BYRON BANK
Insight Applied: Large Enterprise - SAP
Byron Bank, Global VP, Product Marketing, Analytics and Big Data at SAPSAP will share their trials and best practices for understanding the market, aligning internally, and launching.
Thank you, Rowan. In true marketing fashion, I′m going to rename my talk right now. It's Bomb Avoidance. My entire talk is all about bomb avoidance. Let me start with SAP. Again, we′re in San Francisco. I think most people know who SAP is. Sorry, it′s a bit of a brag slide, but we′ve been in business for 44 years. We run a lot of the systems that, quite frankly, a lot of you actually use. I looked at the list before I got here, and a lot of people in the room are customers of SAP, partners of SAP, so honestly, thank you for being on this journey with us for 44 years. So again, you can see the stats. Big company. We do business, 190 countries, 85,000 employees. The only stat that matters is this one here for today′s talk. 120 million cloud users of our systems. A handful of years ago, that number was probably the first digit, less than a million. So even though we′ve been around for 44 years, we′ve done a lot of good things. In the last five years, we have been dramatically transforming our business. And again, we′re in San Francisco. Everybody knows about the cloud, the move to the cloud, all of that. People just want to connect to the software and use it, provided it provides value, which makes it a very interesting role for us as marketers, but also as a business, the things we build, the things we provide. We′ve acquired a lot of companies. You′ve heard about them, Concur, Ariba, SuccessFactors. We built a lot organically, but we have been on a rocket ship the last five years, growing our business. 30 percent is a really low year-over-year growth number for that business. 100 percent, 200 percent is not unusual for us, and I know it′s not unusual for you, because together in this industry, we′re all on that journey. So with that in mind, and why I renamed my presentation 10 seconds ago, is bomb avoidance. I′m not going to sit here and in 12 minutes teach you or share with you how to do a lot of the things that the other speakers from Pragmatic and Serious Decisions. They′re experts, and we use them all. I′ve used them all at multiple jobs. But the key is, you′ve got to avoid the bombs. Those bombs take so much energy out of what you′re trying to do, and again, this isn′t a big surprise. Confusion between product marketing, product management, that′s pretty obvious, but also marketing, corporate marketing, brand marketing, and product marketing. Where is everybody′s role? How do we work together? Project management, we do lots of wonderful things like product launches, events, campaigns. We do that. It′s important to product marketing. We get very good at it, and then all of a sudden, the entire organization is coming towards us. Can you run this for us, this internal campaign to get our employees excited about this new venture? Can you do this for sales? Can you run the sales kickoff? These are important things. Not sure we, as content experts about our market, need to be doing that job. And again, in technology, the third one, it′s really dangerous trap in technology, because what we do is build wonderful things and we iterate them, and it′s features, features, faster, better, more data, product, product, product. We sometimes forget marketing, understanding the customer, understanding the needs, understanding the opportunity. We get locked up with the engineers and the product management people, and all those features are wonderful things, but we forget about the marketing part of our job. Number four, how and when to say no. And again, maybe it′s flattering. We′re very, very good at what we do. We get some success. People come to us with new ideas all the time. Christmas, I′m going to get a thousand great ideas at Christmas parties, not just the SAP Christmas party, but everyone I go, why don′t you do this? What about that? How do you say no in an appropriate way? And then next year′s plan. I fully agree. Marketing is an iterative process. It isn′t. You set a plan. You run the campaign through the year. New campaigns, new things are happening all the day, but budgets, people, resources, strategy, we still run for a lot of public companies and private companies. We run on some sort of fiscal calendar. So this year was a really good year. Well, next year, let′s get a little more people, a little more budget, 10% more, keep doing the same thing, and we′ll continue to grow this business 30%. It′s not a static market. You can′t just add. But I ask you, how many of you are looking at plans right now for next year that look a lot like this year′s plan with just a little bit more, just a little bit more stuff? It′s a trap. You get caught in that trap, the market shifts, you′re so far. So five tactics to avoid the bombs so that you can focus on, quite honestly, what most of the other speakers are going to talk about today. First, know your role. And again, this picture, it′s pretty easy. Certain jobs, it′s very, very easy to know who you are, what you′re doing. You′re