Alistair Rennie welcomes the audience; 12,000 Lotus BPs in the ecosystem. Introduces Mike Rhodin SVP IBM Software Solutions Group.
(Congrats on the 100th anniversary of IBM, the company.)
"To visualize the future of IBM you must know something of the past." - Thomas Watson
The world is becoming more: Instrumented, Interconnected, and Intelligent.
Talking about IBM's Smarter Planet initiative
- Smarter Commerce
- Business Analytics and Optimization (Market $166 Billion this year alone)
- Social Business (Potential $100B Oppty)
Companies are embracing social media. Cites a McKinsey study that show 74% of businesses integrating social media into customer interaction.
Tenets of Social Business...
- Engaged (Connecting people to people)
- Transparent (Removing boundaries)
- Nimble (Leverage networks and devices)
Alistair introduces the themes for social business:
Vision
Value
Vitality
Velocity
IBM's Kristin Lauria on stage talking about trends and opportunities in the marketplace, citing various studies. Numbers flying but the short of it is that businesses are leveraging social as a way to drive business.
Consumers want real time activity and information at their fingertips. Mobile is driving social.
Great question from Kristin: Where's the entry point for BPs wanting to get into social business.
A1. IT Entry point - e.g. need for IM opens conversation
A2. LOB (Line of business; marketing suite; CMOs)
A3. Decision making in SaaS model is easier (and faster)
A3. It's all about value and who sees it
A4. Bring ideas to your customers
A4. Talk to business people who see need & value opp. IT sees costs/effort.
Q What advice would the panelists have for partners:
A1. Know your customer
A2. Don't forget change management as part of the solution
A3. Partner with other partners
Doug Cox up next. He's the VP IBM Collaboration and support solutions talking about social business transformation...
Doug announced the IBM social business toolkit - a reference framework for building enterprise social applications to deliver business value to clients.
Doug refers to Exchange and Sharepoint as legacy platforms; one chuckle from audience.
I'm impressed with the 60-second social spots that the LS11 team put together to communicate the value and opportunity of social business.
Sandy Carter is up to talk about business partner initiatives for 2011
Announcing the new BVA (Business Value Investment) assets and training from IBM. Help your customer to understand the business value of going social.
Sandy discussed new initiatives for social business; worth checking out.
This was an exciting opening session for BDD. Looking forward to tomorrow's OGS.
Discussion/Comments (1):
Discussion for this entry is now closed.