Workgroup’s Purpose
Are you someone with a passion for working with customers across all audiences and enabling their success through the use of Microsoft technology? Are you someone with the business and technical experience, operational expertise and proven success as a leader to build and drive strong working relationships with senior leaders across Services, the Product Group and the field? Do you have experience defining and driving positive change across multiple organizations? Are you a leader who understands and thrives within the dynamic environment of cloud services?
Customer Service and Support (CSS) is looking for a seasoned strategic thinker, business operations and people leader with deep experience in working within Microsoft, Product Groups, with customers across all audiences and field sales. This leader will understand the unique nature of cloud services, and embrace its rate of change and dynamism. CSS focuses on earning customer and partner lifetime loyalty for Microsoft by understanding their needs, solving their problems, preventing their issues, and helping them get the most out of their technologies. As CSS is often the frontline for customer and partner contact, we are the face of Microsoft. To support Microsoft’s strategy, CSS must continue to find ways to innovate and delight customers in an ever-changing environment. Our customers expect increasingly more from Microsoft and it is CSS's job to deliver a world-class experience on behalf of the company. We're being called upon to deliver new service and support capabilities in days or weeks, not months or quarters, which is quite different from our support models of the past. Agility and efficiency are core principles of the functionally-aligned vision of One Microsoft, and of One Services.
CSS Japan, part of the CSS-Business unit in Asia, is a true end-to-end organization supporting all business customers. Global Business Support is key to the Devices and Services world. We have a strong impact on both our devices - from Xbox, to Windows Phone, to Windows 8 Surface devices, to Server hardware - and on our Services - from Skype, to Azure, to SkyDrive, to Dynamics CRM. We develop and package support offerings, land them in the field, help them get sold, make sure they are delivered with world class excellence, and make sure feedback is improving both our Services offerings and our Microsoft products.
Job’s Purpose
The CSS Area Lead - Japan, is a senior leadership role with responsibility for leading a large group of 500+ Global Business Support professionals in Japan to execute on all aspects of Support Services across the Customer Lifecycle from pre-sales to post-sales in the Enterprise world. This includes deep technical troubleshooting, leveraging advanced diagnostic tools and delivering industry leading proactive services from remote to onsite with customer.
The position will lead all aspects of a service delivery strategy, operations, customer interactions and the Enterprise Services relationships driving customer delivery, innovation and IP solutions across Microsoft customer audiences. The role supports the delivery of services to support the Premier business in Japan and requires the ability to manage stakeholders across the Asia Region covering key partnerships in Enterprise Services and CSS.
The person will report to the CSS Asia General Manager and will be a member of CSS Asia Leadership Team.
Key areas of Impact & Contribution
People Leadership - An outstanding people leader with a strong track record for building and developing high caliber teams evidenced by:
A diverse, inclusive, highly engaged and customer-centric organization capable of driving an effective technical support strategy for our customers and partners
A consistent and predictable customer experience across regions and business units that seeks to delight customers and builds advocacy for Microsoft
The attraction, development and retention of talent within a culture that motivates and inspires team members and is seen as a desirable source for talent within Microsoft
Hiring and training strategies deployed that achieve end-to end business results
Deployment of talent management, employee engagement, diversity and inclusion and performance management activities enthusiastically and with sustainable operational excellence
A team of high caliber people managers who exemplify and role model manager excellence
Demonstrating our values in action every day and ensuring uncompromising compliance with company procedures, programs and policy regulations
Business & Operational Management - A commercially oriented leader who comprehends the Microsoft strategy and is able to make this real for CSS Japan evidenced by:
Excellence in P&L management including efficiency gains which maximize the impact of regional customer service and deliver against CPE targets
Compliance with all statutory requirement in a complex regulatory environment
Operational acumen which optimizes results through effective workforce planning use of business levers
Driving excellence, through both operational and people strategies, for all services delivered for Premier, Commercial Support and Partner programs that determines our customer satisfaction measures (CPE).
