by Cody Charpentier - 02 Dec 2013, 11:56:10
This past month, I had the pleasure of attending Amazon Web Services’ 2013 re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The conference offered many things: 175+ expert-led sessions, keynotes from the AWS executive branch, and a bass-pumping Deadmau5 concert, to name a few. What left the greatest impact though, was the APN summit discussion presented by Tiffani Bova of Gartner.
Tiffani is a woman of many talents. She is currently a VP and Distinguished Analyst with Gartner Research - a company she has worked with for over seven years. The seventeen years of experience in IT that Tiffani has under her belt, has led her to amass a wealth of knowledge in comprehensive sales strategies as well as serving as a leading innovator in cloud services brokerage. In my opinion, Ms. Bova is one of the brightest thinkers in 21st century sales strategies and as a woman in a similar field with a similar passion; I find her a true inspiration.
Tiffani’s discussion covered many topics, but I will discuss three - channel and market trends, the “Nexus of Forces” and channel innovation.
In the first part of her discussion, Tiffani presented current channel and market trends. I’ve highlighted those trends below:
- IT purchases are moving out from under IT department control and into new buying centers
- IT skills lines blur between traditional IT skills and business skills and for a business to be successful, both must be understood
- Software Development Integration and Custom Development are critical for Cloud services
- New Competition: partners that are “born into the Cloud,” or in other words, partners that have created a business from the Cloud and are not having to migrate to the Cloud
- Hybrid IT: client adoption trends are forcing new orchestration and management requirements for businesses
After identifying the above trends, Tiffani then presented a concept that she coined, the “Nexus of Forces.” In short, “the nexus of forces describes the convergence and mutual reinforcement of four interdependent trends: social interaction, mobility, cloud and information.” (Gartner)
The forces are then used by the individual to heighten thought-process and enrich discussions concerning technology. Having an understanding of the NOF tool, Tiffani then goes ahead and discusses more trends based on this model. I’ve highlighted those trends below:
- Top IT solutions selections priorities: service and support quality, easy to manage and maintain, total cost of ownership
- Cloud computing now requires new roles: Enterprise Architect, Service Manager, Capacity Manager and Automation Specialist
- Cloud Service Brokerage is becoming a popular sales plan for businesses: CSB serves as an intermediary administrator between the company and the consumer and provides a value-added service and centralized government
Lastly, Tiffani discussed channel innovation and it’s importance in IT, specifically within Cloud computing. In Tiffani’s eyes, channel innovation is a must. Business innovation must be parallel to the fast-paced growth of technology or else the business will eventually fail. She takes this a step further by providing an example - to remain relevant, IT must bridge legacy offerings and new services that are based on new technologies, new delivery models and new architectures.
What I have presented to you barely skims the surface of Tiffani Bova’s discussion. That said, the information I have provided offers a start to understanding the market of technology and the technology of the market. In this day and age, both are undeniably in unison.
Citations:
Gartner,. "Analyst Profile - Tiffani Bova." Garner. Gartner, n.d. Web. 2 Dec 2013 Gartner,. "The Nexus of Forces: Social, Mobile, Cloud and Information." Gartner. Gartner, n.d. Web. 2 Dec 2013comments powered by Disqus