Cloud and AI Specialist

Overview

Microsoft has a longstanding commitment to global corporate philanthropy. Since 2016, we have donated more than $2.5 billion in cash grants, software, hardware, and cloud technology to hundreds of thousands of nonprofits and helped 90,000 moves to the cloud. In September 2017 we launched Tech for Social Impact (TSI) powered by a sustainable social model where profits are reinvested in expanding support for nonprofits. The TSI team is now part of Microsoft Elevate and dedicated to making world-class cloud technology accessible and affordable, so that nonprofits can have an even greater impact.

To scale our impact across the nonprofit community the company is investing in Microsoft Elevate Group. This organization will bring together our donation and grant programs, commercial sales efforts, and a partner ecosystem to empower nonprofits globally to address the world's most pressing needs. This will include leading the "Digital Transformation for Social Impact" go-to-market, working with nonprofits to maximize their social impact through the power of Microsoft platforms. Profits generated from this business will be reapplied to scale operations and to support cash donations to high impact social projects. Fueling all this new work and investment is the aim of empowering every nonprofit to create an inclusive and enduring positive impact throughout our communities.

We have an opening for a Cloud and AI Specialist . In this role you will have a deep understanding of customers' business and its priorities to drive conversations with customers on digital transformation across multiple solution areas, in collaboration with partners and services. You will collaborate with account teams, partners, or services to track, qualify, and expand new opportunities.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities

Sales Excellence

• Collaborates with partners and resources and leverages customer insights or industry knowledge; contributes to exploring business and emerging opportunities to optimize the portfolio and support customer innovation.

• Collaborates with extended sales team, partners, and marketing to conduct business analysis (e.g., whitespace analysis, identify industry trends) to pursue high-potential customers and develop a target list of potential business.

• Engages with internal and external stakeholders on business planning, rhythm-of-business (ROB) meetings to review and plan for accounts in the assigned territory.

• Manages the end-to-end business of the assigned territory; conducts forecasting for accounts and develops a portfolio and territory plan to drive intentional selling aligned with strategic priorities.

• Reviews feedback report and coaches others on ensuring customer/partner satisfaction and decreasing dissatisfaction by establishing recovery action plans to improve clients' overall experience; manages and/or orchestrates sales and delivery success through the account team and pursuit team.

Sales Execution

• Collaborates with team members to discover new opportunities; drives incremental revenue growth through personal campaigns (e.g., portfolio analysis) or internal sources (e.g., marketing, account teams); collaborates with account teams, partners, or services to track, qualify, and expand new opportunities; collaborates with other teams (e.g., account teams) and services to build pipeline; interfaces with customers and builds relationships via social selling; applies Microsoft's sales process (MSP) to determine the quality of the opportunity and whether to proceed.

• Engages in conversations with customers to introduce how other workloads could enable digital transformation areas that is aligned with the customer's industry and turns opportunities into deals; has a deep understanding of customers' business and its priorities to drive conversations with customers on digital transformation across multiple solution areas, in collaboration with partners and services; creates guiding examples of digital transformation through seminars, workshops, Webinars, and direct engagement.

• Identifies customer business needs and technology readiness; contributes to the development of solutions in collaboration with internal teams, partners, and services; proposes prioritized solutions that align with customers' needs; articulates the business value of proposed solutions.

• Proactively builds external stakeholders' mapping; collaborates with account teams (e.g., Account Executives) to identify and engage business subject matter decision makers at the customer's/partner's business.

• Identifies opportunities to drive consumption and grow business with existing customers by initiating conversations, providing demos or quotes, and collaborating with partners or internal teams (e.g., Technical Sales Professionals, global black belts [GBBs]); for licensing transactions and project engagements, ensures rapid and robust deployment plan at point of sale that is validated by services and partners; identifies, articulates, and facilitates the removal of blockers to consumption by partnering with internal and external stakeholders.

• Implements strategies to accelerate the closing of deals; contributes input on strategies to drive and close prioritized opportunities; coaches less experienced team members in deal plan execution; implements close plans (e.g., how to map timeline, engage the customer, get customer buy in and commitment) to de-risk and drive predictable deal closure.

Scaling and Collaboration

• Collaborates with One Commercial Partner (OCP) and with a network of partners to cross-sell, up-sell, and co-sell; identifies and supports on-boarding new partners by researching and discussing customer scenarios; provides feedback to OCP on partner gaps; develops joint proposals and consumption plans with partners; contributes to developing partner strategies to address gaps in partner capabilities.

• Applies the orchestration model to proactively drive deal closure by identifying and aligning internal stakeholders and leveraging and expanding relationships with partners.

Technical Expertise

• Collaborates with the "compete" global black belts (GBBs) to analyze competitor products, solutions, and/or services and implements strategies to position Microsoft against competitors in customer communication; proactively provides analysis of the landscape in supported solution area; evaluates opportunities and makes recommendations on pursuit or withdrawal.

Qualifications

Required/minimum qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, Information Security, Information Security, or related field AND 4+ years experience in technology-related sales or account management
  • OR equivalent experience.

Additional or preferred qualifications

• Master's Degree in Business Administration (i.e., MBA), Information Technology, Information Security, or related field AND 6+ years experience in technology-related sales or account management
  • OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, Information Security, or related field AND 8+ years experience in technology-related sales or account management
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 4+ years solution or services sales experience

#CELA

Solution Area Specialists IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $107,600 - $187,500 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $145,600 - $205,600 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:


This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.