Posts Tagged ‘Tech’
082 How Category Designers Do Acquisitions: Why Salesforce/Slack Is a Savvy Deal
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Most people look at acquisitions through a spreadsheet lens. Of course the financials matter for mergers and acquisition deals, but when viewed through a category design lens, acquisitions look very, very different. In this episode, we break down the differences using the Salesforce / Slack Deal as an example and Google purchasing YouTube way back 2006.
Two Types of M&A Deals
First one is category consolidation deals, which is usually done in market categories that are slow or have no growth. The second type of M&A deals are category acceleration deals, which happens in early or high growth market categories.
In line with this, let’s step back in memory lane, October of 2006, when Google purchased YouTube For $1.65B. YouTube was two years old then with just 65 employees. Many experts said predictable things like “how can Google be so stupid” “they paid so much for a company with little revenue, no profits.”
“In 2006, google didn’t buy YouTube’s technology, customers, or revenue or profits. Google was the category queen in Search and they bought the category queen in Video. They bought the #1 position in category. A category with massive potential. Potential, that some others could not see.” – Christopher Lochhead
Youtube: #2 Search Engine In The World
Legendary new categories are often obvious to most people, in hindsight. To put a fine point on this one: in 2019 YouTube did $15B in Ad sales. Google made a category acceleration deal. They redesigned part of the category landscape on the internet and they’ve been benefiting as a result ever since then
“Think of what could have happened to Google if Microsoft, Yahoo, Disney or someone else owned Youtube? As Internet categories were getting designed and redesigned, without YouTube, Google could have found its ass on the floor in the game of category musical chairs.” – Christopher Lochhead
Salesforce $28 billion Deal To Buy Slack
After Salesforce bought Slack for $28billion, their stock got hammered down to 11%. In fact, headline of MarketWatch.com is: Salesforce stock drops as Wall Street questions necessity of Slack purchase.
“Now there is an epic mega category battle going down for the new distributed, digital workplace. Here’s what they don’t get…Salesforce just increased their odd in this epic category battle.” – Christopher Lochhead
To know more about How Category Designers Do Acquisitions: Why Salesforce/Slack Is a Savvy Deal, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Links:
Salesforce acquires Slack for over $27 billion, marking cloud software vendor’s largest deal ever
Salesforce to Acquire Slack for $27.7 Billion
Google to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock
A Decade Ago, Google Bought YouTube — and It Was the Best Tech Deal Ever
Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
173 A Unique American Perspective w/ MK Palmore, Marine, FBI Exec & Cybersecurity Advisor
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We listen today to an extraordinary and unique perspective on what is happening in the United States right now. Our guest, the legendary MK Palmore, whose entire background positions him to be a leader of this moment that we all find ourselves in.
Not only does MK have this incredible career as a Marine, as an FBI agent, now, but he’s also a Silicon Valley-based executive at a major tech company. He is African American and his perspective on our world right now is like none other I have seen or heard, and we go deep on all of it. This is a very powerful conversation we hope gets heard by many.
To Serve and To Protect
Coming from a solid law enforcement background, MK shares the conversations that he is having with his former colleagues. He mentions that there should be an understanding about the basic concept of “being called to serve and protect” among law enforcers. Unfortunately, a number of law enforcers have a different agenda other than this core mission.
“It requires, again, an understanding that, ‘hey, a potential problem exists.’ This is from law enforcement to the other side [minorities]. We need to be willing to listen so that we can make adjustments to how it is that we go about policing, which I think will be a huge challenge.” – MK Palmore
Police-ing Is Extremely Hard Work
MK describes the demands of police work. There are certain challenges involved in that profession that don’t lend themselves to flow judgments. As these recent situations arise, he believes that there should probably be some training changes that need to happen on the law enforcement side.
“Law enforcement officers are trained in a particular way so that they can make quick judgments or assessment of situations so that they can mitigate and bring down a situation as quickly as possible, to de-escalate a situation quickly as possible.” – MK Palmore
Comprise To Let Healing Begin
MK shares how strong leadership is needed to talk about issues and to compromise. This is the only route where healing can begin. He shares his experiences as an African American former FBI agent and now a Tech professional and how he contributes to the current issues.
