Partner Technology Strategist - Microsoft

Microsoft is on a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world. You can help us to achieve our mission.

The Partner Technology Strategist (PTS) is at the forefront of our digital transformation efforts for our partners. The PTS plays a critical role in working with partners to align their technology roadmaps with Microsoft's technology priorities, working with them to build new solutions that enable customers to realize the vision of Digital Transformation.

The PTS is a Credible Technical Advisor to Partners C-Suite technical and practice management executives sharing a compelling technical vision leading to Partners committing to building new practices based on Microsoft’s technologies.

Responsibilities

Partner and Industry Insights

• Synthesizes and combines various business insights from their team, global best practices, proof points from experience with several countries and regions, and deep industry expertise (e.g., level 200) related to customers/partners and their competitors to conduct forecasting and develop recommendations for managing accounts and subsidiary planning. Ensures that all levels of the organization challenge partners to consider alternatives and adapt strategies, plans, business models, and solutions to insights.

• Orchestrates global teams across the organization to gather information, collaborate on performance markers, and identify potential risks in partner accounts. Brings in business and industry insights to address the broader business challenges for the partner. Executes work against the overall business and technical strategy.

Trusted Advisor

• Acts as the voice of the partner and internal advocate by providing insights, feedback, and challenges from the partner 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.

• Acts as the "virtual Chief Technology Officer (CTO)/Chief Digital Officer (CDO)" or "go-to" person in established, long-term relationships with technical decision makers (TDMs) and/or business decision-makers (BDM) at the C-level (to the extent that the partner will call for consultation without being prompted) and advises on solutions and positions Microsoft offerings.

Strategy Formulation

• Provides analysis of overall partner needs for some of the largest and most complex accounts, and advises on gaps that would benefit from Microsoft solutions, using an understanding of the business strategies and outcomes that technology can support; leads the adoption of technologies by plotting the strategic, long-term vision of the customer's/partner's business strategy and driving action to bring to fruition.

• Ensures execution of technology strategy and digital transformation by anticipating and/or leading the resolution of technical blockers that arise during strategic planning and implementation; and driving technology adoption.

• Creates mid-term and long-term (e.g., 12 months plus) technical and business roadmaps for highly prominent, challenging, and/or strategic accounts based on a deep understanding of business and technology priorities and industry landscape; drives envisioning and articulates business and program changes in the roadmaps around new and groundbreaking capabilities.

Demand Generation and Orchestration

• Orchestrates internal teams to ensure sufficient technical resources for demands, from a limited pool of resources, when appropriate.

Differentiated Value Proposition

• Partners with a line-of-business leader or senior executive within a large-scale or high-impact partner organization to articulate how complex or high-risk Microsoft technology/services will meet future business needs better than the competition and will enable the achievement of long-term growth and success.

• Creates and maintains a vision with business and technology solution scenarios and services that helps large-scale, high-stakes partners meet their business goals, achieve their long-term corporate vision, and maximize commercial success.

Education and Thought Leadership

• Uses existing and new readiness resources and demonstrates expertise in creating enablement plans for large and high-stakes partners, and all-up Microsoft business. Drives innovations to help partners meet capacity and capability goals, maximize reach and impact and drive long-term engagement and thought leadership on the Microsoft platform, and influences large partners to see and adopt the strategic value.

• Provides expertise and is sought out by the Microsoft community at the global level. Leads the direction that virtual team members (e.g., Account Team) take with customers by providing them with strategic input using thorough knowledge of Microsoft technologies, partner accounts, and digital transformations and their context in the competitive landscape. Serves on panels or external communities and shares expertise with internal teams that influence change and transformation of solutions.

Ensuring Success

• Orchestrates a wide, complex range of components for projects/programs within large, high-stakes accounts, in accordance with partner plan, to develop solution offerings and value realization across a variety of solution areas; sets timelines and milestones, and tracks progress toward objectives; leverages industry expertise and establishes technical credibility with partners to drive the project agenda.

• Partners with line-of-business leaders or senior executives within the customer/partner organization to optimize technology consumption and adoption across the enterprise. Creates benchmark processes that are adopted by others across accounts.

Solution Development

• Proactively influences large, global partners to develop groundbreaking and highly advanced/impactful solutions using Microsoft technologies, and builds solutions into the partner ecosystem to enable partners to sell to end-customers.

Partner Enablement

• Helps partners build practices or solutions and shares their experience and influence with partners through solution-sales guidance; provides guidance to the broader technical team to ensure that technical pre-sales, deployment, and consumption (with a focus on key strategic workloads and solutions) are part of the solution development efforts; coaches the partner on building resilience to technical issues and dealing with competition.

Other

• Embody our culture and values

Qualifications

• 6-10+ years of related experience in technology solutions/practice development, Cloud / Infrastructure technologies required. Knowledge of Microsoft platform preferable, project management, technical Sales, and technical account management.

• Partner & Industry Insights. Deep understanding of digital transformation business drivers, cloud platforms, emerging Cloud trends and their impact on customer opportunities.

• Trusted Advisor. Proven track record of building deep technical relationships with CXOs and building cloud consumption share in Hosters or Managed services providers.

• Strategy Formulation. Strong understanding of business strategies and outcomes that technology can support, ability to lead the adoption of technologies by plotting the strategic, long-term vision of partners, can anticipate the resolution of technical blockers that arise during strategic planning and drives envisioning in the roadmaps around new and groundbreaking capabilities.

• Solution Development. Strong partner relationship management and solution development skills with a problem-solving mentality leveraging internal and/or external resources, conflict resolution, and follow through with partners. Builds solutions into the partner ecosystem to enable partners to sell to end customers.

• Partner Enablement. Experience in offering guidance to the broader technical team to ensure that technical pre-sales, deployment, and consumption are part of solution development efforts; ability to coaches the partner on building resilience to technical issues and dealing with competition.

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.

The benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.