CDW
Contact Center Principal Field Solution Architect
Bring your IT career and talents to CDW, where you can have a greater impact, be inspired by our mission and excited about your career and future. A Fortune 200 leader, we're the driven professionals and technology experts companies turn to most to solve their IT challenges. At CDW, we make it happen, together. Trust, connection, and commitment are at the heart of how we work together to deliver for our customers. It's why we're coworkers, not just employees. Coworkers who genuinely believe in supporting our customers and one another. We collectively forge our path forward with a level of commitment that speaks to who we are and where we're headed. We're proud to share our story and Make Amazing Happen at CDW. Job Summary: This position is part of CDW's Contact Center Practice, a single-source provider to our clients for all things Customer Experience. We have more than 140 Pre-Sales resources, and more than 80 Field Services Engineer, as well as Technical Architects, Team Leads, and Project Managers focused on delivering an array of world-class customer experience solutions to our customers. CDW has been delivering Contact Center solutions to our customers for over 50 years. We have deployed over 100,000 Contact Center Agents and we have enjoyed consistent industry awards from our partner community. CDW is also at the forefront of the artificial intelligence revolution. The Contact Center Principal Field Solution Architect role is a technical pre-sales position that works with CDW sales teams and partners to design and present Contact Center and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions to meet the needs of our customers. The Principal Field Solution Architect Contact Center role focuses on pre-sales solution design. This role is responsible for working with internal and external sales teams and partners to plan and organize strategies. The incumbent analyzes the sales environment including customer expectations, competitive environment, as well as the customer's technical and operational environment to define actions that will be performed in the sales cycle timeframe. The Principal Field Solution Architect develops and maintains strategic relationships with Sales Management of the teams they support and is expected to be a trusted advisor to grow business. The Principal Field Solution Architect is expected to be subject matter expert (SME) in multiple technologies of customer experience solutions. The Principal Field Solution Architect is responsible for driving a variety of initiatives and projects, coaches and/or mentors others Field Solution Architects; and strategically works with sales teams, partners and customers to uncover and increase emerging business opportunities. The Principal Field Solution Architect takes a lead role in defining, developing, and supporting solutions and new technologies; prepares the team to be successful through proactive training, sharing knowledge, and communicating best practices. What You Will Do: Provide technical pre-sales support of Customer Experience related opportunities across defined geographies. Work with CDW partners to design and present Customer Experience solutions, including sales campaigns, customer events, as well as BOM and SOW generation that satisfy customer requirements. Position value proposition and basic ROI fundamentals for solutions that are being proposed. Explain Contact Center and Artificial Intelligence solution differentiation to potential customers when competing against competitors. Explain CDW value add and experience to customers when competing against other Contact Center providers. Work with other CDW departments on the execution of specialist related orders and sales incentives Provide feedback to Product & Partner Management groups concerning trends and opportunities Work with Marketing as a subject matter expert 75% Sales activities via conference calls, email, and customer visits 20% Training technology and professional development 5% Team development and miscellaneous tasks Travel up to 25% of the time Technology Leadership Acquires deep technical depth in their role; Is the "Go To" person for the solution, both technically and strategically; is on the forefront of their solution(s) and the implications for CDW offerings. Performs a lead role in executing the "Go-to-Market" for new offerings. Designs technical solutions not only considering the customer's infrastructure but also business limitations and opportunities; operates comfortably beyond standard approaches to satisfy the needs of all stakeholders. Reviews peer's designs for quality and accuracy. Determines and defines professional services that correspond to proposed hardware and software solutions, determines required engineer effort. Operates beyond a 'self' focus for the benefit of the team and the practice to better CDW's technology leadership, execution, and overall relevance to our customers; develops standardized templates of deliverables, including the SoW framework, tools, demo lab and scripts, and services calculation (Calc); provides leadership to deliver products and services. Provides training and updates on technologies, procedures, solution implementations and approaches. Develops training materials as required to support CDW sales and operations. Promotes a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration by organizing knowledge bases, contributing regularly, and encouraging team members to contribute. Coaches and mentors team members to improve their technical, consulting, and sales skills. Acts as a resource to Field Solution Architects for advice and recommendations on technical design issues and product choices. Conducts technical assessment and expertise evaluations during the candidate selection process. Assists managers with new hire Field Solution Architects, leads shadow assignments; proactively provides assistance and guidance to new hires to accelerate productivity. Sales Advises