Senior Strategic Customer Success Advisor - Apptio

Introduction
At IBM we know that transformation drives change and it is in our DNA to continuously transform. Our Business Transformation Consultants help drive large scale change that spans IBM business units and geographies. As a part of this team you will have the unique opportunity to be a part of driving IBM’s ongoing transformation as a company that continuously innovates and leads the market.

Your Role and Responsibilities
The Senior (Sr) Strategic Customer Success Advisor (Advisor) will be responsible for providing consultative guidance to our most strategic customers to ensure successful adoption and expansion of the Apptio product suite. By developing and maintaining a high level of customer engagement the Advisor will partner with Account Management (sales) the Customer Success Manager and other Apptians or partners assigned to the account to foster long-term strategic relationships to ensure every customer realizes full value from their investment with Apptio.

With deep multi-domain expertise and an understanding of customer challenges Advisors leverage their strategic leadership and operational capabilities to help customers develop their Technology Business Management (TBM) Agile and/or FinOps objectives while driving operational excellence and program governance. Advisors engage broadly across organizations focusing on C-Level executives and other Tech and Business leaders.

Advisors are customer-directed specialists solely focused on creating wildly successful customers through large scale programs involving change management innovation and developing processes and capabilities that make TBM/FinOps internally sustainable. For all levels of customer TBM/FinOps maturity Advisors will help to accelerate and mature the customers knowledge adoption value realization and expansion.

You:
Innovation
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 Cloud Digitization Product Agile industry drivers trends and technologies
Organizational efficiency and operational excellence
Driving innovation in the TBM/Cloud/Agile domains
Translation of business initiatives and challenges into actionable roadmap and solutions defining use cases leading to measurable value outcomes
Leadership & Influence
Strong self-starter with the ability to build a network within Apptio as well as with the Executives in your assigned portfolio of customers
Demonstrated ability to communicate present and influence credibly and effectively at all levels of a customer’s 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 Agile and Cloud disciplines
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
Effectively manage deadlines
Technology Delivery
Working knowledge of Technology delivery frameworks and methodologies (i.e. ITIL Waterfall Agile etc.)
Working knowledge of FinOps and public cloud (i.e. AWS Azure Google)
Operational knowledge of Portfolio management (i.e. SAFe Scrum and Kanban)
Consultative approach including the ability to translate customer needs into a roadmap aligning use cases to defined value outcomes and client agreed metrics
Experience with implementing and supporting enterprise solutions (CRM ERP CMDB etc.)
IBM Apptio product knowledge with ability to quickly learn and demonstrate product capabilities in response to customer opportunities and needs

Us what you’ll do:
Customer Advocate
Drive user adoption across the customer organizations by understanding their specific challenges and helping them to operationalize and realize benefit from their deployed IBM Apptio solution
Understand and document customer process workflows that apply to TBM/Cloud/Agile domains and implement strategies that integrate IBM Apptio solutions to those processes
Identify risks to the customer achieving their stated business goals and develop then execute appropriate mitigation plans with the entire Apptio internal team assigned to the account
Mentor customers’ ability to become “insight hunters” by helping them realize measurable value by implementing use cases aligned to their corporate objectives and organizational focus
Co-create a personalized Customer Adoption roadmap that aligns corporate goals what is possible key business initiatives KPI’s and a practical implementation timeline
Serve as liaison between our customers and various Apptio teams to ensure that needs/requirements critical to customer success are understood and effectively communicated including gathering customer product feedback to shape product roadmap development
Strategic Consulting
Build the relationship and develop the trust of your client’s executives to function as their strategic advisor
Evangelize Technology Business Management (TBM) Agile Portfolio and FinOps practices
Engage regularly with customers via workshops operational and business reviews to evaluate needs and strategic direction and align with a clear roadmap. Business reviews with executives should be quarterly and status reports with operational teams should be bi-weekly/monthly
Use storytelling to highlight customer value augmented with technical expertise by demonstration in the IBM Apptio suite of products
Find mentor and develop process owners into TBM Agile Portfolio and FinOps Champions
Align customers to the growing TBM and FinOps markets and the standards being developed to support consistency and success in rolling out TBM and FinOps Processes. Standards such as those vetted and published by the TBM Council ( http://tbmcouncil.org) and the FinOps Foundation ( https://learn.finops.org/)
Provide timely account or executive summary status reports both to customers and Apptio Executives
Develop and maintain long-term relationships with stakeholders in the account portfolio where appropriate by networking between customers partners and Apptio
Thought Leadership
Develop internal and external facing collateral (content) to:
Support customer adoption efforts
Lead Customer User Groups
Present at TBM /FinOps Conferences
Contribute the community with blogs whitepapers etc.
Teach the FinOps and/or TBM Exec cert courses
Expand the knowledgebase & best practices leveraged by Apptio Teams
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

• Education in a Technology Finance engineering or business-related discipline
• 10+ years Program Management Portfolio Oversight or Consulting experience that was customer Executive facing
• Experience with cloud-based/SaaS solution offerings

Preferred Technical and Professional Expertise

• 15+ years in Big-4 consulting or within the IT Finance Cloud and/or Technology industry as CIOs/SVPs/Directors
• Consultative style and ability to communicate technical concepts to people of all backgrounds and skill levels especially at the C-Suite level
• Experience in the IBM Apptio Suite of products (Cloudability Turbonomics Costing and Planning TargetProcess)
• 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
• 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 in several of the following areas:
• IT Financial Management
• Cloud Management
• IT Service and Portfolio Management
• Asset Management
• Vendor and Contract Management
• Technology Project and Portfolio Management
• IT Infrastructure Management
• Strategy and Planning
• Application Portfolio Management
• Agile Methodology