Partner Success - Senior Manager

What are we seeking?

As Sannam S4 continues to grow, we intend to evolve the delivery of our service to the education sector (largely focused on Higher Education clients). A relentless focus on customer service, efficiency, discipline and planning ahead of growth is going to be critical for the business achieving its ambitious plans. We seek talent who are excited by a growth story, enjoy problem solving in an ambiguous and dynamic environment.

Why apply?

Sannam S4 offers a globalization focused and an ambitious entrepreneurial culture, a team that is passionate about delivering value and success to our clients and ensuring that the
company becomes the market leader in what we do.

Sannam S4 is recognised as being a great success story thus far, by taking on this role, you will play an important role in helping us achieve the even greater accolades and achievements we seek to attain.

Our partners and stakeholders

Sannam S4 places tremendous value on its strategic partnerships and close affiliations with respected organisations which include a formal Strategic Partnership with the U.S. International Trade Administration (ITA) U.S. Department of Commerce, the UK Department for International Trade (DIT) and close working relations with the governments of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland. We work very closely with the Embassy of India in Washington D.C. and with the federal and state government(s) in India.

Sannam S4 leads and collaborates in thought leadership and policy discussions via close working relationships with the U.S. India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) and the U.S. India Business Council (USIBC), American Chamber of Commerce in India (AMCHAM), British Business Group (BBG), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) amongst others. We will be seeking to develop deep linkages with similar organisations based in South East Asia.

What drives us?

At Sannam S4 we are committed to building the world’s leading and most respected international market entry and expansion services business. We have built our business in a space between traditional global consultants, accountants, law firms and government agencies whereby we do not only consult, but we implement our research and advice, a combination of skill sets which our clients truly appreciate.

We are passionate about providing corporations, universities, vocational training providers and national and federal governments, as well as non-profit organisations and trade sector bodies, with the highest quality support in markets where it is needed most. Our success is entirely built on our ability to drive our clients’ success. This symbiotic relationship supports long term relationships and very high client retention.

What we look for at Sannam S4

Whilst we perform daily tasks for our clients, through successful implementation of these projects we have the ability to positively impact many thousands of people’s lives across the world. We aspire to hire entrepreneurial talent, people with an energy and enthusiasm for our mission.

We aim to attract staff who want to be the very best professionals they can be. Our endeavour is to provide training and professional development to ensure our staff are widely recognised for their professionalism, their superior abilities and capabilities and that our investment in them pays dividends through the positive impact they make.

We look for individuals who share our passion for the international education sector and who can give our clients the confidence and support to explore, enter and expand education markets worldwide.

We love hiring people who are enthusiastic, who recognise opportunities, can help realise them and who thrive from being part of a young, energetic and highly ambitious international team.

Education Mission Statement

Sannam S4’s focus is to deliver to our international higher education partners:
1. Greater student recruitment demand
2. More cost effective (on a per student basis) and more efficient (conversion time) recruitment and
3. Scalable and sustainable internationalization strategies
than any other partner they could choose.
Our success is underpinned by a holistic approach to internationalization, achieved by our focus on the following four pillars of activity:
1. Student enrolment
2. Research and partnerships
3. Governance and regulatory and financial compliance
4. Government advocacy
We are proud to be the partner of choice to over 75 high globally ambitious institutions from 8 different countries delivering recruitment results in multiple key international source locations.
To achieve mission success, Sannam S4 leverages distinct and proven advantages:
1. Unparalleled first hand multi-disciplinary knowledge of the international higher education sector
2. Exceptional implementation capabilities in key international markets
3. An international footprint which means we are always close to our partners and even closer to the markets they entrust us to serve them in
4. A geographic base from which we are able to communicate in perfect English with 90% of the world’s international student population in the same time zone
5. A business model which combines economies of scale, technology enablement and multi channel penetration
6. A commitment to a partnership approach where success is a shared objective and a shared outcome
Sannam S4 has the pedigree and integrity required to serve our partners demonstrated by our:
1. Track record of commitment to the highest standards of service protecting our partners reputation
2. Track record of delivering absolute and sustained success and exceptional ROI for all our partners
3. A truly global knowledge base gained by serving partners and delivering solutions across multiple geographies
4. A business ownership structure which drives the right long term partner alignment i.e.>90% of Sannam S4 is owned by our staff as opposed to external commercial investors

