In SMC and Digital Sales, we have set out with the purpose to empower our customers through the unique value of the Microsoft cloud by building a globally led, digital-first scale organization aligned with partners. Dedicated to one of the fastest growing customer segments, the Small, Medium, Corporate (SMC) and Digital Sales organization is on pace to be Microsoft's next $100 billion-dollar business - this is where you come in. As part of local subsidiaries or Digital Sales centers around the world, you will support a dedicated set of customers in identifying and achieving their business objectives through best-in-class digital engagement and partner co-selling. You will also have an opportunity to work cross-collaboratively while living our shared SMC and Digital Sales Culture priorities: Diversity and Inclusivity, Wellbeing, Sustainability, and Learning. If you have been described as customer obsessed and have a passion for digital-first solutions, we invite you to learn more about the SMC and Digital Sales organization and the value we deliver to our customers, partners, and one another, every day.

The Solution Assessment Specialist’s primary role is to be the SMC account team’s expert using visualized data & insight to give customers confidence in their cloud migration decisions and to tell the story of the immense business value of migrating and modernizing with Microsoft.

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. Join us and be one who empowers billions!

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities

• Assessment

• Owns pre-sales and pipeline generation efforts for complex multi-area geographies, segments, partners, or customers. Identifies new engagements to create large-scale and/or strategic deals. Outlines framework for engagements within specific territories, often managing multiple engagements at once.

• Increasingly takes on more complex and/or large-scale engagements. Anticipates orchestration, toolsets, and budget needed for an engagement kickoff. Aligns with and enables partners and/or suppliers to scale engagements, empowering them to lead customer follow ups and execution.

• Works closely with customer account executives on complex accounts/territories to deeply understand their history, infrastructure, and critical issues to guide new discussions and projects.

• Proactively engages in customer and accounting team research to gather insights for solution assessment planning across segments, technology, and/or accounts. Synthesizes information and subsequent recommendations based on the customer's past, current, and future needs. Draws additional perspective from the external market and industry chain. Provides recommendations for territory planning and coverage.

• Leads partners and/or suppliers to conduct discovery analyses and case studies, and tracks assessments across partners and accounting teams.

• Oversees end-to-end solution assessment of first and/or third party tools, scanning the customer environment to see what is running and to locate all tool assets, deployed estate, and licensing entitlements.

• Guides partners to align quality-driven, proven analyses to customer desired outcomes and cloud journeys. Provides suggestions to translate proven results into compelling stories and leverage business intelligence (BI) platforms.

• Implementation

• Leads scoping and delivery of cloud migration and optimization plans at scale. Delivers plans with or through partners for complex customers, which directly align to their migration and modernization goals.

• Advises on how to select the best assessment type to move plans forward and create the most impact. Empowers partners to land plans which drive consumption. Works closely with partners to proactively account for local influences when planning.

• Maps customer information to additional or alternative products which align to their desired outcomes and drive consumption.

• Determines correct and/or supplemental funding models to deliver assessments, sometimes working with local business groups and Solution Areas to secure additional assessment funding.

• Presents solution assessment results and plan options back to customer leadership teams directly with or indirectly through partners and/or suppliers for complex accounts, acting as a trusted advisor to consult on effective plan deployment and new opportunity developments.

• Advocates for advantages of modern tools and processes that cater towards customer needs.

• Creates and sells a brand around the value of solution assessment, using presentations to highlight solution assessment as a critical engine.

• Proactively caters messaging and tactics to communicate technical information clearly and accessibly (e.g., using storytelling, visualizations, imagery). Integrates partners, suppliers, and cross-team members into customer moment. Mentors team members and guides partners and/or suppliers on how to communicate with customers (e.g., recording example pitches, conducting pre-presentations). Proactively communicates about the migration and next steps. Deepens understanding of their personal key performance indicators (KPIs) and their area/subsidiary's KPIs using localized and centralized reporting. Presents insights from reporting details to senior leaders.

• Leads all aspects of solution assessments deployment for their segment and/or area.

• Advises customers, partners, and team members on how to maximize solution assessments and migrate tools, considering both technical and financial total cost of ownership (TCO) as well as business value analyses.

