Sales Operations Manager, Federal

Company Description

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks® everything starts and ends with our mission:

Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.
Our vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. We are a company built on the foundation of challenging and disrupting the way things are done, and we’re looking for innovators who are as committed to shaping the future of cybersecurity as we are.

Who We Are

We take our mission of protecting the digital way of life seriously. We are relentless in protecting our customers and we believe that the unique ideas of every member of our team contributes to our collective success. Our values were crowdsourced by employees and are brought to life through each of us everyday - from disruptive innovation and collaboration, to execution. From showing up for each other with integrity to creating an environment where we all feel included.

As a member of our team, you will be shaping the future of cybersecurity. We work fast, value ongoing learning, and we respect each employee as a unique individual. Knowing we all have different needs, our development and personal wellbeing programs are designed to give you choice in how you are supported. This includes our FLEXBenefits wellbeing spending account with over 1,000 eligible items selected by employees, our mental and financial health resources, and our personalized learning opportunities - just to name a few!

At Palo Alto Networks, we believe in the power of collaboration and value in-person interactions. This is why our employees generally work full time from our office with flexibility offered where needed. This setup fosters casual conversations, problem-solving, and trusted relationships. Our goal is to create an environment where we all win with precision.

Job Description

Your Career

We are looking for a Sales Operations Manager to support the US Federal leadership team in all aspects of the business. You will partner with Channel, Marketing, Finance, and HR while being an integral part of the Federal Sales team and the US Public Sector Sales Operations organization. This role is a great fit for a self-starter who enjoys driving business impact and operational efficiency, can serve as an internal consultant (e.g., problem solver) and owner and will have the opportunity for significant exposure and visibility across the business.

The candidate in this role will provide leadership and advisory support in driving Sales Productivity, GTM Strategy, Sales Planning, Sales Forecasting, Segmentation, and Sales Analytics.

Your Impact

• Act as key business partner to the US Federal Management Team interfacing cross-functionally in the organization
• Drive forecasting, deal structuring and participate in a month-end and quarter-end close process
  • Set up cadences and inspection of quarterly targets and forecasts for the overall US Federal Sales teams
  • Optimize forecast accuracy by driving discipline with pipeline hygiene and forecast management
  • Facilitate tracking of outstanding purchase orders, ensuring order compliance, bookings reports, etc
  • Manage compliance of the non-standard transactions process - track quarterly metrics on average discounts, non-standard exceptions and recommend action items to improve these metrics
• Drive Sales Operations Planning, Quarterly Business Review meetings and Territory Planning with Sales Management Team
  • Run data analytics and partner with the strategy to assess the total addressable commercial market, product propensity to buy and optimize territory coverage
  • Work closely with functional and sales management on GTM segmentation and coverage strategy implementation
  • Provide analysis and reporting of compensation plan effectiveness and efficiency, including performance reporting at the individual, manager, and regional levels - Compile, assess and report on performance and earnings distributions
  • Drive standards in territory planning with US Federal sales and partners 
  • Develop a repeatable motion for account planning, lead generation and pipeline development, whereby sellers prioritize their top whitespace accounts, with sellers handing off other accounts to partners
• Manage all aspects of Operations, Tools, Dashboards and Reporting for the US Federal organization
  • Support process enhancements, modifications and best practices development
  • Assist in driving field readiness for new sales hires and ongoing sales processes training
  • Track and manage pipe generation across the direct field, partner and support functions 
  • Set up and manage sales play programs to drive pipe generation and optimize deals across whitespace accounts, underpenetrated account