IBM Consolidates Entire Ecosystem Around Kate Woolley

… simplified deal registration. Wooley said registering a deal that once took a half-hour now can be completed in 2 minutes.

“The simplicity of it is amazing,” she said.

But that’s just the beginning, Woolley emphasized.

“We have to simplify and streamline it even more in terms of how we engage with our partners and how they engage with us on a day-to-day basis,” she said. “How do we give them the right recommendations? How do we give them simplified parts of training, certifications, onboarding? That all is the end-to-end digital experience we are creating.”

Ambitious Goals

For Woolley, it’s not just about having partners doing more with IBM. She wants to see ecosystem revenue double within the next three to five years by executing against IBM’s hybrid cloud and AI strategy. Woolley sees two keys to achieving that.

“We need to be easier to do business with, and we need to be essential to their business,” Woolley said.

The new partner portal will play a pivotal role, she said, in terms of providing an improved digital experience.

Another area IBM will invest in is providing partners the skills they need. This year, IBM has increased the number of technical specialists and support serving its ecosystem by 35%; plus, it has expanded its labs for ISVs, GSIs and other partners.

“We’re investing there, and then continuing to evolve our training skilling competencies and all of that,” she said.

Bain Connection

Coming to IBM after 14 years as a Bain partner wasn’t an arbitrary move. At Bain, Woolley led its technology practice while also co-leading its Cloud Computing Center of Excellence. Woolley said sales excellence and customer experience were key areas of focus in that role.

Among her many clients was Krishna on behalf of IBM, as well as La Rose.

“At a very high level, I had seen and worked with IBM from the outside and had worked closely with Arvind and I believed in his vision for IBM, the vision around hybrid cloud and AI,” she said. “The market had spoken around hybrid cloud being the destination and AI being one of the most powerful forces. I believed in Arvind’s leadership, so when he was announced as CEO, and we had a discussion about me joining IBM. It felt like the right thing to move into the middle of a really large transformation.”