Director of Customer Success - APAC- Apptio

Job description

Introduction
Apptio, an IBM company, is the CIO’s business management system. We build advanced data and analytics applications that help all IT leaders understand and make informed decisions about their technology investments, capitalize on the cloud transformation and drive innovation within their organization.

We call it Technology Business Management. Our applications help companies align technology spending to business outcomes and automate IT processes like cost transparency, benchmarking, chargeback and planning. Hundreds of customers, including more than 40 percent of the Fortune 100, choose Apptio as their business system of record for IT.

Your Role and Responsibilities
The Director of Customer Success will evolve and drive the IBM Apptio Customer Success organisation within APAC, covering Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia.

You will lead the APAC Customer Success Management (CSMs) and APAC Strategy Advisor teams, with an extended CS team in our India Centre of Excellence, focusing on delivering value, increasing user adoption of our solutions and on-going customer success programs, with a key objective of customer retention.

You will establish and maintain relationships with executives across the APAC customer base. This includes leading and owning APAC’s value management framework through the effective and timely execution of Executive Business Reviews across the APAC customer portfolio.

You will bring experience leading, developing, and supporting teams to ensure your team of direct reports provides a high level of customer engagement. You will partner with the global leaders at across Customer Success, Professional Services, Field Sales, Account Management, Marketing, Products, Engineering and Support to foster partnership and industry expertise in order to ensure every customer realizes full value from their investment with Apptio.

Your role responsibilities will include;

Innovation
·  Have an inquisitive mind and passion for learning about customers, industries, and innovative approaches to doing things which include, but not limited to:
·  Organizational change management and transformation, including methodologies and governance
·  IT industry drivers, trends, and technologies
·  Organizational efficiency and operational excellence
·  Driving innovation in TBM, Cloud and Product management
·  Translation of business initiatives and challenges into actionable roadmap and solutions
Leadership & Influence
·  Manage at risk accounts who are not getting value and putting programs to quickly change the value equation for these customers
·  Strong self-starter
·  Serve as a mentor and coach to help your direct reports better guide customers in TBM and FinOps adoption.
·  Ensure the performance of the CS team. The role will require the successful candidate to identify and resolve any areas for improvement within their team’s function
·  Align with other Customer Success functions: drive operational efficiency and alignment across the Customer Success functions by working in close collaboration with other Customer Success Manager/Leaders for the Advisors, CSM’s, Premier, TAM, and Professional Services on appropriate initiatives and activities to drive customer results
·  Coordinate with the Account Management and/or Field Sales Rep Functions: working alongside Account Managers to ensure alignment with the efforts of the Account Management team to maximize retention, adoption, and customer satisfaction
·  Ownership of the Apptio APACs value management, working in collaboration with Account Managers to deliver effective and timely Executive Business reviews for all customers in the region
·  Demonstrated ability to communicate, present and influence credibly and effectively at all levels of a customer's technology organization
·  Motivate and inspire a multidisciplinary internal Apptio team to solve customer challenges without direct management responsibility
·  Creatively solve problems with limited input and resources in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment
·  Credible and effective C-level advisor/coach, especially with regards to the TBM discipline
·  Strong teamwork, facilitation, and soft skills such as listening and empathy with the ability to:
·  Balance conversations within groups
·  Offer suggestions and improvements to process and work effectively with all personalities
·  Drive towards building consensus
Technology Delivery
·  Working knowledge of IT delivery frameworks and methodologies (i.e., ITIL, Waterfall, Agile etc.)
·  Operational knowledge of IT Portfolio management (i.e., SAFe, Scrum and Kanban)
·  Consultative approach, including the ability to translate customer needs into measurable outcomes
·  Experience with implementing and supporting enterprise solutions (CRM, ERP, CMDB etc.)
Strategic Consulting
·  Evangelize Technology Business Management (TBM) and FinOps
·  Engage regularly with customer executives
·  Use storytelling to highlight customer value augmented with technical expertise by demonstration in the product
·  Find, mentor, and develop client process owners into TBM and/or FinOps Champions
·  Align customers to the growing TBM and FinOps market and the standards being developed to support consistency and success in rolling out Apptio Solution Processes. Standards such as those vetted and published by the TBM Council ( http://tbmcouncil.org )
·  Provide timely account or executive summary status reports both to customers and Apptio management
·  Develop and maintain long-term relationships with executives in the account portfolio
Thought Leadership
·  Work globally with CS peers, the Global CS Practice and cross-functionally within APAC to develop and drive change initiatives; identify and validate key problems and present workable solutions to management; in collaboration with other leaders
·  Understand the business and technical problems the Apptio solutions address. Stay current on product roadmap as well as understanding the scenarios, features, and functions within each of the products and how these are applied to address business and technical problems; maintain a high level of understanding of the competition and the differentiators between Apptio and its competitors
·  Develop and support/drive your team to create internal and external facing collateral (content) to:
·  Support customer adoption efforts
·  Expand the knowledgebase & best practices leveraged by Apptio Teams
·  Continuously improve the maturity of our customer base in best practices related to the Apptio solutions/suite of products
·  You and your team will contribute internally to the Customer Success organization by sharing technical / domain knowledge and advancing best practices and advisory skills, including but not limited to:
·  Lead and contribute to internal projects and initiatives
·  Serve as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for specific domain or process area
·  Contribute thought leadership and best practice on how to “Run IT Like a Business”

Required Technical and Professional Expertise
Basic Qualifications
·  Candidates must have a B.A. or B.S., ideally in a business-related discipline
·  Demonstrable director level experience leading multi-disciplinary teams of 5 or more
·  Experience holding direct teams accountable to quarterly metrics or targets
·  10+ years Program Management, Portfolio Oversight, or Consulting experience
Business Domain Focus
·  Specific knowledge and application of either Cloud computing, and/or Scaled Agile Framework, plus: IT services and financial management including budgeting, cost allocations, capital & operating expense handling, program portfolio management, and application / infrastructure support.
·  Operational knowledge of IT Portfolio management including traditional and agile delivery methodologies including SAFe, Scrum, and Kanban.

Preferred Technical and Professional Expertise

·  Masters in Business Administration (MBA)
·  Most successful candidates having 15+ years in Big-4 consulting, or within the IT Finance and/or technology industry as CIOs/CFOs/SVPs/Directors
·  Consultative style and ability to communicate technical concepts to people of all backgrounds and skill levels
·  Ability to turn data into action to make strategic recommendations
·  Proven ability to build and maintain strong relationships with a diverse set of internal and external constituencies including C-Level Leaders and Senior Level executives
·  Excellent organization, program/project management, time management, and communication skills
·  Experience around Customer Success, Renewals, upsell, customer satisfaction and managing high performance team is critical
·  Demonstrated track record of improving renewal rates and value for customers
·  Strong skills in data analysis/manipulation
·  Ability to lead cross functional business and technical teams to provide timely issue resolution
·  Strong understanding of business processes and their integration into enterprise applications
·  Willingness to ‘roll up one’s sleeves’ and assist wherever needed
·  Team player who will innovate to continue improving the way Apptio serves its customers
·  Ability to travel up to 25% of the time
·  Must have working knowledge of several of the following areas:
·  IT Financial Management
·  Cloud Management
·  IT Service and Portfolio Management
·  Asset Management
·  Vendor and Contract Management
·  IT Project and Portfolio Management
·  IT Infrastructure Management
·  Strategy and Planning
·  Application Portfolio Management
·  Agile Methodology
·  Experience with cloud-based/SaaS solution offerings a plus