Microsoft- Interview Prep
Can you walk through how you how you collaborate and lead across external or internal partners and v-teams?
Yes, I belive being able to quarterback, and collaborate across your digital team (BDC, OD rep) along with your Solution Architectsis critical to running a successful book of business. Situation: For example, I had been working with a resteratunt company based here in Atlanta(Chick-fil-a) for a custom demo
Why Micorosft?
- I want to work at a company that's for profit, but also making the world a better place. I believe Microsoft showcases the most sustainable way to solve the real-world problems we have today. Microsoft is a company that's bigger and better than themselves, which fuels my passion for sales, curiosity, growth, leadership, and most all-purpose as I continue my career. Right alongside that; I've heard nothing but unbelievable things about the culture. Microsoft views every single person on the planet as a potential consumer; thus treating every person on this planet with the highest regard and utmost respect.. People that I've spoken with at Microsoft have echoed the fact it's not something on the side of the building but something they see and believe, from the CEO Satya Nadella, all the way down to individual contributors that's something that I want to be surrounded by while at work.
GTM Strategy- Segmenting Account Strategy for Consumption
1. Forfeiture of Universal Credits 2. Fusion Analtyics Warehouse for Fusion Installs- > SaaS Pipeline 3. On- Prem OBIEE/Essbase/BIFs- Move to the cloud.
What type of customers do you work with?
As an Analytics Sales Manager/Specialist- I worked across multiple verticals, but primarily the Retail, Restaurant, Manufacturing & Transportation. A few of my customers include Office Depot, AutoNation, Inspire Brands, Arby's, Tupperware, Rod Lobster, Chick-fil-a, Norfolk Southern, Delta.
Can you tell me a time when you used a partner to build a strategic relatinoship wihth a customer?
At Oracle, I've worked with numerous partners, as they play an instrumental role especially within the Data & Analytics vertical at Oracle Situation: A great example of this would be my work with a financial consulting firm specifically around an HR Analytics use case for thier Fusion HCM Application. working on employee retention, identifying top talent.. After completing the JEP; and closing the deal I brought in multiple partners (Jade Global, Perficient, and Oracle Consulting) based on the requirements outlined by the customer. Action: I met with all the respective partners and outlined deliverables, pricing, and timetable with all of them, and helped cater thier presentation decks especially to the customer and thier needs. I made sure to set up customer reference calls with each and took the role of a trusted advisor to both the partners/.customer throughout the process. Result: After the customer met with all three teams, and the information necessary to make the decision was presented they moved forward with Jade Global. Jade was able to come in and deliver the project under budget/time based on exhaustive detail for JEP, and continued cadence between all three parties (Jade/Oracle/Duff &Phelps) to make the project a success.
What is growth mindset? What does that mean to you?
Concept of always learning, and being insatiably curious. Organization that treats failure as an opportunity for success.
How do you handle Negotiations c-suite executives?
For all negotiations/difficult conversations, I believe being prepared is essential and having a destination. Having a set plan of what you're trying to accomplish within the meeting is critical so you don't lose control of the situation. In my role, I constantly map out the needs and wants of the customers I'm talking to, along with that of myself, and our team is needed to create value for both sides so that both parties leave the conversation satisfied. SItuation: While working on a receiving signed OD from the CFO on the last day of the quarter. As we were waiting for the signed OD to come in; we learned CFO had taken the afternoon off for a dentist appointment, and the deal could be pushed to Q2 Action: After working closely with his entire team for the past 4 months, I made sure to provide them with every piece of information necessary to execute the contract. and why it was necessary to do so this quarter. After not being able to reach CFO Directly, I shot him an email laying out why executing this afternoon would be beneficial for his company and team to push this project forward. Result: Less than an hour later, we receive the signed OD and the deal was booked.
What do you do if you disagree with your boss?
