Presales Solution Architect
- Wellington
- Permanent
- Full-time
- Provide presales support to the sales and account management teams by leading presales workshops with customers to guide them through proposed solutions, whilst extracting their requirements and understanding their problem statements.
- Assist customer and Datacom teams with reviewing and completing Statement of Requirements (SOR) documents.
- Produce Statements of Work (SOW) documents, in conjunction with pricing estimators, for the purposes of project engagements for both managed services and professional services engagements for Datacom customers.
- Produce Proposal documents for customers who require solutions and product options as part of their evaluation process.
- Produce Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) documents for the purposes of customer budgeting.
- Prepare and deliver presentations to our customer base on new and emerging products, solutions, and Datacom's Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) offerings, highlighting how these services can be applied to their business.
- Lead internal project kick-off's on the SOW's you author to project teams.
- Undertake quality assurance documentation peer reviews on colleagues' documentation.
- Contribute to Sales Growth Plans and proactive customer targeting workshops as directed by your manager.
- Identify and resolve gaps between old managed services contracts and our new managed service schedules (amended/evolved from time to time) to ensure consistency in delivery and pricing across the customer base.
- Provide the technical and commercial inputs from a Managed Operations line of business perspective into the renewal team.
- Ensure requirements are adequate, understood and agreed with technical engineers prior to commencement of deployment activities.
- Contribute to defining scope and accurate effort estimates in Statement of Work for non-standard implementations.
- Continuously develop and maintain an understanding of industry trends as well as Datacom's evolving products, solutions, and services.
- Work as part of a bid team to lead the solutioning, compliance and pricing components for large multi-service line bids (RFI/RFT/RFQ/RFP).
- Coordinate appropriate responses and pricing to bid requirements through the Managed Operations service line managers (Intelligent Workspace, Modern Platforms, Service Management, Service Operations and Service Desk).
- Where requested, engage with the customer to present on Datacom's Managed Operations service capabilities.
- Develop, maintain and execute initiatives in alignment with a personal development plan.
- Attain and/or maintain relevant industry or professional certification.
- Attain and/or maintain an intimate knowledge of the Microsoft ecosystem, including Cloud Solutions, Hosting Solutions, Identity Solutions, Information Management Solutions, Database Solutions, Copilot Solutions and Security Solutions.
- Attain and/or maintain an intimate knowledge of supporting Microsoft solutions (subject to change and evolve over time), such as Riverbed Aternity, VMware, Nutanix, AvePoint, Commvault, Rubrik, Veeam, BigFix, Ansible, ServiceNow, TeamViewer.
- Align their learning and development activities with an AI and automation growth mindset.
- Work with partners and vendors to build strong relationships to facilitate timely resolution of product issues and presales support.
- Identify opportunities for rebates, incentives, etc from vendors and work with various teams to exploit such opportunities.
- Influence and negotiate with vendors to ensure we buy at the best possible price point.
- Identify gaps or inconsistencies in Datacom's presales processes when encountered and formulate remedial recommendations.
- Proactive open and honest communications at all levels and remain accountable for personal performance.
- Develop effective working relationships with other Datacom employees to ensure the best company outcome.
- Take ownership of all tasks which are assigned to and drive them through to completion.
- Ensure quality is not compromised by highlighting blockers to management and managing time expectations with stakeholders.
- Contribute to and present on Datacom Managed Operations Go-To-Market strategies and content.
- Extensive experience designing installing and/or supporting Microsoft, Oracle or VMware solution offerings
- Experience with scoping and pricing MSP engagements
- Ability and previous experience with presenting solutions and service offerings to customers
- Demonstrable history of creating high quality SORs, SOWs, HLDs and proposals for customers who outsource their IT
- Strong understanding of Fixed Price vs Time & Materials SOW's (and when to choose one over the other)
- Strong understanding of pricing project and managed services engagements
- Extensive knowledge of the following technologies - Windows Desktop OS, Window Server OS, Microsoft Infrastructure, Microsoft Teams Voice, Microsoft Email, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Database Platforms
- Extensive knowledge of hybrid cloud and native cloud environments such as Public cloud offerings, specifically Azure and Microsoft 365 solution design and implementation
- Good working knowledge of - Enterprise mobile management solutions, Enterprise desktop and server management solutions, Enterprise cloud solutions, Microsoft Copilot's, Hardware lifecycle management, Software lifecycle management, Identity lifecycle management, Security lifecycle management, Sales and Project lifecycles
- Good understanding of 'on-premises to cloud' and 'cloud to cloud' migration paths
- Good understanding of industry recognised security frameworks and solutions
- Good understanding of AI and Automation and a strong desire to expand upon these skillsets
- Sound understanding of networking technologies and solutions
- Proven history of working autonomously in small and large teams