Account Technology Strategist (Retail-Consumer)

Account Technology Strategist (Consumer/Retail)

Customer and Industry Insights

• Applies deep expertise and thought leadership to identify the right Industry Sales Kits and industry partners within the customer's vertical industry. Articulates and understands specific industry-related market trends, as well as customer threats, opportunities, and barriers to growth as they relate to the customer's broader industry. Applies industry knowledge to support customers in solving issues. Partners with customers and/or partners to provide innovative solutions in new industries, and to integrate Microsoft technology in their business.

Differentiated Value Proposition

• Acts as the customer's Technology Mentor in established relationships with senior leaders including technical decision makers (TDMs) and/or business decision makers (BDMs) at the Chief X Officer (CXO)-level. Develops extended relationships beyond core customers, advises on solutions, and aligns Microsoft capabilities with customer needs. Leads customer business transformations through digital technologies for assigned accounts to drive business outcomes and create business value for customers by understanding customer industry and position to provide guidance and to challenge customer thinking with innovative ideas that showcase the need for change and new strategic direction, and proactively involves corporate and cross-industry resources to drive customer transformation. Ensures line-of-business wins are captured (e.g., customer write-ups) as reference for scale.

Education and Thought Leadership

• Leads customer technology engagement by motivating and inspiring technical resources of customer, partner, and Microsoft towards customer’s business transformation. Delivers regular (e.g., quarterly, monthly) industry/technology engagements and/or briefings to customer Chief X Officers (CXOs), their technical team, and business decision makers (BDMs) to drive execution and focus on competitive advantage

Mapping and Account Planning

• Helps customer technical specialists build the message to sell Microsoft offerings to other parts of their business. Contributes to the creation of stakeholder maps for accounts, determines and orchestrates a coverage plan, and builds out an execution framework across multiple Rooms of the House of the customer.

Technology Sales: Demand Generation and Orchestration

• Creates, develops, and drives opportunities based on industry best practices. Presents opportunities to the customer and creates demand. Develops a plan, within a broader strategy, to create and qualify a set number of opportunities for product sales, solutions sales, or consumption. Leverages multiple channels (e.g., social media) to create demand. Leads technical teams for driving opportunities including Specialist Team Unit (STU), Customer Success Unit (CSU), and others, as necessary. Leads efforts to reach out to key stakeholders to give customer-driven pitches and drives the appropriate customer reach together with the account executive to generate new demands.

Technology Strategy Formulation

• Contributes to the creation of trusted, long-term (e.g., three years plus) multi-horizon technological and business roadmaps for highly prominent, challenging, and/or strategic accounts based on a deep understanding of business and technology priorities and the customer's industry landscape. Validates the strategy and plan with customer stakeholders and drives envisioning and articulates business and program changes in the roadmaps around new and groundbreaking capabilities. Contributes to the translation of the customer's business objectives in conjunction with Industry Sales Kits and Solution Plays (including consumption-heavy workloads and cloud services) to develop an effective Industry Technology Architecture to plan for and drive consumption and adoption of Microsoft cloud and a higher share of customer potential and propensity (CPP).

Trusted Advisor

• Maintains and leverages a broad knowledge of Microsoft's product landscape, solutions, and strategy to address customer's needs. Proactively coordinates with internal and external network of industry experts (e.g., Regional and Global Experts, industry-specific partners) to build strong knowledge of the industry and the competitive landscape. Leverages deep understanding of their customers to share knowledge with virtual team and promote customer business perspectives.

• Acts as the voice of the customer and internal advocate by providing insights, feedback, and challenges from the customer to internal teams (e.g., product groups, engineers) across all levels of the organization. Drives action to ensure that internal teams understand and respond to insights. Escalates pressing issues for customers to Microsoft internal stakeholders (e.g., Headquarters) to facilitate the appropriate solutions and capabilities for the customer.

• Provides Account thought leadership inclusive of information technology (IT), business strategy knowledge, and technology landscape, and shares best practices internally while providing coaching to subsidiary resources. Leverages account thought leadership in partnership with account executives to set strategy, own accountability for outcomes, and lead extended teams. Provides technical guidance to internal teams to position technology while using customer landscape knowledge. Creates connections and feedback loops with Product and Engineering teams.