Thomas Coustenoble

Why do marketers need to proactively embrace technology?

Years ago, when I joined IBM to work on 'Pervasive Computing' business (or 'mobile e-business' at that time), most of our meetings happened to be with IT managers, discussing about the software sync engine or the network connectivity capabilities. In the last few years, with the explosion of smartphones and apps, mobile naturally came to marketers (or the opposite). As marketers, we're clearly watching the evolution of mobile technologies to optimize our budget spending while growing our business through higher response rate (through more personalized value proposal). But innovation is no longer just a capability discussion, it has became 'usage driven', anticipating client needs will become critical.

Few weeks ago, with a small group of IBM marketers, we met with the French Google team, I was suprised to see the level of maturity regarding technologies (even if both companies are in the IT space). Discussions went from digital brand content to ad retargetting, cross-channel integration, mass customization through smartphone (trying to understand opportunies in the area of apps) and simplification of data monitoring/decision making process through automated dashboards, integration of social capabilities within our demand system engine, etc. 

Last week at the 2011 Gartner Symposium, another shot was given by Gartner, saying that 'by 2014, CIOs will have lost effective control of 25% of their organisation's IT spending, and by 2017, Chief Marketing Officers may have bigger IT budget than CIOs do'

But marketing organizations have already invested in IT (under the lead/ownership of their IT departments), historically on: database, web optimization, CRM systems and more recently on marketing campaigns automation platforms and social media/networks. What is getting really critical is the abililty for the CMO to understand the integration of these different platforms, together but also within the existing processes such as supply chain management or product development to translate data/information/insights into a superior client/customer experience in order to differentiate their brand and grow their business.

So CMO's understanding of technology would come along with greater partnership with the CIO, development of agile organizations made of internal and external skills set to 'test, trash or deploy', greater accountability on business pipeline and results.

Recently IBM has also launched a Global CMO study (with the contribution of 111 CMOs in France) and communicated with Les Echos online.The study findings underscore the need to respond to three new realities:

• The empowered customer is now in control of the business relationship
• Delivering customer value is paramount — and an organization’s behavior is as important as the products and services it provides
• The pressure to be accountable to the business is not just a symptom of hard times, but a permanent shift that requires new approaches, tools and skills.

IBM Smarter Cities new advertising is on

Maybe one of my favourite ad from IBM, clearly positing the company on real world issues (see IBM Smarter Cities initiative). The ad will be on TV in France starting today, running on many major channels. The other good new is that if you're interested in engaging with IBM on this topic, you can directly jump from advertising to real life examples in IBM WW solutions center based in south of France (La Gaude Solutions Center).

Learning and mixing thinking styles to transform

As professionals, managers, it's important to step back from the day to day activities to really crystalize our experience while shaping the future. Learning is an important ingredient of that process. I'm spending 3 days in Berlin with other IBM managers from different countries to attend the 'Basic Blue for Business Leaders' session. IBM Launched this core training program in 1999 for managers worldwide. Since its inception, Basic Blue has won numerous industry awards and has had a profound impact on learning at IBM (read the following whitepaper on IBM's learning transformation story).

Back earlier in the 1990s, IBM transformed itself from hardware company to a service-driven organization. This change required rebuilding and re-skilling employee base. Looking at the upcoming years, and the IBM 2015 roadmap objectives, the company will continue to rely on skills development and learning in order to align employees around new business models (i.e. Cloud Computing, Business Analytics & Optimization, Smarter Planet) and to capture business opportunities in the marketplace.

This day 1 of the program was a good way to connect with different managers and cultures, sharing issues and best practices. Before the workshop we had to go through the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) test to better understand what's our thinking style (I won't give you mine but should be easy to find as most bloggers and marketers fall into the same categories) and how that may impact our behaviors and leadership development. The Whole Brain Model summarizes the 4 categories.  There's no 'right or wrong' category, all are important. Individuals may have different thinking preferences that they can leverage to succeed. More about the Whole Brain Model in the book preview here under.

 

 

Roland Garros 2011 on iPad, iPhone and more...

Fan of Tennis? Can't take your TV to the office? Just download the Roland Garros application for iPhone or iPad to get the best of the Tournament including live streaming video (in France), news, photos, scores, visitor's guide, map of stadium, access to Orange Sport mobile website and highlights (apps also available on other devices) More to come on how Roland Garros Tournament uses technologies to deliver superior experience to Tennis fans.

