Business Program Management Apprentice

Business Program Evaluation and Improvement 

• Demonstrates the skills needed to help ensure buy in and adoption of the new program or change by others in the organization. Learns to develop the collateral required to enable key stakeholders and others to be onboard. Learns of the training, reskilling, and mapping of individuals conducted in partnership with Human Resources (HR). 

• Learns to collect and evaluate success criteria (e.g., ROI, SLAs, OKRs, KPIs) and performance metrics (e.g., acquisition, usage, impact, effectiveness, customer feedback) and use scorecards and dashboards to monitor programs and ensure all activities align with business and program objectives. Learns to use data analytics (e.g., scenario analyses) to derive insights and training that help identify program risks and mitigation plans and opportunities to streamline and optimize programs based on lessons learned, and plan to sunset programs that are no longer necessary or meeting objectives. 

• Learns to conduct cost-benefit analyses to examine performance to value drivers (e.g., profit and loss [P&L], return on investment [ROI]). Learns about monthly business review (MBR) and helps run rhythms regularly to identify what is working and what is not. 

Business Program Excellence and Execution 

• Learns to evangelize the programs to stakeholders, partners, and customers to gain buy in. Leverages data and performance metrics (e.g., OKRs and KPIs) to demonstrate the value of the program and show business impact through storytelling and using scorecards and realtime dashboards, under close guidance from senior team members. Learns to adapt communication style and storytelling strategy according to audience and business needs. 

Business Program Management 

• Learns about project portfolios including the project plan, documentation of roles and responsibilities (e.g., responsible, accountable, consulted, informed [RACI] framework), timelines, milestones, financial management, performance metrics, and resource needs for programs. Communicates the program status to relevant stakeholders and holds them accountable for following the established schedule, risk mitigation plans and processes, under close guidance from senior team members. 

Business Program Planning and Design 

• Learns to identify internal opportunities to develop new programs and improve current ones. Learns to identify root problems (e.g., root-cause analysis), define the program strategy, gather program requirements, establish and maintain alignment with stakeholders, identify resource needs, create the project plan and targets, and work across teams to align on the plan of record. Begins to develop the expertise to improve operations of existing programs by helping identify appropriate industry methodologies and best practices, define and diagnose program issues, assess various scenarios, and select the optimal scenario to resolve issues. Learns about and begins to support others in ensuring security principles are incorporated into all planning processes. 

• Learns to work with cross-functional (e.g., organizational, product, business) stakeholders (e.g., Engineering, Marketing) to design programs from initiation to delivery. Learns to produce collateral (e.g., proposals, strategy walking deck, internal and external pitch content) to incorporate stakeholder needs and ensure the business objectives are met. 

• Learns to perform program landscape research and analysis (e.g., internal and/or external market, sales, delivery), forecasting, and examine business insights and trends (e.g., customer feedback and expectations) to identify stakeholders and program scope, and stay current, agile, and competitive. Learns the overall business goals, objectives, and strategies, and understands the short-term business priorities (e.g., artificial intelligence [AI], security, efficiency, quality). Understands and identifies current program risks, impact, and mitigation plans, under close guidance from senior team members. 

• Learns how to track the success criteria (e.g., return on investment [ROI], service level agreements [SLAs], objectives and key results [OKRs] and key performance indicators [KPIs]) and performance metrics (e.g., quality, adoption, usage, impact, effectiveness) for the program. 

Required Qualifications 

• Pursuing bachelor's degree in Commerce, Business Administration, Computer Applications, Economics, Math, or related field 

• Strong analytical mindset and ability to work with data to support business programs and business analysis activities.  

• Good communication skills and ability to collaborate with cross‑functional teams.  

 Preferred Qualifications 

• Demonstrated tech passion or curiosity about digital tools, data platforms, or AI  

• Academic or project experience in analytics, data interpretation, or reporting. 

Important notice:  

• Please consider this only as a job posting and application for the role of an apprenticeship with Microsoft.  

• Please note that the apprenticeship program is for a period of 12 months and is not a full-time permanent opportunity. The apprenticeship program promotes skill development by providing practical, on-the-job training.