Partners Manager (AWS)

When you join Kainos, you get to think beyond limitations to make an immediate and positive impact – like transforming digital services for millions of citizens or helping Fortune 500 companies get live and thrive on Workday.You’ll be part of a people-first culture that is growing around the world. We’re a creative, committed, and diverse group of individuals who succeed as a team.At Kainos your ideas are heard and valued and you’ll leave a legacy that you can feel proud of. Join us and discover how our people write our story.

MAIN PURPOSE OF THE ROLE & RESPONSIBILITIES IN THE BUSINESS:

Our vision is to create a world-class business development and marketing capability for Kainos, fuelled by a diverse range of highly talented and motivated professionals working collaboratively and innovatively to ensure we continue our growth trajectory.

We do this via an open and supportive environment where colleagues can share information, learn from one another and excel in their own career. With consistent ways of working aligned to industry best practice, we build sustainable and predictable sales pipelines for our market-leading offerings.

As a Business Development Partner Relationship Manager in Kainos, you will be responsible for building Kainos’ business through the development of deep relationships with AWS and driving new business across Kainos’ offerings and verticals.

You will be accountable for building strong networks, influencing the partner’s promotion of, and investment in, Kainos and encouraging a flow of sales leads from the partner. You will enable mutual stakeholder relationships and coach Business Development and technical staff to leverage the partner opportunity.

You will be working collaboratively with other members of the Business Development teams as well as colleagues from other areas of the business including delivery, legal, marketing and operations.

Your key responsibilities will include:

• Developing Kainos as a business – you will unearth opportunities through your own relationships and by supporting Kainos Business Development and delivery teams to build their respective close relationships. You will monitor, develop and nurture a rich pipeline of opportunities which will enable you to forecast accurately across future quarters, achieve agreed partner sales targets and maintaining predictability of future revenue.
• Providing Business Development Leadership – utilising best industry practice and processes, you will develop partner plans, including definition and agreement of successful outcomes against revenue targets. You will also support Business Development staff in ensuring that partners form a central part of their account plans. You will develop (and help develop) new offerings attractive to partners and mutual customers.
• Putting deals together – you will support Business Development staff to put together deals that will need to meet sales, revenue and profitability objectives, and ensure that the work contracted is compatible with Kainos’ strategy and goals. This will include opportunities to drive revenue from resale and influence of 3rd party products.
• Being a trusted partner and trusted advisor for our customers – you will be expected to understand the partner organisation and apply a consultative selling approach based on taking the time to properly understand our partners’ motivations and our customers’ challenges/opportunities. Empathy, active listening, being responsive and creativity all play a part here.
• Building and developing strategic partnerships – you will build and maintain strategic relationships with partners at all levels, up to and including exec/leadership level, with both our strategic partners and other businesses in our ecosystem to enable Kainos to deliver superb value to our customers.
• Co-ordinating and managing senior stakeholders – you will coordinate and manage mutual senior stakeholder management with partners and negotiate attractive investment and commercial arrangements with them.
• Be an external Kainos ambassador – with an external customer and partner focus, you must ensure that you embrace and promote the culture, values and behaviours that make Kainos unique. You will use the partner opportunity to enhance and promote these values, e.g. diversity, inclusion, and sustainability.
• Working as part of a team – B2B enterprise deals and strategic partnerships are complex and require a Business Development Partner Relationship Manager to lead and leverage a wide range of people within Kainos. You will work closely with colleagues from other business units as well as industry partners to ensure that cross selling opportunities are maximised.
• Create a fully equipped partnership – working with Kainos Senior Leadership Teams you will ensure that Kainos has the right competencies, skills, and partnership, and is engaged on the right marketing and funding programmes to deliver business success. You will also develop and support execution of campaigns (e.g. events, demand generations programs) to deliver incremental growth opportunities.
• Putting people first and developing others – as the role matures, you’ll manage, coach and develop a small number of staff, including partner admin and junior business development staff, with a focus on managing employee performance and assisting in their career development.

MINIMUM (ESSENTIAL) REQUIREMENTS:

• Be highly knowledgeable in the business development process and deal commercials including constructing complex commercial offers, with a demonstrated ability to:
• create business development strategies and account plans that ensure success in winning £ multi-million deals, recognising that such a campaign may need to be built up over an extended period of time: and deliver against quarterly and annual targets
• Demonstrate ability to communicate, present and influence credibly and effectively at all levels of partner and customer organisations, including executive and C-level
• Excellent networking skills and the ability to build strong and appropriate relationships with senior stakeholders
• Broad technology experience and a sound awareness of technology trends and their potential impact on current & future projects
• Excellent knowledge of digital services concepts and our markets, with the ability to articulate the distinct aspects of products and services and position them against competitors
• Ability to operate in a highly competitive and pressurised environment, making sensible decisions that don’t compromise Kainos
• Ability to plan and meet deadlines in accordance with business requirements
• Excellent negotiation skills, both from a commercial and contract perspective as well as resolving escalations and diffusing issues
• We are passionate about developing people – a demonstrated ability in managing, mentoring and coaching members of your team and wider community is important

DESIRABLE:

• Knowledge or experience in CRM systems in a business development or partner scenario 
• An appreciation and knowledge of technology delivery, agile methodologies, etc.
• Active participation in communities of interest, for example online groups, meetups and speaking at conferences 
• Ability to participate in technical discussions with a broad understanding of technical terms