Credits and Thanks :
- FFT: organizer of the Roland-Garros 2010 French Open
- Orange: Official Mobile Broadcaster and publisher of the application
- IBM: Official Partner on Information Technologies, creation/routing of the data streams
- France Télévisions : Official Broadcaster of the tournament/live matches 
- DEGETEL : Design & development of the application

Marketers, 5 reasons for launching your own blog

There are many reasons for creating a blog, mine was simple: people. While working abroad I needed to keep in touch with family and friends, having a blog was the best way to share pictures, videos and interact (through a private/restricted blog). At that time, I've also worked with two bloggers and want to thank them for the inspiration: Ed Brill (@EdBrill) and Alan Lepofsky (@alanlepo). 

As a marketer, you certainly meet with many different people: clients, partners, research and development, analysts, journalists, students...working on various activities ranging from  market analysis, product development, business strategy to digital tactics...so why not giving back parts of this journey to your community?

Here are 5 reasons for jumping into the blogosphere (for the 'how', click here (French):

• Your market/product knowledge is worth sharing (see ideas worth spreading)
• You have great content (testimonials, demos..), make them more personalized
  
• Learn from the outside, blogging obliges you to look around/to benchmark
  
• You know the ecosystem, bring it inside, by connecting the dots with your experts
  
• CMO and CIO are now friends, leverage blogging to strenghten your Web culture
  

Some say 'People are the Brand', very true in a consumer world. But in a B2B world, expertise, relationship and ecosystems matter. Brands are People. No worry, as a blogger you have no obligation of loosing your personality! Write when you want (but still on a regular basis :-), about topics you know best, to people you want to connect with...respecting some basic guidelines (such as the one we have in IBM). Try to identify your core audience in order to meet with your objectives (channel enablement, press relationships...).

In a continuous effort of change management, our Digital team (represented by @henririmbaud) has produced a short video explaining why some of us blog (initially this video was targetting IBM employees). When Brands are People...

IBM France on Twitter

During the last few months, my colleague Henri Rimbaud and the digital team have been busy in federating IBM France employees who are active on the web. Most of them who were twitting or blogging didn't really have the chance to meet yet. The video here under is not just a good way to explain the benefits of Twitter to the corporate world but also acts as a change agent within our own organization. Such communication  initiative suddenly brings more concrete elements on what it is and why people use it .

Some of the key benefits highlighted in the video: engagement with peers/customers/partners, rapid  scan of market news, identification of new projects and contacts, learning about competition, etc.). Social Media/Networks adoption/success in the enterprise still much relies on change management investments such as the following one..

Making markets: IBM Smarter Computing example

As a marketer, it's always fascinating to see how companies are making markets by leveraging existing assets, assembling them in a non-traditional way to disrupt the marketplace while setting up a new vision. It's part of what authors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne detail in Blue Ocean Strategy when they urge companies to "value innovation" that focuses on "utility, price, and cost positions," to "create and capture new demand" and to "focus on the big picture, not the numbers." They challenge companies to break out of the red ocean of bloody competition by creating uncontested market space that makes the competition irrelevant.

Last friday, I was attending a presentation done by Marc Dupaquier, our VP Marketing Communications from the Systems & Technology Group. He took us through a recent announcement of IBM (Smarter Computing) and I felt that it really was about 'making a market'. Multiple factors have led to this announcement: commoditization of hardware business, growth of IT needs while budgets are shrinking, emergence of Cloud Computing, explosion of data, etc. This announcement explains how IBM Smarter Computing changes how systems are designed, how data is managed and analyzed, and how IT is delivered and consumed. Thanks to my colleague Mauricio Godoy for the presentation posted here under:

Pulse Smarter Computing

View more presentations from Mauricio Godoy

To me, Smarter Computing sounds like a game changer where IBM brings different capabilities together (Hardware, Software, Services) in order to shift to high value market segments while delivering more innovation capabilities to the market. For business and IT organisations, this Smarter Computing vision should be an invitation to step back and establish a long term business/IT vision around their data while rethinking how they could achieve greater differentiation, saving money and gaining flexibility:

- If technology could help you to develop a competitive advantage, what would it be?
- What are the data and information that would be required?
- What type of insights would you be able to develop out of these unstructured data?
- From an IT perspective, how would that translate in term of workloads (applications)?

