Technical Consultant
Job summary
The technical consultant role has responsibility for the delivery of high-quality network/network security technical consultancy pre & post-sales, to a small but significant Service Provider customer base.
Working both independently and as part of a small team of highly skilled and experienced network professionals, the role is key in defining our offerings in terms of both product and service and the shaping of the commercial and technical message of Vizst’s Service Provider Business Unit.
Critical purpose of role
- Retain and grow revenue in line with Vizst’s growth targets against an assigned set of accounts
- Build and execute a contact strategy for each acct based upon their requirements
- Build and execute an account plan for each acct based upon their requirements
- Build strong relationships with decision makers across the accounts
- Act as a single point of contact for queries or issues, and liaise with the relevant internal department(s) to bring them to a swift conclusion
- Respond to inbound sales enquiries quickly liaising with the relevant team to win new business
- Proactively identify new business opportunities across the account base and work with the relevant department(s) to win the business
- Achievement of all targets and KPIs
- Develop the skills and knowledge required to sell Vizst’s full portfolio of products and services in accordance with end user requirements
- Manage all opportunities effectively via Vizst’s CRM system in accordance with Vizst’s principles
- Maximise revenue by cross and up selling, whilst adhering to Vizst’s sales principles
- Provide a monthly report as required by Vizst’s Sales Management
- Take responsibility for building and maintaining industry and competitor knowledge, sharing knowledge with the wider virtual team as appropriate
- Respond effectively to inbound enquiries relating to new or existing customer requirements
- Provide support to Vizst’s field based sales team as and when appropriate
- Take a continual improvement approach to all elements of the role and feedback to Sales Management
- Maintain a high level of professionalism at all times
- Other duties from time to time as directed by sales management
Main responsibilities
TACTICAL
• Be part of a growing project team of skilled technical engineering staff to deliver customer solutions as designed and oversee the effective transition from implementation to production.
• Be accountable for the delivery of project-based engagements to help achieve stated company commercial objectives – share responsibility for delivering outstanding solutions to our customer base.
• Produce the highest quality technical documentation for distribution to internal and external resources.
• Design and present complex technical solutions for customers as part of a team or alone, working to a technical design specification or having gathered and understood customer requirements.
• Be responsible for the production, checking and approval of internal quality assured documents. Ensuring the accuracy of the written word, grammar and language, therefore having a meticulous eye for detail.
• Provide internal technical training for employees where appropriate, so that knowledge is always up to date and current.
• Devise and present training and knowledge transfer sessions (where appropriate) to external audiences, in a manner that is in line with the profile of the audience in attendance.
• Understand the standards and mechanisms of project delivery, programming and management of multiple projects and resources, working closely with project and programme managers to achieve our goals.
• Build and own relationships with vendors, customers and partners at an appropriate peer level including gaining / retaining accreditation and business networking opportunities and interfacing with / influencing the direction of key partner strategy.
• Guide and work with the bid team to compose technical response to tender and other formal proposal documentation of the highest quality.
STRATEGY
• Help with the evaluation of new technologies in the marketplace and ensure the highest level of market awareness throughout the consultancy team, make recommendations for the future and devise plans for adoption of new technologies in line with stated company strategy.
• Actively contribute to the development of new professional services products and deliver competitive advantage in pursuit of the company objectives.
• Work with all other departments, particularly the Sales team, in the development of customer accounts, being an ambassador for Vizst Service Provider Business Unit and a “trusted authority” to both customers and colleagues.
Personal specifications
Core competence
- Previous and proven industry experience in pre/post-sales or engineering / architecture roles and be able to demonstrate at an interview a proven track record of skills, experiences and success in these areas.
- Have a working understanding of Prince2 and ITIL and possess a good standard of skills in Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, Visio and Word.
- Demonstrate excellent vendor and marketplace knowledge and hold relevant accreditations and contacts.
- A natural team player, able to communicate and work effectively with all stakeholders at Vizst and its vendors, customers and other partners.
- Business focused and expert at balancing technical and commercial requirements.
- Customer facing, must have excellent communication and presentation skills regardless of the audience and be able to steer customer and partner thinking and influence technology decisions at the highest level.
Personal characteristics
- Excellent people skills.
- A high, demonstrable level of written communication and numeracy skills.
- Show the highest degree of enthusiasm, energy, drive, self-motivation and flexibility, day-in, day-out.
- Self – starting and self-motivating, able to work under pressure, producing work of quality against tight deadlines.
Key technical areas
- Strong networking background with “hands on” experience of, in particular, Cisco, Juniper, F5, Fortinet and Gigamon together with an excellent conceptual understanding of the broadest networking subjects, able to produce complex technical designs of the highest quality.
- A security background with “hands on” experience of security projects together with excellent conceptual understanding of IT security including firewalling, application security and the ability to produce technical security designs would be advantageous.
- Skilled in TCP/IP design and configuration, including BGP, OSPF, QoS and Multicast.
- Wireless networking experience would be advantageous.
- Some server environment skills, including Active Directory, Unix / Linux or VMWare, SAN and backup, would be advantageous.
- Skilled in resilient, high-speed LAN, WAN and MAN implementation to specification.
- An understanding of MPLS would be desirable.
- An understanding of network virtualisation would be desirable.
- Experience of Service Design (deploying new services onto existing infrastructure) would be advantageous.
- Experience of Content Delivery Networking (F5) would be advantageous.
- It is a requirement of the role that the successful candidate can acquire Security Clearance (SC)
Job application
We’re always on the look out for incredible talent to join the team, if this role interests you please fill in your details below, let us know why you’re the ideal candidate for this role and attach an up-to date CV. Thank you for your time!