Speakers:
Mitch Mayne
Public Information Officer
IBM
Wendi Whitmore
Global Lead for X-Force IRIS
IBM
IBM recognizes that security is a team sport, and interoperability among partners is required to provide the most effective security solutions. The Ready for IBM Security Intelligence ecosystem provides solutions that integrate together to make all us more secure. Is it enough to have the leading security solutions integrated in your customer's company?
IBM realized that their customers may not know how to spring into action around cyberattacks, one of the most threatening forces on corporations today. Understanding this challenge, the company built the X-Force Command Center, a state of the art cyber range, to help teams simulate a live cyberattack scenario. Organizations need to be equipped with not only the right tools, but the best practices, expertise, and leadership skills to make them work. Mayne and Whitmore will bring attendees into a learning, cyber business incident response scenario to increase their experience with successful defensive outcomes in today's pervasive security culture. With more than 1,500 customers participating in the range and collecting best practices, IBM created the first Cyber Best Practices Laboratory. In this session, gain an understanding how IBM is modeling the IBM Security Intelligence ecosystem to prepare customers for cyber battle.
Speaker:
Mayank Bawa
CEO and Co-Founder
WorkSpan
Ray Homan
Vice President of Business Development
SAP
Alliance teams are responsible for engaging with their company's go-to-market ecosystem to deliver value on five dimensions to drive revenue, determine partner preference, incorporate partner innovation, reduce time to market, and land new markets and customers.
To keep pace with the speed of change in the market, alliance teams need to plan and execute on these five dimensions at a speed and scale that is ever-increasing. Embracing alliance relationship management solutions enables the operationalization across their alliance partners.
Join the discussion sharing real world examples and best practices to not just survive—but thrive—in the alliance economy. Learn how to:
Speakers:
Kashif Abbasi
Senior Director, Partner Sales Acceleration, Global Partner Organization
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Lorin Coles, CSAP
CEO, Alliancesphere
Principal, SMART Partnering
In the old days of yesterday, technology providers went to market through well-defined routes. Channel partners either added value or simply provided product to systems integrators whose industry and use-case expertise make them trusted advisors. That world is breathing its last.
Today, leading tech companies have moved to an end-to-end partnering model of ideation, creation, and monetization. They are orchestrating their own immediate ecosystem and expanding their influence to bring together the multiple partners required to create, deliver, and capture value from the complex solutions required by specialized use cases.
This partner-to-partner (P2P) model requires new skills of alliance managers. It demands an ability to influence a multi-faceted, multi-party value exchange. It is primarily a sell-with model that is being introduced to a sales force that best knows sell-through. It is essential to reach the midmarket companies that are realizing true business value through digital transformation--and moving to the cloud and upgrading their applications at an astounding rate.
Drawing from the learnings of Cisco's ACES (Accelerating Cisco Ecosystem Sales) program, this conversation between the partners who developed and are implementing the program on a global scale offers participants:
Speaker:
Leslie Tom
Senior Vice President, AppExchange Marketing & Programs
Salesforce
The Salesforce journey as an innovator in the API economy has created the largest technology ecosystem and most active marketplace, generating 50% of Salesforce's revenue. The enabler was the advent of cloud technology and Software-as-a-Service. Salesforce noticed early on that a valuable and rich source of transforming solutions that solve customer problems could be nurtured by creating a robust partner ecosystem. Salesforce's partner program and open platform offer all partners the advantage of building a business supported by the AppExchange.
Join Leslie Tom to hear how the AppExchange strategy and partnering culture at Salesforce have developed an ecosystem of partners that continually brings new value to the Salesforce platform. She will discuss many topics, including:
Speakers:
Janine Grasso
Vice President Strategy and Ecosystem Development for Blockchain
IBM Industry Platform
Todd Miller, CA-AM
Vice President, US Business Development
ChromaWay
Though still very early in the technology life-cycle, blockchain has generated an enormous amount of excitement across industries including high technology, financial services, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and agriculture. The enthusiasm is partially attributable to the rise of crypto currencies like bitcoin, but also driven by the recognition that technologies that facilitate decentralized data sharing and secure transactions will accelerate new business models beyond even Uber, Spotify, and AirBnB.
The presenters will provide perspectives on how established enterprises and startups are responding to disruption and fashioning new ecosystem frameworks that leverage blockchain technologies and new models of trust. The session will cover:
Speakers:
Michael Marchuk
Chief Technology Evangelist
Blue Prism
Scott Van Valkenburgh, CSAP
Vice President, Global Alliances Leader
Genpact
Robotic process automation (RPA, also referred to as robotics or "bots") is having a profound effect on business, with the potential to revolutionize the world of work. RPA automates repetitive and routine tasks, freeing up knowledge workers to do higher value tasks. RPA projects are generating ROI between 30 to 200 percent according to a recent McKinsey study. Almost all companies are experimenting with this technology, and early adopters are seeking first mover advantage.
Genpact has been investing in building RPA capabilities for several years now, and has implemented several successful RPA projects with partners.
Scott Van Valkenburgh has been leading the effort to establish Genpact's RPA partnering strategy and will share lessons learned from working with executives to define the company's overall strategy and developing execution muscle to create differentiation for Genpact. A RPA partner joins the session to share the journey in partnering and growing business together.
This session will cover:
Speaker:
Nina Harding
Channel Chief
Google Cloud
Transformation is everywhere in this new world of continuous change. So it is no surprise that the way Google is engaging and partnering with its partner ecosystem also has to transform. Partners can no longer build their business on transactional license procurement. They now have to become business advisors that solve their customers' business challenges in an agile, customer-centric, digital environment. Having intimate knowledge of customers' industry, trends, challenges and vision is essential to becoming the ultimate business advisor. With buyers changing from IT administrators to line of business managers, the conversations and solutions are changing as well. Based on this industry backdrop, the way programs are designed ultimately has to align to the customer needs.
Key considerations in building these new partner programs are:
Moderator:
Ann Trampas, CSAP
Professional Development Lead
Phoenix Consulting Group
Panelists:
Neil Blecherman
IoT and Digital Transformation Consultant
Keith Chambers
Director, Operations Management Software
AVEVA
Scott Smith
Founder
Fathym
Today we often talk about the Internet of Things (IoT) and wonder why adoption hasn't happened more quickly. In reality, the foundation of the IoT has been around since the 1980s when large manufacturing companies started collecting data to analyze production performance. It is no surprise the initial success stories are found in manufacturing. Today's cloud technology offers smaller companies similar functionality for gathering and analyzing performance data—so why is there not a faster adoption rate when the potential return on investment (ROI) and impact on efficiency seem obviously clear?
In the consumer device market, IoT platforms are revolutionizing the time-to-market by not only collecting behavior data, but by enabling an ecosystem of interconnected devices and apps. The word is out and consumers are driven to purchase the latest magical experience and benefit from faster deliveries of new devices that work together and can do more, such as a smart house. However, getting there is highly disruptive, with challenges of privacy, security, competition, and monetization of the investment needing to keep up as quickly as the development of these IoT-enabled solutions.
As with any disruption, nimble startups will enter the arena and existing companies will adapt. In this lively discussion, hear from panelists in this field who will share insights from the perspective of established and startup as well as industrial and consumer companies. Join the panel in discussing the ride ahead.