Deal Desk Analyst
Harrogate-based - Hybrid working
WHO WE ARE
Certinia (formerly FinancialForce) delivers a Services-as-a-Business platform that powers and connects all aspects of services operations, from services estimation and delivery to customer success management and financial planning and accounting. The company's Professional Services Automation (PSA), Customer Success, and ERP solutions delivered on Salesforce's leading cloud platform provide the ability to run a connected services business, deliver with intelligence, and achieve business agility. Headquartered in Austin, Texas with offices around the world, Certinia is backed by Haveli Investments, General Atlantic and Salesforce Ventures. For more information, visit www.certinia.com.
THE ROLE
The Deal Desk Analyst will partner with the Senior Operations Manager to implement and maintain over time, a controlled process for pricing and deal structuring, order form creation, contract management, and supporting strategic and operational decision-making at Certinia. Bridge the relationship between Field Sales, Finance, Legal, and Partners on deal structure and approvals.
At the core of the role are three competencies:
- Governance Process design and implementation
- Ongoing approval and deal flow support
- Deep understanding of deal structure, revenue, and margin optimization
The focus of this role will be to drive Certinia’s sales organization with deal strategy and operational efficiency. Success in the role requires an individual who is process-oriented, has creative and original thinking to proactively apply different approaches to structuring deals. The person must have ability to work across multiple departments as a trusted advisor and support the information and compliance requirements of Finance, Legal, Product and others.
This role is responsible for ensuring that quotes are accurate and commercial term documents are consistent and yield the most mutually beneficial agreements for our customers and for Certinia.
WHAT YOU WILL DO IN THIS ROLE
- Document and optimize rules for end-to-end flow from creation of quote through order form to sign off by all parties
- Document discount approval matrices and provide guidelines for approvals, SLAs and metrics
- Develop and implement end-to-end deal training across all participating organizations
- Define guidelines, best practices, and collaborate with IT to improve Configure Price Quote (CPQ) tool
- Review all standard contracts submitted by sales (inclusive of contractual commitments and terms and conditions)
- Collaborate with sales Account Executives in creation of all custom (non-standard) contracts
- Provide pre-sales internal support and guidance on contract matters to sales and account managers
- Work with AE and renewal team to restructure existing contracts in a manner that optimizes margins and growth
- Oversee Service Level Agreement Compliance across different stakeholders (Deal desk, Legal, Finance, Sales, Partners, etc.)
- Ensure all approved requests have been properly documented in accordance to sales operation processes, escalated to the appropriate approval level, and resolved within SLA
- Process and Governance: Share best practices with and provide training for sales team, peers, and partners to enhance the quality and efficiency of contracting processes and contribute to the company’s knowledge base
- Ensure that signed agreements are communicated to all relevant parties to provide visibility to contractual obligations
- Attend forecast calls to understand priority deals for the month
WHAT YOU NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THIS ROLE
- 3+ years total experience with at least 2 years of experience in a sales operations/deal support role
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and experienc
- Experience in Cloud/SaaS with subscription mode
- Strong communication and presentations skills
- Ability to work with Field Sales and Senior Management
- Comfortable partnering and engaging with cross-functional teams to ensure the best possible support for the sales teams & deal cycles
WHAT ELSE WOULD BE GREAT
- Knowledge of the Quote-to-Cash lifecycle
- Ability to proactively analyze and recommend the best course of action for complex pricing and licensing situations within a sales cycle
- Ability to interpret, clearly articulate, and handle objections related to pricing and licensing policies, and commercial terms
- Experience defining and implementing attribute-based workflows for deal approvals including complex approval hierarchies and thresholds
- Knowledge of SFDC and/or CPQ tool
- Familiar with Salesforce platform/ecosystem with CRM/ERP domain experience
- Expert knowledge of Microsoft Excel (VLOOKUP, pivot tables, building scenarios, advanced formulas)
- Extreme attention to detail
- Strong critical thinking skills
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (both verbal and written) with willingness to appropriately and professionally debate on difficult issues
- Ability to excel in a fast growing/fast paced environment delivering accuracy while managing to deadlines where adaptability is imperative
