Data Center Senior Channel Sales Manager at Lenovo

Job description

Position Description

Are you a Sales Leader? Lenovo is looking for a passionate, articulate, and enthusiastic Channel Senior Sales Manager to manage a team of Channel Sales professionals located across Southern Africa.. This is a true leader role, with a good balance of prospecting and relationship management. The chosen Data center Channel Senior Sales Manager will work in an entrepreneurial start-up environment and perform activities as outlined below:

• People management responsibilities, both with direct reporting lines as well as indirect, including KPI/objective setting, coaching, performance feedback & assessment
• In addition to people management responsibilities, will have responsibility for their department’s resources, short-term planning, and budget.
• Work closely with and align to broader PCSD Channel team engagements and strategy, supported by Hybrid roles and responsibilities to support broader channel organisation
• Establishes productive, professional relationships with key personnel in assigned partner accounts.
• Coordinates the involvement of company personnel, including support, service, and management resources, in order to meet partner performance objectives and partners’ expectations.
• Meets assigned targets for profitable sales volume and strategic objectives in assigned partner accounts.
• Proactively leads a joint partner planning process that develops mutual performance objectives, financial targets, and critical milestones associated with a productive partner relationship.
• Proactively assesses, clarifies, and validates partner needs on an ongoing basis and aligns to internal and external source points including Alliances/ISVs/Internal resources etc.
• Sells through partner organizations to end users in coordination with partner sales resources.
• Manages potential channel conflict with other firm sales channels by fostering excellent communication internally and externally, and through strict adherence to channel rules of engagement.
• Leads solution development efforts that best address end-user needs, while coordinating the involvement of all necessary company and partner personnel based on best fit.
• Ensures partner compliance with partner agreements and programmes.
• Clearly articulates and drives adoption of company programs among DCG partners.
• Proactively recruits new qualifying partners.
• Conduct deep analysis in identifying complex problems; generate and coordinate solutions with other functions or team members to solve complex problems
• Provide feedback to company management on market trends, competitive threats, unmet needs, and opportunities to deliver greater value to customers by extending company offerings
• Build and support training programmes/skill enablement in order to develop and ensure local skills and capabilities within the channel landscape to support the DCG business – working closely with local and international enablement teams to land both certification requirements as well as broader business enablement requirements.
• Enlists the support of sales specialists, implementation resources, service resources, and other sales and management resources as needed to drive and close channel lead opportunities.
• Closely coordinates company executive involvement with partner and end-user customer management as appropriate.
• Works closely with Customer Service Representatives to ensure customer satisfaction and problem resolution.

Qualifications, Skills & Experiences

Position Requirements

• Minimum of 12 years of sales experience with 5 years in management
• Minimum of 5 years channel management experience across a diverse landscape of direct and indirect relationships
• Proven track record of success selling in a highly competitive environment (demonstrated by history of meeting and exceeding quotas)
• Minimum five (5) years sales experience in the Enterprise Data Center market with a proven track record of success.
• Proven ability to sell Data Center solutions consisting of servers, storage, and networking devices including the supporting management software and services.
• Deep understanding of the core technologies, industry trends, and workloads shaping the Enterprise Data Center market including Cloud, Converged Systems, and Analytics.
• Proficient with MS Office and sales CRM solutions (Salesforce.com).
• Excellent verbal and written communication and sales skills.
• Experience managing in a matrix environment
• Leadership capabilities and presence that enables you to work effectively at all levels within an organization
• Ability to create and implement successful sales plans
• Experience selling TCO and ROI business models to executives
• Ability to mentor and motivate sales representatives and team members who work remotely and or do not report to you directly

Behaviors & Work Attitude

• Entrepreneurial Mind-set with self-starting capability - Can do attitude
• Desire and ability to provide an outstanding customer experience and go the extra mile in everything you do
• Problem solver and decision-maker
• Prioritize customer focus, able to work under pressure
• Able to align people and influence decision making, effectively working in a matrix
• Collaborative working style and high commitment to get the job done
• Persuasive with expertise and facts - Ability to challenge and debate critical issues
• Demonstrates integrity in all business interactions and honours personal commitments
• Demonstrated commitment to high professional ethical standards and a diverse workplace
• Able to present information in a concise way
• High comfort-level working in a global, diverse environment
• Be proactive + quick; bold + innovative in all you do