After establishing such vision, the intent is to work backwards on the required IT Infrastructure strategy, going through the following steps: consolidation/virtualization, automation/workload optimization (integration with hardware and software architected to address diverse workload demands), management capabilities across all systems (leveraging Cloud).

For more information about this announcement, do not hesitate to  register and attend to the following webcast on April 6th. Also follow the IBM Smarter Computing launch and announcements on dedicated Twitter and Facebook accounts. 

Shaping a Company and a Century: IBM CEO Sam J. Palmisano at HEC

Beginning of March, we had the pleasure to welcome our CEO Sam J. Palmisano in Paris where he met with President Sarkozy and gave a conference at HEC.  Great moment as he launched IBM Centennial in France and shared how a business and its ideas can shape a company and a century. The video underlines how IBM became a Global Integrated Enterprise, transforming itself in a fast changing world where everything is interconnected. Sam also touched base on the importance of developing a long term thinking management approach as it shapes your R&D investment, says where to invest and allocate your resources or influences how to develop your talents. He has also highlighted that in this changing world, it's critical that companies connect with local communities (giving the example of IBM Corporate Service Corps where diverse team of IBMrs work with local communities in emerging countries). Last but not least, he underlined that organisations meeting the challenges of a changing world have to be prepared to change everything about themselves, except their believes as they move through their corporate life.

Another part of the conference (also well reflected in the following article (La Tribune newspaper) was focusing on the fact that leaders have to rely on their intuition and judgment. Maybe this is why Sam  encouraged students to travel the world and do social networking not online but in the bars...;-)

IBM Centennial video (French)

10 imperatives of the marketing revolution

I recently went through a very interesting video from Aprimo Marketing, the company has been working with Chief Marketing Officers to identify the key imperatives to transform the marketing function in order to address  a new set of challenges. Looking at our current investment at IBM (recent acquisitions of Unica, SPSS, Coremetrics or Cognos are some examples), I recognize that some of them are key transformation drivers and usually have the same starting point: the marketing must be accountable. It may sounds obvious but there will be many changes (cultural, technological...) that will come out of this imperative and marketers should envision it as a unique opportunity to  deliver more value and innovation to their ecosystem (not just clients). Most of all, it's a healthy way to prioritize, manage by objective and remove workloads with low impact to the business. Here is the list of  their top 10 marketing imperatives (mainly about automation/measurement, Digital, brand experience/control):

1. Marketing Must Be Accountable
2. The CMO Must Be the Change Agent
3. Let Go, Customers Control Your Brand
4. Engage Customers With Conversations.
5. Free Your Content
6. Integrate to Innovate Online and Offline
7. Be Mobile. Be Everywhere. Be Relevant
8. Tear Down the Silos
9. Automate the Science of Marketing
10. Be Maniacal, Prove ROI

From an IBM perspective (as we're rapidly increasing our focus on this audience with software solutions coming from acquisitions, consulting and integration services...), it's all about the Agile Enterprise Marketer who has to manage conflicting demands, focusing on short term ROI and marketing's impact/effectiveness while investing in new domains such as Web 2.0 or social networking. I invite you to download and read the CMO Insights whitepaper.

If you are interested in other reports related to the CMO priorities, I encourage you to go to Forrester website to get insights, such as latest report on 'Trends For The CMO To Watch In 2011', here is a recap of the findings: 

• Digital initiatives in order to build brand equity
• Poach and retain new and current customers using digital
• Let the social media war begin! 
• CMOs becoming agents for change within their organizations
• Silos are a thing of the past
• Employees are often your best sales/marketing force
• Video convergence is key
• Marketers thinking about digital assets via a brand driven approach
• Development of a holistic view of ROI

IBM Watson: pure innovation for real world challenges

During the last few days, discussions were all about IBM's Watson supercomputer participation to Jeopardy TV game. Even today, I had a meeting with our worldwide industry marketing team in Paris and we've spent great amount of time discussing  IBM value proposal for companies who need to re-invent themselves, developing new services and products. How can IBM helps these companies in different industries to make best use of existing and massive amount of information to differentiate themselves. Part of the answer resides in hardware and software technologies...which is why we were so enthusiasts about Watson, I'll let you discover this incredible machine invented by IBM that has just won the Jeopardy game and that will help business, government and society to improve the way they work. To me, this is really not about 'Man vs. Machine' but more about 'Man with Machine' to solve world's greatest challenges...