For the most part, I had a great relationship with my current manager, Ryan. Most of the time we saw eye to eye on account strategy, and any decisions needed to progress and close on partnerships with customers. Situation: Respectfully Disagree
Why are you leaving Oracle? Looking to join Microsoft
I have truly enjoyed my 3.5 years the Oracle, it's been a great place to start my career, especially with the teams I've been on, but also the managers that I've learned from along the way. However, I do believe as we move into being a cloud-first company, and what it takes to be a successful one, there is a gap between the culture and relationship with our customers. One of the challenges I face is that all the different pillars within Oracle (especially Applications, License, Tech Cloud) are incentivized to work against each other. Everyone is silo'd off causing many barriers while working on engagements, as a consequence, and I"ve have seen too many of our customers not achieve thier desired outcome, or what's ultimately in thier best interests. I'm looking forward to working in an environment where everyone has a common goal, to make our customer's successful and develop that long-term partnership versus the successes of Oracle, or that Individual contributor.
How do you work with a team? How do you work with someone that doesn't report to you?
I'm a true belieer in a rising tide lifts all boats, I belive transparency and preperation are crucial when working with a team, sepcially when someone doesn't work directly report to you. Situation: Use case around Soiulution Architect getting siick
Tell me about yourself?
My name is Joe Becker , I've been in Sales and Account Management over the last three and half years all within the Data Management & Analytics pillar; I've excelled within the positions that I've had and I want to join a customer first and customer-obsessed cloud computing company and leverage my skillset to help Microsoft continue on their shared mission to grow and help empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more with the power of analytics & AI.
What is Snyapse Analytics?
Next generation of the Azure SQL Warehouse- blends together Big Data Analytics, Dara Warehousing, and Data Integration into single unified service that provides end to end analytics at cloud scale - Querinng on both relational and non relational data( combined data lakes/warehouses)
Can you walk me through how you look at your territory and prioritize accounts?
Of course, as we made the transition from a bookings model to a consumption focused we outlined a new set of sales plays: 1. Existing UCC Customers with the demand to use more -Additional Users -Additional Use Cases -Additional Performance -Additional Envirnemnts- QA, Dev, DR, Learning?Training etc 2. Existing OAC/ADB customer renewing thier UCC Subscription 3., Improve OTBI in Oracle SaaS- - HVVP- Does the customer believe OAC/OAX is better than OTBI? Include ADW in BOM 4. Replace Transactional Reporting for Oracle OnPrem ERP App (EBS, JDE, PSFT) Demo- OAC for specific use source reporting -> EBS- Discoverer -> JDE- OneView -> PSFT- BI Publisher, Vision , and SQR Reproign 5. Move On Prem Essbase to Cloud
Walk us through a customer leveraging ML & AI-
Recent engagment I had with n IT industry leader in the area of network and application performance management.. Situation: In speaking with thier Director of IT, a significant part of thier revenue came from service renewals. However, despire having all the manners of metrics coming from customer hardware, the company lacked the ability to leverage the data for identifying renewal drivers. This created two problems. First, any sort of behavior patterns or indicators for renewals were purely anecdotal. Second, because renewals lacked a definitive model, no initiatives existed for improving that renewal rate Task: After evaluating a number of enterprise analytics platforms, Riverbed chose Oracle Analytics Cloud, which allowed them to connect to multiple data sources: third party, on-premises etc, and processed those data sets for visualized and forward-projection algorithms pwoered by AI capabilities: tensor-based, random forest, and sidekick among others. Action: For purpose of understanding the company's customer renewals, the company's data science team focused on a number of indicators: service contract expiration, product mix, discount rate- these different metrics wove together foir an AI-ready data fabric of sales history. (Data they had the most history on) Result: Analysis delivered quantifiable results to reveal what actually drove renewals- and the team put these results and within one quarter: 10% increase in early renewals, and almost 70% increase in customer renewal forecast accuracy.
Walk me through a Retail Opproutnity Deal?
SItuation: One of the cloud partnerhsips we've had is with a supply retailing company (Office Depot). Situation: They were existing UCC Custome- $8k/Monthly Unused Credits. They were currently licensed for $180k Support in Essbase. Essbase is a multi-dimensional database that helps with forecasting & analysis (i.e Gross Margin %, by each month in Q1, for FY20, by Product)- They used Essbase for thier GSC or Global Sales Cube to hold of thier product SKUs across all thier stores in the United States.- 150GB/64 Cores -Great Disparity in Weekend/Week Usage- Usage during the weekend was was way more than the week- Around 34 Cores during the weekend, and down to 8 during the week. Action: Given they were two versions behind, I presented the proposal of spinning up an Essbase 19C Stack, Move over 3 GSC Cubes for Performance Testing,as well as adding new features including the ability to have on-demand scalability ( Scale-up and Down- Based on Workload Capacity (Weeks vs Weekends + Off Hour, or a number of users accessing the cubes) I was able to reach out to our SA Group, and provide resources to help them build, migrate, and support POC in a timely manner. Result: After Successful POC, from a performance and scaling perspective- We were able to size them out for 16 OCPU, for $124k ARR- or around 31% on savings. on the rising costs of thier on-prem licenses. Leveraging thier existing credits, and expanding on the initial cloud contract, and setting up a go-live for the coming September.
