Commercial Architect

What you’ll do

Role title: Commercial Architect
Department: Commercial Operations
Reports to: Head of Commercial Management, CSO    
Location: Hybrid

Role purpose: 

• The Commercial Architect is responsible for driving market relevant pricing execution and profit strategies in line with the commercial strategy and customer context set by the Customer Account Lead (CAL) and Finance. The Commercial Architect will also support the Commercial Lead with commercial strategies for CSO’s largest opportunities with Vodafone local markets, group companies and joint ventures whilst driving growth and supporting the expansion of the business.
• This role will occasionally involve direct customer interaction and requires a deep understanding of Vodafone’s shared operations business service lines and propositions and how these can be leveraged to help solve our customer’s business challenges. The Commercial Architect will support the Commercial Lead to develop a strong commercial strategy that delivers against the customer’s objectives.
• This role requires strong relationships across the organisation, operating in a matrix structure, to drive optimal collaboration and alignment that ensure sour commercial strategies deliver against our growth and profit objectives.

Key accountabilities and decision ownership: 

• Bring thought leadership, innovative deal structuring and commercial expertise to CSO Pricing Strategies, which mitigate risk and contributes to the growth of the CSO.
• Ensure that assumptions held within the commercial propositions are logical, sensible, updated and accurate at all times. 
• Evolute and improve the overall pricing processes to deliver quality propositions to market and that reduce the overall response times.
• Collaborative creation of a compelling win-strategies through strong alignment with business stakeholders.
• Strong stakeholder relationships within CSO and across all functions involved in the commercial process.
• Implement commercial strategies and prepare and present assessments of pricing strategies/options, competitive bids and overall price-to-win.
• Work with cross-CSO deal team to develop business cases and prepare other key deal structuring inputs (e.g., solution contingency, FX, COLA, deal termination charges etc.), where needed.
• Provide guidance on how commercial strategies impact profitability and recognising situations where existing rate cards need updating, and apply this knowledge to improve sales tactics and processes.
• Support negotiation process and provide guidance to senior leadership on the negotiation tactics underpinned by desired pricing and profitability targets.
• Work closely with Finance team to keep a finger on the latest expectations/guardrails, market relevant rate cards, financial framework, tools and policies.
   

Who you are

Key performance indicators:

• Year on year improvement on win rate and OCR (Opportunity Capture Rate)
• New business growth, renewal and retention rates by market
• Achieving profitability targets at market and service tower level

Core competencies, knowledge and experience:

• Above average commercial acumen, knowledge of pricing and profitable growth strategies
• Consistent delivery of exceptional results through matrix team structures driving optimal on and offshore structure
• Strong decision making – ability to balance conflicting priorities and strong, individual personalities
• Proven negotiation skills with customers up to C level
• Strong leadership of Risk during every bid, able to identify most appropriate mitigation actions to reduce CSO’s exposure

Technical / professional qualifications: 

• Proven Commercial acumen achieved through experience working on complex sales pursuits in either a commercial, sales or bid related role.
• Over 10 years of experience working for global corporates/organisations.
• Over 10 years of experience in Commercial, Sales or Operations, leading virtual teams in the delivery of complex, global projects.
• Data driven with strong analytical and insight focus.
• Understand the competitive landscape of our markets, and of our customer base, and act as a credible advisor to CxO level.
• Understand the complexity of Vodafone and how it impacts our customer proposals.
• Financial acumen and experience with financial modelling and pricing strategies

Direct reports:

• None to start but likely to grow to 5 – 10 as the function expands

Not a perfect fit?

Worried that you don’t meet all the desired criteria exactly? At Vodafone we are passionate about Inclusion for All and creating a workplace where everyone can thrive, whatever their personal or professional background. If you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t align exactly with every part of the job description, we encourage you to apply as you may be the right candidate for this role or another role, and our recruitment team can help you see how your skills fit in.

What's in it for you

We want you to feel happy and fulfilled at work, without compromising the other things in life that matter to you. There are lots of ways we support this, including hybrid working and generous parental leave. You'll also get four Spirit Days a year to focus on your personal development and wellbeing, plus a host of other great benefits too.

Who we are

You may have already heard of Vodafone - We're a leading Telecommunications company in Europe and Africa. But what you might not know is that we are continuously investing in new technologies to improve the lives of millions of customers, businesses and people around the world, creating a better future for everyone.

As part of our global family, whether that's Vodafone, Vodacom or _VOIS, you'll feel a sense of pride and purpose as you contribute to our culture of innovation. We pursue equality of opportunity and inclusion for all candidates through our employment policies and practices. We recognise and celebrate the importance of diversity and inclusivity in our workspace and we do not tolerate any form of discrimination especially related to but not limited to race, colour, age, veteran status, gender identification, sexual orientation, pregnancy, ethnicity, disability, religion, political affiliation, trade union membership, nationality, indigenous status, medical condition, HIV status, social origin, cultural background, social, or marital status.

Together we can.