Microsoft Azure Data & AI Application Innovation Specialist 

Canada, Ontario, Toronto 

341636089

As anAzure Data & AI, Application Innovation Specialistyou will be a senior solution sales leader within our Small, Medium and Corporate growth business, leading a virtual team of technical, partner and consulting resources to advance the sales process and achieve/exceed quarterly Data & AI revenue and usage/consumption targets in your assigned accounts. You will be a trusted advisor and Analytics, Data & AI subject matter expert with core capability and expertise in Data Modernization, Analytics and AI. You will work with customers to leverage data to help them achieve their business priorities and help guide customer’s journey through Analytics-led Azure Data transformation. You will help customers evaluate their applications and business requirements, recommend solutions that meet their requirements and demonstrate these solutions to win the technical decision. You will need to support customers to remove roadblocks to deployment and drive customer satisfaction. You will help our customers take advantage of our unique hybrid data platform and leading Analytics & AI solutions to realize the value of digital transformation.

Required/minimum qualifications

• 9+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience

  • OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, or related field AND 7+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience.

Additional or preferred qualifications

• 6+ years of solution or services sales experience Master's Degree in Business Administration (e.g., MBA), Information Technology, or related field AND 8+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology, or related field AND 10+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience OR 11+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience.

Digital Solution Area Specialists IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across Canada is CAD $144,700 - CAD $209,800 per year.

Find additional pay information here:

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until August 19, 2024.

Deliver Results Through Teamwork

• Partners and collaborates with other teams on related deliverables, and leverages others in relevant work streams.
• Drives the execution of projects by identifying customer and operational needs, setting priorities, removing barriers and obstacles, and allocating resources.

Role Model Microsoft Values

• Treats others with fairness and respect, and shows empathy and compassion.
• Models compliance and represents the Microsoft Values and the One Microsoft culture.

Technical Expertise

• Leverages and shares competitor knowledge across solution areas as a subject matter expert to inform decisions on pursuit or withdrawal; collaborates with the "compete" global black belts (GBBs) to proactively provide analysis of the competitive landscape in supported solution area; leads the communication to provide feedback to other teams (e.g., sales, marketing, engineering) on future product trends or sales blocker.

Sales Execution

• Proactively builds external stakeholder network and leverages internal partners to engage external stakeholders; acts as a thought leader and subject matter advisor to the executive-level business decision makers at the customer's/ partner's business; guides others on identifying and engaging decision makers and stakeholders to expand the relationship with customers/ partners.
• Explores and assesses the needs of strategic/high-potential customers; articulates business value and long-term implications for customer business; collaborates with internal teams, partners, and services to lead the proposal or development of solutions that align with customer and Microsoft priorities; analyzes market trends to identify opportunities for new solutions.
• Develops strategies for driving and closing strategic and/or prioritized opportunities; collaborates with account teams to ensure alignment with the account strategy and plan; leads deal execution with the deal teams across the organization; coaches others on the implementation of close plans (e.g., how to map timeline, engage the customer, get customer buy in and commitment) to de-risk and drive predictable deal closure.
• Brings impactful industry insights into customer engagements and closes deals with customers; acts as a thought leader across solution areas to advise customers across business functions on digital transformation with a challenger mindset that accounts for customers' business needs and priorities; leads virtual transformational shifts to drive deployment and create business value for customers; may lead partner integration into account/territory planning and customer engagements.
• Orchestrates with team members on conducting personal campaigns to discover new opportunities and generate new leads; leads conversations with strategic/high-potential customers (e.g., high-budget, global-account, highly competitive) along with account teams or partners; facilitates the account team unit (ATU) to build pipeline in collaboration with partners and services; guides others on social selling; applies Microsoft's sales process (MSP) to determine the quality of the opportunity and whether to proceed, and educate the customers on how to best address their needs.
• Drives consumption and grow business with existing strategic customers by initiating conversations, guiding others on demos or quotes, and the collaboration with partners or internal teams (e.g., Technical Sales Professionals, global black belts [GBBs]); for licensing transactions and project engagements, ensures rapid and robust deployment plan at point of sale that is validated by services and partners; identifies, articulates, and facilitates the removal of blockers to consumption by partnering with internal and external stakeholders.

Scaling and Collaboration

• Leads the sales orchestration to proactively drive deal closure by identifying and aligning internal stakeholders as well as leveraging and expanding relationships with partners; applies a holistic approach to build network across territories; positions opportunities to promote collaboration and participation.
• Leads the planning and execution on opportunities with resources and partners to cross-sell, up-sell, and co-sell; identifies, leverages, coordinates partners and resources across solution areas, and supports on-boarding new partners; validates partner solution relevance for customers; provides input and feedback to One Commercial Partner (OCP) on developing partner strategies and consumption plans, and connects the partner ecosystems to scale business results.

Sales Excellence

• Manages the end-to-end business for strategic accounts across the organization; leads forecasting for accounts and develops a portfolio and territory plan to drive intentional selling with on-strategy engagements in high propensity accounts; mentors other team members.
• Builds and transforms new markets by leveraging technical and industry expertise, partners, and resources; leads a team to explore business and emerging opportunities to optimize the portfolio and facilitate customer innovation.
• Reviews feedback report and sets long-term strategies aimed at maintaining levels of client satisfaction; coaches others on ensuring customer/partner satisfaction and decreasing dissatisfaction by establishing recovery action plans to improve clients' overall experience; manages and/or orchestrates sales and delivery success through the account team and pursuit team.
• Engages with internal and external stakeholders on business planning, rhythm-of-business (ROB) meetings to review and plan for strategic accounts across territories.
• Collaborates with extended sales team, partners, and marketing to lead business analysis (e.g., whitespace analysis, identify industry trends) to pursue high-potential customers and develop a target list of potential business; acts as a thought leader and validates opinions and perspectives from business analysis.
• Completes required training and obtains relevant product and role certifications aligned to the role and workload/industry; proactively seeks training, including information that adds to the understanding of customers' business, and shares it with team members.