Describe an instance where you inspired others with a shared objective?
Sitautions: During my time as a OD (Digital) rep, my manager ended up taking 4 weeks of maternity leave while his baby was being born. Action: Althought this certainly wasn't an ideal situation, our team was still responsible for keeping up with our metrics, and delvierying on our expected quote while he was gone. I decided to volunteer in gathering the data/action items for every week, and executing forecast calls with our Director/Interim Manager from the other team. Result: I belive everyone on the team appreciated me taking charge, and in return everyone came together to make sure I had all the information necessary before each forecast without me having to ask. Over the course of the 4 week perod, we exceeded quota attaintment in terms of opporutnity creation, deal progression, and revneu gneerated for the month while our mangager was out..
Tell me about time you failed? What lesson did you learn?
Situation: I had been working with one of my cusotmers s outside of Pittsburgh (Harbison Walker International) about executing a migration (i.e. taking some of their unused support on various products which included some BI tools to a new Oracle Analytics CLoud Subscription + Expansion the current spend for FP&A Project ). It was the first week of January, I thought we would be able to do the complete the migration, and sign OD by the end of the month in order for them to seamlessly transition from their existing free trial to new subscription. Action However, while working through the different migration/contracting teams, and having to receive various approvals, the time table was pushed out by another month or so, and consequently the customer had hold off on the migration + expansion deal all together given the bandwidth was lost internally to handle the project. Result: Looking back I realized that a client isn't going to be upset if you're clear about the timeline in advance, but they are going to disappointed if you promise something and then don't deliver. So I took the experience and used it to become much better at managing the expectations of clients during cycles I oversee The following month I executed a similar migration but proactively aligned all the necessary resources beforehand. I told the customer it would take 6 weeks, but we were able to finish it in half that time. The lesson here would always be under-promise and over-deliver
Tell me about your weakness? Failures with customer and how you overcame them.
Situation: One of my weaknesses as progress through my sales career revolves around asking the tough/pointed questions? At times when working with customers or executives at the start of my sales career, I didn't ask the difficult questions for fear of losing the deal. In one of the lost deals, It was three weeks to go in the fiscal year. We've been working on this potential partnership for 4 months or so in a cross pillar deal, and it was about to get pushed out because the sales leadership group wanted to see an additional custom demo of our analytics platform. At this point, we had the ability to put the custom demo together for the following week, but we certainly didn't have the bandwidth internally to book the deal before quarter-end. Unfortunately, I didn't confirm all the stakeholders that would be involved in putting forth the budget for the project, even though I've done 3 detailed demos with IT, executive team, t the sales group hadn't been as heavily involved or been delivered the necessary information to make the decision to move forward. As a result, an additional demo session was scheduled with the Sales Organisation, to address some of thier pointed concerns, but the deal had to be pushed out the fiscal year and I ended up losing the account/making move to field positon down in Atlanta. Result: I've learned that as a sales professional, asking the tough questions early especially to decision-makers/executives, ultimately earns respect and more business across the board. Being able to consistently provide all the information to the client for them to make a decision is pivotal for progressing and closing opportunities.
Tell me about a time you failed? What lesson did you learn?