First video is a summary in French from Euronews

If you want to know more about IBM Watson, its participation to Jeopardy and all the possible applications for business, government and society, here is another great video to watch. Also have a look at what Watson could achieve in the healthcare industry (from diagnostics to informatics, Watson could quickly search through medical records, clinical documents, and research information for precise answers that would benefit both doctors and patients)

Comment analyser son marché en utilisant le Web?

Suite à une intervention jeudi soir au Centre des Jeunes Dirigeants d'entreprise (association visant à promouvoir un libéralisme responsable qui met l’Economie au service de l’Homme et de la vie), je souhaitais remercier Tram Nguyen-Trinh et Benoît Galy pour leur invitation ainsi que toute la section des Hauts-de-Seine pour son accueil chaleureux. J'avais préparé quelques slides pour échanger sur les enjeux de la veille et les nouveaux apports du Web.

Connaissance marché et apports du web

View more presentations from Thomas Coustenoble.

Beaucoup de très bons échanges, notamment sur le fait que la veille soit ou non un processus qui permette réellement d'innover. En effet, faut-il toujours essayer de modéliser le futur pour l'inventer? Combien d'analystes voyaient Apple dominer le marché de la tablette il y a deux ans à peine? En amont, la connaissance de son marché permet de mieux anticiper ses évolutions et peut alimenter un processus de R&D mais il est vrai qu'une partie demeure entre les mains de la recherche fondamentale. En aval, elle peut également permettre l'optimisation du positionnement marketing et commercial de la société. Autre point intéressant de nos échanges, le manque de temps et plus généralement de ressources. Avec le Web, plus de données sont disponibles, plus d'interactions sont possibles...il faut donc se recentrer sur un objectif spécifique (mieux connaître un client, prendre des parts de marché à un concurrent, identifier les opportunités sur un segment de marché précis, etc.) et encourager le travail collaboratif pour que l'information se transforme en recommandation pour le business (avec un plan d'action à la clé). La veille doit également être supportée par une orientation client forte, elle ne peut pas être la responsabilité d'une seule personne ou d'un seul département (importance de la culture d'entreprise et de la gestion du changement).

Quelques liens complémentaires suite aux discussions durant le dîner:

• CreekWatch: mesurer la pollution des rivières avec un smartphone (crowdsourcing)
  
• Innovation Jam: organiser un débat sur la toile / trouver de nouvelles idées
  
• LotusLive: plateforme collaborative pro pour quelques euros/an/utilisateur
• Programme Global Entrepreneur: pour les entreprises de moins de trois ans, détenues par des capitaux privés, ayant l'objectif de développer des solutions technologiques innovantes
• Netvibes (non IBM): agréger ses altertes (flux RSS, actualités,...)
• Etude: au coeur des PME: Perspectives 2011, le tournant!
  

IBM France on Facebook

2010 was a year of social media discovery and test for many marketers (with some deception in some cases as expectations were probably too high), 2011 will be the year of Social Media reality for Chief Marketing Officers. Yesterday, I was reading an HBR article highlighting fact that many french companies have been focusing on building relationships with fewer clients rather than broadcasting their message to the world. I thought that it was really going the opposite way of social media philosophy but at the end of the day, the most important is that companies build deeper relationships with their customers. Social Media should support that, and marketers should continue to better align their Digital strategy with specific business needs (sounds obvious but not always the case...yet)

In the last few months, companies showed more maturity, they've learned a lot and know pros and cons of Social Media. Marketers have experienced it and are now in a position to build a shared roadmap on Digital (cross functions). Most have shifted from 'nice to have' to 'must have' while building specific guidelines, consolidating brand presence on fewer platforms with some degree of integration to enterprise marketing systems (marketing automation, web content publishing...).

This week, our IBM Brand System* team has just announced the creation of an official IBM France page on Facebook. This is good new and I hope it will federate our communications, other Facebook  communities and bring our fans up to date with local news. More than this, it should be an extension of offline discussions we have with our ecosystem (clients, partners, government, students, citizens, employees...) on topics such as Smarter Planet. It also opens up new opportunities for our brand to continue to build interactions with students: our Human Resources team has also participated to this project by creating a 'Join us' section. This is also a great way to get different teams working together on building your brand. It has to be coordinated with specific objectives so it can be monitored, improved and deliver concrete benefits to your organization.

