DIRECTOR, CLIENT MANAGEMENT- WEST COAST HI TECH POSITION

Director, Client Management

Reports to VP of Consulting Services

Function Statement:
The consulting services organization is responsible for providing an “expert skill level in technical products and services to Company customers. It’s mission is to enable Company customers to maximize their success in using their software product. The consulting organization will offer services and products supporting design, analysis, development, training, mentoring, performance tuning and software support.

This position requires experience in sales, consulting and project management. It requires strong leadership, communication, technical and customer relationship skills. The person in this position must be able to effectively position and manage complex services as a critical success factor in the Companiy's application development process. The key to this role is the management of customer expectations and the delivery of results which meets or exceed the expectations. By creating relationships based on credibility, trust and results, this role will provide the foundation for the Company's long term business in selected large accounts, territories and industries.

Duties and Responsibilities:

1. Consulting Presales: Able to define, position and sell complex consulting services as a value added deliverable. Assist large account sales by delivering compelling presentations of the Company's product technology and technical services at all levels of the organization. Needs to understand generic development methodology and process with an integrated understanding of how the ODB Lifecycle Model brings unique value to a development project. Must be able to justify both time and materials and fix bid consulting proposals so that engagement margins produce a 25% - 30% return on the labor rate component. Must also position these projects to take maximum advantage of the Company's consulting tool kits and technologies there by raising overall margin content to 30%+.
2. Project Management: Manage ongoing consulting projects (i.e., the project managers on those projects) and coordinate and manage consulting resources both direct and indirect during the course of specific projects. Responsible for contracting for our Statement of Work with a process which captures customer requirements and expectations, establishes well defined boundaries around the project and develops acceptance criteria regarding schedule, performance, quality and scope. Must, through both written and verbal communications, regularly report to customer project and business management on status and progress while continually reinforcing the benefits of the engagement. Finally, must create and manage the conditions of successful closure which are SOW/expectation fulfillment and referencibility. On large engagements a 15% premium will be added to cover management of the technical resources.

3). Technical Expertise
Maintain a thorough understanding of the Company's software products and previous consulting projects to represent the full breadth of technical services to new consulting opportunities. Provide technical expertise for initial project design and technical architecture. Be intimately familiar with all technical aspects of the engagement from initial design and technical architecture to implementation and testing.

4) Liaison Support:
Work closely with Area Directors and Finance personnel to develop consulting sales cycle process, customers ROI analysis and engagement P&L tracking. Work with Marketing to provide technical marketing expertise gained with consulting engagements. Act as a liaison between customer support, training, engineering and pre-sales to help solve customer problems.

Qualifications:
Five or more years experience in consulting, technical sales/marketing, customer support, or other highly customer-interactive technical role.
Management experience highly desirable. (GemStone specific project very desirable)
Excellent leadership and communication skills. Superior customer relationship skills.
Project Management - must be able to manage a team of consultants on projects.
BS in Computer Science or related disciplines, or equivalent work experience.
Technical understanding of data management and distributed object systems.
Frequent travel.

Measurements:
Successful engagements leading to account penetration. Revenue
Customer Satisfaction as measured in:
Successful SOW closures
Referencibility of projects/customers.
Customer survey’s
Secondary Measures:
Customer relationship level
Personally generated revenue i.e., utilization or project management premium
Industry visibility

Comments:

Utilization: While utilization is a convenient measurement in that it’s quantifiable, it may not be practical for this role nor does it appear to be in line with industry practice (e.g., IBM OTP). Gross Margin is a good measurement to the extent that the role is given the tools to manage (e.g., relevant tool kits and or frameworks, choice of consultants and their rates, fix bid projects).  Successful engagement leading to account penetration: This needs to be a primary measurement.

Please forward your resume in confidence to: Donald Lascelle
ObjectSearch Group
(416) 421-1940 Voice
(416) 421-9244 Fax

email: Don_at_ObjectSearch.com (word.doc or text) Received on Tue Mar 31 1998 - 00:00:00 CST