Solution Architect
The Role
- The Solution Architect is responsible for supporting technical pre-sales opportunities. With a focus on pursuing opportunities, this will involve working with clients to define their requirements, demonstrate technologies and propose suitable solutions.
- Working in conjunction with the CSA sales teams, the Solution Architect will be responsible for producing all technical inputs required for qualified proposals (for example; proposal content, architecture diagrams, work statements, service estimates, bill of materials, assumptions/caveats). The Solution Architect may also retain ongoing involvement with certain key client engagements through design work, quality assurance / governance of deliverables from a technical standpoint and resolution of major architectural issues that are escalated.
- The Solution Architect will work particularly closely with the PMSA, Sales Operations, Client Services and Service Delivery teams, along with the consultants and engineers who deliver the solutions. Whilst post-sales delivery personnel and vendors can occasionally be leveraged as subject matter experts, the Solution Architect is expected to be predominately self-sufficient.
The Technologies
- The Solution Architect will have detailed working knowledge of most technologies below to fulfil the role:
- Physical and Virtual Server infrastructure – Rack Mounted and Blade Servers, VMware and HyperV Virtualisation
- Storage Solutions and Connectivity – DAS, NAS and SAN, SAS, Fibre Channel, iSCSI and Converged network architectures
- Hyper-converged – Scale out platforms
- Services – Solution Implementation, Managed Services
- The Solution Architect will have detailed working knowledge across the following vendors with respect to the technologies noted above:
- HP
- VMware
- Microsoft
- CommVault
- Citrix
- Cisco
The Capabilities
The ideal Solution Architect must maintain:
- A proven record of delivering technical pre-sales engagements to clients with exemplary attention to detail
- High quality solution design skills (architecture, bill of materials, work statements)
- A strong relationship with sales teams to prepare proposals and deliver presentations/demonstrations
- Commercial awareness and sound interpersonal, verbal, written and presentation skills
- An ability to work in a team, deliver quality outcomes, share knowledge and align with best practice
- A personal interest with ability to learn and understand new and emerging technologies and solutions
- HP Business Partner Solution Architect (BPSA) accreditation
Presales Solution Architect, Cloud
Avikans is looking to for an experienced Presales Solution Architect with skills and experience primarily aligned to Cloud solutions (both Private and Public). Additional skillsets in modern workplace, networking, security and end-user compute solutions are also desirable.
The successful candidate will collaborate on, and be responsible for, pre-sales activities for both new business and renewals, across a broad mid-market customer base. They will work both independently and in team scenarios to collaborate with sellers, vendors and business partners throughout the sales process. They will effectively transfer knowledge when handing over their solutions to delivery teams to implement and they will troubleshoot their solutions with the delivery team when problems arise.
Experience with requirements discovery, technology and process recommendations, solutions sizing, developing and costing bills of materials, scoping and estimating professional services, consolidating multi-stream managed services, writing proposals, statements of work and compliance responses as well as responding to RFP’s is critical.
The ability to clearly articulate technical solutions to both technical and non-technical audiences, while aligning the solution’s value with the customer’s requirements is fundamental to the Presales role.
Key Responsibilities
- Navigate technical solution and managed services discussions primarily for Cloud solutions, at times with end-user-compute / modern workplace, network, security and DevOps consideration
- Engage with customers and external stakeholders to understand their priorities, value drivers and needs. Provide well-conceived, clearly articulated, pragmatic solutions and recommendations to complex technology and business problems
- Development of scope and high-level designs for Cloud solutions and services including:
- Modern Workplace productivity solutions (Microsoft / Office 365)
- Cloud & Network management (on-premises, private cloud, public cloud)
- Monitoring & Management toolsets
- ITIL Framework and ITSM processes and tools
- Solution design, implementation, migration, transition & onboarding services
- Relationship with Nexon’s specialist services (e.g. Genesys, Cyber Security, Dynamics 365, ServiceNow)
- Facilitate high quality, timely product, subscription, professional services and managed services solution quotes/proposals and statements of work for Customers
- Working to deadlines, in particular when responding to formal time-bound Requests for Proposal (RFP), Request for Tenders (RFT), Expressions of Interest (EOI), etc.
- Cross-functional Collaboration: Collaborate with other departments, such as Project Management, Business Operations, Sales Support, General Managers, and technical SME’s to ensure solution alignment and drive customer success
- Ability to undertake pre-sales engagements, including opportunity identification and qualification, review requirements and size based upon current and/or future state information, define solution architecture, bill of materials, estimate effort, articulate requirement to solution mapping, and prepare quotations, statements of work, RFx responses in conjunction with Nexon Sellers and other stakeholders
- Ability to conduct customer facing workshops with business stakeholders and subject matter experts to assess low areas of maturity, confirm processes, requirements and to articulate priority areas and a recommended approach
- Engage in Presales handover and Customer kick-off meetings to ensure requirements and value drivers are agreed and clearly understood between Customer, PMO and Delivery Teams
- Proactively support delivery teams when issues arise in projects or managed services relating to solutions you have developed
- Contribute to the development of a high performing team that can build trust with the business and our customers to deliver high quality services and effectively navigate through a continually changing technology landscape
- Drive the continuous improvements of our implementation methodology and service offerings based on client experiences
- Collaborate on, develop and share standardised or reusable content with the rest of the presales team
Demonstrable Capabilities
Strong grasp of the English language including the ability to:
- Articulate solutions in both technical and non-technical language
- Understand conversational and written context
- Document solutions in a clear and concise manner in proposals
- Respond directly to solution compliance questionnaires in writing
Strong presentation skills, including the ability to:
- Develop a clear and concise presentation
- Present to Customers on the solution’s inclusions, technical architecture, and value
Strong personal and inter-personal skills, such as:
- Managing priorities to meet multiple deadlines and customer expectations in parallel
- Maintaining positive inter-personal relationships with Customers, Management, members of the presales and other teams within Nexon and its business partners or third parties
Strong commercial acumen including the ability to:
- Understand how to calculate both mark-up and margin
- Recognise and sell “value”, without a focus on “price”
- Develop a solution to a budget that brings the best “value” for the available funding
- Challenge an existing perspective on a requirement or solution to assist a customer to consider an alternative or better option
Strong technical acumen, including ability to:
- Whiteboard solutions to communicate architecture or develop conceptual design
- Construct complex solutions comprised of various technologies, professional services and managed services
- Build a demonstration environment to showcase a product, solution or feature
- Demonstrate technical solutions to customers
Experience, Education and Skills
- At least 7 years of experience in a similar role
- Relevant operational or delivery experience is desirable
- Previous professional services project scoping, and managed services scoping experience
- Strong Microsoft Office skills, in particular MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
- A relevant tertiary education certificate
- Relevant Solution Architect or Engineering level technical certifications from Public and Private Cloud solution vendors or industry frameworks including:
- AWS
- Microsoft (Azure, M365, Windows, SQL Server, etc.)
- Dell, HPE, Cisco
- VMware
- RedHat
- HashiCorp
- ITIL, ITSM, ISO 270001
- Working knowledge with multiple of the following additional products:
- ITSM tools (e.g. ServiceNow)
- CRM tools (e.g. Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM)
- Monitoring & RMM tools
Favourable Additional Knowledge
- An understanding of DevOps practices, high-level application architectures and dependency mapping, databases or data platforms
- An understanding of networking fundamentals and solutions from vendors like:
- Cisco, Aruba, or Juniper
- Fortinet, or Palo Alto
- SentinelOne
- An understanding of cloud native and 3rdParty security tools and services such as CSPM, CWPP CIEM CNAPP.