Specialist - Product Specialist SD WAN ICT Center of Excellence at MTN

Mission

• To drive the managed services strategy and execution by identifying and implementing Software Defined (SD) WAN offerings that align with MTN ICT’s overall business objectives of expanding market share, improving efficiency and increasing profitability. To provide strategic direction and progressive leadership in the on-going management and delivery of client managed-service programmes.

Context 

• Fast moving industry with constantly changing business requirements and technologies.
• Fluid complexities of customer expectations and demands.
• Highly competitive market with new and established competitors and aggressive competitor strategy and delivery.
• Highly dynamic and fluctuating Telecommunications and ISP industry.
• Total customer experience for MTN brand.
• Constantly changing consumer and market needs.
• Market dynamics and developments.
• MTN policies, processes and procedures.
• Regulatory industry norms govern MTN and partners. 
• Highly pressurised, deadline-driven environment.
• Highly legislated / regulated environment requires compliance and adherence to Industry standards and benchmarks.
• Participative environment – highly diverse and team-focused.

Key Performance Areas:

Key Deliverables

• Product and Service Development, Maintenance and Improvement
• Drive the SD WAN product roadmap priorities and product design by utilising data insights, consumer data, competitive intelligence and market trends in order to assess fit, feasibility and financial impact of product.
• Manage the day-to-day delivery of SD WAN offerings by defining the SD WAN offering and delivering methodologies in order to drive high levels of customer satisfaction, product value, product profitability and growth. 
• Contribute towards the product go-to-market strategy by developing business plans, analysing the market, establishing pricing and collecting customer feedback for future developments of managed services solutions.
• Define the commercial specification of new and existing SD WAN products by conducting market analysis to validate the strategic intent and create the business case for SD WAN products.
• Develop and manage alliance partnerships by identifying opportunities for establishing relationships with complimentary business partners in the pursuit of new business in order to ensure successful execution and delivery of SD WAN solutions to clients.
• Act as the trusted technical advisor who can effectively position the SD WAN optimisation solutions in order to improve client experience.
• Navigate the internal organisation to drive change through product integration and inter-departmental boundaries to advocate for key clients and best practice processes.
• Track effectiveness of SD WAN solutions by analysing and monitoring market share and competitive landscapes in order to identify product initiatives that are competitive from a feature, quality and cost perspective and meet client requirements.
• Manage all technical aspects by owning the technical relationship with customers, partners and vendors through technical training, problem escalation and new feature requests to remain updated on the product structure.
• Drive revenue growth initiatives by identifying opportunities for new service offerings and/or extensions of existing service offerings to support continued expansion of business.
• Contribute towards integration of ICT solutions by collaborating with internal and external stakeholders, including peer product specialists from other lines of business, to maximise value for product solutions.
• Leverage multi-disciplinary partnerships by developing and maintaining strong relationships with business leaders, internal and external partners in order to respond to complex client challenges.
• Develop and execute a client feedback framework to be used for new and existing SD WAN products and technologies, in order to align product offerings to client needs and improve client experience. 
• Collaborate cross-functionally to identify and implement service improvements based on customer feedback, competition, roadmaps and other drivers.
• Lead the expansion of key client accounts by collecting client and market insights in order to prioritise feature requests and enhance solution offerings.
• Promote the ideation, design and implementation of SD WAN product enhancements that solve client problems in meaningful ways, weighing impact against business goals and technical feasibility.
• Monitor overall quality and security of SD WAN solutions by partnering with cross-functional teams to execute the product from vision to concept, while managing stakeholder expectation in order to deliver a best-in-class product portfolio.
• Drive continuous improvement on existing processes and procedures by assessing and drawing solutions from qualitative and quantitative data and making logical deductions in order to drive operational excellence.

Product Sales Enablement

• Enable growth in market share by providing presale specialisation and subject matter expertise to the sales team in order to drive market adoption of SD WAN products.
• Strengthen MTN industry presence by maintaining relationships with key clients, together with the sales team, and developing business quotations and presenting business cases to clients in order to drive revenue inflow.
• Drive the competitiveness of SD WAN solutions by researching and developing recommendations for pricing strategies with the goal of creating marketability, maximising sales and achieving profitability.
• Partner with sales to probe the enterprise clients’ business challenges in order to identify and address their unique risks in line with regulatory requirements.
• Manage sales opportunities from discovery to closure by maintaining an in-depth understanding of the industry, competitors and marketplace to present a highly differentiated solution.

Governance and Risk Management

• Monitor adherence to product management policies and processes by ensuring that developed SD WAN solutions are taken to market according to defined processes and subsequently measured against the business plan.
• Monitor compliance by maintaining awareness and understanding of regulatory standards and legislation in order to update current SD WAN strategy as required.
• Participate in implementation of functional policies, standard operating procedures and best practices that ensure operational efficiency, accuracy, security, integrity and compliance with relevant laws and regulations across OpCo’s.
• Manage partners and ensure all contracts are managed in line with procurement policies and standards in order to drive compliance to set processes and procedures.
• Monitor adherence to the parameters for partnership Service Level Agreements (SLA) as well as SLA performance indicators to ensure all compliance requirements established under contractual agreements between the function and vendors, are adhered to.

Building Capability

• Build organisational capability by supporting, coaching and mentoring product and portfolios teams to enable the delivery of functional strategy. 
• Expand on SD WAN and broader product knowledge by interfacing with sales and support areas in order to stay up to date with industry best practice.

Job Requirements

Education: 

• Minimum of 3-year tertiary diploma (may vary in accordance with in-country qualification standards).
• Relevant certification / accreditation / membership with professional body as required for role.  
• Fluent in language of country with basic command of English.

Experience:

• Minimum of 2 years’ experience in product development, marketing and sales support of SD-WAN solutions within a Telecoms operator and/or OEM. 
• Experience working in a small to medium organisation.