team members and sales teams prior to customer calls and/or sales strategy sessions. Assists customers in understanding their maintenance contracts, upgrade requirements, and renewals; evaluate the most cost-effective approach for the customer (e.g. renew the contract or purchase new equipment and contract.) Incorporates financing (through manufacturer or third party) as part of the sales proposal and discussion. Articulates to customers the Digital Experience value proposition to customers, account managers, and partners and uses it to generate additional revenue opportunities to CDW. Guides (compares and contrast) customers in their decision making within all tiers of CDW technologies. Initiates new event ideas; collaborates with Partners and Sales to design events that can be replicated by other Field Solution Architects. Delivers presentations and conducts sales conversations with confidence and credibility to C-level clients, both in small meeting and large group formats. Develops presentation content as required. Develops assessments improvements and demos for Field Solution Architects to use as sales tools, identifies new ideas for cross-sell opportunities. Collaborates with Partners, Inside Solution Architects, and Account Executives to drive opportunities; fine tunes strategies and approaches to achieve greater sales results. Operates in a regular cadence with multiple partners to educate, plan, and execute on joint strategies in collaboration with multiple stakeholders (FSA, ISA, AE, SM, SSE, Field Sales); understands partner alignment in geography and leads customer opportunity mapping exercises; coordinates on-site partner visits. Shares best practices and effective territory planning approaches with peers to leverage successful approaches across the team. Shares best practices and tactics for enhancing profitability and closing deals. Acts as subject matter expert for marketing activities (e.g., marketing blog, content, references, videos, etc.); produces marketing-type documents and materials (e.g., data sheet, presentation, demo video). Sales Support Responds to questions about partner registrations, associated registration issues, and customer engagement history. Manages competing priorities and sets expectations with sales and other stakeholders through proactive communication, planning, and potential for return on investment. Leads the development of Bills of Materials, Statements of Work, RFP's, RFI's, and proposal content for cross-technology solutions with high levels of accuracy and quality. Maintains pre-sales pipeline data, develops plans, and takes actions to move opportunities to closure. Demonstrated subject matter expertise in specific technologies. Other Requirements Stay up to date on products, applications, technical service, market conditions, competitive activities, advertising, and promotional trends through the reading of pertinent literature, seminars, and online training Proven project management skills. Proficient in Microsoft office applications.
Bring your IT career and talents to CDW, where you can have a greater impact, be inspired by our mission and excited about your career and future. A Fortune 200 leader, we're the driven professionals and technology experts companies turn to most to solve their IT challenges. At CDW, we make it happen, together. Trust, connection, and commitment are at the heart of how we work together to deliver for our customers. It's why we're coworkers, not just employees. Coworkers who genuinely believe in supporting our customers and one another. We collectively forge our path forward with a level of commitment that speaks to who we are and where we're headed. We're proud to share our story and Make Amazing Happen at CDW. Job Summary: This position is part of CDW's Contact Center Practice, a single-source provider to our clients for all things Customer Experience. We have more than 140 Pre-Sales resources, and more than 80 Field Services Engineer, as well as Technical Architects, Team Leads, and Project Managers focused on delivering an array of world-class customer experience solutions to our customers. CDW has been delivering Contact Center solutions to our customers for over 50 years. We have deployed over 100,000 Contact Center Agents and we have enjoyed consistent industry awards from our partner community. CDW is also at the forefront of the artificial intelligence revolution. The Contact Center Principal Field Solution Architect role is a technical pre-sales position that works with CDW sales teams and partners to design and present Contact Center and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions to meet the needs of our customers. The Principal Field Solution Architect Contact Center role focuses on pre-sales solution design. This role is responsible for working with internal and external sales teams and partners to plan and organize strategies. The incumbent analyzes the sales environment including customer expectations, competitive environment, as well as the customer's technical and operational environment to define actions that will be performed in the sales cycle timeframe. The Principal Field Solution Architect develops and maintains strategic relationships with Sales Management of the teams they support and is expected to be a trusted advisor to grow business. The Principal Field Solution Architect is expected to be subject matter expert (SME) in multiple technologies of customer experience solutions. The Principal Field Solution Architect is responsible for driving a variety of initiatives and projects, coaches and/or mentors others Field Solution Architects; and strategically works with sales teams, partners and customers to uncover and increase emerging business opportunities. The Principal Field Solution Architect takes a lead role in defining, developing, and supporting solutions and new technologies; prepares the team to be successful through proactive training, sharing knowledge, and communicating best practices. What