Senior Consultant, Partner Sales

Achieve your ideal career at the forefront of innovation with Ciena. We know the importance of life outside of work, which is why our employees enjoy flexible paid time off and the freedom of working remotely. Ciena empowers our teams with competitive salaries and incentives, community volunteer programs, professional development resources, and support for our mental and physical health—all experienced within a diverse and inclusive culture. To put it simply, we’re a technology company driven by our humanity. 

Blueplanet, the Software division of Ciena, provides market-leading, vendor neutral, intelligent automation software and specialized professional services to help clients modernize their IT and network operations. Driven by policy and AI-based insights, Blueplanet delivers the closed-loop automation tools needed to align IT and networking processes—critical to facilitating digital transformation and an adaptive network. If you want to be part of the company that delivers these outcomes, then the Blueplanet division of Ciena is the place to be. (Visit www.blueplanet.com.)   

How You Will Contribute: 

 
Reporting to the sales head of the International Region, as a Partner Account Manager, you will be responsible for driving growth through Value-Added Resellers and Distributors (VAR & VAD), Systems Integrators and Solution Provider partner channels. You will interact regularly with existing partner executives and demonstrate a strong direct sales attitude, supporting partners on relationship management with key accounts and bring new sales opportunities to the table through your own personal network. This role involves extensive travel and partner engagement. 

Your core role will cover the following key activities 

• You will be responsible for building and maintaining trusted relationships with partners that support increased market share and spend with Blueplanet. 

• You will establish an enabling function, connecting sellers from Blueplanet with counterparts in Global Systems integrators to encourage & initiate joint selling and engagement strategies into Blueplanet named accounts. 

• Drive growth and expansion of our reseller base and develop an active enabling function to rapidly identify, qualify and onboard new, network centric resellers to build a go to market momentum to drive increased revenue across our software portfolio. 

• Where necessary, you will engage directly with customers and prospects in support of partner resources where they are not established as a directly managed account. 

• In an effort to build a strong pipeline, you will define, develop and plan sales strategies and work closely with marketing to raise awareness of Ciena/Blueplanet and attend networking events. 

• You will ensure that sales targets are achieved or exceeded. 

• You will advise partners on network & OSS solutions and services that best fulfill their customer requirements, undertaking full assessments and analysis of client needs. 

• You will align the Blueplanet portfolio within partner services and ensure partners sales teams are aware of positioning and benefits. 

• You will support pricing negotiations and conduct face to face channel meetings with partners and clients to achieve sales in line with Blueplanet pricing policies and client requirements. 

• Align and engage internal Blueplanet resources to build out and drive a long-term managed services strategy. Communicate back to account management team and sales VP’s key information that will help drive stronger corporate relationships with the partner and Blueplanet. 

• Prioritize resources, OPEX and market development fund investment to achieve short and long-term sales growth. 

What Does Ciena Expect of You? 

• You’re a proven relationship builder – you know how to build trusted and long-term customer relationships quickly. 

• Proven sales expertise – you’re skilled in all aspects of consultative sales and business development to include strategy development, executive discussions, relationship initiation, market dynamics assessment, service(s) and/or solution definitions and monetization models, opportunity qualification and development, brokering direct field sales connections, assistance with closure, and partner satisfaction. 

• Collaborator – adept at interacting with a set of multifunctional teams such as Systems Engineers, Sales, Field Marketing, Support, Finance, Legal and Operations to achieve desired business outcomes. 

• Initiative – You’re a self-starter who takes initiative and works with limited direction on core job responsibilities maintaining and expecting high standards for yourself and your team members. 

• Agility – you are readily able to manage competing and ever-changing account priorities and maintain a balanced and methodical approach to problem solving. 

• Business acumen – you have detailed knowledge of Blueplanet products and the network they oversee, the competitive landscape and an in-depth understanding of sales cycle and stage requirements. 

• Communication expertise – you can effectively tailor a message/articulate a value proposition to an audience to enable engagement at all levels of an organization, i.e., able to communicate a good blend of technology/networking trends, as well as business value of Ciena solutions. 

• The ability to influence – you’re a change agent capable of leading organizational transformations by overcoming internal and external barriers to success, drive thought leadership and influence in a matrixed environment with diverse cross-functional teams and a broad range of functions and stakeholders. 

• A commitment to learning – you keep abreast of the market and competition and use that information to Blueplanet’s advantage. 

The Must Haves: 

• Proven experience in Sales and Partner Sales in Enterprise and Service Provider markets driving OSS, Optical and IP Routing and Switching business. 

• Demonstrated knowledge of the telecom industry, Tier 1 Operations, Tier 2 Operations, Regional Service Providers, MSOs, Indirect channel, SC Operators and Cloud Providers. 

• Ability to understand and analyze customer requirements to define appropriate customer solutions. 

• Demonstrated comfort with interacting at senior levels of partner companies. 

• Effective communicator (executive presence, synthesized messaging (+) strong written/verbal/visual/video/social skills). 

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