• Orchestrates handoffs between internal teams and partners to drive end-to-end migrations. Champions readiness and onboarding efforts to ensure partners are motivated and empowered to execute on plans. Integrates migration funding resources, expertise, and partner perspective to aid in deployment and/or to allow partners to extend work with customers. Identifies other programs which could integrate solution assessments as a key component.

• Drives optimizations for return on investments throughout deployment.

• Oversees the transfer of post-assessment work to internal teams (e.g., Specialists) and migration partners.

• Guides and prepares teams to strengthen customer relationships, advising on how to proactively identify potential opportunities for future work. May facilitate the design of centralized reporting to measure customer success.

• Ensures internal teams keep them informed and raises critical concerns to determine how to mitigate or avoid future issues.

• Collaboration

• Leverages and strengthens collaborative relationships across extended partners team. Drives co-funded solution assessments with partners, suppliers, and/or assessment desk.

• Solicits localized expertise from partners regarding customers' markets and business in order to deliver catered solutions. Ensures the right partner is matched to pitch assessments and catered solutions. Proactively aligns migration efforts for the selected partner to land.

• Oversees partner onboarding and training (e.g., tools, warranty, priorities). Assists with identifying and recruiting new partners, in partnership with One Commercial Partner (OCP) team.

• Strengthens relationships with a large group of global stakeholders, both internal and external (e.g., executive leadership, partners, field sellers). Leverages relationships with stakeholders and cross-functional teams (e.g., marketing, business groups) to elevate and promote solution assessment initiatives.

• Evangelizes across account teams to align on core needs across markets and/or areas.

• Builds a network of advocacy across the company and partner community to promote solution assessment work using data-driven examples (e.g., sharing outcomes and customer win stories).

• Strategy

• Orchestrates across account teams and segment leadership to drive their area's solution-assessment strategy, balancing execution with a future-focused vision. Assists with developing a strategy that creates impact, driving consumption, revenue, and return on investment (ROI) for solution assessments broadly. Proactively aligns strategy execution in line with tailored approaches that deliver value to customers. May leverage demand generation techniques in partnership with marketing team and business groups for cloud-based analyses.

• Crafts new engagement types based on feedback from and in coordination with marketing team. Contributes to the development of best practices for scaling usage and adoption in order to brand assessments as a service.

• Champions solution assessment and cloud migration optimization. Advises customers, partners, and team members on elements that drive consumption and critical migration triggers. Leads efforts to identify aspects of customer organizations which drive cloud governance and multi-cloud consumption, amplifies clear mappings of impact to customers' business. Articulates the benefits of solution assessments and cloud-based adds to gain buy in for usage directly with customers. Considers how to amplify solutions to increase cloud consumption and revenue growth as well as to cover multiple aspects of the value chain, both technically and financially.

• Demonstrates subject matter expertise in solution assessment and cloud migration, including solution assessment discovery tools. Clearly articulates the business value in using various tools and/or Independent Software Vendors (ISV) Solutions and makes influential recommendations on which tool is most appropriate for customers' desired outcomes. Understands the economics of helping customers migrate and deploy, and guides team members as a thought leader to strengthen their technical knowledge. Leverages a deep understanding of client types, geographies, preferred products, and modern infrastructures to create a holistic approach for addressing customers' issues. Advises on trends seen in the market, across the sales discipline, within other organizations, and local/governmental influences to create a competitive advantage.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in IT, Business, Finance, or related experience with solution sales, technical sales, marketing, communications, licensing, or channel/business development experience

• OR Relevant certifications from Microsoft or competitive platforms AND solid solution sales, technical sales, marketing, communications, licensing, or channel/business development experience

• Streong solution sales or solution assessment consulting, or related experience

• OR equivalent experience.

• solution sales or solution assessment consulting, or related experience.

• experience with cross-group responsibilities (e.g., project manager for significant projects with cross-group/cross-country impact and membership).

• Azure Fundamentals, Modern Workplace Fundamentals, or Dynamics certification(s), or other related independent cloud certifications.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html) .