Strategic Alliances Manager

Job description / Role

What we offer

Our company culture is focused on helping our employees enable innovation by building breakthroughs together. How? We focus every day on building the foundation for tomorrow and creating a workplace that embraces differences, values flexibility, and is aligned to our purpose-driven and future-focused work. We offer a highly collaborative, caring team environment with a strong focus on learning and development, recognition for your individual contributions, and a variety of benefit options for you to choose from. Apply now!

ROLE DESCRIPTION:

The Partner Business Manager (PBM) is a field-based role working with strategic alliance and advisory partners in the Human Experience Management line of business. You are part of our strategy to build the ecosystem that powers growth the Human Experience market and delivers outstanding customer outcomes. This is a revenue enabling role, where you are working every day with our partners and alongside our own customer- and market-facing teams. Success is measured by the software license revenue sourced and influenced by the partners you manage, the successful outcomes delivered to customers, and the innovation our partners bring to market with SAP's Business Technology Platform.

This role is part of our Global Strategic Alliances team, with specific responsibility for partners in our EMEA South region. EMEA South covers the Middle East, Africa, and southern European countries from Portugal across to Greece. It is one of the most dynamic regions in the business world, with cultural and language diversity providing a . You will be the main point of contact for building the partner relationship with the partners you own for the region. Your responsibilities start with building the Go To Market (GTM) strategy, defining our joint focus for how we grow, win and succeed together. With a clear GTM plan in place, you will manage the growth initiatives as a link between our partners and our GTM and marketing teams, and drive the resulting pipeline growth and sales motions alongside our Account Executives in HXM and Industry teams. The PBM provides support to SAP sales teams and partners in sales cycles via coaching, mentoring and shadowing in customer facing sales activities.

The work of a Partner Business Manager regularly involves coordinating all SAP interactions (with executives, sales leadership, account executives, CEEs, solutions teams, peers, etc.) in order to drive partner investments and growth as well as day to day account interactions. As well as the deal-focused activities, you'll be thinking on long term development, health-of-business and transformation to new solutions, technologies and models. To ensure our partners are delivering the best customer adoption and consumption, you will also support the Partner Delivery Management and Partner Readiness team to drive practice excellence & enablement so partners reach self-sufficiency and deliver outstanding customer value.

EXPECTATIONS AND TASKS:

Strategy, GTM Planning and Business Development

- Develops and drive effective joint annual business planning with partner to align partners with the HXM business plan and go to market initiatives, for maximum multiplier effect from our ecosystem
- Works on investment and expansion plans,
- Holds partners accountable and measure (and report) results and ROI on documented marketing and demand generation plans regularly (i.e., quarterly updates and reviews).
- Utilizes existing experts within SAP to prepare, deliver and follow up on the business planning
- Understands and articulates the relevant SAP portfolio in terms of the customer value proposition and the partner value proposition (including partner economics, partner ROI, advise the partner on investments into various solutions as is seen fit, using available SAP experts);
- Presents SAP opportunities (i.e. new product, new solutions area) in financial terms including potential revenue, required partner investment, break-even, and return on investment to gain partner adoption - mainly focusing on extending the partner's sweet spot (vs. entering completely new business areas)
- Assists partner in building transformational plans to differentiate themselves and add value to customers - Explains economic trends and industry knowledge to support the partner's investment in developing their SAP business and to gain trusted advisor status
- Leads and drives partner to expand their SAP footprint to the innovation solution portfolio where relevant, and incorporate the new solutions in pipeline building and demand generation plans;

Revenue Generation and Leadership

- Responsible for driving sales of SAP software licenses with and through partners across SAP's HXM portfolio, through the range of sales engagement models and commercial mechanisms from co-sell to re-sell.
- Drives partner execution to revenue commitments to SAP and measures and reports progress
- Collaborates with SAP teams (Account Executive, Inside Sales Executive, General Business Sales Executives, etc.) acting as a strategic liaison between the partner and SAP to ensure effective communications, aligned strategies, and sales successes; ensure partner uses full SAP resources effectively (executives, solution experts, sales, support, field services, etc.)
- Networks through the partner to uncover new revenue opportunities and influencers for pipeline generation and support on account strategy and execution
- Guides partner on the sales landscape and how SAP solutions complement other software and technologies that the partner sells to increase size of opportunities and the partner's margin

Partner Demand Generation and Pipeline Creation

- Responsible for partner's pipeline development; driving to SAP's expectation of pipeline multipliers, and leveraging SAP marketing and business development resources and tools.
- Develops and executes a pipeline development plan to meet partner's pipeline multiplier goals, net new name goals, and revenue commitments; including setting goals for establishing customer references
- Drives the partner to source new pipeline, moving into active sales motions
- Guides partner's demand generation plans to align with SAP's current go-to-market messaging;
- Influences partner to effectively utilize 100% of their marketing development funds;
- Ensure that the partner collaborates to build and execute joint demand generation activities with SAP regional, industry and national Sales, Business Development and Marketing Teams to grow a mutual pipeline and that partners agree to clear account and align plans as to close more business.

Partner Management

- Responsible for the overall success of your partner, and for partner compliance with SAP PartnerEdge program requirements and SAP's Chanel Operating Policies.
- Proactively develops active and long-term partner relationships across all roles in the partner (executives, sales, marketing, technical), and keeps up to date with all changes to the partners' organization
- Effectively trains partner's sales force to become experts on delivering the SAP value proposition (overall and by solution)
- Ensures PartnerEdge requirements are met and take corrective action as necessary, if required with E&C mgmt.
- Ensures that partners - and SAP teams - operate in a professional and ethical manner; take action or escalate if professionalism and ethics standards are not being met
- Proactively provide professional preparation and leadership of partner/SAP meetings

Requirements

WORK EXPERIENCE:

- 10+ years working experience in the software or management consulting industry
- 7+ years in a partner-facing or customer-facing role (ex. Customer Success, Partner Management, Sales, Consulting)
- Demonstrate strong background in partner management OR sales leadership skills
- Ideally an expert in HR, with relevant experience in cloud HR technology
- Business development experience in driving sales pipeline, demand gen, and enablement with partners

EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATION / SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES:

- Effective communication and presentation skills an executive level
- High energy - brings innovative ideas to the team and champions best practices
- Proven capability to work in a team and collaborate; with independent accountability
- Local market knowledge and understanding (software industry, trends, vertical market industries, etc.)
- Business level English + fluency in at least one additional from Italian, Spanish, Arabic, or Portuguese
- Bachelor degree equivalent
- Strong analytical competencies

LOCATION: any Country in EMEA South

SAP'S DIVERSITY COMMITMENT
To harness the power of innovation, SAP invests in the development of its diverse employees. We aspire to leverage the qualities and appreciate the unique competencies that each person brings to the company.

SAP is committed to the principles of Equal Employment Opportunity and to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and/or mental disabilities.

About the Company

Headquartered in Walldorf, Germany, SAP is the world's largest business software company with more than 51,500 employees at sales and development locations in more than 50 countries worldwide.

Our global development approach focuses on distributing development across the world in strategically important markets. A global network of SAP Labs spanning Bulgaria, Canada, China, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, and the United States, enables SAP to operate locally, yet organize globally.

As the global technology research unit of SAP, SAP Research significantly contributes to SAP's product portfolio and extends SAP's leading position by identifying and shaping emerging IT trends through applied research and corporate venturing. SAP Research has highly skilled teams in 11 research centers worldwide.