Situation: Back in my Oracle days, we were working on a deal with Inspire Brands, which is a global multi-brand restaurant company in the U.S. The goal was to migrate their legacy BI tools (to the Oracle Analytics Cloud platform. Task: T o ensure a smooth transition, we needed to move from their POC environment to their own dev/test/prod environment. However, while coordinating with the legal and procurement teams on the contract, we faced significant delays. Multiple approvals levels were required, compliance and risk management, etc- which extended the process to almost two months. As a result, the project was delayed by a full quarter, and then two. More importantly, the customer ultimately decided not to proceed with the migration due to internal bandwidth constraints. Action: Reflecting on this experience, I realized that even a strong champion within the company may not fully understand their own internal buying process. Moving forward, I made it a priority to gain a deeper understanding of what actions the champion or executive sponsor needed to take internally to get deals approved and signed off. This meant proactively mapping out potential bottlenecks and setting realistic timelines that accounted for approval processes. Result: This lesson shaped how I approached my more strategic clients in the future. I came to understand that procurement and approval cycles could stretch from the expected 30-60 days to as long as six months. While challenging, this experience taught me to plan more effectively, ensure better alignment early on, and set realistic expectations for timelines. It ultimately led to a more robust process for managing complex client engagements. •
Can you walk me thorugh Analtyics Oppourtunity/Drive Deal?
Situation: Another partnership with a Transportation company based here in Atlanta was an on-prem to cloud migration.. In this particular case, they had 12 Procs of OBIEE (Reporting system for EBS) with about $530k support, with support up in June '20. Initial discussion on a potential move started in August '19. Functionally: Norfolk Southern wanted to become a data-driven organization, but the data they needed to access was held in legacy OBIEE systems. Resorting to huge data dumps, extracting data that was time-consuming and unreliable. IT Groups created the financial reports, but it took too long, and information wasn't actionable to executives. They wanted to modernize their reporting for real-time dashboards, and Day by Day/Mobile functionality to thier workforce. Action: We presented the move to the cloud leveraging OAC/ADW to provide the agility to integrate, and visualize the organization's data. I set up a POC and Pilot validating exiting roles, permission, reports, and data models in the cloud and made sure it retained the performance they were receiving on-prem. Result: The POC/PIlot were successful We ended up landing a $350k ARR Contract, as NS's first step into the cloud.. The benefits they saw was an easy migration from the legacy ERP system w/partner relationship with Infosys. NS now saves 2-3 workdays per week in report prep, as department managers now armed with self-service reporting & analytics; that can easily be accessed by executives on daily basis (via iPad/Phone) to make thier decisions.
Tell me about a time wher eyou helped develop and circulate a set of best practices>? Or helped others for nothing in return?
Situation: Being solely in the Data & Analtics Pillar for my time at Oracle, I was able to develop a thorough understanding of the product set, as well as sale plays. Heading into Q3, our Mid-Market team onboarded a new rep outside of Oracle BI PIllar coming from Tech BD. Action: Along with another colleague, we spearheaded a BI/Analytics sales play deck for our team, specifically for our new hires. It covered 3 different campaigns (BI Installs, Application Customers, End of Life/Legacy customers) along with how each sale paly and product adheres to each campaign. Result: Not only did the slide deck consolidate our most lucrative/sales plays, but allowed the new reps to quickly learn our product set, and allowed them to quickly prioritize their accounts within their book of business. As a result, one of the reps closed a $30k deal within three months of coming in the seat and he alluded to the sales play deck we created as a vital piece to his ramp up on our team.
Describe a time when you worked on a cross pillar deal?
Situation: Engagement with a Chick-Fil-A in Atlanta (Chick-Fil-A), I worked with our Applications pillar on a Fusion ERP/Tech Cloud Partnership. Task: CFA wanted to extend the FUsion ERP outside of the real-time transactional reports, operational reporting, and out of the box metrics, and leverage self-service discovery, but also packaged analytics to do root cause, multi-source, and predictive analytics. Action: CFA didn't want to move away from the current deployment or set up with Altryx for Data Management, and Tableau. We certainly didn't say they needed to, but to extract the data from ERP, and provide the packaged analytics, they would need to extend with FUsion Analtyics for ERP., which essentially provides, Pre-Built, Data Model, Pre-Built Data Pipeline to Oracle Cloud ERP, Packaged Schema (Autonomous Datawrehouse,) as well as a packaged semantic model for Pre-Build KPIs, Dashboards, Reports, as well as the ability to extend and bring in other on-prem or third party applications. Result: The customer CFA gave Tableau a month to attempt to replicate what Oracle Analytics for ERP delivered natively, but they were not able to replicate the ease of the pre-built integration with Oracle Cloud ERP, the prebuilt data model, and out of the box executive reports. CFA added 200 Users
Have you handled a difficult situation with a client or vendor? How?
