Account Manager - Telco

Role Overview

Account Manager - Telco at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), based in the United Arab Emirates. This is a hybrid role requiring an average of 2 days per week on-site at an HPE office.

Company Overview

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the global edge-to-cloud company advancing the way people live and work. We help companies connect, protect, analyze, and act on their data and applications wherever they live, from edge to cloud, so they can turn insights into outcomes at the speed required to thrive in today's complex world. Our culture thrives on finding new and better ways to accelerate what's next.

Role Purpose

Manage one or several larger accounts or act as the account lead for a substantial part of a top account. Understand the customer's IT and business objectives, priorities, requirements and challenges, and add value by implementing HPE's strategy. Drive business performance for all HPE business units and manage the portfolio mix to optimize profitability of the account.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Account Management

• Articulate a two-way connection between the customer's core KPIs, business priorities and initiatives, and the plan to support the customer with IT solutions.
• Influence the decision-making of customer executives through describing the value of HPE's solutions and their relevance to the customer's priorities.
• Position HPE strategy and solutions in such a way that the customer sees HPE is critically important to their business.
• Understand the innovation agenda and digital journey of the customer, and provide input into them.
• Build a business value framework for the customer.
• Develop and execute a comprehensive account business plan for defined accounts.
• Manage the collective effort to build and maintain both strategic and tactical elements of the plan.
• Share and align the plan with relevant stakeholders of the account.

Growth & Profitability

• Build and execute a plan to drive growth and profitability across HPE's portfolio, in a structured and recurring way.
• Drive growth in HPE's strategic value portfolio through positioning these solutions with the customer.
• Formulate and present technology choices for the customer that will expand HPE's presence and margin in the account.
• Leverage HPE programs and tools, including Executive Sponsors, business unit deal support, and supply chain programs, to improve business performance.
• Contribute to internal reviews connected to deals and sales planning.

Pipeline & Deal Management

• Engage with the customer to identify opportunities.
• Translate customers' business challenges and goals into IT opportunities.
• Ensure a strong and rightsized pipeline funnel from the account team.
• Lead pipeline building activities for the account, involving account team members as appropriate.
• Identify and develop opportunities for short and mid-term success.
• Proactively lead early engagements.
• Hold accountability for deal closure.
• Ensure ownership throughout the team for the deals in the pipeline.
• Drive deals to closure through a multi-disciplinary team, including partners.

Customer Relationship Development

• Develop and maintain a professional relationship network within the customer to maximize efficiency and effectiveness for HPE.
• Understand and leverage the underlying principles for the customer organization's functioning.
• Build influential relationships with executives.
• Define an effective engagement model with the customer's key influencers and decision makers.

Partner Management

• Develop and maintain a view of the partner landscape in the account.
• Develop partner relationships.
• Run an active governance process for the partner network for the account.
• Work with the Partner Business Manager to assess and update the partner strategy for the account.

Technology & Industry Expertise

• Develop and update expertise in IT technology.
• Engage as appropriate with the customer's CTO/CIO.
• Articulate relevant modern trends in IT and present them to executives within the customer when appropriate.
• Describe HPE's portfolio and references its use in other customers.

Team Leadership & Development

• Build, develop and lead the extended account team.
• Run a governance process with the extended team and empower account team to engage on different levels within the account.
• Establish a recurring process to provide feedback to the account team members and the relevant managers.
• Provide mentoring and guidance to lower level employees.

Customer Advocacy & Experience

• Provide feedback into other HPE organizations and coordinate with other customer-facing HPE organizations to improve the customer experience.
• Utilize HPE tools and processes for customer advocacy.
• Leverage existing tools, processes and resources to assure customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Act as customer's advocate inside HPE.

Account Planning & Delivery

• Plan for accounts to deliver results through the financial year and beyond.
• Apply advanced subject matter knowledge to solve complex business issues.

Qualifications & Experience

• University or Bachelor's Degree preferred, or equivalent experience.
• Engineering or technology education, advanced degree or MBA desired.
• Typically 6–10+ years account management experience.
• Experience in IT industry preferred.
• Experience working within an IT department and/or working within customers is a plus.
• Experience in vertical industry preferred.
• Experience in different sales roles is a plus.

Skills & Competencies

• Drives Results: Shows strong will to win, is persistent in face of obstacles and has a clear results orientation.
• Strategic Planning: Able to skillfully articulate a vision for the future and a path to achieve it in an account business plan, aligned with HPE strategy, direct leadership, and HPE business units.
• Sales Execution: Able to efficiently deliver on short-term sales engagements and objectives.
• Continuous Learning: Continuously and actively pursues own learning.
• IT Industry Acumen: Builds and maintains thorough knowledge of cutting-edge IT industry developments and technology trends with potential impacts to customers.
• HPE Portfolio Knowledge: Builds and continually updates a thorough understanding of HPE products, solutions, and service offerings—their value propositions, competitive differentiators, and benefits to customers.
• Team Leadership: Skilled at leading teams (including dispersed and indirect team members) successfully through sales engagements in a complex matrix organization.
• Network and Relationship Building: Skilled at creating strong professional relationships; understands and leverages the value of networks and collaboration.
• Two-Way Communication: Able to listen actively to understand the perspectives of others, and to articulate value propositions, plans, and proposals in language relevant to the customer, partner or internal stakeholder.
• Influencing and Negotiating: Understands and proficiently leverages influencing and negotiation techniques.
• Business Acumen: Understands how different parts of a business interoperate to produce business outcomes and how actions impact company results. Has thorough understanding of general business concepts and the economy. Able to understand financial reports and make relevant conclusions for planning.
• Operational Excellence: Able to show predictability and operational excellence both internally and externally.
• Integrity: Acts with integrity throughout complex situations even if under pressure.
• Vertical and Industry Knowledge: Understands the customer's industry landscape, enterprise architecture, and partner and influencer ecosystem, and is able to use this knowledge to build and advise the customer on its digital journey plan.
• Consulting: Can synthesize a number of skills and relevant knowledge to guide the customer through a process of achieving business outcomes leveraging HPE's portfolio.

Additional Information

Work Arrangement

This role is hybrid, requiring an average of 2 days per week from an HPE office.

Job Level

Expert

Job Category

Sales

Benefits

• Health and Wellbeing: Comprehensive suite of benefits supporting physical, financial and emotional wellbeing for team members and their loved ones.
• Personal and Professional Development: Investment in your career through specific programs catered to helping you reach career goals—whether you want to become a knowledge expert in your field or apply your skills to another division.
• Unconditional Inclusion: Unconditionally inclusive work environment celebrating individual uniqueness. Flexibility to manage work and personal needs.

Equal Opportunity

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is an Equal Employment Opportunity, Veterans, Disabled, and LGBT employer. HPE does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, or any other protected category. HPE complies with all applicable laws related to employer use of arrest and conviction records, including laws requiring employers to consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories. HPE is an EEO Protected Veteran and Individual with Disabilities employer.