Business Development Director, Microsoft Practice, EMEA

• Full-time

Publicis Sapient is a digital transformation partner helping established organizations get to their future, digitally-enabled state, both in the way they work and the way they serve their customers. We help unlock value through a start-up mindset and modern methods, fusing strategy, consulting and customer experience with agile engineering and problem-solving creativity. United by our core values and our purpose of helping people thrive in the brave pursuit of next, our 20,000+ people in 53 offices around the world combine experience across technology, data sciences, consulting and customer obsession to accelerate our clients’ businesses through designing the products and services their customers truly value.

As our clients turn toward cloud computing for the next generation of technology to solve their problems, the Business Development Directors of our Cloud Practices probe major issues in our key sectors, work with our client teams to understand business problems in depth and then partner with our Cloud Center of Excellence and our Partners at Microsoft Azure to design, fund, and bring to market Cloud Solutions.

The Business Development Director is responsible for driving revenue growth, managing pursuits, coordinating the increase of pipeline, qualification of opportunities, pursuit of qualified opportunities, co-sales with Microsoft, managing the sales team and their individual performance against goals and managing the Practice’s portfolio of Cloud opportunities against the revenue goals of the Practice. Beyond driving any one individual sale, the role holder is also part of setting the strategy, reporting market feedback on Solutions, and advising the Verticals in their pursuit of Cloud opportunities. Comfortable individually driving a sale or enabling others to sell, this solution seller specializes in technology related sales that require familiarity with Cloud, APIs, ML and other related technologies. Able to translate the complexities of the cloud market into actionable intelligence for other less cloud-familiar roles, the role holder brings a POV on what clients actually need and what will sell, constantly building Publicis Sapient’s practical relevance to clients during sales meetings with clients or prospects.

Your Impact:

• Create, originate and pursue opportunities in the enterprise cloud market with an average sale value in six, seven and eight figures.
• Build relationships with Microsoft field sales team members acting as the face of Publicis Sapient to gather information on opportunities and guide the co-selling process with Microsoft.
• Advocate for Microsoft within Publicis Sapient accounts and represent the value of these partnerships as key growth drivers.
• Defend organic accounts from competitive services firms becoming a better partner to a sales team that owns a relationship with mutual clients; provide the verticals with up to date sales intelligence to indicate where their client is investing in the cloud market.
• “Live” within the Microsoft ecosystem, understanding key leaders, value proposition and market trends, provide SME materials to the practice and the industry verticals from a pragmatic growth lens.
• Assist Microsoft and Publicis Sapient sales teams in identification, qualification and pursuit of potential opportunities, focused on organic growth within key PS accounts.
• Manage the pipeline of opportunities, coordinating with industry verticals and partners to solve for overall yield at margin.
• Structure initial contracts with clients and partners around any given opportunity, stay involved in delivery during initial stages to handoff opportunity to Vertical once underway.
• Present Publicis Sapient credentials for Microsoft to bring to clients and prospects while maintaining and generating documents needed to generate revenue and sales; create a “force multiplier” on sales by lobbying partners to sell Publicis Sapient Solutions.
• Build relationships with key stakeholders among Microsoft/Publicis Sapient clients/prospects, oversee the relationships of other sales roles and anticipate and prevent conflicts between parties before they happen.
• Identify instances where Publicis Sapient and/or Microsoft services will contribute to client/prospect’s strategic business and technical initiatives and advise industry verticals on their pursuit.
• Participate in building SOWs and service offerings to create clarity for PS delivery leads and client partners.
• Create sales collateral, working with sales support offshore and our marketing team to position Publicis Sapient for the next phase of Cloud work, as an extension of the Verticals strategy.
• Become expert in all elements of one or more cloud platforms, as they relate to Publicis Sapient services and our joint value proposition.
• Become an expert in all of Publicis Sapient services to help identify any cross-sell opportunities from and to Cloud to/from other Publicis Sapient offerings.
• Help develop and support strategic activities and initiatives with Publicis Sapient Business Development in order to increase Publicis Sapient stance within the Cloud market.
• Drive executive connections with sales leadership and partner leadership, including representing PS value proposition to key Partner Sales Managers, Key Account Directors, and executives.
• Manage and maintain pipeline, Microsoft and opportunity tracking to properly forecast opportunities and revenue internationally for PS.

Minimum Requirements:

• Strong understanding of the Cloud and Microsoft Azure technology landscape and successful track record of building and managing a Microsoft Cloud business within a professional services, consulting, or technology services environment.
• Ability to navigate a large organization and have the power of persuasion through content and confidence.
• Strong stakeholder management skills and experience - demonstrated ability to take a consultative approach to engaging with executives.
• Strong Collaboration skills - demonstrated ability to work across internal organization to cast, pitch and sell deals with relevant subject matter expertise.
• Strong written and oral communication skills in English and presentation skills.
• Strong track record of managing and successfully performing against a large scale sales quota.
• Openness to travel and work at client site when necessary.

Publicis Sapient UK is a Disability Confident employer and is dedicated to fostering an inclusive and accessible work environment. We encourage individuals with disabilities and long-term conditions to apply for this position, and we will provide adjustments where possible throughout the recruitment process. If you require any adjustments at any point in the process, please get in touch as soon as possible by emailing hiringuk@publicissapient.com. Publicis Sapient UK will then work with you to explore and implement adjustments as and where these are possible. If you have any questions regarding adjustments, please email us at hiringuk@publicissapient.com.

An array of benefits are offered to Publicis Sapient employees. In addition to a leading compensation package, 25 days paid annual leave, life assurance, dental insurance, income protection, private healthcare for you and your family (pre-existing conditions included), and a pension is the least we want to provide to you.

The learning opportunities here are endless plus of course the opportunity to be part of a game-changing organisation that encourages outside-the-box thinking and empowerment to know that the world is your oyster when it comes to your career With free soya lattes and gym fee reimbursement being thrown in, you’ll get to taste the best coffee in town (in our opinion).

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