“While I do not believe that there is an explicit racism present in law enforcement, I do believe that there is implicit racism in our society. To believe that law enforcement is somehow immune to this, I think, is misplaced.” – MK Palmore
To know more about MK Palmore, a Marine, FBI Exec & Cybersecurity Advisor and his unique American perspective, download and listen to this episode.
Bio:
MK was born and raised in Washington, D.C. It’s no surprise he was influenced daily and at an early age by the formative sights and sounds of our government at work.
As a youth, he had already decided to embark on a career of service. This led him to the shores of Annapolis, where he was a midshipman at the United States Naval Academy, and afterward as a commissioned officer in the United States Marine Corps.
Following his military service, MK began a 22-year journey as a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a key player behind numerous high-level investigations and an early combatant in the fight against cybercrime.
During this impressive career of public service, MK honed his leadership skills, rounding out his tenure in an executive position leading the cybersecurity investigative teams of FBI San Francisco.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!
130 Grumpy Old Geek Jason DeFillippo
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He’s back! Podcast legend and co-host of Grumpy Old Geeks podcast, Jason DeFillippo joins us for another dynamic conversation about deep fakes, streaming services, and tech that will or will not change your life in 2020.
Deep Fakes and Video Editing
Undeniably Christopher’s favorite topic with Jason, they talk about deep fakes and astounding editing to produce fake news. Christopher cites a Forbes article about CNN Reporter Jim Acosta allegedly pushing a White House intern.
“It was edited to remove 2-3 frames of the film, to speed up, when he pushed the person and they removed the ‘pardon me, ma’am’ out of the audio. That was just creative editing.” – Jason DeFellippo
Moreover, there was also another video circulating the interwebs that make it look like Sarah Sanders was intoxicated in public. It doesn’t end there because they also talk about Gal Gadot, the most recent actor to play WonderWoman, who apparently appeared in a porn video. Clearly another deep fake.
Have You Heard About “Hearables?”
Apparently, hearables are the new category king and queen for 2020 as different brands introduced a “smart” earbuds. Although Christopher is a fan of the attempt to create a new category, Jason says the products really mean nothing.
“That’s the thing, they’re not smart. They are just conduit to your phone. If you go out without your phone, they don’t work. they get real dumb, real fast.” – Jason DeFellippo
Aside from this, Jason rants about adding more gadgets to charge. He says he has 7 gadgets at the moment and he would prefer using wired earphones/plugs due to the sound quality.
The Field of Streams
Jason shares that around 7 years ago, on his podcast Grumpy Old Geeks, they have predicted this will happen. Everybody saw the popularity of Netflix and all the content creators decided they should make their own platforms.
“I think we’re going to see consolidation coming. People are going to start doing deals with each other to get bundling packages.” – Jason DeFellippo
Jason also predicted that households would just pay for around 3 streaming service, max.
To hear more information about Jason DeFellippo and to listen to more of his comments on deep fakes, tech for 2020 and streaming services, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Jason is a full-time podcast producer and editor for The Jordan Harbinger Show as well as the Creator and Co-host of the Grumpy Old Geeks Podcast.
Jason has been building websites since the early days in 1994 for clients that range from small businesses to million dollar websites for blockbuster films to his own start-ups.
In 1994 he created the groundbreaking website Spewww which was nominated for a Webby in the first year the awards were held in 1998.
In 1995 a new media company in Santa Monica moved him out to Los Angeles to build the first website for Epson America.
Since then Jason has launched over 250 websites for major corporations like Paramount Pictures, Sony, Warner Brothers, and Disney.
He also created the two time SXSW Weblog Award-winning Blogrolling service as well as co-founded the global blog network Metroblogging.
He has worked at several startups in San Francisco including Technorati and 8020 Media, the publishers of JPGMagazine.com, and statistical aggregator Metricly.
Links:
Some of the topics covered:
It’s All Fun And Games Until Someone Gets Hurt: The Implications Of Deepfakes
Tech That Will Change Your Life in 2020
The future is ear: Why “hearables” are finally tech’s next big thing
The Great Streaming Battle Is Here. No One Is Safe
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
027 How To Create a New Category & Brand w/ Carrie Palin, CMO of $20B Splunk
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This special episode of Lochhead on Marketing is the actual conversation of Christopher Lochhead and Carrie Palin, CMO of software company Splunk, during their appearance at Hypergrowth San Francisco.
