The exciting world of scientific research is fueled by people with a passion for solving complex problems. At Cayuse, we are committed to our customers’ success by empowering organizations to conduct globally connected research that advances their impact on science, discovery and society. We build on that commitment with proven, integrated and easy-to-use technology that delivers exceptional value, and world class service and support that accelerates outcomes.
But we are more than just an empowering platform powered by advanced technologies. We are a collaboration of exceptional, highly skilled people with multi-disciplinary expertise, and are building our team to support our ambitious growth plans. Cayuse’s foundational strength comes from our customer and employee focused values and commitment to industry-leading solutions. It’s an exciting time to become a key member of our growing team.The VP of Professional Services owns the post-sale implementation of the Cayuse platform & application solutions.
The role will lead the optimization and scaling of existing professional services implementation teams and processes to ensure customers realize the maximum value from their Cayuse solutions and Cayuse implements profitably. The role will develop a high-quality, predictable, and repeatable delivery model for implementation and consulting that maximizes utilization, delivers quality (Customer Satisfaction), and achieves quarterly & annual revenue & margin goals. This role will drive cross functional collaboration across key functions to influence marketing, sales, support, and product roadmap.
Responsibilities
- Model and exemplify behavior with the Executive team that supports the first team concept, inspire confidence in the execution of the Company’s strategy, and be a calming voice as we manage through growth and change.
- In partnership with the SVP of Customer Experience, set and drive high level departmental vision, operational execution of services strategy, and ensure the Cayuse Delivery team scales profitably and with high CSAT..
- Motivate and inspire employees to higher levels of engagement, productivity, and personal achievement. Build a highly inclusive culture ensuring team members thrive and organizational outcomes are met. This includes effective recruiting, onboarding, professional development, performance management, retention, and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion practices.
- Manage the Pro Services P&L, including budgeting, forecasting, capacity planning, regular reporting and analysis on Key Performance Indicators achieving revenue growth profitably.
- Build demand - supply model to ensure all projects are staffed and get kicked off with customers the month following subscription booking is closed and meets customer timeline for go live needs
- Provide leadership to ensure that the Professional Services department initiatives are on track and are completed with high quality, according to schedule, and within budget
- Deliver implementation, onboarding, integration, consulting, and managed delivery to help customers realize the full potential of the Cayuse Research platform and service.
- Work directly with customers to resolve any issues with implementations. Track issues and risks, communicate status, and escalate blockers or concerns to Senior Leadership.
- Define Professional Services offerings and manage the team implementing our solutions ensuring all projects are staffed, get delivered on time and within budget, and with the highest customer satisfaction across all customer types (small to enterprise).
- Partner with the executive team to develop and execute growth services strategies that enable the Company to achieve its revenue and growth goals profitably.
Collaborates with Internally
List the key groups or functions that this role must collaborate with and for what reason.
- VP of CX to ensure the overall health of the Professional Services portfolio, the team members, the satisfaction of the Customer engagement
- People Operations: Partner to build an onboarding program that improves ramp time of consultants and project managers, ensuring resources are billable in 2 months of start date
- Product Management: Partner to address technical escalations and identify opportunities to drive down time to implement, maximizing time to value across solutions
- CFO: Ensure Professional Services is meeting the quarterly & annual financial targets profitably across regions and products. Partner on accurate and efficient revenue recognition practices.
- Sales: Support pre-sales processes and work with Sales leadership and Account Executives to win new business. Lead RFP review and paid discovery process and improve Enterprise execution.
- Marketing: Collaborate on Services wins that can be used in Marketing collateral. Assist in the development of content to enhance existing documentation and collateral
- Customer Success: Ensure customers receive a consistent and consultative partnership experience before go-live and complete Services to Customer Success hand offs.
- Leadership team: Serve as a core member of the Leadership Team. In this capacity, provides departmental leaders with regular project updates; serves as a critical advisor to the team as an implementation leader, and sets the direction for the implementation and Professional Services team, with a special emphasis on how and what we implement. Maintains reporting on capacity, amount of implementation work, and future outlook in order to advise strategic direction setting.
Collaborates Externally
- Customers - Represent the voice of customers, highlighting challenges in solutions that prevent them from garnering the value they paid for (reducing admin. overhead, reducing admin costs, managing compliance risk)
- Customers - Ensure time to value (through implementation) is best in market and satisfaction with implementation is not compromised
- Customer: Serve as the escalation point for customers for critical issues and best-in-class customer service
- Partners - Work with our partners to close pre-sales opportunities. Collaborate on joint implementations and deliver a cohesive offering for our customers. (example: Attain)
- Vendors - Work with 3rd party vendors, as appropriate, that support the Company’s goals and objectives
- Investors - Implement Professional Services initiatives that create enterprise value at scale
Decision Ownership
- Own resource decisions to effectively deliver Professional Services (within annual budget)
- Own Services pricing decisions & offerings to support new business and Professional Services
- Own delivery of customer implementation projects on time and within budget with high customer satisfaction
- Own defining process and procedures for scoping, delivery and change management of all services engagements/projects
- Own long term resource planning and modeling to scale the support & service of customer implementations (capacity model)
Challenges Encountered
- Lack of defined and standardized global delivery methods, process, tools, systems and standards
- Product readiness - ensuring products are complete per roadmap & deployed timely with minimal manageable defects
- Release readiness / Release Management - Ensure the Professional Services team is equipped, trained and confident to implement new product features and updates
- Resource balancing for strategic growth levers - demand - supply model, weighing need, complexity with ROI timing
- Employee Culture - balancing workloads, growth needs & complexity with skill and health of teams
- Knowledge Management Tools - Internal training, onboarding Staff on Cayuse products
- Optimizing Professional Services technology (Clarizen), customer facing project planning and communication platform (basecamp) and business intelligence reporting
- Scaling efficiently - prioritizing investments needed for scale with growth objectives while achieving 30% margins
Qualifications
- Majority of career in Enterprise software including 6-8 years managing managers
- 3+ years experience leading software implementation teams in a SaaS software model
- 3+ years managing a Delivery P&L with $10m+ of revenue and team of 20+ resources
- Leadership during periods of rapid growth
- Demonstrated track record of achieving financial and operational objectives
- Ideal background has experience implementing in complex environments (Gov’t/Higher Education/Healthcare)
- Building and retaining teams of project managers and consultants including SMEs
- Excellent communication and boardroom skills
- Experience running large scale, customer-facing organizations
- Technical depth, including experience developing or leading development organizations and background in SaaS integrations leveraging APIs
- Strong data and analytical skills, and proven experience making data-driven decisions
- Ability to turn difficult situations into pragmatic solutions while maintaining customer satisfaction
- Excellent people management skills, including the ability to influence, negotiate and achieve results through direct reports and others
- Superb organization skills and attention to detail
- Clarizen (Professional Services Automation) technology & Microsoft BI a plus
Benefits
- Competitive Medial Benefits (PPO + HSA available)
- Vision, Dental, Short-Term Disability fully covered by Cayuse
- Unlimited PTO + Holidays + Flexible Work Schedule
- Remote Work Stipend
- Equal Paid Parental Leave
- 401k with Employer Matching
- Quarterly Wellness Reimbursement
- Remote Work Environment, supporting the Ultimate Employee Experience
Cayuse does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias or any Cayuse employees. Cayuse is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.
Our culture is one of inclusion and belonging where everyone feels respected, treated justly, supported and nourished. We all share responsibility for creating and sustaining a work environment where differences are celebrated and we are empowered to strive for excellence. We’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer and actively seek to recruit, develop, and retain a diverse and talented workforce.
