Q&A: IBM's Carter Sees Opportunities In Current Economy

In May, Sandy Carter was appointed to oversee channel operations for the IBM Software Group. Carter, a 20-year IBM veteran, previously served as chief marketing officer for the company's WebSphere, SOA and Business Process Management software. We recently caught up with Carter for a phone interview as she approached the three-month milestone in her new position.

I believe you've worn multiple hats in the software group?

My role was chief marketing officer for WebSphere, SOA and BPM. And that involved channels, strategy and marketing. Now I run the software group channel business. I use those words very carefully -- we're going to run this as a business. And I'll be building on the success of my predecessor with some new strategies to drive growth for the software business through the channel. You've probably heard [Senior Vice President and software group executive] Steve Mills talk about his growth strategy that involves all the acquisitions we've made to grow our business [and] the organic growth that we achieve. The third part of that growth is the channel. So that will be the piece of the business I run for Steve.

Do you report to Mills?

I report to Robert LeBlanc, the general manager for all sales, marketing and strategy [in the software group]. You know, I'm afraid to even say that I don't work for Steve because Steve and I meet weekly. He's directly involved in this, which is exciting from a channel perspective, because Steve Mills is an icon in the industry. He sees such importance and such value in the channel that he kind of handpicked me and placed me in this role to continue the great work that's going on here. But he's also personally guiding and reviewing [channel operations] and making sure that we're going to use this for explosive growth.

You replaced Mark Ouellette, vice president of worldwide business partner sales, who retired in May after 32 years with the company. Does your role differ from his?

Ouellette did the sales portion of this job. The exciting thing now is that this is really looking at the channel as a business. So [Carter's job] involves not just the sales, which are critical, but also the geography and the brand. It's also looking at the general business and the marketing, how we run the marketing campaigns, which are really important to the partners for air cover, and the strategy. What are the new business models, where are we heading, to drive more profitability for partners and for us? So it's really an expanded role on the great job Mark had done in this role before.

What does this new role include?

There are two primary goals. First is to drive revenue growth. And that's for IBM, obviously, but also for the partner community. So in that role I look after all the geographies' sales teams who are driving revenue with the partners on the ground, feet on the street. We also look at driving the brand's revenue.

So each of the general managers has a channel strategy and plan, and those people report to me. So we look at what is the brand strategy for partners at Lotus. Which is different, from, say, Tivoli. We just did a Tivoli review this morning. So how do I help Bob Picciano, who is the general manager of Lotus, and how do I help Al Zollar, who is the general manager for Tivoli? And part of growing that revenue and driving that pipeline is [determining] how we expand into new markets and how we use marketing and demand-generation programs to do that. The air cover of Smarter Planet is an example.

The second major goal is to increase client value from partners. This was a big mantra when [former IBM CEO] Lou Gerstner took over. It was all about client value. [Current CEO] Sam [Palmisano] has continued that. So what we're doing is really looking at how we increase the client value from our partner community. And that's where you see things like our [Dynamics Infrastructure Specialty Program] skills initiative, making sure that our partners have the skills required to not just sell the software, but deploy it for the right business outcome for that end customer.

So you'll see us do a lot of activities to train our resellers on new products from our acquisitions, like Cognos is a big partner play. Or make sure the resellers are up to date on the latest solution-selling and industry-selling [strategies] for business domains, which our customers are really looking for today. And, of course, all of the strong technology and capabilities [from the acquisitions] as well.

How do you interface with the rest of IBM's channel operations?

There are a couple of ways that work. Rich Hume has responsibility for the Business Partner Organization [BPO]. He has a group that gets together from across IBM from GTS [Global Technology Solutions], which has partner activities, STG [Storage and Technology Group] and the Software Group.

And the other thing that I've kicked off, which I'm really excited about, is a software group channels board. What that allows us to do for the first time is to bring together not just the geographies and the brands, but the people who focus on the general business area where we're heavily dependent on partners. The [independent software vendors and developer relations] organization, which Jim Corgel runs to drive our ISV business, [and] Tim McChristian from the business partner organizations, they're part of that board to help us make sure we're staying in sync and how to get greater synergy between them. So it brings in the other parts of [sales and distribution] from IBM, the overall BPO organization, and then some of the other brands so we stay in sync.

It's really exciting because, if you think about some of the shifts and transformations that we're driving, it allows us to keep the channel in the forefront of thought and not as an afterthought. People on my board are involved in planning and delivering new products. So it's really going to enable us to be partner-ready, deliver partner-ready solutions right out of the gate, have great input from partners and really work collaboratively with partners. Not just on the sales side, but on the planning and delivery side as well.

The channel is becoming an increasingly important element in IBM's strategy. You saw Sam Palmisano send out the [new] partner charter and that signifies the growing importance of partners within IBM.

Next: The Channel In Changing Times