Varad Joshi
Senior Solutions Engineer
Mumbai
Summary
Seasoned Presales Solution Engineer who believes that presales is more of a behavioral skill than just showing product features. As an individual and lead I have managed huge regions like GCC and Africa. Currently managing Splunk business for West region in India for Security and Observability opportunities.
Overview
20
20
years of professional experience
4
4
Certifications
Work History
Senior Solutions Engineer
Cisco (Splunk)
Mumbai
07.2024 - Current
- Collaborated with sales and Customer success teams to meet and exceed revenue targets (120% last FY)
- Worked on Opportunities end to end (Qualification to Closure)
- Primarily advocating the use of platform for Security and Observability use cases
- Opportunity Qualification at various stages
- Partner engagement from presale point of view
- Groomed the team on pitching of platform story right way
- Used MEDDPICC at various stages of sales to ensure we are on the right track in the sales cycle
Sr Solution Architect
HCL
10.2021 - 06.2024
- Responsible to manage the presales activities of HCL’s Security and observability offerings and work with the sales team to do following-
- Understand the requirements from the customer RFPs/RFIs
- Give demos to align with the customer requirements
- Proposing relevant products as complimenting solution with existing SIEM within customer environment
- Working closely with vendors towards customer success and upscaling of business
- Conduct webinars/workshops internally with the sales team to keep then updated with new features
Presales Head
Tekdeliver
03.2020 - 09.2021
- Responsible to manage Cybersecurity and Analytics BU end to end
- Right from understanding the customer requirement, consulting on correct approach to solve their problem till the delivery of the project
- Understanding managing end to end requirement
- Aligning closely with customer and sales team
- Understanding the technical requirement and proposing the solutions
- Presentation and demo of various products (Cybersecurity/ITOps/CRM)
- Sizing/Scoping the opportunity
- Driving the POCs
- Post implementation working as a customer success manager for upscaling
- End to End Project Delivery
- Customer Success
Presales Lead - International Business
Netmonastery
03.2019 - 12.2019
- Responsible for the expansion of the channel community of Netmonastery
- Streamlining the process and engagements for the channel and sales
- Channel Enablement across India and outside
- Sizing/Scoping the opportunity
- Periodic webinars for partners and customers
- Driving pipeline with existing partners
- Evaluating new partners and their capabilities before onboarding them
- Driving POCs
Senior Presales Consultant
Redington Gulf
02.2017 - 02.2019
- Key responsibility was to establish the team to manage Splunk presales across the whole GCC and Africa region
- Built the team and enabled the partner ecosystem for the Splunk business
- Channel Enablement across GCC and Africa
- Delivering technical boot-camp on behalf of vendor
- Technical sessions/webinars for partners and customers
- Tracking individual partner progress assisting if any challenges
- Working as an extended arm of vendor as well as partners
- Requirement gathering and understanding the customer user cases
- Explaining scope of Splunk for use case
Associate Operations Manager
Cognizant Technology Solutions
08.2011 - 01.2017
- Client: Retail client
- Role: Splunk architect/Splunk delivery lead
- Responsible for delivery and governance of Splunk projects
- Support the team as a Splunk architect
- Understand the use case from client and check feasibility in Splunk
- Client: Retail client
- Role: Senior Splunk administrator + developer
- Gathered Requirements for Application from development teams and operations
- Build dashboards with custom visualizations for the business team
Technical Services Professional
IBM India Pvt Ltd
07.2009 - 08.2011
- Technical focal for EMC CLARiiON CX 2/3/4 types of arrays
- Planning at switch and box level for new servers coming on SAN
- Capacity management for set of critical arrays
Systems Engineer
Hewlett Packard
07.2007 - 07.2009
- Core expertise in storage management products and tools installed in storage environment
- Understand and support all storage administration and adhere to the management policies and procedures
- Manage the storage infrastructure to ensure all Service Level Agreements are met
Helpdesk Coordinator
Electronic Data Systems
10.2005 - 01.2007
- Performed remote system administration for Sun Microsystems clients
- Remote Printing administration support
- User Administration- Creation of new user account, restore user file, user data transfer
Education
Bachelor of Engineering - Information Technology
Sanjivani College of Engineering
Kopargaon, MH 07.2002 - 5 2005
Diploma - Electronics
MMJS Polytechnic
06.1999 - 4 2002
SSC - undefined
SVPVV
03.1998 - 3 1999
Skills
- Splunk Enterprise Core Platform
- Splunk AIOps
- Splunk Enterprise Security
- XDR/EDR Platforms
- Presales and Qualification
- SOAR
Deal Qualification and Structuring
- Customer Success Management
- Project Delivery
Additional Information - Personal Traits
- Energetic – No dull moment during the discussions
- Extrovert – Plenty of topics and experiences to talk about
- Storyteller – Helps to keep the discussions interesting
- Traveler and Reader – Good understanding of various culture and behavior
- Stage anchor and Struggling stand-up comedian – Easier to break the ice while meeting someone
- Married to a psychologist – Learning something new every day, also a good listener
- Father of a 9 year old – Good negotiator
Certification
Splunk Certified Sales Engineer
Timeline
Senior Solutions Engineer
Cisco (Splunk)
07.2024 - Current
Sr Solution Architect
HCL
10.2021 - 06.2024
Presales Head
Tekdeliver
03.2020 - 09.2021
Presales Lead - International Business
Netmonastery
03.2019 - 12.2019
Senior Presales Consultant
Redington Gulf
02.2017 - 02.2019
Associate Operations Manager
Cognizant Technology Solutions
08.2011 - 01.2017
Technical Services Professional
IBM India Pvt Ltd
07.2009 - 08.2011
Systems Engineer
Hewlett Packard
07.2007 - 07.2009
Helpdesk Coordinator
Electronic Data Systems
10.2005 - 01.2007
Bachelor of Engineering - Information Technology
Sanjivani College of Engineering
07.2002 - 5 2005
Diploma - Electronics
MMJS Polytechnic
06.1999 - 4 2002
SSC - undefined
SVPVV
03.1998 - 3 1999
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