Carrie shares how she spearheaded the category creation of Data to Everything and brand re-launch of Splunk.
Splunk at Hypergrowth
Christopher Lochhead and Splunk CMO Carrie Palin were invited to speak at Hypergrowth San Francisco to talk about creating a new category and brand. Drift organized this awesome business and marketing conference. This conversation is a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes of a very successful, super high-growth company like Splunk.
“At Splunk, we’re very proud of our culture. We’re very proud of our history. There’s something we call Splunkiness.” – Carrie Palin
Splunk is a publicly-traded software company worth $20B and they have recently launched a new category called Data to Everything. They have also relaunched their brand, changing their logo from green and black to orange and pink.
Rough Start
Carrie shared that her forte is in demand generation and she found category creation and branding to be quite challenging. She notes that aside from having a great branding team, she had great bosses who believed in her vision.
It was a rough start for Carrie, as three days into her new role, she received a piece of unfortunate news about her ailing father. It was one of the challenging events of her life but she acknowledged that Splunk CEO and President had been supportive of her grief.
“Splunk stuck with me. They treated me like I’ve been there 20 years versus 3 days. Four months after that, it was crazier than I ever anticipated. Now that was through that, I know that it was absolutely the right place for me to be.” – Carrie Palin
On-boarding the BOD
Carrie shared amazing stories on how she on-boarded the Board of Directors with her ideas. She gave a lot of weight on conviction and commitment to the Board.
“Listen to your data. Turn your data into doing, which is exactly what our clients are doing. They’re doing really incredible things.” – Carrie Palin
To hear more about How To Create a New Category & Brand w/ Carrie Palin, CMO of $20B Splunk, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Carrie Palin has been Splunk’s Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer since 2019.
Prior, Ms. Palin served as the Chief Marketing Officer at SendGrid, a digital communications platform company acquired by Twilio, from 2018 to 2019.
From 2016 to 2018, Ms. Palin served as the first Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President at Box, a cloud content management company.
Ms. Palin served as the Vice President of Marketing for IBM’s Cloud Data Services and Analytics Software Division from 2015 to 2016.
She also previously spent over 15 years at Dell leading various marketing organizations. Ms. Palin holds a B.S. Communications degree from Texas Christian University.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
120 Security, Deep Fakes & Apple Glasses Oh My! w/ Dave Bittner
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Today, Dave Bittner, Producer and Host of The CyberWire Podcast and Hacking Humans podcast, joins us for a timely discussion about security, the future, deep fakes Apple glasses and more. He is a regular guest of podcast Grumpy Old Geeks with previous guests, Jason DiFillipo & Brian Schulmister.
Trade-Off Between Operations and Risks
Security has played a huge role in every technology company nowadays. The episode starts off with a very timely topic on security. Christopher poses the question “why security is hard?” Dave honestly answers that there is a trade-off and risk-reward decision-making process that needs to happen.
Dave continues that breaches started getting bigger as well as ramifications and costs resulting in bad publicity, too. Board Members now have started giving their attention to security threats, as they, themselves can be liable for these breaches.
“I think these days good board members have to have a certain level of knowledge and education in cybersecurity because it touches everything.” – Dave Bittner
More on Data Breaches and Hacking
Would there be more data breaches and hacking in the near future since the cost of technological equipment is getting cheaper? Dave answered, yes.
Hackers are professionalizing themselves. They also have access to knowledge and tools that enables them to target victims, as opposed to the usual shotgun approach.
“I think there are a few things going on right now, I think we are seeing the sophistication of the actors increased in the sense that, there’s an increase in the professionalism of them.” – Dave Bittner
Other Future Related Topics
Dave shares more about privacy and security. Also there’s the fact that 60% of people in the US genetic connections can be implied from data available from 23andme or Ancestry.com.