wearing a uniform. It′s incredibly obvious. In our role in product marketing, because we touch so many parts of the business, it is really confusing for us sometimes, but more importantly, it′s confusing for the stakeholders we work with. What really is product marketing′s role versus product management′s role versus field marketing? So, find a methodology. You know, again, there′s some great methodologies here. They′re all different. They all have good things, bad things about them that may or may not fit your business, but pick one. And most importantly, don′t just use it in product marketing. Get the rest of the organization to understand the methodology. That doesn′t mean they wake up every day and use one of those cheese sheets, but they have it. I mean, we′re marketers. Can we not explain our role to our organization so that they know how to use us most effectively? How do they excite us? How to inspire us and how to get us working for them on their mission? And again, our role, a lot of sharing, lots of things. You know, sales enablement, that is my favorite one. Like product roadmaps, it′s pretty obvious who′s going to be doing product roadmaps. And marketing campaigns, it′s pretty obvious who′s going to be doing that. But things like sales enablement, who owns sales enablement? Product management, product marketing, the training organization, certain companies, different parts of it. The point is, it doesn′t matter who owns it. We all contribute to it, but somebody has to own it. Some organization has to own how we decide how to enable our field, our partners, how to take all of the input from all of those organizations and deliver it. Because if nobody owns it and it′s not obvious, everybody′s just throwing slides, PowerPoints, collateral demos, it′s a mess. The field′s confused, but much, much worse. Your customers are confused. Maybe it′s kind of old school, but my belief is everybody contributes, collaboration is great. But ultimately there needs to be a person, department, process to handle ownership and delivery. A committee doesn′t write very good poetry, I would attest. Second one, around project management. And again, I′m not saying avoid project management. There′s things that we do. I actually started my career as a project manager at IBM. I was a consultant for that. But you got to avoid all of the other things that aren′t related to building your business, accelerating growth. So the things that truly are in ours, yes, we absolutely own it, we have great project management. But for the things that aren′t related to growing the business, understanding the market, driving our company forward, figure out a way to avoid those. You got to step away from them. But you may be involved in a project in a slightly different capacity. And in that capacity, if you′re not driving it, it sometimes gets a little frustrating as to how to move the project forward. I′m not really sure where it′s going. And again, maybe it′s a lot of my experience with field enablement and trying to figure out who′s doing what. I learned this trick from an executive, and it′s a very simple trick, and I didn′t even realize he was using it. But he would set up a meeting. Usually, not a meeting, if he was worried about a project, he wouldn′t set up a meeting this afternoon or tomorrow. He would set it up five days for now. And it would just be, update on project ORCA. That′s all it said, and he would invite eight people, you know, field, sales, marketing, product management. And in those four days, we would all get together and figure out how to get that project on the rails. And we would make the decisions, we′d figure out the issues, we′d dictate where the issues are, the decisions he had to make or she had to make. It was amazing how that simple tactic moved so many projects that were going nowhere for months. In five days, they would move gigantic paths forward. And we would have an engagement model by the time we got to that meeting for how to work as a team to roll out that new initiative. So again, very trivial, but call a meeting. Make new friends. Again, we′re all here as product marketing people sharing, but again, we can get into that rut sometimes of thinking about B2B, technology industry, whatever industry you′re in, and just thinking about it. And I love this idea of making new friends. Hang out with people you don′t know in industries you′re not aware of. And again, I love what we′re doing here in product marketing with this association. But I also joined a number of other associations. Some that do B2C, some that do things like selling flavored water. And I love that because I go in, the first few times I went to the meetings, I was saying, these people aren′t like me. They don′t deal with the issues that I deal with. But in working with them and listening and sharing, the challenges of selling flavored water, and again, I have no issues with flavored water. I love it. But one flavored water versus another. It′s not features and speeds and speeds. It′s understanding your customer, building a relationship with your customer, having faith and going on a journey with them so that as you come out with a