SMB Management within Africa Regional Cluster

• Develops and manages small and medium business (SMB) business plans, key plays, and program offerings across markets in alignment with One Microsoft culture to achieve joint outcomes, align resources, manage investments, and define roles and responsibilities for teams of cross-functional stakeholders. Works with virtual team stakeholders to identify needs for additional capacity or capabilities across local markets, leads efforts to build upon and obtain required investments, and/or identifies partners to achieve revenue, consumption, customer acquisition, and business transformation targets.
• Manages SMB segment growth and defines strategies for the expansion of cloud-based solutions offerings across local markets. Shares thought leadership and best practices related to digital transformation internally and externally.
• Leads the evaluation of small and medium business (SMB) customer base across markets with virtual team stakeholders to understand growth opportunities in their local markets, which customers are likely to invest in modernizing their business, which go-to-market offerings to prioritize, and to ensure partner recapture of expiring legacy end-customers to move their business to the cloud.
• Defines long-term strategies for securing new customers, identifying optimal solutions, and driving cloud solution provider (CSP) expansion across local SMB market. Challenges external channel partners and internal stakeholders to accelerate digital transformation in a collaborative manner to secure new cloud customers, and shares insights and best practices for driving cloud customer acquisition and growth via up-sell/cross-sell.
• Where appropriate, supports realization of deals that are complex, represent significant market share, and/or penetrate competitor’s market share by working directly with and through local partners, and balancing these engagements with the management of a small and medium business (SMB) segment. May engage with Territory Channel Managers (TCMs) together with channel partners to share insights about competitors in local markets and collect feedback on capabilities to close on deals and acquire new customers.
• Shares insights from analyses of projected versus actual return on investment (ROI) for multiple customer and/or partner programs within local markets with internal teams (e.g., Marketing, One Commercial Partner) to influence decision making related to programs’ investment budgets and advocate for additional investments as needed to capitalize on high-potential opportunities and execute on strategies.
• Evaluates customer and/or partner program performance across local markets to predict likelihood of sustained or increased returns. Applies insights to influence investment decisions and optimize returns, identifies improvements to scale customer and/or partner programs across markets, and implements corrective action as needed to overcome obstacles. Leads a rhythm of business to share this information and relevant insights with internal and external stakeholders.
• Engages with and influences internal and/or external stakeholders to gain buy in and alignment on strategies and plan execution needs. Attends meetings with partners, distributors, and business leaders to discuss plans, progress, and next steps to drive revenue and performance across channels, markets, and/or solution areas. Defines new engagement models and shares best practices and expectations for utilizing engagement models to maintain alignment and positive rapport across stakeholders.
• Proactively engages and supports cross-functional stakeholders’ and leadership teams’ needs across internal sales and marketing organizations to ensure small and medium business (SMB) segments and Solution Areas are represented in senior-level business discussions and planning.
• Works with internal stakeholders to ensure continuity in the execution of customer and/or partner programs, and maintains an awareness of customer satisfaction and upcoming changes in business practices that may impact customer-partner engagement. Serves as a point of contact for escalation of customer or partner issues, monitors local market feedback on Microsoft, and makes changes to customer and partner programs and engagements as needed to improve satisfaction in doing business with Microsoft.

Responsibilities

Sales Leadership, Planning, and Collaboration

• Accountable for delivering on revenue quotas as the business owner for one or more Solution Areas by recommending the ideal mix of go-to-market (GTM) approaches to drive growth, defining sales engine targets, developing small and medium business (SMB) strategies that span multiple segments, managing sales engine and partner performance, and influencing investment decisions for SMB programs. Orchestrates the execution of SMB growth plans with a team of cross-functional stakeholders and identifies local growth opportunities building the market around them to generate revenue. May directly support closing strategically valuable deals.
• Leads fiscal year business planning for small and medium business (SMB) for one or more Solution Areas, defining key details of SMB execution plans, ensuring key stakeholders are aligned to execution plans, and determining the resources and investments needed to support execution plans that lead to revenue growth across markets and customer programs. Evaluates SMB segment performance against growth targets and is accountable for leveraging local market expertise to optimize return on investment (ROI) and spend. May request additional investments as needed to drive plan execution and impact revenue growth, customer acquisition, and expanding market share.
• Drives action with counterparts across the business (e.g., Finance, Business Group Leaderships, Marketing, One Commercial Partner) and applies expertise in local markets and competitors to identify growth opportunities, define strategies and optimal routes to market for achieving revenue targets, and develop and socialize best practices. Defines execution strategies, plan priorities, and key performance indicators (KPIs) for sales engines and partners closely with small and medium business (SMB) stakeholders to align on and improve execution plans.
• Manages a v-team of internal cross-functional stakeholders across a multi-matrixed business. Applies expertise in partner ecosystem(s) by customer segments, gains stakeholder buy in for plan execution, and sets expectations that drive alignment on business plans and improve sales revenue across markets and/or Solution Areas. Defines performance targets, priorities, rhythm of business (ROB), and a governance model for evaluating progress on plan execution, holding others accountable, identifying gaps in plan execution, and taking corrective action as needed. Mentors and provides guidance to less experienced v-team members on executing strategies in concert with v-team stakeholders.
• Shares local market insights, leveraging small and medium business (SMB) assets, local market expertise, marketing campaigns, and competitive insights, as well as an understanding of the voice of the customer and local market digital maturity by segments to identify opportunities and customer plays that drive revenue growth and customer adds, via the optimal mix of partners and programs. Proactively benchmarks data from local markets against global data, and applies expertise in local markets to gain insights that drive opportunity development. May share insights with internal stakeholders to petition for additional resources and/or investments.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, Sales, Marketing, Economics, Engineering, or related field AND 6+ years relevant Sales or Marketing experience with Information Technology products and/or services
  • OR equivalent experience.

Additional Or Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, Sales, Marketing, Economics, Engineering, or related field AND 10+ years relevant Sales or Marketing experience with Information Technology products and/or services
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 10+ years experience in relevant sales of Information Technology products/services.
• 4+ years experience managing others.

How to apply

https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/1416811/SMB-Sales-Lead