Splunk, a Cisco company, is building a safer and more resilient digital world with an end-to-end full stack platform made for a hybrid, multi-cloud world. Leading enterprises use our unified security and observability platform to keep their digital systems secure and reliable. Our customers love our technology, but it's our caring employees that make Splunk stand out as an amazing career destination. No matter where in the world or what level of the organization, we approach our work with kindness. So bring your work experience, problem-solving skills and talent, of course, but also bring your joy, your passion and all the things that make you, you. Come help organizations be their best, while you reach new heights with a team that has your back! **Role Summary:** As a Principal Manager of Competitive Intelligence for Observability solutions, you will play a pivotal role in shaping how our economic and technical sellers and product managers position Splunk and Cisco to win in the dynamic, competitive marketplace. You will be part of competitive intelligence analysts working together to gather, analyze and disseminate actionable insights on our competitors’ products and strategies, market trends, and the needs of our sellers and customers. Your deep understanding of the Platform landscape will enable us to identify opportunities, mitigate risks, and maintain a competitive edge in the markets that we serve. **Meet the Products & Technology Team:** Want to build security and observability products people love AND work with people as smart (and humble) as you are? Want to help Product and Sales enumerate our product’s value relative to our competition? Our products and technology team delivers digital resilience at enterprise scale with a self-service Splunk portfolio that offers unified security analytics, full stack observability and real-time visibility of streaming data. Learn more about the team, meet our leaders, and hear from Splunk technologists and engineers at splunk.com/careers/products-and-technology . **What you'll get to do:** Work with a cross functional team of PMMs, PMs, Strategists and Advisors to analyze Observability markets, understand how customer personas match to our use cases, leverage CI tools like Crayon & Klue to convey critical competitive information, help sellers understand their customer’s jobs to be done, deconstruct and explain competitor capabilities, platform pricing, packaging, value propositions, appropriate use cases, etc. Work with Product Marketing, Product Management, Market Strategist, Sales and Solutions Engineers to understand customer applications, challenges and present differentiated solution value that matches customers desired outcomes. **Key Responsibilities:** + Competitive Landscape Analysis: Conduct in-depth analysis of our competitors' products, services, pricing, packaging, product strategies, marketing strategies and financial performance + Market Research: Track emerging trends, technologies and industry regulations impacting our markets, including the adoption of Artificial Intelligence within our defined product categories + Sales Team Insights: Gather and analyze Sales and Technical Seller feedback, pain points, and requirements to inform product development and go-to-market strategies + Product Team Insights: Gather and analyze competitor product changes, roadmap projections and engineer staffing efforts to inform product development on market positioning. + Analytical Insights: Leverage data analytics and visualization tools to create compelling presentations and reports that drive strategic decision-making and course-corrections in the field sales operation + Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with Sales, Technical Sales, Marketing, Product Marketing, Technical Marketing, Product Management, Product Strategy, Field Enablement, Technical Enablement and Partner Enablement teams to ensure alignment and effective execution of competitive strategies + Active Sales Support: Work directly with Account Teams to develop competitive sales strategies to differentiate Splunk’s offerings and aggressively position them for success in competitive opportunities + Knowledge Sharing: Disseminate competitive intelligence insights throughout the organization to foster a data-driven culture and inform decision-making + Win-Loss Analysis: Collaborate with Win-Loss, Sales and Marketing teams to analyze win-loss data and identify opportunities for improvement in our competitive positioning and sales approach strategies + Economic and Technical Seller Enablement: Provide competitive intelligence insights to field and technical enablement teams to support their efforts in educating and empowering our sales force + Partner Enablement: Work with our Partner ecosystem and management team to deliver differentiated Competitive Intelligence insights and enablement tools to help Partners sell our solutions effectively + Enablement Platforms: Effectively utilize competitive intelligence enablement platforms to streamline data collection, analysis and dissemination, including feedback from Field and Technical Sellers + Competitive Video Production: Oversee production of high-quality, deep-dive competitive analysis videos to visually convey complex information to a wide audience encompassing various sales roles + Competitive Intelligence Newsletter: Publish a regular monthly newsletter that summarizes key competitive insights, trends and sales tools available to our field teams + Open Office Hours: Host regular open office hours for economic and technical sellers to ask questions, share ideas, and discuss competitive intelligence topics in a safe and supportive environment + Program Advocacy and Championship: Actively promote the value of Competitive Intelligence within the organization and be a trusted advisor to sales, product, strategy, marketing