new flavor of water, they will think of you. It′s incredibly useful to bring, to help me think about how I do marketing for the technology products we sell. Because again, you can get into that rut of it′s all about features, it′s all about features. So hang out with people that do marketing in completely different ways. The ideas you bring back, again, your organization is looking for the ideas, not just the next tweak. New ideas, new ways of thinking. Hang out with some people that aren′t doing product marketing in whatever industry you are and then bring it back to your organization and share it. Have a theme. Again, I have been using this for a while, but it finally crystallized about a month ago. Have a theme. So I was listening to NPR about a month ago. Francis Ford Coppola was speaking to Terry Gross, Fresh Air. He′s film′, everybody knows him, or most people, film director, Godfather, Apocalypse Now. And he was talking about the challenge he had in making movies because 70% of the time, every day, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. The way to set up the angle, how to use the actors, it was all really, really clear. But every once in a while, he was a little unsure how to make the decision. What should I do here? And what he said is, I always had a theme for my movie, a one word theme that helped me stay on track on what was really important and not get caught up in the bombs of the day. He didn′t use bombs, but I think it applies. So for the Godfather, everybody knows the Godfather, mob family, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What was the theme? It wasn′t about mafia, wasn′t about gangsters, wasn′t about killing. Now, if anybody actually listened, you can′t shout it out because that′s cheating. You remember, the theme for the movie was succession. It was all about succession. The start of the movie, Michael Corleone, who was Al Pacino, just got out of the Army, was with his girlfriend at a wedding, kind of looked like this actually in the set up, Lake Tahoe. And he was going, I hate my family, they′re terrible, they′re awful, they′re killers, Kate, we want nothing to do with them. And by the end of the movie, he was the Godfather. So the entire movie, with all of everything, the journey was how he changed from where he started to by the end of the movie, he was the Godfather. All about succession, how he rose through that role through the entire movie. And I just looked at that and I went, that′s a lot about product marketing and that′s a lot about staying focused. I have a theme. So next year, I′m working on a lot of activities, I have a theme. Maybe I′ll come back next year and I′ll actually quiz you. If you watch what we′re doing, we′ll see what the theme is. But it really is, it′s one word to kind of keep you on track when all of the bombs come. And the final one, disrupt your business. And again, this applies to marketing, it applies to everything. But we′re product marketing. We see so much that other parts of the organization don′t see. We′re looking out outward into what′s happening in our industry. What are the customers doing? What are our competitors doing? What do the trends look like? Even if you′re successful, you need to think about disrupting your business. And I know that′s kind of easy to say and everybody says it, but it′s really true. We have that lovely opportunity of seeing so many parts of the business, working with sales, working with development, working with partners. We get a really good perspective. And if we don′t disrupt it and build the business cases, build the emotion, build the momentum, who will? And the part I would think about and the key takeaway that I found really useful is, don′t assume your disruptions are going to work. Not all of them are going to work. So when you build a plan, don′t assume that you′re going to do all of these things and you′re going to have these three brilliant ideas and they′re going to work out exactly like you expect. Most of your disruptions are probably going to fail or be inconsequential, not really have any impact. Build that into your plan. Don′t build a plan that assumes if every disruption works exactly like I expect, I will hit my targets. Assume you′re going to miss your targets at least half of the time in your disruptions, maybe 70 percent of the time. Build your plan so that if all your disruptions worked, you would achieve 200 percent of your plan. But like Silicon Valley investing or whatever, a few of them will work and they will drive it forward. They will build the momentum for your company, even a company like SAP as big as we are, and drive you to the next place you need to be down the road. So my five takeaways. Know your role, but make sure everybody else knows it too. Project manage what you need to do. But when you′re not project managing and you need to move a project forward, call a meeting with the right executives, things will happen. Don′t just hang out with people you know and understand. Stretch yourself, get a little uncomfortable. Have a theme in everything you do, every strategy you put in place, and disrupt your business. That′s it. Thank you very much.