*IBM Brand System?

“Picture a framework with five columns. From left to right the columns are labeled what it means to look like IBM, to sound like IBM, to think like IBM, to perform like IBM and ultimately to be IBM…To really activate the System, you go from managing outward expressions and manifestations of the company — visual identity, naming conventions, messaging, design and the like — to the behavior and performance of people. This Brand System is necessarily inclusive of corporate culture.” Jon Iwata (IBM SVP Marketing and Communications) from John Bell's post (Ogilvy)

Launch of IBM France e-newsletter 'A la Une'

Great news from the Digital team today as they're launching the new (and innovative) format of the IBM France e-newsletter  'A la Une' with some great improvements such as: customization options, sharing capabilities on social networks, greater use of visuals and videos, search by industry-role-theme, highlight of customer testimonials and events...

10 lessons learned from author Clotilde Dusoulier

Last friday we had the chance to welcome Clotilde Dusoulier (follow her on Twitter), the author of the famous blog Chocolate & Zucchini (all things food-related -- thoughts, recipes, cookbook, restaurant experiences...). Some of you may wonder what's the linkage between  food and IT! Overall, I have to say that it was a true inspiring moment for our Marketing and Communication team. Here are my 10 leassons learned from her presentation:

1. Blogging is fun but requires an investment on the long run and hard work
2. Blogging is not technical but better if you have a knowledgeable friend on Facebook
3. Tone is as important as design and editorial line. Hard to copy and differentiating
   
4. Connecting the online and offline worlds are key to build loyalty, enrich experience
   
5. It's not about 'fans' or people who 'like', it's about engaging with your audience
6. Innovation requires experimentation and risk acceptance
7. Inspiration comes with passion for what you do and people you meet with
   
8. Keep an eye on disruptive technologies, wait for the mainstream to deploy
   
9. Recipe and elements are important but be ready for change in the execution
10. ...cook seasonal vegetables/fruits to lower your carbon footprint ;-)

So there are much more connexions than what we think between consumer and business blogging, between major companies and individual entrepreneurs or even between food and IT. We can't wait reading her next book and meeting with other forward thinkers such as Clotilde. Now I really have to try her Chocolate & Zucchini cake recipe, anyone free for a cooking session next week?

 

Summary of the 2010 Gartner Symposium/IT Expo

After 4 days at Gartner Symposium, I thought I’d summarise a couple of  the top themes and topics discussed with analysts, clients and partners. This event was a good time to step back, hear from the IT leaders and meet with some of the 3300 attendees, Gartner confirms that it was the biggest EMEA Symposium in the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Cannes 2010 last ten years (see post from Jeffrey Mann for more stats). Here are the key highlitghts:

1. Four broad and converging trends that will change IT, Economy and the Business (details in the Gartner announcement): Cloud, business impact of social computing, Context Aware Computing, Pattern Based Strategy (on this latest one, I strongly recommend Carole-Ann post 'Pattern Based Strategy, a survival guide explained')

2. Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2011 (more details here): Cloud Computing, Mobile Applications and Media Tablets (I saw many iPads used by IT leaders during the conference....and Gartner encourages CEO to act sooner than later regarding Tablets), Social Communications and Collaboration, Video, Next Generation Analytics, Social Analytics, Context Aware Computing, Storage Class Memory, Ubiquitous Computing, Fabric-Based Infrastructure and Computers.

3. Seven Major Projects CIOs Should Consider During the Next Three Years (more details here), we find some of the top 10 Technology trends plus others such as: IT/Operational Technology Alignment, sustainability, need to balance cost and innovation with risk and governance.

Overall, good 2010 experience of the Symposium, also thanks to services such as: online webcasts, real-time reactions from the audience on Twitter (I also really liked the post from Carol Rozwell showing a visual summary of what people were talking about on day 2 and the one on day 3, showing patterns) , Gartner announcements on Facebook or Twitter, customized agenda on iPhone...I also had good discussions with Andrea Di Maio (Government) and James Richardson (BI, Analytics, Social) and interesting discussions with some vendors in the IT Expo (such as Nokia, thanks to the team for the new N8 demo, was also glad to see our Lotus software showcased :-)  IBM presence demonstrating BPM / Lombardi Software. Of course, there's much more to say about the Symposium so I encourage you to visit Gartner websites and blogs to get latest insights and announcements. See you next year!