and leadership teams **Must-have Qualifications:** + Bachelor's degree in business, marketing or a related field, or equivalent industry experience + 5+ years of experience in Competitive Intelligence and demonstrated Observability subject matter expertise within the enterprise software industry + Proven track record of highly effective Competitive Intelligence analysis + Demonstrated effective time and expectation management + Strong analytical skills and ability to synthesize complex information into actionable insights + Excellent communication, presentation and persuasion skills, both written and verbal + Deep understanding of Observability markets, key players, technologies and trends + Hands-on experience using Competitive Intelligence tools and methodologies + Experience integrating public comments from sources such as PeerSpot and Gartner Peer Insights + Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, balancing competing priorities **Nice-to-have Qualifications:** + Competitive Intelligence Professional (CIP) certifications from Academy of Competitive Intelligence + Adherence to best practices from Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) + Experience with Competitive Intelligence enablement platforms such as Klue and Crayon + Prior hands-on experience with application and network observability software platforms + Familiarity with data analysis tools and techniques (e.g., Excel, Tableau) for extrapolation of trends + Proven ability to build CI artifacts and maintain strong relationships with cross-functional leaders **What We Offer You:** + A constant stream of new things for you to learn. We're always expanding into new areas, bringing in open source projects and contributing back, and exploring new technologies. + Growth and mentorship. We believe in growing engineers through ownership and leadership opportunities. We also believe mentors help both sides of the equation. + A stable, collaborative and supportive work environment. **Why Cisco?** **\#WeAreCisco** + \#WeAreCisco where every individual brings their unique skills and perspectives together to pursue our purpose of powering an inclusive future for all. + Our passion is connection-we celebrate our employees' diverse set of backgrounds and focus on unlocking potential. Cisconians often experience one company, many careers where learning and development are encouraged and supported at every stage. Our technology, tools, and culture pioneered hybrid work trends, allowing all to not only give their best, but be their best. + We understand our outstanding opportunity to bring communities together and at the heart of that is our people. One-third of Cisconians collaborate in our 30 employee resource organizations, called Inclusive Communities, to connect, foster belonging, learn to be informed allies, and make a difference. Dedicated paid time off to volunteer-80 hours each year-allows us to give back to causes we are passionate about, and nearly 86% do! + Our purpose, driven by our people, is what makes us the worldwide leader in technology that powers the internet. Helping our customers reimagine their applications, secure their enterprise, transform their infrastructure, and meet their sustainability goals is what we do best. We ensure that every step we take is a step towards a more inclusive future for all. Take your next step and be you, with us. **Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:** + When available, the salary range posted for this position reflects the projected hiring range for new hire, full-time salaries in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including equity or benefits. For non-sales roles the hiring ranges reflect base salary only; employees are also eligible to receive annual bonuses. Hiring ranges for sales positions include base and incentive compensation target. Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location and additional factors, including but not limited to skillset, experience, and relevant education, certifications, or training. Applicants may not be eligible for the full salary range based on their U.S. or Canada hiring location. The recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process. + U.S. employees have access to quality medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance and numerous wellbeing offerings. + Employees receive up to twelve paid holidays per calendar year, which includes one floating holiday (for non-exempt employees), plus a day off for their birthday. Non-Exempt new hires accrue up to 16 days of vacation time off each year, at a rate of 4.92 hours per pay period. Exempt new hires participate in Cisco’s flexible Vacation Time Off policy, which does not place a defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use, but is subject to availability and some business limitations. All new hires are eligible for Sick Time Off subject to Cisco’s Sick Time Off Policy and will have eighty (80) hours of sick time off provided on their hire date and on January 1st of each year thereafter. Up to 80 hours of unused sick time will be carried forward from one calendar year to the next such that the maximum number of sick time hours an employee may have available is 160 hours. Employees in Illinois have a unique time off program designed specifically with local requirements in mind. All employees also have access to paid time away to deal with critical or emergency issues. We offer additional paid time to volunteer and give back to the community. + Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows: + .75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota; + 1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%; + 1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation. + For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid. **Compensation Range:** 144000 USD - 249000 USD