Client Technology SAP: Technology Presales Architect (Mannheim)

The opportunity 

As an EY SAP Technology Presales, you directly help EY & clients with a highly efficient, optimised and precise pursuit proposals that leverage EY’s Technology assets and capabilities to transform and manage their business. 

Your key responsibilities 

• Client Interaction: As a trusted advisor, you will harvest requirements from the client and translate these into a solution that meets the objectives and principles agreed with the client. You will be part of a pursuit team and lead the technology aspect of it. You will be leveraging your technical knowledge, experience & deep understanding of both – project scope & EY’s technology (focus: SAP-build technology) capabilities/products. You are a technical leader, serving as a liaison among business partners, delivery leadership and pursuit stakeholders.
• Pursuit shaping: This is critical role in the architecture & solution design lifecycle cutting along the pursuit lifecycle. As a Technology Presales Architect, you are a technical leaders with strong understanding of technology and ability to apply it to drive business outcomes. You will provide guidance for the solution & pursuit definition, presales thought leadership, ascertain technical delivery possibilities & costs involved for the top critical business solution implementations - based on various available EY Technology products, tools & processes.
• Technology Presales development by working with a wide variety of internal stakeholders, namely Product Owners (SAP Technology Officers and Product Managers), Business Owners (in the Service Lines), EY SAP Delivery Teams and GDS (Global Delivery Services). The Technology Presales Architect is involved in envisioning, design and development of the pursuit design and response, with a broad focus around EY’s SAP delivery and technology capabilities for the enterprise, industry, platform and solutions. Any identified technology gaps will be addressed through established channels such as available Innovation and product capabilities. 

Essential Functions of the Job:

• Presales / Pursuit Architecture & Solutioning for mid to large scale pursuits
• Provide thought leadership of a Technology Presales Architect with the service line pursuit /business teams during deal development, pursuit & close phases.
• Having deep understanding of SAP Technology and EY’s SAP drivers, products, tools & processes to stitch the right solution that delivers value add for the client 
• Establish Presales standards, guidelines and procedures to overall increase the success rate of client pursuits for EY overall (and the EY SAP alliance particularly) 
• Hands on in creating E2E solution architecture with an alignment with overall EA and IT Roadmap of specific clients.
• Shape RFP responses and bring in incisive insights from Tech experience.
• Bringing the outside in approach, ensure an objective analysis and provide actionable recommendation in the form of underpinned solutions.
• Current As-is Architecture as well as Transition Architecture and roadmap steps to reach the Target Architecture
• Address identified technology gaps during a pursuit cycle to the respective innovation and product teams and come up with innovative, creative mitigation plans / solutions. 
• Understand the impact of (emerging) technology, and when this will have impact in what form and how does the business and IT capture that value (translation of potential and impact).
• Identify ways to reduce costs and bringing efficiencies through strong expertise and working knowledge of EY’s technical & business architecture  
• Pro-actively contribute to the development of the Presales community and be an ambassador for good Architecture. Assist in onboarding new Technology Presales Architects.
• Maintain relationships with relevant delivery / competence centre teams and actively ensure that implemented solutions follow the (approved) designs, not only during a project but during the entire application life cycle.
• Interact with stakeholders on presales issues and strategic improvements where such expertise is required.
• Coach business owners and pursuit leads on technology presales during the pursuit lifecyle.
• Ensure proper pursuit / deal architecture and technology roadmaps are documented using the templates, Architecture tooling and conforms to standards and utilizes the available reference models.
• Actively work to identify, communicate, mitigate and resolve technology issues and risks. In case solutions cannot be 100% compliant with standards proactively seek input from the relevant function in order to obtain step-out approval.
• Collaborate with Technology Product Teams, influence the Product backlogs and priorities according to the findings of your Presales / pursuit engagements 

Skills and attributes for success 

• Knowledge on Industry solutions / products.
• Strong tech background – stints in deal development, architecture & strategy or being associated with a technology start-up.
• Having worked on large scale multi-technology, data, analytics deals.
• Technology all-round expertise – Applications, Infrastructure, Digital, Security.
• Having technical / data / application / integration architecture experience.
• Responding to RFPs, shaping client proposals.
• Expertise on solution write-up, making client presentations.
• Excellent Communication Skills in English both written and spoken. Ability to interact with a global audience of customers, partners and a global team
• Good business acumen with outstanding ability in developing strategic ongoing customer relationships, gaining trust of stakeholders and respect for the company through technical leadership.
• Ability to identify technical risks before they occur and to develop mitigation and avoidance strategies.
• Awareness of portfolio management (and the associated principles, tools and techniques).
• Organized and methodical. Ability to initiate, plan and develop according to plan though coping with a level of uncertainty and risk.
• Rigorous, thorough and with a taste for detail.
• Leadership & negotiating skills and ability to drive change using influence and networking.

Ideally, you’ll also 

• Individual contributor role, hence, should know the art of influence without authority
• Strong experience in offshore/onsite working model and working with different geographies and cultures.
• Certifications and/or experience in Agile Delivery and DevOps would be desirable.
• Architectural training/certifications like TOGAF or IASA is desirable.
• Knowledge on service management framework, especially on areas of service strategy and design (ITIL V3/V4) would be an added advantage
• Regular international and domestic travel. 
• BS/MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. 
• 15+ years of technology, business development & thought leadership.