Solutions Advisory Manager

Managerial Responsibilities:

• Provide input during the development of the department's strategy, goals, initiatives, and plans, and monitor their execution.
• Manage day-to-day activities and operations, recommend potential improvements, and ensure proper documentation and implementation of all policies and procedures.
• Assist in the development of the annual budget, including all financial and staff requirements for the department.
• Monitor the operational performance of the department, compare them to the established objectives and goals and report results accordingly.
• Provide coaching, guidance, and support to employees in the execution of their work and ensure proper knowledge transfer to develop them and improve their performance.

Functional Responsibilities:

• Lead the Solutions Advisory team in achieving departmental objectives and supporting sales targets, revenue growth, and strategic business priorities.
• Execute Solutions Advisory strategies and initiatives to identify, qualify, and pursue new business opportunities.
• Collaborate with Sales, Pre-Sales, Bid Management, Finance, Service Portfolio Management, Service Design, Delivery, Strategic Alliances, and business partners to develop integrated customer solutions.
• Engage with customers to understand their business objectives, operational requirements, IT environments, challenges, and expected outcomes.
• Translate customer needs into documented business and technical requirements, solution scope, assumptions, dependencies, and acceptance criteria.
• Lead the design of tailored solutions using the appropriate combination of MEEZA services, technologies, delivery models, and partner capabilities.
• Ensure proposed solutions align with MEEZA's portfolio, architecture standards, delivery capabilities, and strategic direction.
• Create and deliver technical, commercial, and executive presentations to internal and external stakeholders.
• Support Sales throughout the opportunity lifecycle by providing solution leadership, technical expertise, and commercial guidance.
• Manage opportunity research, validation, solution preparation, and lead qualification activities.
• Oversee the development and quality assurance of technical and commercial proposals, ensuring clear articulation of scope, solution, benefits, assumptions, exclusions, costs, timelines, risks, and customer outcomes.
• Develop and validate solution cost models, costing factors, pricing strategies, and commercial assumptions to ensure accuracy, competitiveness, and financial viability.
• Collaborate with Finance, Bid Management, and Service Portfolio Management to develop Total Cost of Ownership, Return on Investment, profitability, and business case analyses for strategic opportunities.
• Review and validate solution cost components, including infrastructure, cloud consumption, software licensing, managed services, professional services, third-party products and services, transition activities, and operational expenses.
• Lead commercial engineering activities to optimize pricing structures, service scope, delivery models, contract mechanisms, risk allocation, and value propositions to improve competitiveness and win probability.
• Develop financial scenarios and sensitivity analyses for complex and multi-year opportunities, including managed services, cloud, cybersecurity, infrastructure, and digital transformation engagements.
• Identify technical, commercial, financial, delivery, and contractual risks, and ensure that assumptions and mitigation measures are reflected in the solution and proposal.
• Support bid strategy, pricing governance, commercial reviews, and executive approval processes, ensuring compliance with applicable policies, financial controls, and delegated authorities.
• Build and maintain trusted relationships with customers, partners, and vendors, and promote customer satisfaction throughout the sales lifecycle.
• Facilitate stakeholder agreement, solution approval, and formal sign-off.

Academic & Professional Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or IT equivalent degree

Experience and Skills:

• Minimum 10 years of experience in technical architecture, solution architecture, solution consulting, or pre-sales within enterprise technology environments.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in infrastructure architecture and the design of complex distributed environments, including private or public cloud, automation, cybersecurity, enterprise applications, databases, middleware, and managed services.
• Demonstrated experience in developing solution cost models, pricing strategies, commercial proposals, financial scenarios, and business cases for complex technology opportunities.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary solution teams and supporting large bids, RFPs, customer negotiations, and governance reviews
• Strong leadership and people management skills, with the ability to coach, develop, and motivate team members.
• Advanced technical knowledge of enterprise IT and managed services, with the ability to communicate solution value to business and technical stakeholders.
• Strong commercial acumen and practical experience in solution costing, pricing, financial modelling, profitability assessment, and commercial engineering.
• Ability to develop and assess Total Cost of Ownership, Return on Investment, margin, cash flow, investment, and sensitivity analyses.
• Strong understanding of managed services commercial models, recurring revenue, cloud consumption, subscriptions, professional services, and outcome-based pricing constructs.
• Ability to balance customer value, competitive positioning, delivery feasibility, risk exposure, and profitability when shaping proposals.
• Strong stakeholder management and relationship-building skills across customers, executives, technical teams, partners, and vendors.