Account Technology Strategist

Businesses expect technology to be the main enabler of innovation and help them deliver on their business priorities and goals. The Account Technology Strategist inspires and ideates with customers the possibilities technology provides them, drives thought leadership in digital transformation and builds strategic partnerships with C- level technology and innovation executives.

• The ATS is the leader responsible for designing the strategy and architecture to drive digitalization and innovation agenda of our enterprise customers and acts as the Innovation and DT Thought Leader. With deep business understanding, broad technology skills and industry knowledge; ATS starts with Innovation/ DT agenda of our customers, connects business/industry priorities to technology strategy and develops value propositions which align with our customer’s business strategies, leveraging the rich portfolio of Microsoft and its partner ecosystem.

Key areas of responsibility:

• Digital Transformation & Innovation Strategy:Understand customer's business goals and the industry trends, Microsoft solution areas and partner solutions to build the 3 Horizon roadmap to enable customer’s DT/Innovation agenda. Expand Microsoft relationships with customers into DT partnerships.

• Technology Thought Leadership:Reimagine the role of technology as a business and innovation partner to drive DT agenda of our enterprise customers, help them understand the impact of emerging and strategic technologies and inspire & influence them for Microsoft technologies to become the main enabler of business innovation.

• Industry & Business Architecture:Create long-term strategy which links business, technology, and industry needs of our customers to enable their business and transformation strategy, based upon customer’s business, technology and industry knowledge.

• Technology Sales:Orchestrate technology sales activities to drive the digital transformation vision and roadmap of our customers with Microsoft technologies. Plan and orchestrate the solution proposal and coordinate technology sales teams to provide the right solution to the customer.

• Account Leadership:Change Agent internally and externally to inspire and ideate about possibilities new technologies provide to drive business strategy and priorities of our customers. Own and Strengthen the relations with C-level technology, innovation executives and technology decision makers.

Detailed Responsibilities:

Customer and Industry Insights

• Generates business insights based on knowledge of the customer's technology landscape, engagement experience, and proactive collaboration with the customer, internal teams, and industry, to conduct forecasting and develop recommendations for managing accounts. Challenges customers to consider alternative business models to meet business and market needs, and adapts plans to insights.
• Orchestrates teams to gather information, collaborate on performance markers, and identify potential risks in customer accounts. Brings in business and industry insights to address the broader business challenges for the customer and deliver solutions.
• Applies expertise in customer businesses and technology platforms and maturity to build digital transformation (DT) strategy with the customer that is aligned to business outcomes. Challenges customers’ assumptions with constructive dialogue about their business and technology. Helps to create a board-ready message (e.g., sustainability) for customers' compliance alignment.

Trusted Advisor

• Acts as the "virtual Chief Technical Officer (CTO)/Chief Digital Officer (CDO)" and supplements existing technical decision maker (TDM) and/or business decision maker (BDM) relationships with additional connections at the Chief Information Officer (CIO) or CIO direct-report level by researching organization charts, identifying and contacting TDMs/BDMs, and beginning to advise on solutions and position Microsoft capabilities to best meet the customer's needs. Leverages account information technology (IT), industry, and business strategy to provide coaching to internal Microsoft teams on customer technology profiles and strategies. Provides technical guidance to internal teams to position technology while using customer landscape knowledge.
• Proactively builds and maintains a strong knowledge of Microsoft's product landscape, solutions, and strategy in the industry of assigned accounts, as well as of the business priorities and potential threats the customers face. Leverages leaders from the partner ecosystem to bridge process gaps. Coordinates with internal industry experts (e.g., industry- solutions executives) to gather industry data of assigned accounts and improve planning. Demonstrates a strong understanding of the customers' business strategy and the direction of the industry.
• Acts as the voice of the customer, industry, and internal advocate by providing insights, feedback, and challenges from the customer to internal teams (e.g., product groups, engineers).

Technology Strategy Formulation

• Provides analysis of overall customer needs, outcomes, and potential blockers. Leverages understanding of business strategies and outcomes that technology can support to advise on gaps that would benefit from Microsoft solutions, and guides internal teams in overall strategy development (e.g., block identification, partner strategy) to identify and address gaps and drive end solutions.
• Ensures execution of technology strategy and/or digital transformation by identifying and resolving technical blockers that arise during strategy planning and implementation and driving technology adoption.
• Creates mid- to long-term (e.g., 12 or more months) technical and business roadmaps for one or more accounts, outlining the digital transformation journey and core wins. Updates and articulates business changes in the roadmaps around foundational, traditional capabilities. Builds technical engagement or enablement plan, captures baseline, and drives envisioning to support mid- to long-term business plans.
• Translates an understanding of the customer's business objectives and scenarios in conjunction with industry priority scenarios (IPS), Microsoft sales plays, and solution areas to develop technology architecture. Ensures that developed architecture influences cloud journey to position all Microsoft clouds and drive consumption, usage, and a higher share of customer potential and propensity (CPP).

Technology Sales: Demand Generation and Orchestration

• Identifies customer issues, creates demand, and identifies opportunities to uncover new solutions. Identifies and qualifies a set number of opportunities for product sales, solution sales, or consumption. Leverages partners to drive demand generation and capitalize on opportunities.
• Lead industry and digital transformation acceleration (IDTA) with the extended account team, customer and partner to deliver the outcomes for the customer through joint envisioning, as a vehicle for industry prioritized scenarios (IPSs), sales plays, and solution areas. Increases the number of successful engagements over time, managing engagement pipeline with extended team to maintain velocity, and unblocking issues.

Differentiated Value Proposition

• Leads new opportunities and orchestrates internal teams to accelerate the customer's digital transformation by understanding customer drivers of digital transformation, engaging with customers to lead strategic technology direction/transformation within assigned accounts, and ensuring line-of-business wins are captured (e.g., testimonials) for referencing.
• Drives conversations with enterprise customers that present the strategic relationship between Microsoft technologies, products, and services compared with the competitor's solution and the customer's overall business goals and objectives. Provides an outside-in perspective around compete or other solutions that are also a requirement for the customer.

Mapping and Account Planning

• Helps customer technical specialists build the message to sell Microsoft offerings to other parts of their business. Creates stakeholder maps for accounts, and determines, and orchestrates a coverage plan.
• Builds the bridge between customer business requirements and technology. Maps technical customer requirements and business scenarios to Microsoft technology platforms. Recognizes how technology platforms are evolving and orchestrates resources to deliver platforms that will ensure successful technology adoptions.
• Orchestrates internal teams and local partners to ensure sufficient technical resources for demand generation, when appropriate.
• Drives account planning for budgeting, quota attainment, consumption goals, and customer consumption gaps to inform quarterly and fiscal objectives. Coordinates extended account teams and drives forecasting and tracking of the business. Owns the technical portion of the account plans and leads the account plan delivery.

Education and Thought Leadership

• Influences customer technology engagement by engaging technical resources of customer, partner and Microsoft towards customer’s digital transformation (DT). Contributes to the delivery of regular (e.g., quarterly, monthly) industry/technology briefings to customer technology decision-makers and technical teams.
• Uses existing and new readiness resources to support enablement plans for customer technology adoption at the national and regional level. Contributes to innovations to accelerate meeting goals for customer capacity, maximize reach and impact, and drive long-term engagement and thought leadership on the Microsoft platform. Supports customer skilling initiatives and execution.

Other

• Embody our culture and values