Surface LoB and M365 LoB Marketing- Japan (Consumer)

Overview

Our purpose is to earn fans and drive growth by building emotional connections to delight and empower everyone. We engage with consumers globally throughout their shopping journeys, navigating both physical storefronts and digital visits across Direct and Partner Channels in Gaming, Windows, M365 and Surface. Together with our ecosystem partners, we strategize and implement plans for customer engagement and economic growth.

As a member of our team, you’ll be part of growing a multi-billion-dollar business, charting new areas of innovation, and impacting billions of lives around the world. You also will be a part of a culture centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. If that appeals to you, it’s an exciting time to be here in CSO.

As the Surface LoB and M365 LoB Marketing - Japan (Consumer), you will be responsible for Surface and M365 marketing plans and activities. Sitting within the Consumer Channels and Partner Marketing team in Japan, you will execute on product and channel marketing priorities within the partners, in order to drive revenue and profitable growth with those partners. This opportunity will allow you to develop negotiation, business acumen and marketing skills and also develop strategic long term, full funnel marketing plans.

In this role, you will build full-funnel marketing plans, creative campaigns and relevant experiences, which will deliver ROI and meet sales targets. You’ll be a subject matter expert for Devices and Creativity solution areas which includes our Surface and M365 products and services. You’ll partner with channel sales teams and Category team to influence the design of unique Microsoft experiences with Japan partners, activating omnichannel strategies, building partner capability. Success is measured by campaign effectiveness/ROI, partner satisfaction, conversion, sell-through and brand love.

You will own the planning of marketing investment strategy and marketing mix. You will have end-to-end responsibility for marketing campaign planning and execution, including the marketing calendar, planning with agency, and executions. You will also work closely with Partner Readiness, Category, and Influence Leadsto develop & execute end-to-end marketing.

By joining the Consumer Channel & Partner Marketing team, you’ll be part of a cross-functional team that’s focused on driving full-funnel marketing for an exciting ecosystem that continues to grow. As the owner of Surface & M365LoBmarketing, you’ll have the opportunity to share feedback around the partner trends, capture learnings and establish campaign best practices, leveraging the global infrastructure for support and shared platforms.

This role is flexible in that you can work up to 40% from home based on proximity to a Microsoft office.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities

Leveraging global/regional guidance, build local strategy & execution plan and coverage. Manage agency teams, ensuring coverage effectiveness and execution excellence. Capture data and insights to meet target metrics and create feedback loops for CSO teams and broader stakeholders.

Omnichannel Strategy

• Establish and leverage local customer journey maps in order to design and deliver unique Microsoft product experiences across our retail and distribution partners.
• Lead a cross-functional marketing council, driving alignment, efficiency and synergy across our owned & operated, digital direct and partner channels.
• Activate ecommerce sales motions through digital marketing excellence, mobile-first executions and social commerce.
• Influence conversion in-store and online through seamless and connected experiences.
• Optimize retail presence by landing and maintaining in-store programs and experiences.
• Build brand advocates among retail sellers and consumers through training, evangelism and community engagement platforms.
• Consumer and Partner Marketing Execution
• Localize global strategy, campaigns and assets to territories and retail partners, driving adoption and usage of global programs, platforms and playbooks.
• Build a Surface and M365 marketing calendar that represents key product campaigns, seasonal beats and launches across markets and partners.
• Align and coordinate marketing plans across marketing disciplines and functions, working closely with Partner Marketers, Partner Readiness & Influence, Global Media, Integrated Marketing, PR and Product Marketing.
• Drive and activate a distribution strategy and playbook.
• Land best-in-class product launches, key seasonal initiatives and sustain marketing.

Execution Excellence

• Actively participate in the Surface and M365 channel marketing community, ensuring effective communication and clarity.
• Deliver against timelines, budgets, and scorecards while also capitalizing on innovation opportunities.
• Drive creation and review of monthly and quarterly feedback/reporting in support of regular business milestones and digital/in-store execution excellence for Surface and M365.
• Analyze and share insights regarding Surface and M365, leveraging ratings & reviews, voice-of-the-customer and word-on-the-street feedback from our labor teams.
• Aggregate and leverage analytics and insights to create better investment strategies and execution across marketing investments to drive greater business impact.
• Ensure brand consistency and deep understanding of the customer, competitive and marketing landscape.
• Proficient across Microsoft programs, platforms and tools.
• Internal / External stakeholder Management
• Builds trust and credibility in existing relationships with internal teams, while applying expertise to cross-functional and partner teams.
• Manages and balances escalations to and from internal / external stakeholders.
• Connects customer/partner opportunities with internal stakeholders including category,sales, product marketing (LoB) and influence team and advocates for customers/partners to internal teams.
• Owns/drives trusted executive-level partner relationships in order to work toward mutual business objectives and alignment to partner's priorities to establish trust and credibility.
• Advises and aligns partners on best practices as a subject matter expert.
• Engages with, identifies, and influences key executive-level external partner stakeholders’ decision-makers on different teams.

Thought Leadership

Uses subject matter expertise to provide feedback across partners and customers on how products and processes may be improved to simplify product optimizations and workflow or better serve partners/customers or internal stakeholders.

Shares and scales successes, thought leadership, opportunities for improvement, best practices, and learnings internally and externally (e.g., case studies, industry events, training contributions) to help drive transformation and to rally internal and external audiences around Microsoft's world view.

May brainstorm new initiatives and product/projects for partners in unexplored areas (beyond current offerings).

Required/Minimum Qualifications (RQs/MQs)

5+ years relevant experience in Retail/Channel Marketing/Marketing/Retail Sales.

Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Public Relations or related field AND 3+ years' digital, retail, channel marketing, marketing, retail sales, or commercial sales experience OR equivalent experience.

Strong presentation skills

Marketing thought leadership demonstrated

Proven success at marketing strategy and execution planning – particularly Retail Marketing with Consumer Technology products.

Decent financial planning and analysis

Strong negotiation skills

Direct experience interfacing with partners and a proven track record delivering growth/performance metrics.

Understand the digital and physical buying journey (omni channel), well-versed in sales channels, commerce platforms. Expertise landing and coordinating cross-discipline marketing programs and sales programs.

Track record of marketing execution excellence and ROI through planning, operations-savvy, creative execution, readiness and analytics/insights.

New product launch experience.

Experience managing ambiguity and rapid change – demonstrate agility and risk-taking.

Strong Japnese and English (written and spoken)

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

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 with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.

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