Delivery of end to end business operations ensuring appropriate work-flow processes are in place for a consistent customer experience
Driving budgeting and forecasting of headcount and finance planning at CSS Japan level
Identifying newer business opportunities aimed at enhancing the efficiency, effectiveness and impact of CSS Japan
Stakeholder Engagement - An agile leader who can navigate complex matrix structures and deliver on internal and external stakeholders requirements evidenced by:
Successful relationships with key external bodies/government
Engagement of and influence with senior leadership teams and other stakeholders to drive decisions and mutually beneficial outcomes whilst evangelizing CSS Japan
Driving business reviews with the leadership team on a monthly/quarterly basis to represent the state of the business, its challenges and opportunities
Contribution to Microsoft’s objective of growing market share across solutions, workloads, platforms and products
Engagement with other Time Zone Area Leads to plan and execute against on Workforce Plans signed off as part of annual planning, including accurate forecasting adjustments
Close partnering with the Premier Area lead for Japan to drive alignment, Centres of Excellence and joined business planning
One Microsoft, One Services - A leader who proactively optimizes teamwork and collaboration to deliver results and contribute to the success of others evidenced by:
Working effectively through others by delegating, teaching and transferring knowledge
Mentoring the next generation of leaders
Microsoft Japan leadership accountabilities to contribute value to the Japan subsidiary leadership team
Influencing a common strategy broadly, both within and outside of the team
Enabling others in the organization to deliver tactical results that tie to broader strategies
Innovates in ambiguous situations by asking tough questions and providing feedback to drive change
Key Behavioral Attributes
Passion and energy
Focuses on results over activity
Cultural dexterity and a high level of emotional intelligence
Shows personal accountability and is able to hold others to account appropriately
Can shift from tactical to strategic thinking as needed
Communicates up and horizontally through the organization while remaining knowledgeable about the details
Proactively seeks growth projects (even multi-year) that stretch individual and team/organizational boundaries
Shares successes and failures with the team with authentic humility and vulnerability
Maintains a learning mindset through effective listening and genuine curiosity
Qualifications
Experience
15+ years of experience in leading a Customer Support Delivery or Services organization with demonstrated management/leadership skills and P&L accountability in a global customer services environment.
Sound understanding of doing business in Asia or Japan, including close stakeholder engagement with senior leaders in headquarters in the US and across multi-cultural work environment.
A general management experience in developing and managing operating expenditure of running a profitable business with a dynamic customer base, semi-predictable revenue and growth rates with a large workforce base above 500. This includes both FTE employees and a non-FTE outsourced workforce.
Experience in “Building businesses/Greenfield projects/Incubating business projects will be an advantage.
Experience in driving highly visible company strategy in a matrix global with complex stakeholder ecosystem
Service delivery experience from business strategy formulation to delivering results through operational excellence
Running an Independent Business Unit through creation of successful partnerships with key internal support functional stakeholders like HR/Legal/Finance/IT/Quality etc.
Global experience working with multiple cultures
Exposure to managing external/PR across government and non-government sectors would be an advantage.
Experience of customer and market development with a key focus on managing and developing relationships at CEO, CTO level would be beneficial.
Education
Graduation/Post Graduation essential. Management degree preferred.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Understanding of the business of Service & Support
Proven ability to manage and engage key talent and future leaders
Skills in Coaching the next line of leaders to enhance their and overall organisation effectiveness
Ability to manage an organisation with a moderate to large scale on people and complexity of operations
Good understanding of people processes, practices and tools
Sound knowledge of finance, marketing, technology and operations
Understanding of Quality and Business Excellence fundamentals
Knowledge of formulating and executing enterprise-level business strategy
Extensive skills for building Technical Support operational capabilities in environments with customers ranging from small / medium businesses to extremely large enterprise customers (incl. processes, structures, tools)
Ability to understand the dynamics of managing a business with a global footprint especially in the context of customer and partner management
Understanding of the technology central to the business model of a service delivery organisation
Solid understanding of relevant policies and regulations
Location :Tokyo Shinagawa, Japan
Microsoft is an equal opptunity employer and supports workforce diversity.
Services (engineering)