Partner Technology Strategist

Job Responsibility: The Americas Global Partner Solutions (GPS) is focused on building the most profitable and impactful partner ecosystem in the world. We help our partners build innovative technical solutions, develop their technical skills & abilities, and successfully sell & deploy with our joint customers. As a Partner Technology Strategist (PTS) - you will be the driving force behind our partners' digital transformation journey. Leveraging your technical expertise and cloud knowledge, you will align our partners' technology roadmap with Microsoft's solutions and priorities. By doing so, you will empower our partners to deliver exceptional ROI to their customers while driving business growth and innovation Role location is hybrid and must be located in the Toronto area as well as able to be in the Toronoto Office 2-3 times a week is a must. May require up to 25% domestic and international business travel.

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.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Responsibilities

Partner and Industry Insights

• Generates business insights based on engagement experience and proactive collaboration with the partner, internal teams, and industry, to conduct forecasting and develop recommendations for managing accounts and subsidiary planning. Challenges partners to consider alternative business models to meet business and market needs, and adapts plans to insights.
• Leads orchestration of teams to gather information, collaborate on performance markers, and identify potential risks in partner accounts. Brings in business and industry insights to address the broader business challenges for the partner and deliver solutions.

Trusted Advisor

• Acts as the voice of the partner and internal advocate by providing insights, feedback, and challenges from the partner to internal teams (e.g., product groups, engineers).
• Supplements existing technical decision maker (TDM) and/or business decision maker (BDM) relationships with additional ones at the C- and direct-report level by researching organization charts, identifying and contacting TDMs/BDMs, and beginning to advise on solutions and position Microsoft offerings.

Strategy Formulation

• Provides analysis of overall partner needs and advises on gaps that would benefit from Microsoft solutions, using an understanding of the business strategies and outcomes that technology can support. Advises internal teams on how to identify and address gaps in order to drive end solutions.
• Ensures execution of technology strategy and/or digital transformation by providing technical expertise during implementation and driving technology adoption. Executes work to support the transformation of partners and their customer's technology capacity, capability, and co-selling across the engagement.
• Creates mid-term to long-term technical development plans (TDP) for one or more accounts, in alignment with the Partner Business Plans (PBPs) and in collaboration with the Partner Development Manager (PDM). Outlines the digital transformation journey and core wins. Drives 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-term to long-term business plans.

Demand Generation and Orchestration

• Orchestrates technical resources and internal teams to ensure sufficient technical resources for demands, when appropriate.

Differentiated Value Proposition

• Drives conversations that present the strategic relationship between Microsoft technologies, solutions/offers, products, and services compared with the competitor's solution and the partner's overall business goals and objectives.
• Creates and maintains a vision with business and technology solution scenarios and services that helps partners meet their business goals, achieve their long-term corporate vision, and maximize commercial success.

Education and Thought Leadership

• Uses existing and new readiness resources to support enablement plans for partner technology adoption at the national and regional level. Contributes to innovations to accelerate meeting goals for partner capacity, maximize reach and impact, and drive long-term engagement and thought leadership on the Microsoft platform.
• Provides strategic input to virtual team members (e.g., Account Team) using a thorough knowledge of Microsoft technologies, partner accounts, and digital transformations and their context in the competitive landscape.

Ensuring Success

• Proactively orchestrates execution and monitoring of projects/programs in accordance with partner plan to develop solution offerings and value realization across a variety of solution areas. Sets timelines and milestones, and tracks progress toward objectives. Builds industry knowledge and establishes technical credibility with partners to drive the project agenda.
• Plays a key role in helping the partner and their customers be successful with digital transformation and Microsoft technology adoption by helping them realize the value, meet their business objectives, achieve their consumption and business targets, and accelerate growth. Works with others (may leverage the cloud solutions architect [CSA]) to guide the development of partner technology roadmaps that enable them to expand into new markets and provides them with a competitive edge.

Solution Development

• Secures commitment from critical partners to develop innovative and complex solutions using Microsoft technologies in collaboration with partner, and builds solutions into the partner ecosystem to enable partners to sell to end-customers.

Partner Enablement

• Helps partners build practices or solutions and shares their experience and influence with partners through solution-sales guidance. Provides guidance to immediate team to ensure that technical pre-sales, deployment, and consumption are part of solution development efforts. Anticipates partners' technical blockers and executes a plan to divert blockers before they have the potential to occur. Uses existing and new readiness resources to support enablement plans for customer technology adoption at the national and regional level. Supports partner workforce skilling and delivery capabilities to help partners realize customer value from Microsoft technology adoption, to help partner monetize with Microsoft.

Embody our Culture and Values

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications (RQs/MQs)

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, business or related field AND 2+ years technical consulting, technical consultative selling, product development, or related technical/sales experience.

o OR Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business or related field AND 1+ year(s) technical consulting, technical consultative selling, product development, or related technical/sales experience o OR equivalent experience. Additional or Preferred Qualifications (PQs)

• 5+ years experience with relevant technologies (e.g., cloud, infrastructure, Microsoft platform).

Partner Technology Strategy IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across Canada is CAD $64,600 - CAD $125,400 per year. Find additional pay information here: Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: 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.