Commercial Deal Making Leader (Netherlands and Switzerland Deal Desk)

Job Description

At Microsoft, we believe in what people make possible. Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Collaborating closely in a diverse and inclusive environment with customers of all sizes. You will work in partnership with Microsoft’s sales teams and business groups to develop strategies for increasing Azure, Copilot, Microsoft 365, and Dynamics revenue and accelerating customer satisfaction. We are looking for self-motivated people who love building relationships, analyzing business deals, simplifying complex scenarios, and creating deal pricing and terms which represent a mutual win for customers and Microsoft.

Responsibilities

People Management

• Managers deliver success through empowerment and accountability by modelling, coaching, and caring.
• Model - Live our culture; Embody our values; Practice our leadership principles.
• Coach - Define team objectives and outcomes; Enable success across boundaries; Help the team adapt and learn.
• Care - Attract and retain great people; Know each individual’s capabilities and aspirations; Invest in the growth of others.
• Team of 9 sits within Netherlands and Switzerland Deal desk.

Deep Proactive Engagement

• Coaches others to orchestrate across a range of internal and external stakeholders at senior levels. Communicates customer needs with a growth mindset and business outcomes with impact both internally and externally to achieve cross-functional goals. Reinforces cross group collaboration with prioritization to ensure proper balance of demands. Ability to create a common or shared vision across a highly matrixed organization (across other Microsoft functional areas). Has demonstrated these competencies consistently and on a variety of different projects/in different settings.
• Leads teams to desired outcome while anticipating potential escalations and customer reactions from an ethical selling perspective. Demonstrates customer understanding. Works within portfolio to gain strategic position. Drives the creation of best practices for deal making. Builds consistency across deals. Examines deals from different angles (e.g., year over year), models different variables to make the most effective deal. Presents and speaks at a C-level audience to understand business solutions outside of technology solutions (e.g., productivity gains, financial impact to a customer, Opex [operational expenditure] versus Capex [capital expenditure]) and understands the terminology of working at this level. Has demonstrated these competencies consistently and on a variety of different projects/in different settings.
• Develops talent and coaches others to optimize workload related to sales execution. Ensures programmatic alignment and oversees execution of escalations correctly. Demonstrates strong leadership and engagement with all stakeholders to ensure that their teams are executing effectively while reaching milestones and that all internal stakeholders are aligned on closing to avoid deal delay. Coaches and leads through the lifecycle management planning and Microsoft Selling process to ensure that all sales motions include checkpoints on deployment and consumption. Leverages mastery of sales science (e.g., pipeline metrics, closed rates, competitive selling) to lay out a strategic sales execution cadence. Analyzes multiple data inputs quickly and drives strategic decision making to ensure the best sales and revenue production and velocity through management team. Has demonstrated these competencies consistently and on a variety of different projects/in different settings.
• Drives strategic insights into deal making by leveraging audience understanding and knowledge of decision-maker buying criteria. Influences teams. Recognizes and acts on trends across deals to guide teams toward new best practices. Builds customer-centric offers. Drives collaboration with account team to determine how they can best monetize opportunities that are included in the account plan. Oversees the building of the best contract structure to enable capitalization on opportunities. Has demonstrated these competencies consistently and on a variety of different projects/in different settings.
• Fosters alignment across teams, especially with regard to aligning Microsoft portfolio and customer business outcomes. Fosters sharing of best practices and strategies across internal teams (e.g., product groups, field sales force, leadership). Ensures that teams understand Microsoft/customer business strategies and reinforces the importance of the strategies to accomplishing goals. Leads initiatives to create clarity in work. Inspires teams to follow through on plans. Buys engagement from multiple stakeholders to ensure that all Microsoft solution capabilities are represented. Has demonstrated these competencies consistently and on a variety of different projects/in different settings.
• Leads and coaches customer support/account teams to ensure that value is delivered during lifecycle management planning lifecycle management planning and that all teams are aligned on customer priorities, strategies, and budget to maximize annuity and cloud growth. Ensures that team understands the customers' priorities and strategies, and plans programs of services appropriately. Influences the development of local programs and offers according to market requirements. Works collaboratively with the partner ecosystem to drive Microsoft strategy and business outcomes through partner sales. Has demonstrated these competencies consistently and on a variety of different projects/in different settings.

Mastering Key Skills

• Coaches teams to design deals that enable the company to accelerate the business. Coaches teams around account planning guidance to maximize revenue. Handles deal escalation strategies and tactics. Leads annual planning which includes budget planning, territory planning, and portfolio planning with multiple stakeholders (e.g., One Commercial Partner [OCP], account team unit [ATU], specialist team unit [STU], marketing, business groups [BGs]). Has demonstrated these competencies consistently and on a variety of different projects/in different settings.
• Oversees compliance strategy and execution. Coaches team to ensure compliance is embedded in the deal making process. Works within appropriate legal and regulatory environments for customer organizations and industries. Includes orchestrating needed resources for negotiations. Exemplifies and leads the driving of a culture of compliance through the sales deal execution related parts of Microsoft policy (e.g., anti-corruption policy). Oversees win/win-compliant deal making processes to ensure that they occur while commercial solutions are created. Has demonstrated these competencies consistently and on a variety of different projects/in different settings.
• Leverages understanding of liability to evaluate and recommend risk tolerance strategies. Articulates when and why risk is worth it (or not). Builds cost into profit and loss (P&L). Focuses on sustainable business. Coaches and empowers team to evaluate risk and liability as part of deal consideration. Shares best practices and experiences to create efficiencies for teams. Assesses when engagement and executive engagement is necessary due to deal size, complexity, or strategic importance. Has demonstrated these competencies consistently and on a variety of different projects/in different settings.
• Coaches others to apply proven sales methodologies (e.g., Value Selling, Think, Strategic Negotiations). Designs negotiation strategies assigns roles and responsibilities while considering customer needs. Clarifies strategy and serves as escalation point as needed. Defines and briefs leadership team on negotiation strategy. Solicits and receives sign off from leadership teams on largest deals. Oversees establishment of the strategy for the negotiation approach by formulating plans with all required stakeholders to ensure that the entire sales team up to top management are aligned. Owns accountability and the negotiation outcome. Has demonstrated these competencies consistently and on a variety of different projects/in different settings.

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications

• Extensive experience in sales and negotiation experience
• OR Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, Information Technology, Law, Marketing (or equivalent) or related field AND 10+ years sales and negotiation experience or related work or internship experience
• OR Master's Degree in Business Management, Information Technology, Marketing (or equivalent) AND 8+ years sales and negotiation experience or related work
• OR equivalent experience.

• Demonstrable sales management or sales executive leadership experience.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

• 18+ years sales and negotiation experience
• OR Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, Information Technology, Law, Marketing (or equivalent) or related field AND 15+ years sales and negotiation experience or related work or internship experience
• OR Master's Degree in Business Management, Information Technology, Law, Marketing (or equivalent) AND 13+ years sales and negotiation experience or related work
• OR equivalent experience.

• Demonstrable second level management experience.
• Demonstrable sales team management or sales executive leadership experience.
• Extenstive people management experience.

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.