Country Sales Lead

Job Description

Avanade operates globally across geographic Regions; each Region has a community of sales professionals who are accountable for identifying, qualifying and developing business opportunities which connect the full breadth and depth of Avanade’s market-leading capabilities and solutions with the business and technology needs of our clients, seizing the market opportunity for Avanade.

Our sales professionals are often the first point of contact for clients and bring critical market-facing and competitive insights into Avanade’s business to ensure that we collectively focus on high quality, differentiated, client-specific value propositions. Our Sales teams are accountable for owning and driving Avanade’s ambitious sales growth, bringing Avanade’s Integrated Go-to-Market (IGTM) approach to life for clients, within each of our Regions and Countries.

We have made incredible progress in our employee experience in the past few years, and we are evolving our Talent Communities, and better aligning our pre-sales and solutioning efforts into Practices. Practices are where Avanade’s employees are ‘homed’. The Regional Sales Practice is where Avanade’s in-region selling professionals and sales-focused employees are homed. Working closely with the Regional Sales Lead, the Country Sales Lead works in alignment with Avanade's regional strategic business and sales priorities, with an emphasis on creating and supporting an engaged community of expert, high-performance selling and sales-focused professionals who have access to ongoing skills, capability and career development.

Having a dedicated Country Sales Lead driving an engaged Country-wide Sales Practice will foster a community of sales professionals who are highly motivated and capable to drive ambitious business growth while ensuring excellent client business outcomes, bringing the ‘voice of the customer’ into Avanade.

The Country Sales Lead - Portugal will have responsibility for leading our overall sales organisation and targets within Portugal, including the local sales teams and sellers for Portugal, owning the local relationship with the national Accenture Microsoft Business Sales Lead and the national Microsoft executives.

Portugal as a country is a very important part of Avanade’s Iberian business with impressive growth rates for both sales and revenues with favourable market conditions and a strong presence in both the private sector as well as in the public sector. The current business has a strong sales track record but the plan is for the new Sales Lead to treble current sales in a relatively short timeframe. The existing team of BD specialists that support the role need leading and there is ambition to also grow the size of this team significantly over the next three years.

The position is a member of the Portuguese Leadership team and the European Sales Leadership team and will report directly into the Regional Sales Lead. There will be a dotted line into the Portuguese GM and the Sales lead will be expected to liaise closely with the GM on all strategic matters - the role will have the influence and scope to ensure that Avanade is ideally positioned for successful growth over the long term.

The Country Sales Lead - Portugal role requires a track record in developing and growing high performance sales teams in the Portuguese market whilst working as part of a wider team; demonstrating and role modelling team player behaviours across the wider region.

A strategic outlook will assist the ideal profile in the navigation of a “new normal”, both for Avanade Portugal and the wider Iberian ecosystem. A combination of hands-on strategic deal and client relationship experience, together with gravitas and impact, will drive continuous value for the organisation's top clients. This individual will be entrepreneurial and results oriented and will contribute to overall business success.

**Key Responsibilities**

**Sales Strategy & Planning**

- Responsible for planning at a nationwide level, including pipeline development, strategic deal shaping, bid management, and ongoing sales effectiveness program implementation, as well as the development and management of various sales reporting processes

- Work in partnership with the local Client Group Leaders and report directly to the Regional Sales Lead who is responsible for the regional portfolio of clients
- Build, manage, and orchestrate go-to-market and sales efforts with a 100% focus on Direct Sales
- Articulate an inspiring sales vision and strategy for Portugal, working with Client Group Leads and Integrated Go to Market Lead
- Develop business growth plans including annual growth plans and sales target/quota plans
- Work in partnership with the Portuguese General Manager to agree strategy, targets and promote best practices in business development and selling

**Drive Sales Performance**

- Manage and assess performance of local/national practice members, in line with agreed plans and KPI