·   Sophos operates a remote-first working model, and working remotely is the primary option for most employees

·   Our people – we innovate and create, all of which are accompanied by a great sense of fun and team spirit

·   Employee-led diversity and inclusion networks that build community and provide education and advocacy

·   Annual charity and fundraising initiatives and volunteer days for employees to support local communities

·   Global employee sustainability initiatives to reduce our environmental footprint

·   Global fitness and trivia competitions to keep our bodies and minds sharp

·   Global wellbeing days for employees to relax and recharge

·   Monthly wellbeing webinars and training to support employee health and wellbeing

Reporting to the SVP of Customer Success and Support, the Director of Technical Support – Japan plays a crucial role in ensuring a high level of customer and partner satisfaction, effective support practices and processes are employed, and ensuring alignment between the Support team and the broader business goals. This is accomplished by being accountable for team metrics, thoroughly understanding team procedures and best practices, managing staffing requirements, and building strong relationships with other departments, including Sales, Development, Sophos Labs, etc., to drive cross-departmental initiatives. The successful candidate knows the importance of instilling a desire for continual improvement into the team, to deliver a world-class Support experience and drive customer retention and growth. This role is expected to also build meaningful and lasting relationships with customers and partners in the region to ensure we’re listening to them and acting on their feedback. This role will be responsible for all of Sophos’ technical support and technical account management in-region.

What You Will Do

• • Ownership: Taking responsibility for the performance, operations, and actions of the team, being available when needed, and always focusing on improving aspects of the team.
  • Team Leadership: Managing and leading the Support teams, as well as creating a culture focused on driving a world-class support experience. This includes budgeting, hiring, retention, training, coaching, and performance management.
  • Strategy Development: Working with global senior leadership, contributing to, developing, and implementing strategies to align with the overall business goals.
  • Process Adherence and Improvement: Thoroughly understanding current processes and ensuring teams are adhering to them, as well as continuously evaluating and enhancing processes to improve efficiency, accuracy, and customer satisfaction.
  • Resource Management: Managing resources, including budget and staffing levels, to ensure the Support teams have the necessary tools and personnel to meet its objectives.
  • Performance Metrics: Monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) regularly and analyzing these metrics to drive specific initiatives or corrective action for improvement.
  • Customer and Partner Focus: Ensuring that customers and partners receive timely, accurate, and helpful assistance. This includes monitoring customer feedback, addressing escalations, and implementing strategies to enhance the overall customer experience.
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborating with global counterparts, as well as other departments such as product development, sales, and marketing to communicate customer feedback, identify product issues, and ensure a smooth flow of information between teams.
  • Specifically, establish a relationship with the Japan Sales team and act as a partner with a focus on keeping the sales organization proactively informed of issues for their respective partners and customers.
  •  Training and Development: Providing ongoing training and professional development opportunities to the technical support team members to enhance their technical skills, product knowledge, and customer service abilities.
  • Quality Assurance: Implementing quality control measures to ensure that team interactions meet the company’s standards for accuracy, professionalism, and effectiveness.
  • Incident Management: Lead cross-functional teams to manage critical escalated issues with a focus on effective communication, resolution, and customer satisfaction.
  • Self-Help Materials: Driving a Knowledge Centered Support (KCS) mentality.  Empower the team to work with Digital Support to create and maintain self-help content that can be used by the team and customers to troubleshoot common issues. This includes documentation, knowledge base, in-product walk-throughs, technical videos, etc.
  • Trend Analysis: Identifying trends and patterns in customer inquiries and technical issues and using this information to proactively address recurring problems and improve product offerings.
  • Vendor and Partner Relations: Managing relationships with third-party vendors and partners, especially if they play a role in providing technical support services.
  • Reporting: Providing regular reports and updates to senior management on the performance of the Support team, highlighting achievements, challenges, and areas of improvement.
  • Innovation: Staying informed about industry trends and emerging technologies to identify opportunities for innovation and improvement within the technical support function. Inspiring a desire to continuously innovate amongst the team.
  • Operational Excellence: Focuses on continually improving operations and processes to achieve the highest level of efficiency, productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction.

What You Will Bring

• • Team Management and Leadership within a Technical Support Capacity
  • Experience with management of Teams of a size of 18 +
  • Ability to teach, guide, and mentor team lead and individual contributors.
  • 10 -15 years of technical support and management experience is a must, ideally at the management/director level.
  • Strong understanding of Cyber Security including Endpoint, Networks, Cloud Security
  • Strong Customer Service background, experience with face-to-face interaction with partners and clients
  • Internal Stakeholder management experience is essential.
  • Hands-on, roll up sleeves manager who enjoys being part of the team.
  • Willingness and ability to travel within Japan and internationally.
  • English skills are required due to reporting line based in North America and interaction with global counterparts.
  • High Energy and confidence to the team.
  • Good presentation skills.
  • Budgeting experience.
  • Ideally based in Tokyo but we will consider candidates from other large cities within Japan.
  • Systems experience: Service Cloud (Salesforce) or other CRMs, PowerBI or other reporting tools, JIRA or other development issue tracking tools, Microsoft Office Suite.

At Sophos, we believe in the power of diverse perspectives to fuel innovation. Research shows that candidates sometimes hesitate to apply if they don’t check every box in a job description. We challenge that notion. Your unique experiences and skills might be exactly what we need to enhance our team. Don’t let a checklist hold you back – if you’re passionate about cybersecurity and ready to contribute, we encourage you to apply. We’re excited to explore how your individuality can shape the future of our company.

Sophos is a worldwide leader in next-generation cybersecurity, protecting more than 500,000 organizations and millions of consumers in more than 150 countries from today’s most advanced cyber threats. Powered by threat intelligence, AI, and machine learning from SophosLabs and SophosAI, Sophos delivers a broad portfolio of advanced products and services to secure users, networks, and endpoints against ransomware, malware, exploits, phishing, and a wide range of other cyberattacks. Sophos provides a single integrated cloud-based management console, Sophos Central – the centerpiece of an adaptive cybersecurity ecosystem that features a centralized data lake that leverages a rich set of open APIs available to customers, partners, developers, and other cybersecurity vendors. Sophos sells its products and services through reseller partners and managed service providers (MSPs) worldwide. Sophos has major hubs around the globe. More information is available at www.sophos.com.

We’re proud of the diverse and inclusive environment we have at Sophos, and we’re committed to ensuring equality of opportunity.   We believe that diversity, combined with excellence, builds a better Sophos, so we encourage applicants who can contribute to the diversity of our team.  All applicants will be treated in a fair and equal manner and in accordance with the law regardless of gender, sex, gender reassignment, marital status, race, religion or belief, color, age, military veteran status, disability, pregnancy, maternity or sexual orientation.  We want to give you every opportunity to show us your best self, so if there are any adjustments we could make to the recruitment and selection process to support you, please let us know.

If you choose to explore an opportunity, and subsequently share your CV or other personal details with Sophos, these details will be held by Sophos for 12 months in accordance with our Privacy Policy and used by our recruitment team to contact you regarding this or other relevant opportunities at Sophos.  If you would like Sophos to delete or update your details at any time, please follow the steps set out in the Privacy Policy describing your individual rights.  If you have any questions about Sophos’ data protection practices, please contact dataprotection@sophos.com.