Who’s Who on a Microsoft Account Team

• Customers can save time and get better results from sales if they understand their Microsoft account team’s roles and their incentives.
• Changes in Microsoft’s sales strategy will limit resources for account teams and may force customers to find outside guidance for sales.

Many large organizations have a Microsoft account team focused on selling to them and supporting their systems. Understanding the roles of the Microsoft account team can help resolve problems in contract negotiation, licensing, and support. However, changes in Microsoft’s sales strategy over the next 11 months could complicate transactions for both customers and their account teams. For an overview of a typical account team and related sales and support roles at Microsoft, see the illustration “Field Roles Overview.”

Account Executive

The account executive (AE), sometimes called the account manager, is the customer’s primary contact for sales. An account executive might be assigned to a single large customer or to as many as 200 customers. Despite the name “executive,” account executives do not supervise other employees. They execute a sales strategy, close sales opportunities, build relationships with customer CIOs and other C-level executives, and learn the business of each customer.