priorities and map (in a chain) of enabling capabilities from KPIs to the lowest level. Recognized as a trusted advisor by the customer to shape, lead, and challenge strategic decision makers to take action and implement the proposed solutions using a compelling storyline and a