Deal Manager

As the scope of our business expands, there is an increasing reliance on the Deal Desk to design, approve, facilitate, and test innovative deals & commercial models in addition to maintaining its core strength of securing company revenue and profitability. Deal Desk encompasses more than 300 employees worldwide. The success and reputation of the Deal Desk is well established across all parts of Microsoft for driving billions of dollars of “good business”. Deal Desk is part of Microsoft’s Worldwide Commercial Finance organization sitting in Finance and reporting to Microsoft’s CFO Amy Hood. Deal Managers make empowered decisions on commercial solutions (product and services) using business judgment, financial analysis, technical knowledge, licensing and monetization principles, balancing customer’s, and Microsoft’s interests.  Strong engagement and partnership with Field Sales, Product Groups, Engineering, CELA and other Corp functions. Deal Desk work closely with field sellers and customers to negotiate deal construct, pricing, and terms & conditions to close complex deals.

Mission

As a Deal Manager, you will be responsible for creating licensing solutions for our Commercial Enterprise and Strategic accounts in CEMA. Your responsibility also includes providing feedback on Online Services, Consulting Services and licensing strategies and business opportunities/challenges along with piloting alternative licensing offerings. Most of your customers will have unique commercial and contractual needs that you will address in collaboration with the account teams and the Area senior leadership team. You will operate as the subject matter expect and provide leadership and coaching to the local sales and licensing community and be a trusted advisor for regional management with respect to complex Online Services, Consulting Services and licensing related topics. You will regularly be involved in direct customer facing high stakes negotiations.

Qualifications

• Direct Sales experience with commercial enterprise customers.
• Good knowledge of the marketplace, competition, and specific challenges of major industry sectors driving negotiation behavior
• Must be able to support negotiation of large deals at senior customer level (CxO).
• Must be able to deal with a frequently changing environment, incomplete information, and complex stakeholder structures
• Strong analytical, mathematical, and tool skills (Excel, Pivot tables, data manipulation and transformation)
• Excellent communication and negotiation skills required, as well as excellent presentation skills, both internally and customer-facing
• An ability & appetite to learn and keep up to date your knowledge/understanding of Microsoft Products, Volume License offerings & Online Services to position Microsoft’s offerings vs competition.
• Intellectual Curiosity, in depth Analytical Skills, Project Management, Confidence
• Speak fluent English. The language for communication in all areas will be in English.
• Role requires occasional domestic or international travel

Responsibilities

• Customer satisfaction and licensing simplification. Work directly and indirectly with the largest customers to assist in determining and approving optimal licensing solutions that meets the customers’ needs while also simplifying the licensing experience and maximizing the revenue opportunity to Microsoft.
• Empowerment and decision making, broad legal and financial authority, with extensive understanding of concession risks and cost of sales implications.
• Subsidiary engagement. Pro-actively work with various levels of stakeholders to assist them in closing sales, driving consumption of Online Services, develop commercial offerings and analyze customer licensing requirements.
• Interface with the Microsoft headquarters (Seattle) based Product Groups, Legal and Operations to highlight licensing trends and challenges and ensure that the solutions developed meet the short and long term needs of both the customer and Microsoft while minimizing internal costs and any associated liabilities.
• Strategic commercial direction. Contribute to the overall strategic direction of Worldwide Commercial Finance by ensuring effective implementation and landing of strategy and offerings, testing pilots and providing feedback on new licensing strategies for regional and worldwide use.