Catch Serena William's Victory Jump at US Tennis Open!

US Tennis Open Fans All Over The World Caught Serena Williams' Victory Jump Real Time!

Wow Moment Made Possible By Cloud And Software Defined Storage

Just last week, International Data Corp. (IDC) [1] has ranked IBM as the top ranking supplier of Software Defined Storage Platforms (SDS-P) [2].  The ranking reflects widespread adoption of IBM’s SDS-P technologies by companies looking to gain faster, more reliable access to their growing data volumes.

Why are clients making the switch? New era cloud environments and applications such as analytics, mobile and social are driving huge growth in data volumes, making data the new natural resource. But cost-effectively optimizing your current storage environments while at the same time exploiting new opportunities is straining storage budgets. IBM software defined storage is the solution.

Take the example of the United States Tennis Association (USTA).  Each year, USTA teams with IBM to deliver a dynamic online and mobile experience to fans of the US Open tournament. The cloud-based infrastructure consistently generates increasing amounts of data, as well as a corresponding increase in demand for greater access and analysis. During the 2013 US Open, the USTA churned out 2.9 million hours of live-streaming video and served more than 400 million page views on its tournament web site over the course of just two weeks.

“The versatile and reliable IBM infrastructure that supports the US Open enables us to provide fans the tournament data and insights they need, no matter where they are located,” said Nicole Jeter West, Senior Director of Ticketing and Digital Strategy at USTA. “The dynamic IBM cloud helps us ensure that we are able to immediately serve the right content to tennis enthusiasts around the globe.”The reliable digital platform that provides US Open fans constant access to real-time scores, statistics, video, etc., is supported by IBM’s Elastic Storage, part of the Software Defined Portfolio.

IBM has revolutionized the marketplace with our Software Defined Storage solutions [3], helping clients optimize current storage environments so they can unlock the potential of their data by exploiting new opportunities provided by cloud, analytics, mobile and social. I’m so proud to be part of the winning team in Systems Technology Group.

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[1] International Data Corp. (IDC) has ranked IBM as the top ranking supplier of Software Defined Storage Platforms (SDS-P) in its latest Worldwide Storage Software QView for the second quarter 2014, based on software revenue.

[2] IDC describes SDS-P as, “platforms that deliver the full suite of storage services via a software stack that uses (but is not dependent on) commodity hardware built with off-the-shelf components.” 

[3] IBM has hardware agnostic software technologies code-named Elastic Storage that automatically manage data locally and globally.  It provides breakthrough speeds in data access, easy administration and the ability to scale technology infrastructure quickly and more cost-effectively. 

In addition to Elastic Storage, the portfolio includes IBM’s storage virtualization software, SAN Volume Controller, which enables clients to virtualize storage infrastructures for fast, reliable data movement across heterogeneous storage systems. SAN Volume Controller is also available as part of IBM's Virtual Storage Center which provides additional capabilities for storage management such as backup, restore, and visual administration.

How To Swing A Losing Deal To A Winning Deal

Coming off a winning streak in the board room pitch competition for our company’s sales training academy cross each ASEAN countries, I hopped onto my last stop in Thailand to facilitate two teams to develop a winning board room pitch.

One of the teams did not make it to the finals and the other team that did make it to the final four slipped shy of clinching the win. 

Here are my reflections of where the misses were and how the teams could have turned it from a losing deal to a winning deal.

1. Increase Revenue vs Reduce Cost: A proposition that helps increase revenue would almost always make the board members sit up over one that focuses only on reducing cost.  While cutting cost result in savings that can be re-deployed, it is important to consider how that re-deployment can increase revenue.

2. Manage Risk Appetite: With shorter management tenure, having a long return on investment period would jeopardize an ability to demonstrate results in critical early years. Break projects into smaller size phases to allow benefits to be realized faster.

3. Interpret The  Vision: With emerging technology and trends, a visionary proposal must be accompanied by clear road maps on what the solution entails.  Often sellers get caught up in corporate terminology and smart solution names that the customer does not recognize what is being proposed.  In painting the big picture with solutions, it does not mean that one should avoid naming the product.  We should balance both in the light of what the customers understand.

4. Assess The Expert’s Attitude: While subject matter experts are important, but if they do not walk the mile with you while constructing your proposal, do consider ditching them.  Experts who jump in and out of a deal can do more harm as they send the team off on a tangent when they do not invest time to understand the client.  Worse, they waste your time when their ego ask to be pandered to. Getting the right experts with the relevant skills and attitude will help you get to your goal faster.

To cross the finishing line to win, let’s learn from successes and also mistakes. Refine and become better each time. Do not give up.