You Will Do: Provide technical pre-sales support of Customer Experience related opportunities across defined geographies. Work with CDW partners to design and present Customer Experience solutions, including sales campaigns, customer events, as well as BOM and SOW generation that satisfy customer requirements. Position value proposition and basic ROI fundamentals for solutions that are being proposed. Explain Contact Center and Artificial Intelligence solution differentiation to potential customers when competing against competitors. Explain CDW value add and experience to customers when competing against other Contact Center providers. Work with other CDW departments on the execution of specialist related orders and sales incentives Provide feedback to Product & Partner Management groups concerning trends and opportunities Work with Marketing as a subject matter expert 75% Sales activities via conference calls, email, and customer visits 20% Training technology and professional development 5% Team development and miscellaneous tasks Travel up to 25% of the time Technology Leadership Acquires deep technical depth in their role; Is the "Go To" person for the solution, both technically and strategically; is on the forefront of their solution(s) and the implications for CDW offerings. Performs a lead role in executing the "Go-to-Market" for new offerings. Designs technical solutions not only considering the customer's infrastructure but also business limitations and opportunities; operates comfortably beyond standard approaches to satisfy the needs of all stakeholders. Reviews peer's designs for quality and accuracy. Determines and defines professional services that correspond to proposed hardware and software solutions, determines required engineer effort. Operates beyond a 'self' focus for the benefit of the team and the practice to better CDW's technology leadership, execution, and overall relevance to our customers; develops standardized templates of deliverables, including the SoW framework, tools, demo lab and scripts, and services calculation (Calc); provides leadership to deliver products and services. Provides training and updates on technologies, procedures, solution implementations and approaches. Develops training materials as required to support CDW sales and operations. Promotes a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration by organizing knowledge bases, contributing regularly, and encouraging team members to contribute. Coaches and mentors team members to improve their technical, consulting, and sales skills. Acts as a resource to Field Solution Architects for advice and recommendations on technical design issues and product choices. Conducts technical assessment and expertise evaluations during the candidate selection process. Assists managers with new hire Field Solution Architects, leads shadow assignments; proactively provides assistance and guidance to new hires to accelerate productivity. Sales Advises team members and sales teams prior to customer calls and/or sales strategy sessions. Assists customers in understanding their maintenance contracts, upgrade requirements, and renewals; evaluate the most cost-effective approach for the customer (e.g. renew the contract or purchase new equipment and contract.) Incorporates financing (through manufacturer or third party) as part of the sales proposal and discussion. Articulates to customers the Digital Experience value proposition to customers, account managers, and partners and uses it to generate additional revenue opportunities to CDW. Guides (compares and contrast) customers in their decision making within all tiers of CDW technologies. Initiates new event ideas; collaborates with Partners and Sales to design events that can be replicated by other Field Solution Architects. Delivers presentations and conducts sales conversations with confidence and credibility to C-level clients, both in small meeting and large group formats. Develops presentation content as required. Develops assessments improvements and demos for Field Solution Architects to use as sales tools, identifies new ideas for cross-sell opportunities. Collaborates with Partners, Inside Solution Architects, and Account Executives to drive opportunities; fine tunes strategies and approaches to achieve greater sales results. Operates in a regular cadence with multiple partners to educate, plan, and execute on joint strategies in collaboration with multiple stakeholders (FSA, ISA, AE, SM, SSE, Field Sales); understands partner alignment in geography and leads customer opportunity mapping exercises; coordinates on-site partner visits. Shares best practices and effective territory planning approaches with peers to leverage successful approaches across the team. Shares best practices and tactics for enhancing profitability and closing deals. Acts as subject matter expert for marketing activities (e.g., marketing blog, content, references, videos, etc.); produces marketing-type documents and materials (e.g., data sheet, presentation, demo video). Sales Support Responds to questions about partner registrations, associated registration issues, and customer engagement history. Manages competing priorities and sets expectations with sales and other stakeholders through proactive communication, planning, and potential for return on investment. Leads the development of Bills of Materials, Statements of Work, RFP's, RFI's, and proposal content for cross-technology solutions with high levels of accuracy and quality. Maintains pre-sales pipeline data, develops plans, and takes actions to move opportunities to closure. Demonstrated subject matter expertise in specific technologies. Other Requirements Stay up to date on products, applications, technical service, market conditions, competitive activities, advertising, and promotional trends through the reading of pertinent literature, seminars, and online training Proven project management skills. Proficient in Microsoft office applications.