Top 5 memorable moments as Marketing Director of IBM Systems Technology Group ASEAN

Come 8^th August 2014, I will celebrate my anniversary as Director of Marketing, Communications & Strategy in IBM Systems & Technology Group (STG) ASEAN.

As I reflect on the past year, I am happy that the team has made tremendous success in developing an integrated approach, driving a clear strategy, creating innovative marketing, demonstrating leadership, rallying collaboration, helping clients solve their business challenges and contributing to the business revenue.

Here are just five of the most memorable moments:

1.       Building a motivated team of marketing leaders

I believe that the most important asset in any organization is the employees.  The most proud moment is to turn a deflated directionless scarcely staffed team perceived to be low performers to the motivated team that takes the leadership, shares individual expertise, bonds together as a team, demonstrates collaboration across the organization to produce best marketing contribution to the business compared to past years, and even than other more senior teams.

2.       Achieving 275%  revenue targets by creating IBM’s Signature Tech Expo & other innovative programs

The winning ASEAN STG team conceptualized and produced ASEAN's signature Tech Show of the year – IBM Technology Conference and Expo. Themed "Smarter Computing. What’s Next? Ready Now!”, the roadshow took place across 7 cities, drawing over 6000 IT professionals, 200 CIO engagements, customer sharing & topic tracks, 70 partner solutions demo and 104 news/TV/radio exposures. The Tech Expo achieved 275% revenue target and showcased IBM's capabilities across brands (systems, software, services & financing) in the areas of cloud, big data and analytics.  This is possibly the largest business-to-business IT event in Southeast Asia.

3.       Leveraging analytics-based segmentation for clear business strategy

Working in IBM STG is like working for several companies all at the same time, as each product group is like a single company. The challenges that the team faced was cannibalization of one another's business and as a result, confusing sellers, clients and business partners.  By developing a segmentation model using predictive analytics which I called Project Wealth, we were able to integrate the portfolio, determine client segments for various approaches and gained agreement with the feuding sales leaders on collaboration.  The result was a clear strategy, a strong go to market plan, better return on investments and an integrated approach which led to greater results and satisfaction from all stakeholders.

4.       Integrating diverse portfolios to address hot industry concerns

Just like most multi-nationals, we have a large global team which drives silo brand and even multiple sub-brand plans with disparate launch schedules that rain down on the region and country with uncompromising fervor and determination.  As leaders, we filter what is relevant to our market, build a strong compelling integrated storyline and manage expectations on the pipeline generation targets with a low expense/revenue ratio.  We were able to create integrated launch experiences across our region, with STG’s portfolio with servers, storage and converged systems that is ready for cloud, big data & analytics, social and mobile.  Not just with STG, but also working with our software, services, financing and consulting teams to bring forth solutions to clients.  Speak with any IBMer, and you would know that collaborating within the business unit is hard, and across business units is a miracle. And the ASEAN STG marketing team did it!

5.       Collaborating with renowned experts to set the industry standard

Having worked with many analysts and research firms, one of the best collaboration is with Rajnish Arora (Vice President for IDC's Asia Pacific Enterprise Computing research group). We developed several projects such as research on storage and converged systems, integrated launch plans, webcasts, white papers and CIO round table discussions.

I was privileged to take the stage with Manoj Saxena (then General Manager of Watson Solutions) to share about the latest analytics wonder and as the keynote speaker on “Smarter Computing in Action – Beyond Innovation”.

The most enjoyable banter and collaboration was with Dr. Guraraj Rao (IBM Fellow and Vice President, Systems Chief Engineer, STG Development, IBM India and South Asia) as we co-hosted ASEAN’s CIOs in round table discussions on their views on “The Future of Data Centres and Cloud Adoption”.

In a virtual event, we drew the highest visitors from Southeast Asia and beyond (five times more than our global webcasts!) when I hosted & facilitated discussion sessions with Dr Rao, and where I also shared about “What’s Next? Trends, Predictions and Impact” which covered critical trends in IT from The Institute of Business Value’s CEO Study, Gartner and IDC.

I am thankful for the friendship, trust and respect that has been shared among the team - in STG, in IBM and with our strategic partners. It has been a privilege and honour to work with the best in the industry. I pray that the coming year would bring an even better working environment and greater achievements!

P.S. Check out some exciting links on IBM Tech Expo promotion video and virtual event.

Tech Expo promo video

Virtual Event on Smarter Computing