Our Approach to Excellence
“Producing Magic Outcomes by Delivering Brilliant Basics”
Sannam S4 recognises the value of technology - and it is at the core of our business operations. We also recognise the importance of people - our business is run by hundreds of talented professionals from across the globe. We also recognise the combined power of technology and people when underpinned by local knowledge, domain expertise and first hand experience.
This is the Sannam S4 advantage: Over 250 international experts combining their knowledge, expertise and first hand local experience with technology to deliver unparalleled outcomes in the sector.
Delivering Sustainable Success
The international higher education sector is evolving at a more rapid rate than ever before. Old techniques have proven to be redundant, new ones lack the benefit of experience and local know how.
With this changing landscape Sannam S4 have recognised the need to evolve and improve our service proposition to ensure we deliver the highest quality services and the best results possible.
Importantly we have recognised we must adapt our proposition from being one of a platform to being a partner in supporting our clients’ success.
Building on a highly impressive existing client base, Sannam S4 is focused on building the world’s leading international higher education advisory business.

Using its international experience to advocate to national governments that more effective and efficient frameworks be put in place to foster and encourage greater internationalization, whilst delivering the local practical in-country support institutions require, Sannam S4 is committed to making a leading contribution to the ongoing development of international higher education.

Role summary

We at Sannam S4 are re-imaging what a consulting and education services organization can be, positioning Sannam S4 as the partner of choice for universities as they look to unlock value internationally.

As part of this, Senior Manager Partner Success will work with Head Partner Success and will be responsible for driving client results and retention, identifying client needs, establishing trust, developing solutions and maintaining regular, effective communication. You will serve as the primary account manager for an assigned portfolio of clients and will be responsible for developing/maintaining strong, long-lasting, and positive account relationships.

In this role, you will provide mentoring, coaching, ongoing communication thereby driving high engagement and excellent business results. You will build strong working relationships with regional / country teams to deliver optimal results. You must be well organized, flexible and enjoy the challenge of problem-solving with diverse people and projects in India and globally.

What success in this role looks like:
- Support the success of the India and International 3 Year Plan
- Support the scale up and growth of existing India-focused accounts
- Improve existing client relationships

Partner Success owns our Partner’s challenges as if they were our own. We help them transform for the future by offering practical solutions that are crafted intelligently, passionately, relentlessly.

This role will drive key-activities to improve customer experience and strengthen the relationship between Sannam S4 and its Partners. The selected candidate will play a crucial role in building trust with the present and potential Partners and help in retaining Partners by making the service personalised and customised to meet their needs.

Responsibilities
• Deliver a high-level customer experience and effectively manage client relationships
• Ensure the successful day to day operations of client accounts
• Lead client meetings and consult/manage customer expectations
• Review and approve all client marketing campaigns to ensure budgets are actively managed and used wisely
• Work in partnership with your Account Manager to fulfil all client requirements
• Oversee billing/invoicing for client accounts working in partnership with Head Partner Success
• Identify ‘add-on’ sales opportunities and assist with contract renewals
• Maintain technical expertise of our products/services
• Maintain a comprehensive knowledge of the higher education industry
• Assist in any training for new hires where applicable
• Build a performance-driven culture and ensure transparent evaluation of team members’ performance against predefined specific objectives.
• Develop the destination knowledge and market understanding of team members to support increased performance outcomes.
• Provide inputs and take necessary actions to support the ongoing development and maintenance of service and client management performance standards.
• Speedily determine when an issue needs to be escalated for resolution.
• Proactively provide timely feedback and advice to the line manager on the management of office and on issues arising from competitor activities, changing business environments, change in student visa policies etc.
• Integrate compliance requirements into staff performance appraisals and annual objectives
• Effectively communicate with client base including regular, formalized check-ins and problem-solving and opportunity-specific engagement
• Work closely with Sales, Marketing, Product Management and Operations teams to identify and track requests from existing services or the potential development of new ones.
• Function as the voice of the customer within Sannam S4 and provide internal feedback on how our services and delivery can better serve our customers.