“The security implication is that biometric data—your DNA, your fingerprints, your face ID, facial recognition—those are the things that it’s very difficult to change, if not, impossible to change. If someone gets a hold of that and that something, that you’re using as a factor for your security, you cant just go reset that. That’s one of the long term concerns.” – Dave Bittner
To hear more about Security, Deep Fakes and Apple Glasses and more information about Dave, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Dave Bittner is the Producer and Host of The CyberWire Podcast, Hacking Humans podcast.
Links:
Survey: Most Data Center Managers Rely on Outdated Security Practices
Internet Companies Prepare to Fight the ‘Deepfake’ Future
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.
106 Silicon Valley Legend Randy Komisar
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Silicon Valley legend, Randy Komisar joins us today in a longer than usual episode, but definitely an information-packed conversation. He shares a piece of his mind to us especially on how to have a legendary career, what it’s like to be dubbed as the Digital CEO and many more.
Rare Opportunity
Randy Komisar was a partner at VC pioneer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He worked closely with other legends like Steve Jobs and George Lucas. In fact, he has some very interesting stories he shared, being a former senior counsel at Apple and former CEO at LucasArts.
“I don’t like being disliked and I don’t particularly try to be liked. I try to be valued, to create something constructive or positive in a relationship. But being liked is not, it doesn’t cross my mind. I want to be respected, if I’m really lucky, I’d like to be admired.” – Randy Komisar
The Virtual CEO
Silicon Valley CEOs dubbed him as a Virtual CEO. Randy served in that role for companies like WebTV and Global Giving. He had some compelling stories and opinions to share in what Christopher dubbed as “the business equivalent of the lunar landing.”
He also served as the founding director of TiVo, which is a direct lineage of Netflix entering that category today. Tivo won one of the biggest patent damage claims of all time, way over billion dollars, and Randy recounts to Christopher what happened during that time.
“I actually think, we should have sued earlier. we have the patent rights to all of these, the real question was, could we have coop these guys as partners.” – Randy Komisar
Utopians Vs. Libertarians
Two significant and different technology demographics comprise Silicon Valley.
He describes the 70’s and 80’s guys as the technology Utopians. Infrastructures were allegedly oppressive at that time which led the Utopians to utilize tools and come to technology to end this. Ultimately, they wanted to empower individuals.
Furthermore, the Utopians had a sense of ‘a social contract.’ They felt they need to make the world better. These tools and the advantages that they had with these tools gave them the opportunity to challenge the status quo.
In the advent of Facebook and Paypal, we move from technology utopians to technology libertarians.
“The tools and platform that you build raise the creative endeavor. It’s not to take-the-money- and-run situation. That money gets invested in more ideas, more vision. Yes you need to make a profit, but that profit can fuel creativity or consumption, you get to choose.” – Randy Komisar
To hear more about the Silicon Valley Legend Randy Komisar, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Randy Komisar joined Kleiner Perkins in 2005 and focuses on early-stage investing.
He served as CFO of GO Corp. and as senior counsel for Apple Computer, following a private practice in technology law.
Randy is a founding director of TiVo and serves on the Roadtrip Nation Advisory Board and Orrick’s Women’s Leadership Board.
Additionally, he is the author of the best-selling book The Monk and the Riddle, as well as several articles on leadership and entrepreneurship.
Furthermore, he is the co-author of Straight Talk for Startups, the insider best practices for entrepreneurial success, Getting to Plan B, on managing innovation, and I F**king Love that Company, on building consumer brands.
Randy frequently speaks in the United States and abroad on such topics. Randy holds a B.A. degree in economics from Brown University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Links:
Book: Straight Talk for Startups
The Monk and the Riddle: The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living
Executives Launch Podcast To Pass On Lessons From Bill Campbell, Coach To Silicon Valley Stars
Harper Collins Speakers Bureau: Randy Komisar
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
104 Enterprise Tech Category Queen Jennifer Tejada
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Our guest for today is the CEO of the newly public, enterprise technology company PagerDuty, none other than Jennifer Tejada.
This episode is the second part of the two-part series on IPO. Jennifer shares with us today how it is like to go public. This is a celebration of entrepreneurship and you’ll have fun listening to this long-free-form conversation.
Legendary IPO
Jennifer had a legendary career in Silicon Valley. Various media outlets featured Jennifer due to the recent IPO of PagerDuty, a leading platform for real-time operations.