Secrets to a winning pitch

Our company is known as a great sales company, where sellers who graduate from our Global Sales School are highly respected. With rapidly advancing technology, we have to re-invent ourselves on a regular basis. How much more the front liners that lead the client engagement and the brand teams who provide innovative solutions!

The sales manager plays a part with the day to day coaching of the team for each client.  But even the most seasoned seller needs to take time out think out of the box to create innovative propositions.  

Besides sharing best practice examples, we conduct a Client Experience Academy to put the sales leader through a real account scenario to work through the methodology of creative thinking. The sales leader facilitates discussion with the team to come up with a winning pitch for a pitch competition.

The sales managers have to select an account, gather the account team across the various brand experts, start developing new ideas and learning IBM’s value proposition, deepening expertise and developing the value add for the account.  We arm the team with an opportunity workbook and client provocation tool to generate a unique selling proposition that delivers value in the sales proposal.

Facilitators are assigned to account teams, to help guide the sales managers to use key coaching techniques.In compressed time, the team learns to be concise, yet thorough, to develop a precise pitch.

From a total of 25 teams, 3 finalists are selected for the final battle. The team that I facilitated was voted as the overall champion.

Here are a few tips & secrets on why our team won:

1. Know your client: Besides the account team's knowledge of the client, we often forget that there is a lot of information about the client from annual reports and industry write-ups that help develop deeper understanding of the company’s strategic and business directions.  Knowing this helps to align business and technology.

2. Tap on expertise: There are experts from team mates who have contacts and experience in other similar organizations that can provide insights to validate whether our proposal would resonate with the client, prioritize the initiatives and help quantify the impact.  We also reached out to our Chief Financial Officer to consult on financial metrics and innovative pricing models for feasibility.

3. Break and re-group: An account team is more effective if individuals are allowed to choose to develop sections in their areas of interest.  So it is important to get inputs from the entire team, know when to break up the large team into smaller groups to dive deeper into specific areas, provide clear delegations and then re-group the team again for a final run through.

4. Test & validate: We secured the help of various mentors from different parts of the organization to put our proposal to the test. We validate whether key concerns are addressed adequately and ensure that we have considered every possible angle and have the appropriate response for every stakeholder.

The above applies not just in the pitch competition but also in real life! A boardroom pitch is short but its impact is measured by how extensive the prepartion has been. We sometimes neglect to gather the team to maximize the outcome.

Congratulations & kudos to the sales leader who led the winning team, the account rep and the entire cross brand team that collaborated to deliver the winning pitch.  May you also win the real deal!

3 Questions Leaders Should Ask When Coaching

Three key questions leaders should ask to drive innovation.  Reflections from facilitating leadership and coaching techniques at an ASEAN Leaders Academy.

 

IBM is one of the most complex companies to work in, as we have businesses across hardware, software, services, consulting with various routes to market.  How we collaborate across the business units and professions could mean that we either appear like a bunch of misfits each trying to sell our offering to the clients, or a well organized team that has the vision and the right solutions to help our clients solve their business challenges.

With the onslaught of emerging areas of cloud, big data and analytics, social and mobility, and in the light of the new IBM-Apple announcements and Open Power Consortium, how do we identify clients who are at the leading edge to be the first movers, and also help clients at various stages of their business cycles to gain competitive advantage?

The leaders’ role is of utmost importance to provide direction and steer the team to be tip top of every single deal. With the frequent reviews and tones of templates that leaders in large corporations have to contend with, sales reviews can often turn into deal status reporting and the cursory escalation help than coaching.

On 25^th August 2014, we gathered the business unit leaders and first line managers across client coverage, brand, pre-sales, technical and channel teams for the first ASEAN Leaders Academy to help the managers and leaders think differently and coach effectively.

I was most happy to take a break from my marketing leader role to run the academy as a lead facilitator.  My role was to deliver the new coaching techniques to help strengthen “real provocations” that the leaders create with the teams, focus on coaching on the opportunity to make it bold and real, and how to coach the team with the right capabilities and confidence to deliver the opportunity, followed by reflection & rehearsal.

Facilitation is not just about sharing expertise, but to work with the leaders to come up with new ideas and strengthen group learning.

Here are three questions that leaders should ask ourselves when coaching the team:

1. Is it provocative?  

Do we provide a standardized response, answer the obvious or are we inspiring others to think differently?

2. Are we bold yet real? 

Are we daring to share new ideas? How can we turn ideas into reality?

3. Are we maximizing our capabilities and building confidence?

It is crucial to correctly identify the capabilities as it differs across markets. If the idea is different, how do we motivate and encourage the team to confident in their presentation and delivery.

The time invested in the preparation of the curriculum and facilitation of the academy, has had a positive impact.  I am glad to have energized the managers and provided them with a new way of thinking and essential coaching skills to be leaders.