Situation: In the Transportation company (NS) engagement we had worked with another partner BIas Corp for the Pilot/POC engagement bringing thier OBIEE reporting to the cloud with Oracle Analytics. Action: During that time; we worked with them to present an SOW for the entire migration, along with pricing on the services. Given thier experience with POC, we believed them to be a solid suitor for the project, but since they were going to be the MSP-The ability to work side by side on the proposal wasn't possible. Result: Communication was difficult at times with BIas Corp around receiving details around SOW/Pricing and working together to get them the project. Which resulted in NS going with one of their go-to Partners Infosys on the deal. Reflecting: Looking back I realized being aligned with potential partners is critical for messaging/proposal to customers- allowing customers to feel confident they are in good hands. At times the disconnect between Vendor/Partner can be detrimental in that experience, causing them to move a different direction.
Describe a situaion where you devloped startegic partnerhsip?
Situation: Working with Inspire Brands, & the Applications Team were working on engagement to add on additional Modules to thier existing Fusion HCM/ERP Deployment, along with that they wanted to address the reporting limitations of OTBI. Task: After working with the customer to address reporting gaps, with multi-source integration, and cross-pillar reporting not included in OTIB; along with integrating some of thier on-premise legacy systems levering our Autonomous Datawarehouse. After sizing out the project, coupled with ERP Modules we presented back to Inspire and the executive group., Action; Due to the Application team bringing us in fairly late, I wasn't able to do due diligence within the account. After doing so, I realized that Inspire had $140k or so of unused Analtyics credits they had purchased back a year and a half ago with HCM Application. Those credits went unused and given they were cloud credits, I had the ability to transfer/migrate those to Gen 2- Universal Credits, for the remainder of the contract. Saving the customer the additional $120k purchase, for a $0 Migration. Result: We were able to ramp up with Oracle Analytics Cloud for ERP, leveraging Oracle Consulting to generate 10 or so reports, and 2 dashboards for the AP/AR Team. The IT/Finance team was saving countless hours consolidating reports and calculating them manually. There were now fewer steps, and much less dependence on a number of different people, and variables that lead to errors. As a Phase 2: Given the successful initial deployment, they are looking to expand the contract by $100k ARR, and introduce Autonomous Datawarehouse, and bring in HCM Modules for reporting
How have you done more with less? Master both efficeincy and effectivness
Situations: I've had been working on this partnership for the worldwide manufacture leader for mobility scooters for about a quarter, and one of our Sr. Solution Architects that had been working with me on this opportunity, became ill two days before our last presentation in front of the executive team @ Pride Mobility. This was the last green light we needed before they could sign off on the project and our solution. Actions: Given the time squeeze and inability to reschedule the demo due to quarter-end, I reached out to various SA's within our enterprise group that could help me execute this presentation. In asking all of the SC's in our pillar, I was able to find one SC that was available at the time, but I hadn't worked with before, which was certainly not ideal. However, I always try to work very closely with my extended sales/digital team including SA's when building out the presentation, a joint execution plan, etc., so I planned out all the steps and talk tracks associated with our presentation. And as result, I was able to quickly ramp up the new SA within a few days. Result: The presentation turned out great, and the customer ended up moving forward not that project. This reassured me that you have to be prepared for worst-case scenarios, especially in those instances where there are limited resources, but you are still expected to produce a maximum or effective result.
Describe a instance where you a mentor/leader to the team.
Throughout my career at Oracle, I've been lucky to have great mentors for each role that I've had. Whenever I have the opportunity to do the same with new reps on the team I jump a the chance. Situation: Whether it was at my time as BDC, or OD rep, within each team we had a new hire come on board.. Action: Each time I took it upon myself to mentor the new rep, and outline sales plays, messaging, and overall account strategy that had worked for me, along with the reasoning behind it. Result: Mentoring serves multiple purposes, not only does it give you the chance to lead, finetune your own messaging and product knowledge, but you also get to learn new points of view with each new team member that joins and apply that strategy to your own.