Partner Journeys

As the first and at many times being single point of contact for the Partners allocated, Partner Success will be responsible for the following:

● Partner needs - constantly observe and assess Partner’s needs (explicit but also implicit via data analysis etc.), presenting Sannam S4’s service line capabilities and tailoring solutions to meet each Partner’s business needs (via a managed service as opposed to a headcount based model).
● Partner delivery - single point of accountability for Partner delivery. Ensure that the on-the-ground delivery meets the objectives laid down by the Partner in the initial or ongoing interactions (ideally codified in the Partner agreement), interfacing with the respective specialist areas (traditional demand generation, digital demand generation, multi-country conversion, application processing, visa support, tax / financial consulting etc.)
● Partner management - day-to-day Partner management i.e.
○ Service delivery vs contract (ensuring the contract is clear on service definition, targets, relevant SLAs etc.)
○ Escalating to the Head of Partner Success when there is contract/scope change
○ Identifying (and where possible, predicting) issues and repeating issues, expectations (on both sides) are understood and managed, monitoring the pulse of Partner satisfaction etc.
○ Interact with Partners on a regular basis to ensure any Partner dependencies are appropriately managed with effective communication channels and escalation paths where required.
● Partner advocate - act as the Partner advocate within Sannam S4 ensuring their needs are represented internally. As part of this, secure cohesion between the Partner team and the internal team so that the teams can work in tandem with each other.
● Expansion
○ Optimize Partner experience by identifying common Partner use-cases and work processes and how Sannam S4 can help improve them, feeding into and working with Global Solutions where future product development opportunities are identified (see later point on Knowledge Hub).
○ Provide on-going Partner support to drive service/product adoption and usage.
● Issue and complaint management
○ Where issues arise, ensure they are addressed with speed (albeit ensuring reasonableness on both sides), efficiency, effectiveness and creative thinking.
○ Professionally diffuse Partner issues in an effective manner in order to prevent escalations and minimize Partner churn
○ For complaint handling ensure a formal escalation process is followed.
● Relationship base - develop a broad and strong relationship base within the Partner organization to mitigate the risk of individuals moving roles or organization.
● Building trust
○ Build strong personal relationships with Partner via regular and repeated communication, effective and reliable follow-up; every time.
○ Facilitate regular and productive meetings and communication between all Partners and their designated staff members
● Service governance
○ Schedule quarterly reviews with Head of Partner Success and conduct at functional level regular and formal service review meetings with Partners to assess performance, plan for the subsequent period, contract management etc.
○ Ensure the Sannam S4 team supporting the Partner has the requisite skills and cultural fit to deliver against the needs of the Partner. Where issues arise, ensure these are clearly communicated and resolved
○ Ensure all Partner Success interactions are captured on the company’s CRM system (salesforce.com)
● Knowledge hub
○ Dataset development and analysis – to allow you to perform your role in assessing performance and pinpointing opportunities to drive value, work collaboratively with the Partner (and delivery) to ensure a live dataset exists at Sannam S4 to monitor performance and pinpoint opportunities for improvement [note: Partner Success must perform an active role in ensuring this is created. Without this data, benchmarks etc., delivering improved outcomes for Partners will be impossible]
○ Liaise with Knowledge Hub to inform and provide feedback on potential new services, features or knowledge sharing options
● Partner journey
○ Understand the overall Partner journey within and across the business to understand how each channel relates to overall organizational objectives and how parts of this process can be enhanced to improve customer success
○ Adapt quickly during times of change with a genuine focus on the company’s success and the success of our Partners
● Provide inputs for the performance assessment of the designated staff member. Engaging with the Partner in mid-year and annual assessment along with the Head of Partner Engagement.

Cross functional responsibilities
● Work closely with Sales to support the renewals process (with Sales owning the renewals process)
● Work closely with Operations and Sales to support pre-sales activity and lead the transition activity to onboard new clients
● Work closely with various teams that deliver the in-country service, including the various areas of Education Operations, Human Capital, Finance, Administration, Talent Acquisition etc.
● Identify new opportunities to upsell or cross sell. Work closely with Delivery, Sales (and, in due course, Account Development) on expansion opportunities to ensure targets are met
● Play an integral part in extending the network of Sannam S4 and generating new accounts (with Sales taking responsibility for bringing on new accounts)
● Help to increase and build brand awareness
● Plan and execute events on behalf of Sannam S4 internally and externally

Report management
● Track and document progress of each Partner using salesforce.com (recording, tracking and analyzing Partner Success)

Key measures of success for this role include:
● Profit and loss performance - particularly focused on revenue performance (retention and expansion)