Address
Form of work
SalaryMicrosoft Consumer Sales Organization (CSO) works across all Microsoft products and services sold to Consumers, under two Microsoft Solution Areas: (1) Gaming covering Xbox Hardware and Services and (2) Devices and Creativity covering Surface, Office and Windows. The CSO team partners with internal and external customers alike with the goal of maximizing revenue, market share, and mutual business results ensuring the highest ethics and compliance in any action.
As any finance organization in Microsoft, we:
- Land the company vision around the transformation of our business, consumption, and customer orientation in the subsidiaries and externally.
- Drive strategic resource allocation and investments through local insights, ensuring optimal returns aligned with our worldwide strategy.
- Build trust to lay the foundation of long-term growth from a partner and shareholder point of view in a compliant way.
- Empower and inspire our people to lead and be part of top performing teams while providing diverse career opportunities.
Consumer Sales Finance (CSF) is a truly global finance team highly engaged in developing its talent in a dynamic environment. CSF spans all finance functions; we span working with Marketing to drive our product categories, with Supply and Ops to ensure we have the right product in the right place, Sales to understand our Partner Account mechanics and Channel Strategy, manage the organization’s RoB and are custodians of the P&L. We work with related finance functions (Engineering Group, Corporate Finance, Worldwide (WW) Incentive Compensation) to land financial plans which detail CSO’s contribution to Microsoft’s overall goals. We chart our Growth path in existing businesses and in net new areas for the company, whilst prioritizing creating a more Inclusive Microsoft across our products, our culture and our marketing and every customer engagement.
Consumer Sales Finance FP&A team are seeking a Centralized Planning Gaming Controller with finance and business acumen, to lead and evolve the Centralized Planning function for our Gaming Retail business. You will partner with the Worldwide Category team, Gaming Engineer Group (EG) and Gaming Retail Finance team to evolve the Centralized Planning framework for the Gaming Retail business. You will own the driver-based models, which standardize how we look at the business and will focus on deepening our insights and planning agility in the Hardware space. You develop an approach which is adaptable for both planning and forecast purposes, and can scale to support the varying granularity needs across our Regions. You will collaborate with EG and Demand Planning (Supply Chain) teams to form a unified planning view and provide thought leadership for our Gaming Retail community in assessing opportunities and exposures. This role is Global in scope, and you will have opportunity to interact with both our corporate & regional teams and with finance, business & operations stakeholders. The successful candidate should exhibit passion for our consumer business, process & analytical skills, agility in managing complexity, and a growth mindset in everything we do.
You see yourself as part of the team and are willing to help & support others as we drive to our collective goals. You have a growth mindset, energized to continuously innovate and are solution-oriented when faced with new requirements. You value collaboration and invest in building partnerships across diverse and virtual teams. You are action-oriented and a self-starter – you anticipate, you ask “what if?” and you act pre-emptively to ensure we deliver. You value excellence in process design and analytics – you can simplify the complex and can quickly spot the critical decision points in a time-sensitive environment. You are motivated by unlocking insights – you see the story, not just the numbers and proactively connect the dots & validate your outputs “does this make sense?”. You are actively curious about how AI, machine learning and digital transformation can help us evolve our approach and grow our impact.
Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.
Responsibilities
People
- Delivers Results through Teamwork: Work across communities and teams to continually evolve our Gaming planning framework to better meet their needs.
- Leverage the work of others: Proactively seek to understand how the best practices in the Surface Device planning space can be applied to Gaming Devices. Work with Surface Planning controller to solve common problems in consistent ways.
- Role modelling our values: Be a role model for our Microsoft values and ethical behaviors. Appreciate the cultural nuances and richness of working in a global role. Seek diversity of opinion and contribute to an inclusive environment in all interactions.
Prioritize
- Evolve the Gaming Retail Planning Framework to deliver on the Centralized Planning value proposition – Increase accuracy where it matters, Reduce detail where it doesn’t, Give time back to Category and Regional Teams
- Design, Manage and Evolve the Hardware Planning Framework – embed a fully standardized driver-based model which creates a common and quantified understanding of the factors impacting our Console & Accessories plans. Secure buy-in from all stakeholders by ensuring that the modelling infrastructure addresses their needs and that all local modelling is discontinued. Build in agility by design to respond to changing requirements / business priorities.
- Build connective tissue with related planning processes - collaborate with Engineer Group (EG) Finance to build on their existing models and to evolve our respective models in tandem. Understand and connect to Supply Chain operations / Demand planning process and Console Market analytics and put in place the collaboration rhythms to ensure all these planning rhythms remain in synch.
- Sustainable and Scalable: Scalable: Recognize the nuances in focus areas by Region and identify how the core modelling framework can be adapted accordingly. Sustainable: Leverage our solutions partners (Reporting Analytical Services, Finance Data & Experiences) to independently manage the regular roll-over, refresh, recon activities of this business-critical infrastructure.
- Shape the future: Create the roadmap for how our Planning Framework will evolve and target improvements in each planning cycle to deliver further accuracy and time savings. Consider how machine learning and AI can be applied and leverage the experience of others in doing so.
- Deliver informed Revenue Adjustment planning. Work with EG and Category teams to ensure a clear and common understanding of our Rev Adj programs across regions. Model rev adj requirements in tandem with Revenue & Volumes and ensure Regional recipients are clear on underlying assumptions and flexibility therein.
Partnership
- Be a thought-leader for your Gaming Retail Leadership team and EG partners.
- Understand the interconnected Gaming business – partner with Gaming Digital Sales team to understand the full breadth of our dynamic Gaming business and how their key beats & priorities are interconnected with the Gaming Retail space. Reflect this in our modelling frameworks.
- Trusted advisor providing independent risk / opportunities assessments: Help Gaming Retail Leadership team and the EG Teams have a common understanding of the Gaming Retail targets from a CSO perspective. Provide independent driver-based risk / opportunity assessments which drive productive discussions with all stakeholders and focus attention on most impactful areas.
- Nurture Field Insights: Work with Worldwide Category team to build effective Field listening mechanisms which Engineering Group and Gaming Retail Leadership build appropriately ambitious plans for our business and proactively address areas of concern. Incorporate Direct Sales in these mechanisms.
- Seamless partnership with the Worldwide Category team and Category Controller: Embrace the reality that the dynamic nature of the Gaming business means performance and planning discussions sometimes merge and act as one team be proactively keeping each other informed.
Protect
- Be informed: Complete all required training in a timely manner.
- Be alert to elements of targets setting or forecasting which could increase the risk of incompliant behaviors and proactively voice those concerns – what are we doing to ensure xyz action / outcome is prevented / detected. If in doubt, ask.
Embody our Culture and Values
Qualifications
Required/Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration, Accounting, Finance, Economics, Data Science or related field AND 4+ years experience in financial analysis, accounting, controllership or finance, or related field
- OR Master's Degree in Business Administration, Accounting, Finance, Economics, Data Science or related field AND 2+ years experience in financial analysis, accounting, controllership or finance, or related field
- OR equivalent experience.
Preferred Qualifications
- 10 years of active experience in similar role – finance or business.
- Prior Gaming experience and / or Consumer Sales Organization (CSO) experience
- Mastery of complex analytics & modelling and ability to distill critical insights & decision points.
- Process management– able to synthesize & simplify multiple deliverables into concise logical workflows.
- Proficient communication and interpersonal skills
- Experience in multinational finance functions working with complex matrixed organization.
- Willingness to work international hours and ability to thrive in virtual and global team set-up.
Financial Analysis IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $91,800 - $178,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $117,900 - $195,000 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.
