Responsibilities
Drive business growth
Identifies suitable Multi-National Customers (MNCs), SMBs, StartUps, and large pan-African organizations for partnership or sales by assessing their needs and defining value propositions. This involves evaluating, prioritizing, and pursuing market opportunities by identifying, quantifying, and qualifying potential areas where customers can leverage Microsoft platforms/products. Contributes to opportunity evaluation and leads account planning with partners to set and prioritize goals for realistic targets.
Recognizes and involves various internal teams (such as Global Accounts, Downstream, product, engineering, finance, legal, sales, marketing) and business leaders to help shape and align the strategy. Develops strategic partner/customer deals for a commercial framework that aligns with business objectives and addresses the current state and requirements of partners/customers, maintaining the appropriate pace and coordination with customers.
Integrates key market factors (competition, economy, industry) into strategic deals for optimal ROI. Focuses deeply on customers and strategic growth to enhance customer presence and loyalty by incorporating feedback. Develops pipelines and opportunities into viable deals.
Fosters a robust customer-centric approach in strategic planning and involves the customer throughout the process. Utilizes insights from past engagements to refine strategies effectively. Enhances comprehension of customer requirements, secures internal agreement, and coordinates partners to execute the strategy.
Drive and deliver operational efficiency including programme management
Promote ongoing improvement throughout the ATO business by creating a culture where team members are committed to outcomes and empowered to make changes. This includes driving investments, reporting on KPIs, ensuring business development team members meet revenue and impact goals, and collaborating with both internal teams and external customers and partners. Collaborating with the ATO lead, the Senior BDM will oversee strategic programs and execution workstreams for major AI transformation partnerships across Africa.
Stakeholder engagement
Identifies key executive-level stakeholders within customers to collaborate with Business Development for new business opportunities. Orchestrates sales and partnership activities with customers/partners, acting as their advocate within internal teams. Promotes awareness of and connects with key influencers, showcasing Microsoft’s value to develop effective customer strategies. Manages connections between Microsoft stakeholders and customers, forging strategic relationships across various engagements.
Builds trusted advisor relationships with leaders and managers across functions, representing the organization to regional leadership. Initiates actions by influencing cross-functional teams (finance, engineering, legal, commercial, product, sales) and multi-country team members. Manages resources, ensuring availability and proper allocation. Identifies and drives strategic and communication alignment across functions for the benefit of customers/partners. Designs internal processes, influences commitments, and contributes to feedback loops with stakeholders to align resources and support strategic growth. Develops internal strategies for orchestrating sales opportunities, particularly in solution sales management (cloud, data), to enhance capabilities effectively.
Deal Negotiation
Engages in discussions with customers and partners to align on and identify mutual needs and goals for the region. Negotiates and influences both current and new customers and partners for long-term planning to create a strategically-oriented deal. Identifies and collaborates with key internal stakeholders (e.g., product, engineering, finance, legal, sales, marketing) to gain support and progress negotiations. Ensures financial responsibility and alignment with profit and loss strategies. Helps raise awareness about required protections, compliance, or security regulations within the market.
Closing the Deal
Completes beneficial customer/partner agreements by executing the strategy with internal teams (e.g., Sales). Helps create an action plan covering all strategic aspects to close the deal, integrating reports, risk analyses, and assessing value. Participates in public relations and communications for the deal. Collaborates with necessary internal stakeholders (e.g., finance, engineering, legal, commercial, product, sales) to ensure a successful deal closure. Works with Microsoft’s legal team to finalize contracts and ensure compliance.
Reporting
Analyzes, enhances, and executes communication strategies by applying reports. Offers improvement suggestions for long-term strategies and outcomes across portfolios. Makes decisions based on ROI, profit and loss reports, and lessons learned. Uses insights from financial and strategic reports to recommend actions like error correction or accelerating successes. Suggests reporting improvements to Microsoft for better insights. Aligns stakeholders by providing up-to-date financial forecasts and keeping everyone informed. Identifies and resolves issues from leadership teams, escalating when necessary.
Compliance
Personally, commit to generate and protect Microsoft trust by modeling integrity every day and contributing to ethical sales and sustainable growth.
Qualifications
8-12+ years of experience in core sales experience, partner channel development, business development, alliance management in the technology industry
Executive presence and ability to influence business leaders through business value propositions
Experience with technology platforms and developing new product and business solutions
Working knowledge of cloud business models & how apps/services are brought to market
Strong experience of managing virtual teams across functions and geographies:
Inclusive and collaborative – driving teamwork and cross-team alignment
Strong partner relationship management and solution development skills
Evidence of managing and reporting against opex investments
Strong communication and presentation skills with a high degree of comfort
Challenger mentality leveraging internal and/or external resources, conflict resolution, and follow through
Bachelor’s degree desired (Sales, Marketing, Business Operations) MBA preferred
Apply via :
jobs.careers.microsoft.com
