Area Microsoft Alliance Lead

As the Avanade Area Microsoft Alliance Leader for Growth Markets, you’ll be the "face of the partnership" for Growth Markets, managing the Microsoft relationship across all aspects of the partnership - from stakeholder alignment and relationship management to Regional Alliance Team leadership, from joint sales and go-to-market orchestration to joint field alignment and partner enablement. You’ll be responsible for leading the execution of the global alliance plan with Microsoft in Growth Markets to support our growth opportunities in all channels, you’ll act as a key strategic advisor to Area/Region leadership on Microsoft, providing the voice to the partner and from the partner, you’ll align to sales leadership to enable co-selling at scale, mobilize across Avanade, Accenture, and Microsoft to drive increased share of wallet and mindshare for Avanade services. You’ll sit on the Area Leadership Team, providing strategic guidance and leadership on executing Avanade’s strategy with Microsoft. You will lead the dedicated Regional Alliance team to deliver incremental value, results and impact across the Area. You will be a core member of the Global Alliance Leadership Team, accelerating the next phase of transformation of the Avanade Microsoft Partnership globally.

Core Skills
Alliance management in today’s fast-paced market dynamics requires a unique, next-level skillset. In this role, you’ll bring the breadth of your partner management and leadership skillset to deliver market-making results, demonstrating your acumen across: - Sales - you are an expert on how to sell with Microsoft, you bring a sales mindset and an entrepreneurial attitude, with a relentless focus on our joint clients
- Business - you are a go-to person for Area Leadership, an influencer and trusted advisor, known for doing what you say you’ll do - across Avanade, Accenture, and Microsoft
- Strategic - you bring a cross-functional perspective and the foresight to anticipate decisions, problems, conflicts & opportunities
- Communication - you are a seasoned communicator, with the ability to tell articulate clearly upstream and downstream to get results
- Operational - you know who to connect with and when to get things done for all things related to partnering with Microsoft
- Relationship & political acumen - you build credibility and deep relationships internally & externally, you negotiate and build consensus, and possess the empathy to drive to win/win solutions
- Results-focused - you have a bias for action, you aren’t a ‘reporter of the news’ - you will ensure that the Alliance Team under your leadership drives impact to the Area’s bottom line

Accountabilities Microsoft relationship owner for Area
Area Joint Alliance Strategy, Plan, and Alliance execution
Joint Avanade/Microsoft and PO3 initiative orchestration
Interlock & Rhythm of the Business for the Area
Management of Regional Alliance Leads
Joint Scorecard metric achievement

**Responsibilities**:

- Lead Microsoft relationship in Area, working closely with Avanade leadership, Microsoft and Accenture to drive execution of joint activities to support growth goals. Manage escalation resolution, exec alignment, scorecard across Area and regional execution.
- Lead the execution of the Joint Alliance Plan for the Area, overseeing execution plans, priority initiative alignment & achievement of metrics.
- Lead team of Region Alliance Managers to ensure consistent execution of the partnership across Area with localized plans & scorecards.
- Orchestrate pan-Area governance & joint ROB to drive predictable interlock, align to relevant processes and programs across Area
- Collaborate with Microsoft & Avanade Area Sales Leaders to execute ‘sell-with’ and joint GTM initiatives
- Manage Area Joint Account targeting process - orchestrate attainment of joint account planning session and incremental pipeline
- Support joint area/region account planning sessions to influence, extend, and/or accelerate deal closure
- Develop and execute a coordinated enablement plan to drive joint field awareness of priority initiatives and programs, targeting Avanade, Accenture & MS Sales, Target Clients
- Manage Area alliance operational rhythm of the business to accurately track and report impact of joint activities to Area growth
- Serve as primary influencer to Area Alliance Marketing to ensure effective marketing activities to support joint strategy
- Act as part of Global Alliance Leadership Team to ensure close coordination, continuous communication related to Area requirements, and ensure one unified global Alliance operational framework and consistent partner experience

Metrics & KPIs

**Area Alliance Impact Metric (AIM) Targets**: Alliance Governance ROB & Relationship Health
Alliance-influence Incremental Pipeline - Joint Strategic Initiative Scorecard Metrics - (e.g., Majors Program) Area Microsoft Metrics Attainment (e.g., ACR, D365 Revenue, E5 Security)
Microsoft ECIF &