Director - SMB Sales

Bangalore, Karnataka, India

• 2 more locations

Date posted

Oct 06, 2025

Job number

1890131

Work site

3 days / week in-office

Travel

25-50%

Role type

People Manager

Profession

Sales

Discipline

SMB Sales

Employment type

Full-Time

At Small Medium Enterprises and Channel (SME&C), we are leading a high-growth, AI-powered global sales team—one that is deeply connected to our partners and driven by customer success. By uniting our Small Medium Business, Corporate, Strategy, and Partner teams, we are unlocking the largest customer opportunity, backed by the industry's most significant investments. Leveraging the power of AI and our extensive partner ecosystem, we are redefining how businesses of all sizes adopt technology to drive growth and innovation.

SME&C is more than a sales organization—it's a culture of innovation, opportunity, and inclusivity. Here, you'll be part of a diverse, high-performing, and customer-obsessed team where collaboration, connection, and continuous learning fuel everything we do.

If you thrive in a fast-paced, digital-first environment and are eager to make a meaningful impact, explore how SME&C can be the next step in your career. Together, we are shaping the future of business.

If you thrive in a fast-paced, digital-first environment and are eager to make a meaningful impact, explore how SME&C can be the next step in your career. Together, we are shaping the future of business.

In this strategic role, you will ensure that opportunities emerging from our joint planning and co-sell efforts convert into wins and deployed Azure solutions for our customers in the SMB Segment. By leveraging our MCEM sales methodology, you will ensure consistency and excellence in how your portfolio of partners engage customers from envisioning solutions to closing deals, thus accelerating time-to-value.

This is a significant leadership opportunity: You will oversee the execution and delivery of high quality Azure Area sales plan for your team's portfolio of partners, aligning with Microsoft's business goals. In doing so, you'll play a pivotal role in Microsoft's success in the Azure SMB market, delivering on ambitious cloud growth targets and expanding our customer base via partners. Importantly, you will also be responsible for the professional growth of your team – developing their business acumen, sales skills, and career trajectories while fostering deep relationships with partner executives as a trusted business advisor.

Required Qualifications (RQs)

• Bachelor's Degree in Marketing, Business Operations, Computer Science or a related field AND 12+ years experience in partner management, sales, business development, or partner channel development in the technology industry or related experience OR equivalent experience.
• 5+ years people management experience.

Preferred Qualifications (PQs)

[Managers/Recruiters: the 'Preferred Qualifications' content is OPTIONAL and you may edit/delete content, including adding up to 4 PQs, if required.

• Master's Degree in Business Administration, Business Science, or an Advanced Degree in a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) or a related field AND 12+ years experience in partner management, sales, business development, or partner channel development in the technology industry or related experience
  
  OR equivalent experience.
• 8+ years people management experience.

• Team Leadership & Coaching: Build , nurture and lead a high-performing Azure SMB sales team. Provide clarity of vision, set ambitious yet achievable goals, and support each team member through regular coaching and mentoring. Create an inclusive environment that encourages idea-sharing and innovation, enabling the team to meet and exceed targets. You will run predictable team Rhythm-of-Business (RoB) meetings to review performance, celebrate wins, and address challenges – thereby driving accountability and continuous improvement.
• Strategic Sales Planning: Drive the Partner Solution Sales strategies designed to deliver on the priorities of the SMB segment. Ensure that comprehensive Partner Sales Plans are in place with partners, aligning their business objectives with Microsoft's solution priorities and sales plays. Oversee joint Territory Planning activities with partners to map out top customer opportunities and target accounts. Ensure that these plans translate into a healthy pipeline aligned to quarterly and annual sales goals.

• Pipeline Management & Deal Execution: Own the sales pipeline across your partner portfolio. Operate with a "commit to complete" mindset – once an opportunity is jointly committed (MCEM Stage 2), ensure it is diligently driven to closure (Stage 3).

• Monitor Top Deal pipeline health and stage progression closely, using dashboards and CRM data to spot stalled deals or gaps. Intervene as needed to remove blockers (e.g., securing technical resources, adjusting offers) and keep deals moving forward

• Revenue Accountability & Growth: Be accountable for achieving and exceeding CSP revenue targets within the SMB segment through your partners. You will lead the execution that results in quarterly Azure attainment across your partner portfolio, tracking both top-line revenue and key performance metrics (e.g., partner pipeline conversion rates, co-sell deal volume). A core focus is to drive Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) revenue growth by expanding existing customer consumption and capturing new customer wins via your partners. This includes guiding your team to prioritize high-value opportunities, and ensuring partners capitalize on upsell/cross-sell motions (such as adding Microsoft 365 Copilot or security solutions for customers) to increase deal size and customer value.

• Co-Sell Strategy & Execution: Champion co-sell strategies with partners. Ensure joint selling efforts between your partners and Microsoft's field sellers, ensuring that our customers get the best of both worlds: partner specialization and Microsoft support. Work closely with internal account teams to attach the right partner to the right customer opportunity, and oversee that co-selling engagements progress smoothly. Essentially, you serve as an advocate for your partners within Microsoft, and for Microsoft's value within your partner organizations.

• Top Deal Orchestration: Once priorities are set in planning with the partner porfolio , hold both your team and partners accountable for pursuing those opportunities. For top deals in the pipeline, you may step in to actively lead deal strategy reviews, helping shape the win approach (e.g., competitive positioning, investment offers, or executive engagement). If a top deal is stalled, you will assemble the necessary resources – possibly including managers from other departments, financing options, or technical experts – to get it back on track towards closure.

• Program & Investment Utilization: Maximize the impact of Microsoft's partner programs and Ensure your team works with partners to fully leverage available subsidies to generate and accelerate pipeline. will monitor program/investment utilization and track ROI – guiding partners to take advantage of these programs and thereby boosting pipeline velocity and close rates, equaling partner profitability.

• Trusted Advisor & Stakeholder Management: Act as a trusted advisor and business leader both to your partners and within Microsoft. For partners, you will often engage at the executive level (such as a VP of Sales or CEO of a partner company) to steer the overall alliance: discussing business strategy, securing commitment to goals, and strengthening the partnership. Internally, you will interface with senior segment leaders in Microsoft's sales organization (e.g., SMB segment leadership, GPS leadership) to represent the voice and performance of your partners. Through a predictable rhythm and clear communication of insights, you ensure that Microsoft's leadership is aware of partner contributions, escalations, and needed support.

• Customer Success & Impact: While primarily a sales role, you will also champion sustainable customer outcomes. Drive your team and partners to not only close deals but also ensure customers realize value from deployed solutions – this leads to renewals and references. Emphasize solution quality and customer satisfaction in reviews. By reinforcing a focus on delivering positive customer, you help establish long-term trust which fuels continuous business. In essence, you are guiding partners to sell with a consultative, value-based approach that creates lasting success for customers (and thus incremental sales opportunities down the line).

In fulfilling these responsibilities, you will balance strategic planning with tactical execution. One day you might be formulating a new sales initiative to push AI-based solutions via partners, and the next day you're deep in a partner's sales funnel data figuring out how to help them accelerate deal closures. This dynamic scope is what makes the role challenging and rewarding.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

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Industry leading healthcare

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Educational resources

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Discounts on products and services

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Savings and investments

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Maternity and paternity leave

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Generous time away

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Giving programs

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Opportunities to network and connect

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.