Solution Area Specialist at Microsoft Nigeria

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington. It develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers.

At Microsoft our mission and values are to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Solution Area Specialist

Job number: 1417178
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Profession: Sales
Travel: 25-50 %
Employment type: Full-Time
Role type: Individual Contributor
Work site: Up to 50% work from home

Description

• As the Security Sales Specialist, you are considered as a subject matter expert with deep technical expertise within our enterprise sales organization. You will be expected to exceed sales quota by creating and implementing strategic account plans targeting enterprise-wide deployments. You develop trusted relationships at an executive level and build credibility across all levels of the customer’s organization through a concrete understanding of our products and areas that can be resolved by our solutions.
• You feel empowered by our product offerings – and love a technical challenge.

Responsibilities
Sales Execution:

• Engages in conversations with customers aligned to their industry to introduce how other workloads could enable digital transformation areas that is aligned with the customer’s industry and turns opportunities into deals. Initiates conversations with customers on digital transformation in one or more solution areas, in collaboration with partners and services. Creates guiding examples of digital transformation through seminars, workshops, webinars, and direct engagement.
• 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). Collaborates with account teams, partners, or services to track and qualify 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.
• 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). For licensing transactions and project engagements, ensures rapid and robust deployment plan at point of sale that is validated by services and partners.
• 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 senior business subject matter decision makers at the customer’s/partner’s business.
• Implements strategies to accelerate the closing of deals. Contributes input on strategies to drive and close prioritized opportunities. Coaches junior 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 and up-sell. Identifies new partners by researching and discussing with partners on customer scenarios. Develops joint proposal with partners. Contributes to developing partner strategies to address gaps in partner capabilities.
• Applies the orchestration model to leverage and expand relationships with internal stakeholders and partners (e.g., Enterprise Operating Unit). Navigates the MSFT organization to bring the best impact to the customer.

Technical Expertise:

• Leads conversations and sets up events within Microsoft. Mentors others and develops strategies for best practice sharing across subsidiaries. Contributes ideas that can be instituted across Microsoft.
• Initiates conversations with prospective customers/partners at events to expand external network. Acts as a subject matter expert in one or more solution area(s).
• Collaborates with the ‘compete’ global black belts (GBB) to analyze competitor products, solutions, and/or services and implements strategies to position Microsoft against competitors in customer communication. Proactively provides analysis of the competitive landscape in supported solution area. Evaluates opportunities and makes recommendations on pursuit or withdrawal. Holistic value of MSFT platform versus single-point solution that positions MSFT favorably against competitors.

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.
• 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.
• Engages with internal and external stakeholders on business planning, Rhythm of Business (ROB) meetings to review and plan for accounts in the assigned territory.
• 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.
• 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.
• Completes required training and obtains relevant product and role certifications aligned to the role and workload/industry.

Qualifications
Required/Minimum Qualifications:

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

Additional or Preferred Qualifications:

• 7+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience.
• OR Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology, or related field AND 6+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience
• OR Master’s Degree in Business Administration (i.e., MBA), Information Technology, or related field AND 3+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience.
• 4+ years of solution or services sales experience.

Benefits and Perks
Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work:

• Industry leading healthcare
• Savings and investments
• Giving programs
• Educational resources
• Maternity and paternity leave
• Opportunities to network and connect
• Discounts on products and services
• Generous time away

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Note: Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.