AI Product Director

Description:

AI Product Director

About Us:
We are the tech company with people at heart.

At Advania, we believe in empowering people to create sustainable value through the clever use of technology. As one of Microsoft's leading partners in the UK, specialising in Azure, Security, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft 365, we have a proven track record of success in delivering transformational IT services.

Position Overview:
The AI Product Director will develop and evolve the Group's strategic vision and go-to-market approach for AI propositions. As AI reshapes industries, this role gives you an opportunity to be at the forefront of this revolution by leading our strategic vision and proposition development for AI with Microsoft technologies. Building on our existing internal and external AI progress, the AI Product Director will ensure we maximise commercial success and client value delivered by the service line. This will encompass identification of strategic opportunities, development of new offerings, and ensuring our portfolio of managed and professional services for AI achieves its full market potential.

The scope of your role is extensive, and you should be as comfortable guiding our developers building AI solutions as pitching our offerings to the C-level at our clients. You will shape our services in areas such as Microsoft Copilot, Azure OpenAI (including our Private ChatGPT solution), AI strategic consultancy, adoption services, and more. This will require a solid understanding of generative AI - its capabilities, use cases, limitations, major players in the field and their offerings, and how the space is evolving. A good understanding of the Microsoft context surrounding AI is also required - in technology terms this means Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Azure, the Power Platform, Microsoft Viva, and AI capabilities in Microsoft 365 like Microsoft Syntex/SharePoint Premium.

Experience of developing services and bringing them to market is required, ideally in a technology services provider/MSP environment. You will be comfortable forming business plans with revenue and GP projections to justify investment in significant opportunities, and then working with teams around the business to take a proposition from concept to delivery. This will involve service design, pricing, go-to-market planning and execution, and more.

Beyond service development, your work will have a significant impact on how we present ourselves to clients. Your work will enable the Commercial team to understand our portfolio clearly, articulate the value of our solutions, and sell effectively - creation and evolution of effective collateral and tools such as pitch decks, product and service descriptions, pricing calculators and contractual documentation will be part of the foundation you provide for commercial success. You will also provide support on must-win client deals by supporting client conversations, pitches, proposals, RFP responses and framework applications, bringing your expert knowledge to optimise our opportunity response. Being a market evangelist and supporting demand generation for our services will also be vital. We're looking for someone vocal and visible on AI, comfortable speaking at events and providing thought leadership in written content and social media. Positioning Advania with Microsoft and collaborating on initiatives is also an important part of this.

As part of the Product Directorate group within our Products & Services function, you will work alongside peers in other service lines to ensure propositions and overall strategic focus are aligned. Important counterparts include Product Directors for Azure, Security & Compliance, UC&C, Managed Services, and Fresh, but also our Microsoft Alliances Director and Professional Services team leads who focus on AI. You will work as part of a broad, supportive group with backing of an effective senior leadership team to ensure we maximise our potential and growth.

Key Functions of the role:

• Own and develop the overall Advania UK AI proposition - drive the portfolio forward through the design, implementation, and launch of new services

• Own and develop existing AI offerings - including our Private ChatGPT solution, Microsoft Copilot services, and AI adoption and enablement services

• Drive clarity of service definition and sales enablement

• Provide opportunity support and ensure sales/delivery alignment

• Market positioning and demand generation

• Collaborate with peers in other Advania countries to maximise Group-level impact on AI

Responsibilities:

• Develop and share our client-facing AI roadmaps

• Manage the lifecycle of propositions, including adding new value to existing services through new components

• Create sales and marketing collateral to support our AI propositions, interfacing with Marketing to drive campaigns and lead generation

• Ensure AI services are represented appropriately in the Products & Services Catalogue

• Provide pre-sales and opportunity support through client conversations, pitches, proposals, and RFP responses

• Collaborate with other Product Directors to ensure propositional alignment

• Strengthen our Microsoft relationship by developing a network of relevant stakeholders, positioning our capability and services, and participating in initiatives to drive success for your portfolio

• Create Advania differentiation in the Microsoft services market through Partner Awards, relevant specialisations and solution designations, and special programmes

Qualifications & Experience:

• Experience in developing new products and services (ideally Managed Services and Professional Services) and bringing them to market

• Experience with product management methodology - including value proposition development, product planning, backlog and release management, roadmap creation, client liaison etc.

• A solid understanding of generative AI - capabilities, use cases, limitations, major players and their offerings, and how the space is evolving

• A solid understanding of AI concepts - including Retrieval Augmented Generation, similarity search, fine-tuning, embeddings, plugins and GPTs, and LLM model creation

• A good understanding of (and ideally experience using) Copilot for Microsoft 365 - including readiness considerations, adoption strategies, and broad extensibility options

• An understanding of the value proposition and high-level capabilities of other important Microsoft Copilots - in particular Copilot for Sales, Copilot for Security, Copilot for Azure, Copilot for SharePoint, Power BI Copilot and Copilot Studio as a maker experience

• A broad awareness of other Microsoft AI technologies - Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Studio, Microsoft Syntex/SharePoint Premium, and Azure Cognitive Services

• Experience speaking at public and online events

Desirable:

• An understanding of technologies related to AI - Azure AI Search, vector databases, Semantic Kernel, LangChain etc.

• An understanding of the Data & Analytics space - data storage options, data analysis and modelling, machine learning, business intelligence and reporting etc., ideally including an awareness of Microsoft Data Platform technologies such as Microsoft Fabric, Synapse Analytics, Databricks, and Power BI

• An understanding of data governance in Microsoft 365 - security/permissions, retention, disposition, compliance and more

• An understanding of the Microsoft Power Platform

Click here for the list of benefits.

This is a remote-first hybrid role. See here for details about our hybrid workstyle.

#LI-Hybrid

Our Selection Process:

We are committed to ensuring an equitable experience for all candidates, regardless of race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other basis as protected by applicable law.

Please do let us know if you'll need any reasonable adjustments as part of the selection process by highlighting these on your application form