Practice Development Professional at Microsoft

Job description

Purpose

IDC predicts that the worldwide public IT Cloud services revenue will reach $141B USD by 2019 reflecting a 15% CAGR which is circa 6 x the overall rate of IT spending growth. Microsoft must recruit, develop and scale through a commercially competent and technically excellent ecosystem of entities that encompass existing and new partner types. The role of the Azure PDP role is to own Partners and their workload development from Partner recruitment to consumption, this includes include the re recruitment and development of second/third workloads. The Azure PDP will be practice aligned and each Azure PDP is expected to own a portfolio of a maximum of 16 Partners. The Azure PDP role will be supported by deeply technical, workload aligned CSA-P roles and they will jointly focus on commercial and technical milestones.

Key responsibilities

• The PDP must be the most informed person about the health and activity in the subsidiary/area for the workload specialization they own – this will be achieved through:-
• CX level engagement and management of a portfolio of new and existing partners (max 16 Partners per Azure PDP) to understand the focus and business imperative of each partner and how/why they will perform to the highest level in any given practice.
• L200 technical understanding for the practice on which the PDP is focused
• Partner Portfolio to include competitively recruited, new world partner entities as well as partner re-recruited to develop second, third practices – this necessitates each Azure PDP having L200 knowledge of the practice to which they aligned workload and broad knowledge of all workloads and to drive the proactive engagement of additional resources.
• Build and maintain a jointly agreed business plan with each partner with milestones to commercial attainment and technical competence . (Technical milestones in conjunction with a CSA-P)
• Commercial advisor and mentor to each partner on how to build and structure a profitable Azure practice to include positively differentiating their brand and services in their market – consumption economics.
• Azure Practice development through critically evaluating a partners business and proactively shaping their focus to developing IP, repeatable IT services, P2P.
• Drive subsidiary/district visibility/ awareness locally of the managed Partners workload capabilities as measured by Partner pipeline, Partner attach, Partner driving demand via initiatives such as Azure Everywhere.
• Responsible use of FY17 Partner ‘build with ’ investment $ with reported ROI – e.g. P Seller, Azure everywhere
• Advocating the most appropriate licensing model through which the Partner should buy/influence the purchase of Azure. Positioning CSP as the platform on which to build repeatable business as well as consumption of Azure when bought under a customer EA.
• Engage PSE resources to drive ‘Partner Sell with’ activities and report monthly on $$ pipeline and wins – monthly ROB .
• Experiences Required: Key Experiences, Skills and Knowledge
• Demonstrable understanding and proven experience in applying the principle of partner profitability to Customer lifetime value.
• Five years plus selling experience in cloud/cloud related solutions to include driving partners understanding of the the commercial imperatives of building a profitable and scalable Azure practice. Including the principles and paths open to a partner around building and monetizing IP and IP Services, technologies, business drivers and emerging Azure opportunities.
• Proven track record of driving decisions at Partner CX level
• L200 Azure knowledge for their focus practice.
• Proven understanding of issues such as cloud governance , deployment, management, security
• Track record of exceeding quota directly and/or through partners through development and maintenance of a healthy sales pipeline aligned to a jointly agreed business plan.
• Proven experience in the following key areas: needs analysis and envisioning , in-depth knowledge of competitors, understanding of the Partners business, sales and marketing efforts.
• Working effectively with all levels with Partners in your portfolio to understand and help solve their business problems – Partner obsessed CPE focus.
• Proactive commercial/sales model education and knowledge transfer to the Partner and their channel.
• Becoming the “go to” person the Partner seeks out to discuss the commercial health and growth of their Azure practices.
• Openly courted by Partner senior management/leadership to discuss new business ideas/opportunities.
• Acting as a mentor to the Partner and the Partner’s sellers.

Education

• Bachelor’ degree required, preferably in Business Administration or Computer Science
• MBA optional