Pre-Sales Solutions Consultant at Hitachi Vantara

Overview

The Solution Consultant (SC) is a customer-focused technical sales professional who leads the Pre-Sales effort by creating opportunities and partnering with the Account Manager in building a customer centric sales value proposition. The SC provides high level technical information and design/implementation guidance to one or more customers in a dedicated manner. The SC coordinates additional resources (Technical Experts (TE), Demo labs, etc.) to recommend, develop and propose appropriate customer solution and services offerings.

The SC’s primary role is to a) establish a trust relationship with the account, b) develop a strong understanding of the customer’s issues and business, and c) formulate a strategy/solution that provides a positive impact to the customer’s business. The SC owns the technical customer relationship and manages the technical aspects of the opportunity. The SC must possess strong technical and interpersonal skills to lead technical discussions with the customer and account team, regarding the challenges in today’s market, industry trends, and the Hitachi Vantara vision.

It is through the SC’s broad knowledge base and understanding of the customer requirements that the SC applies advanced subject matter knowledge to complex business issues. The SC must translate these business needs into technical requirements, develop and present a technical vision, business case and physical solution specifically modelled for their customer. The SC must be able to manage multiple campaigns, while serving as the central point of technical contact for their customers, as well as, the Hitachi Vantara account team.

Job Responsibilities
Identify Opportunities

• Understand customer and industry drivers and resulting business requirements.
• Understand the major transformational factors for the customer’s industry.
• Partner with account manager to define the business account plan.
• Support opportunity prospecting by proactively generating leads through customer meetings, seminars and education.
• Gather intelligence on customer business issues and strategies in order to align Hitachi Vantara technology and solutions to address the customer’s requirements.
• Understand Hitachi Vantara offerings/solutions that align to customer priorities
• Often communicate and commit to internal technology and solutions roadmaps and NDAs, to help spur conversations around innovation.

Qualify Opportunities

• Conduct assessment of client business requirements and potential opportunities and create gap analysis and transition roadmap for products, solutions and services leveraging Hitachi Pre-Sales tools.
• Apply knowledge of customer business requirements to the creation of a Technical Account Plan and strategy, ensuring alignment with sales plan.
• Define customer business problem/opportunity in a technical context.
• Refine and research technical requirements of the opportunity.
• Understand ecosystem of solution providers and ISVs likely to positively influence customer decisions.
• Take the lead on moving deals through the sales process by knowing how and when to engage the appropriate Hitachi Vantara and partner resources, tools and programs (such as TEs, Services Team, demo labs, competitive resources, etc.) to help accelerate the sales process and reduce the time to technical close.
• Define solution options and articulate the benefits of a Hitachi Vantara solution.
• Understand customer consumption preferences when options exist.
• Lead research of potential competitive offerings for the proposed solution.

Develop and Present Solutions

• Orchestrate all technical resources engaging the right external resources, as well as Hitachi Vantara resources, with the right people at the right time
• Coordinate the personnel and resources of customers, alliances, internal resources and partnerships required to implement and advance the technical account plan
• Develop the technical response to RFx’s or the technical elements or approach for the proposal, including products, solutions, software and services
• Leverage external resources as needed for RFx’s, competitive material, etc. (E.g. TE, Deal Operations etc.)
• Research and demonstrate solution business benefits, including ROI, and articulate findings to customer
• Coordinate solution development, including services, leveraging pre-tested solutions/designs and researching customized solutions.
• Identify and engage appropriate Post-Sales support resources
• Lead and develop Proof of Concept (PoC), leveraging resources such as Global Center of Excellence.
• Effectively highlight Hitachi Vantara technological advantages and disadvantages from the customer’s perspective.
• Coordinate with account team in developing customer presentation materials.
• Lead presentation of Hitachi Vantara solutions to customer, including white-boarding and presentation of technical material. Leverage additional resources as needed. (TE, Industry CTO, Enterprise Architect (EA), etc.)
• Sync with post-sales team and provide adequate documentation for clear handoff to post-sales organization.
• Ensure minimal/no post-sales time by educating the customer on how to use Post-Sales resources (Customer Service & Support (CS&S), Global Support Center (GSC), Global Solution Services (GSS)).
• If appropriate, document solutions and share findings with relevant teams, including the Pre-Sales community and/or Product Marketing/Engineering.

Build and Nurture Relationships with Key Clients and Internal Resources

• Network effectively and build trust and confidence.
• Act in an increasingly consultative fashion and establish yourself as a trusted technical advisor to the customer.
• Establish a strong understanding of client’s organization and business.
• Adapt style to engage across a broad network for results driven collaboration inside and outside of the organization.
• Provide mentoring and guidance to customer peers and to lower level employees within Hitachi Vantara.

Personal and Organizational Development

• Establish foundational/advanced knowledge of products and solutions that are typically positioned through specialty groups (e.g. Data Management/Protection, Data Intelligence, Virtualization and Applications) – rely on TE team for complex design support.
• Establish near expert knowledge of a technology/solution to be the “go to” person for the local Pre-Sales team.
• Establish foundational/advanced knowledge of major competitive product features and configurations.
• Exercise significant independent judgment within broadly defined policies and practices to determine best method for accomplishing work and achieving objectives.
• Actively develop technical, professional and sales skills.
• Explore internal and external certifications that increases value and impact to the SC role.

Primary Qualifications

• Extremely strong relationship skills and executive-level presence.
• Strong leadership, communication, and technical skills.
• Persuasive presentation and public speaking skills. Must be able to command an audience while articulating a meaningful message.
• Self-motivated, self-starter and results oriented.
• Able to work in unstructured environments and situations and prioritize effectively with minimal supervision.
• Exercises significant independent judgment within broadly defined policies and practices to determine best method for accomplishing work and achieving objectives.
• Requires 7 - 10 years related experience.
• Post graduate course work may be desired.