In a moment of victory, what Christopher calls as “a celebration of entrepreneurship,” Jennifer recounts to Christopher the joys and pains on transitioning from being private to becoming public.
“I enjoyed the process of being forced to refine our story and our value proposition for retail investors and laypeople. I think its really helpful for the business to go through that exercise.” – Jennifer Tejada
NYSE Feels
Jennifer shares that there was not much significant change in terms of their monthly operations. In fact, she perceives the preparation to go public as running two-jobs and she and her CFO vowed to make the most out of it.
“It’s very hard to describe the intrinsic rewards of looking down from the podium of NYSE at a group of people and just seeing this, sort of wonderment in their faces. They just can’t believe, little old us got here, and that is one of the most rewarding moments of my career.” Jennifer Tejada
Jennifer also professed her admiration with her employees who went through this significant milestone with her.
“I don’t think there’s enough of said or honor pay to the folks that bet their careers early on and take pay cuts and take on option risks, to see a company through multiple investment cycle and growth cycles and ups and downs.” – Jennifer Tejada
Extending Reach
Jennifer describes IPO as a big-day-coming-out-party-to-the-world. Further, she mentions that one of the reasons PagerDuty went public is to extend its reach, to tap an enormous market opportunity. She believes being under the radar does not serve that big mission.
“We serve the enterprise market and these enterprises are members of NYSE. They are traded in the NASDAQ. They expect the level of transparency around our performance and how our capitals are being spent and the long term viability of our businesses.” – Jennifer Tejada
Likewise, going public can help create brand awareness and credibility because the company has to go through a lot of processes that will serve public market investors.
“In my view, that rigor, and extra scrutiny is good for business. Hiding away in the private market just for the sake of staying away from that scrutiny is not a good thing because you can’t survive with poor habits for a long period of time.” – Jennifer Tejada
To hear more about the Enterprise Tech Category Queen Jennifer Tejada, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Jennifer Tejada is the CEO and Chairperson of PagerDuty (NYSE: PD), a leading platform for real-time operations.
She is a veteran software industry executive and business leader with over 25 years of experience, spanning mass consumer products to disruptive cloud and software solutions.
Jennifer has a successful track record in product innovation, optimizing operations and scaling public and private enterprise technology companies.
PagerDuty went through a strong IPO in April 2019 through her leadership.
Prior to her role at PagerDuty, Jennifer was the CEO of Keynote Systems where she led the company to strong profitable growth before its acquisition by Dynatrace in 2015.
Before Keynote, Jennifer was Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at the enterprise software company Mincom leading its global strategy up to its acquisition in late 2011 by ABB.
She has also held senior positions at Procter & Gamble and i2 Technologies (acquired by JDA Software).
Jennifer currently serves as a board member of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL) and Puppet, Inc.
Jennifer holds a B.S. from the University of Michigan.
Links:
PagerDuty analysts shower stock with love even after doubling in a month
PagerDuty stock skyrockets nearly 60% on first trading day after IPO
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
010 Artificial Intelligence In Marketing
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In this episode, Christopher Lochhead shares two eye-opening stories about Artificial Intelligence in Marketing. First is about Nike buying an AI marketing analytics company and second, Chase Bank using AI to write marketing copies. He further discusses how these two leverages technology to produce massive results.
Nike Acquires AI Startup
Tech Crunch reported that Nike announced its acquisition of the Boston-area startup Celect. This is to help Nike beef up its predictive analytics strengths. The startup’s tech focuses on delivering data insights based on structured and unstructured retail data.
“What we do know is Nike spent a lot of money to get their hands on a company that specializes in crunching a shit ton of data, of many thousands of customers, to anticipate their needs going forward.” – Christopher Lochhead
Christopher noted that this move of a giant brand has never happened in the past. In conclusion, this proves that analytics plays a huge role in Marketing. AI provides marketers data on customer’s wants and needs — even before they do.
“What kind of big data analytics and AI are we using to understand our market categories and what might we do in this area?” – Christopher Lochhead
AI Machines Outperforming Humans
AdAge published an experiment that they conducted about the bank company Chase. They compared the advertising copies written by humans versus that of AI technology. The result is: AI outperformed humans — with higher consumers clicking on the copy written by an AI machine.
