The Account Team Unit Sales Manager

Microsoft is leading a high-growth, AI-powered global sales team focused on Small Medium Enterprises and Channel (SME&C). The Account Team Unit Sales Manager is responsible for building and mentoring a high-functioning sales team to drive digital transformations for Corporate accounts, engaging with customers to address their business priorities and leveraging Microsoft solutions.

Responsibilities:

• People Management
• Respected leader with the ability to attract, retain, and develop resources in the field. Inspire and foster a culture of customer-centricity and consumption, adoption and use through collaboration with peers and extended teams
• Managers deliver success through empowerment and accountability by modeling, coaching, and caring
• Model - Live our culture; Embody our values; Practice our leadership principles
• Coach - Define team objectives and outcomes; Enable success across boundaries; Help the team adapt and learn
• Care - Attract and build vibrant culture. Know each individual’s capabilities and aspirations; Invest in the growth of others
• Driving Business Growth by Customer and Partner Obsession
• Actively maintains and leverages a comprehensive understanding of their customers' business needs, strategies, and priorities within the portfolio and coach teams to anticipate their customers' needs and to educate customers on positioning Microsoft products and services to increase customer budget
• Ensures high standards across teams for customer relationships. Serves as escalation point for customer issues. Shares best practices across teams. Acts as executive sponsor for accounts. Is trusted advisor for customers and partners. Helps customers to digitally transform. Coach teams to identify contacts in new accounts, building customer engagement and digitally transform their businesses. Advocates for customers (voice of the customer) within the organization/Microsoft. Ensure customer insights are gathered and feedback loop to stakeholder groups is followed
• Ensures that team conducts due diligence to understand customers' priorities and strategies, and plans programs appropriately. Coordinates with colleagues across teams to support programs and processes. Ensure teams use digital tools and technology to conduct research and engage customers
• Builds partner relationships to drive scale and revenue. Coaches and influences partners to consider different solution needs
• Engages with C-Suite executives. Coaches teams on how to leverage broader Microsoft organization to better understand customers. Drives active listening and a challenger mindset with teams. Understands market conditions (e.g., within a country, within a vertical, laws, political environment) to inform customer engagements. Manages relationships inclusive of customers, partners, and internal and external stakeholders. Coaches sellers on opportunity reviews to understand stakeholder management impact (e.g., influence, budget)
• Sets standards for customer satisfaction metrics (e.g., timeliness and quality of contact). Incorporates feedback from internal teams and from customers into future engagements. Identifies key trends causing customer dissatisfaction and works systematic efforts to resolve (e.g., process improvements). Sets culture of customer obsession to ensure teams liaise with Customer Experience (CX) to generate outcomes. Takes ownership for issues and reaches out to customers to reinforce engagement. Celebrates success with teams. Shares learnings and simplification ideas from customer issues with broader team to mitigate existing issues. Engages with internal teams to resolve customer issues and drive accountability
• Empowers teams to define strategies, objectives, and a rhythm of business for territory and account planning across the customer set, clearly articulating standards and priorities
• Actively maintains strong relationships with key partners towards common objectives and priorities to anticipate customers’ needs. Leads and coaches team to engage with partners to be able to scale our platform solution to our Corporate customers
• Business Excellence
• Defines expectations and goals to guide the development strategies to manage pipeline and meet sales goals by reviewing forecasts, assessing and mitigating risks, and ensuring strategy alignment with business priorities
• Leads teams in prioritizing and managing renewal process, including creatively addresses renewal options with internal partners and customers to maximize business outcomes and likelihood of renewal. Understands risks and opportunities for growth. Represents full business picture to management. Drives team to deliver on growth targets and on-time renewals. Leads rhythm of the business with licensing solution provider partners to drive accountability. Verify the T- process is followed and address identified process gaps. Coaches managers and teams to ensure that activities are in place to drive consumption leading up to the renewal process. Drives customers to cloud solutions
• Coordinates resources across teams to execute territory plans. Leads teams on territory management best practices and techniques. Validates plans, drives accountability, and coaches teams to achieve or exceed plans. Drives strategic partner participation. Holds partners accountable to contribute to territory plan. Coaches on how to plan for both scale and depth, as appropriate (i.e., account approach for top accounts; territory approach for remaining accounts). Ensures future-focused orientation for pipeline coverage
• Seeks new scenarios where orchestration and collaboration would be needed; triaging gaps. Understands where new relationships may be needed, either internal or external to Microsoft. Ensures clarity of roles and responsibilities and held accountable accordingly. Drives clarity on co-selling with partners with whom the team works. Ensures voice of team is heard so right partners are available. Coaches managers and teams on available resources within the organization and how best to leverage them
• Helps teams think more strategically about opportunities. Ensures team has had AI and cloud conversations and aligns deal execution accordingly. Conducts win-loss reviews with team to identify opportunities for future improvement. For complex deals, engages resources appropriately and proactively. Demonstrates heightened deal making and licensing capabilities. Conducts reviews to remove blockers and assist teams in leveraging resources. Ensures teams are abiding by compliance requirements
• Defines expectations and goals to guide the development strategies to manage pipeline and meet sales goals by reviewing forecasts, assessing and mitigating risks, and ensuring strategy alignment with business priorities
• Drives engagements with key internal partners, business, and technical decision makers to develop long-range, comprehensive, tailored business strategies that meet Microsoft's and customers' needs
• People and Cultural Transformational Leader
• Positions oneself as a thought leader and trusted advisor to executive-level business decision makers across their business areas
• Directs and facilitates the development and delivery of compelling, value-proposition presentations (e.g., with the use of business cases) and specialized business plans for clients that accelerate the closing of deals, facilitates connections between customers and broader Microsoft solutions, and consistently drives business outcomes
• Directs and executes talent acquisition, recruiting, succession planning, and change management. Provides guidance to team on how to have hard conversations, navigate employment law, support diversity and inclusion initiatives, and how to motivate/coach someone's behavioral changes

Requirements:

• Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, Information Technology, Marketing (or equivalent) or related field AND 6+ years sales and negotiation experience or related work experience OR 8+ years sales and negotiation experience OR equivalent experience
• 2+ years people management experience
• Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, Information Technology, Marketing (or equivalent) or related field AND 12+ years sales and negotiation experience or related work experience OR 14+ years software industry sales and negotiation experience OR equivalent experience
• 3+ years people management and/or informal/indirect team leadership experience