Sales Engineer

Colt provides network, voice and data centre services to thousands of businesses around the world, allowing them to focus on delivering their business goals instead of the underlying infrastructure.

Function: Sales Engineering (Strategic Alliances)

Reports to: Manager, Sales Engineers

Location: Paris, France

Set up: Hybrid

Role purpose

The purpose of this role is to support the sales team in identifying, crafting, and finalizing opportunities within designated accounts. This involves a multifaceted approach including opportunity detection, qualification, and thorough requirements gathering from clients. The role extends to designing tailored solutions that encompass technical architecture, service definition, and transition plans, ensuring alignment with client expectations. Additionally, the role provides crucial technical and product expertise throughout the pre-sales process, guiding customers from initial qualification to the finalization of orders. A key aspect of the role involves determining the overall costing of solutions to ensure competitiveness while meeting client budgets. Finally, the role culminates in the presentation of these solutions to clients, effectively communicating their benefits and value propositions to drive successful outcomes and client satisfaction.

Key accountabilities

• Help evangelise customers to detect and generate opportunities.
• To be the customer's technical consultant, allowing a review of the customer's current services and leading to a reengineered solution for better performance, cost savings and easier management for the customer and the network
• Meet and work closely with the customer to understand their business objectives, needs, requirements and compelling criteria to better shape the solution and translate them into a high level technical and service design that integrates smoothly into the customer environment.
• Understand current and emerging technologies, security principles, IT Governance to provide the customers with the information needed to make informed telecommunications decisions. Look at Colt offerings and provide a complete solution for a customer based on industry-proven technologies.
• Ensure timely and accurate qualification of opportunities, partnering with the sales team to recommend the most appropriate solution to the customer.
• Liaise between the customer and Colt Engineering, Design, Delivery and Operations, to ensure each is aware of the customer solution and to create an effective installation
• Own the solution during the assess and design phase focusing on customer requirements and deviations from the Colt service catalogue
• Manage 3rd Party partners and all Colt concerned departments to design a fit for purpose and a deliverable solution
• Manage the cost of the different elements that build the solution to ensure it best fits the customer's requirements and is most cost effective
• Document the final solution design to a level of detail and rigour that enables customer to
• Identify and quantify the comfortably contract with Colt for a clearly defined service and solution and service outcome.
• Manage Quotes and technical details of orders for Standard and non-Standards to guarantee that orders are not rejected
• Document the final solution design to a level of detail and rigour that enables all relevant technologies and services to be identified for internal approval.
• associated gaps and risks including mitigation plans in conjunction with Commercial/Bid management, and other sales supporting entities whenever appropriate.
• Maintain a high degree of and thorough knowledge of all Colt products, services capabilities and customer portfolio

Key performance indicators (financial and non-financial)

• Functional design is aligned to industry trends and is cost efficient.
• Solutions are aligned to Colt strategy
• Documentation is available
• Booking

Relationships and key contacts

• Sales teams
• Sales Specialists
• Customers
• Engineering, Design, Delivery and Operations
• 3rd Party partner
• Commercial/Bid Management
• Sales supporting entities

Role requirements

Experience:

• Experience in a technical environment like IP&Transmission Engineering, technical assistance center, configuration support
• Experience of designing and selling such services: fibre, copper, DSL transmission services, Ethernet and IP private networks, accesses to the Internet, resiliency and security services, TDM voice, VoIP, IP Telephony, Intelligent Numbers, IVR etc)
• Experience with service oriented roles

Skills:

• Strong technical understanding of Customer Network technologies and Colt products & technologies
• Managed networking: protocol stack, IP addressing, routing protocols, Transmission (SDH, EoSDH, MSP, DWDM, Ethernet), MPLS, VPNs, interfaces and standards, ...
• Software, protocols and Internet standards, including:, SDWAN, Internet, MPLS, SIP, Voice, Cloud Access, Cloud PBX
• High Speed Services, Dark Fiber
• Colt access technologies (Ethernet, MSP,ULL FTTH, xDSL, GCR)
• Internet Access (IP Access, Smart Office, IAS)
• Voice (IN/IVR, VoIP Access, TDM/IP)
• Customer Service background or customer oriented experiences
• Excellent communications skills, both written and verbal

Qualifications and person specific:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Telecommunications or related field.
• Certifications required in one of the previous areas of expertise: Cisco CCNP, CCNA, CCVP, Avaya UC or CC sales and design certification, Microsoft Exchange & Lync, ITIL, ...
• Fluent in French and English
• Adopts a flexible and results orientated approach
• Works on own initiative where necessary
• Ability to cope with stress, solve problems and deal with a variety of situations
• High level of accuracy and attention to detail
• Methodical and thorough approach to work
• Ability to work under pressure and meet multiple deadlines to address multiple issues

What we offer

Colt is a growing business that is investing in its people. We offer skill development, learning pathways and accreditation to help our people perform at their best, regardless of role and location. The company supports diversity and inclusion in the workplace and has signed Diversity Charter.

In addition to offering competitive salaries and incentive plans, a range of benefits and local rewards packages are offered to staff. Colt recognises the importance of a work life balance.

Some benefit examples are:

• Hybrid set up
• Pension fund
• Two days annually to spend on volunteering opportunities
• Private Medical Insurance
• Full time standard working hours
• Meal vouchers
• Transporation allowance
• Connection allowance (working from home)
• Access to a virtual business school for on-going learning
• Business mentoring
• NWC social activities
• International environment with employees from more than 35 different nationalities