Senior Business Development Manager - AI

At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation. 
 

Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive.

We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Business Development Manager to join our AI Partnerships Team at F5. The successful candidate will play a crucial role in driving strategic partnerships to support our cutting-edge AI solutions.

As a Business Development Manager, you will be responsible for driving partnerships from managing relationships, and growing, measuring, and optimizing partnership success as well as managing term sheet negotiations through product launches, We are looking for a leader who will be passionate about AI and enjoy working with multiple partners and product teams. It is essential that you are comfortable navigating cross-functional teams to achieve your goals.

This BDM will implement & execute across India the Large SI Partner business plan & AI ecosystem partner business objectives, as well as devise & augment India strategies to further enhance the partnership success

Responsible for executing with F5’s Application & AI Led strategy, the position would be aligned with the Partner organization.

• Overall responsibility for all business management aspects related to the development of Large SI partnerships & partner ecosystem across AI & Application Led initiatives
• Devise and execute revenue strategies by Market, Segment and Solution area and align with F5 Partner Business GTM strategy
• Ensure sales enablement of Business partners through ongoing sales & technical training and certification levels
• Provide leadership to virtual teams of F5 and Partner sales organizations and account teams

KEY OBJECTIVES AND MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES

• Defining, negotiating, and closing high-impact partnerships for F5’s AI products
• Managing relationships with partners, identifying new opportunities, and growing partnership success
• Working closely with product and engineering teams to define priorities and identify key opportunities
• Managing external and internal cross-functional teams when integrating products or technologies with external partners
• Conducting market research and analysis to identify trends and opportunities in the AI industry
• Working cross-functionally with sales, legal, marketing, finance, product, and engineering teams to negotiate deal terms, drive special projects, advocate internally for partners, and educate on industry trends
• Providing regular reports and updates on partnership activity and performance
• Devise, implement and execute Partner revenue growth activities, campaigns and programs
• Develop, maintain and grow in strategic importance with Strategic Large SI/OEM relationships across India Assist Director- Channels and Country Head India in planning cycles
• Ensure regular Quarterly Business Reviews, both internally as well as with partner’s leadership
• Ensure competitive containment through sales programs, marketing, messaging & training
• Monitor India bookings progress & trends, as well as ‘share of wallet’ and market share position, and provide reports & analysis to leadership
• Gather competitive intelligence and drive counter measures through teaming with corporate and India marketing & sales leadership.
• Design, secure approval and execute specific counter competitive programs and pricing actions as needed
• Work strategically to identify new industry specific ‘use cases and solutions’ with Large SIs.
• Additional projects and responsibilities towards Large SIs as assigned by Director- Channels

PERFORMANCE METRICS- Financial, Strategic, Operational, Relationship

• Partner Sourced & Partner Influenced Revenue
• Number of Active Deals Partner pursues in the Quarter
• Number of Leads generated by Partner
• YoY Growth in Partner revenues Marketing Investment from both sides (%)
• Number of Partner Staff Trained
• Number of Fortnightly Pipeline Calls, Quarterly F5 bookings vs. India Partner Business plan starting a Quarters down
• Forecasting accuracy- a Quarters down
• Sales enablement: field readiness, training & certification metrics
• Training quality, attendance and certifications statistics for India

KEY RELATIONSHIPS

Director- Channels and Country Manager India

Obtain and provide executive feedback and develop joint GEO sales strategies

Marketing leadership

Local marketing management – align GTM strategy, decide on BP / Sales strategies and programs, gain feedback on local and global marketing priorities

Product Management

Ensure 100% alignment with Partner Business product strategies and launch activities as well as identify, initiate and drive collective solution development

Technical Service Heads

Get access to Partner Technical organizations/Units across all levels to gain and maintain training and certification levels

Sales Operations

Ensure relationships with BU leaders at Large SIs as relevant to F5

Ensure quality POS Partner sales data through go-to contacts and forecasting input for forecasting cycles

Intra Company relationship

Proven track record of managing relationships across cross functional groups within the organization and bringing them all together as one organization in front of Large SI

DESIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelor’s degree and/or MBA degree is a strong plus
• 15+ years of strong background in sales or alliance partnerships gained within the Cloud/SaaS/Security/AI space, managing multi-million-dollar deals
• Coming from an OEM background would be an added advantage 
• Direct experience of partnering with Large SI’s like Infosys, TCS, LTI, Deloitte, PWC, Accenture, HP, Dell will be an important advantage
• Demonstrable track record of achieving and exceeding targets whilst managing a small number of large accounts or alliance partners, ideally with a next generation software/SAAS company
• Experience and relationships with major SI’s, ISV’s, Managed Service Providers, Value Added Resellers and experience with leading software, Cloud & SaaS organizations required
• Base level knowledge of the AI ecosystem including the technology, what large and small companies are doing, industry alliances, and broader government and regulatory positions

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

Please note that F5 only contacts candidates through F5 email address (ending with @f5.com) or auto email notification from Workday (ending with f5.com or @myworkday.com).

Equal Employment Opportunity

It is the policy of F5 to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants without regard to unlawful considerations of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, sensory, physical, or mental disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws. This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, discipline, and termination.  F5 offers a variety of reasonable accommodations for candidates. Requesting an accommodation is completely voluntary. F5 will assess the need for accommodations in the application process separately from those that may be needed to perform the job. Request by contacting accommodations@f5.com.