“The folks at Chase Bank entered a five-year agreement with this company Persado to use machine learning to write their ad copy.” – Christopher Lochhead
The Implications of AI Marketing
Legendary marketers should always be experimenting with both the art and the science of marketing.
“We’re gonna see more companies benchmarking the two — whether ad headlines and copy, logo design and a lot of other creative things. What many of us in marketing thought technology wouldn’t touch — are now being touch by that.” – Christopher Lochhead
As the lines of Science and Art blur, Christopher calls out to fellow Creative professionals to stay in tune with technology. Never be complacent about our jobs because AI is coming to replace everything. The best action to do at the moment is to leverage this technology and not to resist it.
“Leverage the science and be super strategically creative at the same time.” – Christopher Lochhead
To hear more about Artificial Intelligence Marketing and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Christopher advised over 50 venture-backed startups. He is a venture capital limited partner and a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO, entrepreneur. In addition, he co-authored two bestsellers: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
After he flunked school, with few other options, Christopher started his first company at the age of 18.
He was a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard, in 2006, acquired that company for $4.5 billion.
Further, he also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD. Christopher was the founder/CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient. He also served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Christopher loves his family and friends. He thinks the Ramones are legendary and loves riding the mountains and waves of Northern California.
Link:
Nike buys an AI startup that predicts what consumers want
Chase Commits To Ai After Machines Outperform Humans In Copywriting Trials
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
093 Microsoft’s Transformation and Why Every Company is a Software Company w/ Bob Evans
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Today’s guest is one of Christopher’s favorite people, host of Cloud Wars podcast, Bob Evans. Together, they dig deep into how Microsoft transformed into a “Trillion Dollar Cloud Category King.” They discuss what we can all learn from their remarkable turn-around. Moreover, the compare why they think every company is a software company and a lot more!
Microsoft: A Trillion Cloud Category King
Bob Evans shares his opinion on Microsoft and its trillion-dollar cloud business. This massive growth in sales led both Bob and Christopher awestruck. Bob shares that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has largely driven the company into its current status.
He pointed out that Nadella realized Microsoft was spending too much time achieving internally driven goals. He believed it’s about time to ask what are the goals and dreams of their paying customers, what do they need to happen and how can Microsoft help them.
“I think it should be an inspiration to all sorts of businesses. You are limited not by competitive set and not by how much money you have. You are limited by what your dreams and ambitions are.” – Bob Evans
Massive Restructure of the Sales Team
Microsoft had a massive restructuring of its sales team. They replaced as much as 30-40% of their sales team, infusing with people who formerly Programmers but they have the outlook and personality of salespeople. This led to high engagement with customers and ultimately, high profits for Microsoft.
“I just think its a phenomenon that lots of people can learn from here. You can come back, you can change, you can become something that other people say you’ll never be. Defy history.” – Bob Evans
Importance of Channel Partners
Bob discussed another point to remember from Microsoft — their special attention to the ecosystem or channel partners. The company supported its clients, especially for software development and programming. In the end, these clients later sold their programs to other clients, under the supervision of Microsoft.
“The most valuable company on Earth is willing to say ‘the way you have always done it isn’t the way to the future. I will turn my organization to make your sales team.’ They are doing stuff that defies anybody prediction or scope or the way they look at things. Imagine where they could be, that is the magic Nadella has brought about.” – Bob Evans
To hear more about Microsoft’s transformation and why every company is a software company and more information about Bob Evans, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Bob grew up outside of Pittsburg, with hard-working parents and his 6 siblings.
Graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978 and entered the business world, flowing his passion for information technology and writing.
He rose to become the editor of Information Week, one of the top two publications in technology at the time.
He became the SVP and Content Director for Information Week’s parent company TechWeb/CMP
After thirty years in the media business, he left to join the world of software vendors, after a quick stop at ERP vendor SAP,
Bob was recruited by the world 5th richest person, a legendary category designer and entrepreneur — Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle.
At Oracle Bob served as SVP and Chief Communications Officer for Larry.
Today Bob runs his own strategic communications firm, is a prolific writer, a tech industry commentator, public speaker, and a legendary guy.
He hosts the widely popular Cloud Wars Live Podcast.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
