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Document 6504956
ID120: How to "Sell" IBM Lotus Notes and Domino Inside Your Organization Libby Ingrassia, LotusUserGroup.org Ed Brill, IBM WHO Ask yourself: HOW WHAT WHERE WHEN WHY 1 Agenda WHAT does it mean to “sell” Notes internally? WHO does the selling? To whom do you sell? WHY me? Why is it necessary? WHEN do you need to sell? HOW do you sell? How do you get numbers (TCO and ROI) for your argument? WHERE will you do the selling? Where will you get information for the selling? What Does It Mean to Sell Notes Internally? Support the product that is the right choice – presumably Notes – but without emotional attachment, based on sound business cases and what’s best for your company. Act as: Expert Evangelist / Champion Tech Support / Knowledge Base Competitive Guru Analyst Support a constant and on-going process 2 What Will You Be Up Against? Competition Notes Gets Blamed for Everything (redux) Where’s your pithy one-liner? Also: Preconceptions Hot-buttons To Whom will you be selling? Sell throughout the organization, and in partner/customer organizations, when appropriate Sell to peers (“bottom up” approach) Build interest and consensus within the organization Sell to the end users Focus on: features, usability Sell to decision-makers (“top-down” approach) Write a business case Focus on: ROI, cost, benefits to organization Remember that most “top-down” decisions are new initiatives 3 Who does the selling? You do. Why Me? Is there someone better suited? Is it more important to anyone else? “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” Westley, The Princess Bride 4 Why Sell Internally? Market and environmental conditions make extra support necessary in many environments Environmental conditions include: Every end user is an IT professional Home computing influences the office Standards vs. keeping up with the latest Interoperability Market conditions include: Standard IT refresh/re-evaluation cycles Pressures from Microsoft (license bundling, CIO meetings, etc.) Pressures from partners and customers to use similar technologies Pressures from point solution products (wikis, mail servers, etc.) a.k.a. “the buzz”…what’s the latest hot trend? What Gartner Says About “Why”: Concern and/or unhappiness about the evolution of Domino toward Workplace A desire for broad Outlook deployments Wariness over lessening third-party vendor support for Domino Concern over eroding Domino market share Acceleration of Microsoft investments in e-mail/collaboration products End-user demand for Microsoft Office products, including "free" tools, such as WSS From Gartner Report: Focus on Business Issues, Not Emotions, When Considering IBM Lotus Domino Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00136165, Matthew W. Cain, Tom Austin, 23 November 2005. 5 One More Why… Notes biggest problem’s are… What’s your pithy one-liner?, aka “What is Notes?” Notes gets blamed for everything (redux) What is Notes? (pt 1) Hans Jürgen said: Notes is more than e-mail. Notes is an environment to support P2P Cooperation. Notes is suitable for specialized applications, which are tuned to individual needs. Experienced developers are able to adapt solutions to the continuously changing users' requirements with a suitable effort. The maintenance of a distributed application by the automatic update process is effective (no interruption in operational use). Notes application products restrict this freedom a bit, because of the need to increase the numbers of licenses. IBM is not interested in small groups of users, which are in Small and Medium Size Enterprises. It is more than 60% of total business. The collaboration of users require a secure protection of their individual information. Notes fulfills this requirement, but IT Managers and CEOs prefer a transparent centralized IT landscape. But real life isn't so. There is an individual competition for the access and evaluation "of knowledge". Therefore organizations and persons do not promote Notes Domino, as they believe Notes applications reduce their influence. 6 What is Notes? (pt 2) Paul T. said: Whenever I get asked to explain what Notes is, the first thing I ask is what people think it is, and normally they all say "Email," as you have mentioned. I disagree, I call it a complete Application Development environment - with email built in. As a comparison, I suggest that If you want to build an application in Notes, all you need is - Notes, and you can email integrate out of the box (One box). If you want to build an application in Outlook, you need Outlook, maybe Exchange server, possibly SQL server, perhaps Windows 2003 prof, and maybe VB also, or .NET, or Access, or perhaps.....etc... With Notes you can build powerful, scalable applications, that that can work on the Web client, and Notes client simultaneously, with almost the same look and feel, and can build these applications in a matter of hours, or days, rather than weeks for other tools. I also demonstrate some of the applications we have here, that deal with CRM, or Order Entry, or Issue Management, and ask how they could apply things such as this to their own sphere of work, and that gets people thinking. One last thing I always mention is that in the first Notes course I attended back in 1995 the tutor stood at the front and said "What can Notes do? What sort of applications can we design? Anything you say the answer is Yes." So far, in the nine years I have worked with Notes, he has not been wrong. What is Notes? (pt 3) Julian said: I just read the "This Week" newsletter, with the question about how to explain Lotus Notes. I couldn't easily find the forum post that this question came from (if there was one), so I figured I'd just give you a few links in an e-mail. Try these for references: http://www.nsftools.com/misc/WhatIsNotes.htm (my own page, but I think it's useful) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Notes http://www-12.lotus.com/ldd/doc/uafiles.nsf/docs/inside-notes (a much more technical document) Tracy said: When I receive the question of; "What is Lotus Notes?" I typically respond, "It's a messaging application in which, it allows you the ability to create collaborative applications that can be used company wide." 7 What is Notes? (pt 4) From http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000150023709/ “It was the first collaborative computing application that could allow people around the world to share information. Touch information one time, make it available to everyone… …it was an amazing application that changed the way my and our customers businesses worked. It made us all dramatically more productive, and accelerated the acceptance of multimedia and email into corporate America. It set the precedent of connecting companies electronically with their customers.” “Notes gets blamed for everything” (Redux) “Notes won't print” PC/Server Crashed/Slow/Needing upgrade – Notes/Domino Blamed PC Slow - Notes Blamed Poor implementation/management vs. problem with product 8 Is it Always About the Competition? Competition is one reason, but not the only reason Replace Notes with MS or other competition Probably most common though Support existing Notes/Domino environment Add to or upgrade your environment Prevent disgruntlement from taking over Mergers & Acquisitions It’s about existing perceptions, too 16+ years in market carries with it a lot of history Bad experiences, bad applications Limitations from past releases Notes is typically one of the most frequently used applications Because users spend so much time in Notes, it is sometimes a love/hate relationship Users are exposed to a greater percentage of Notes features than other desktop applications Notes is often perceived as “expensive” because it requires admin/ helpdesk/ development staff, rollouts, etc. 9 Dollars, Euro, Yen, Pounds Selling Notes internally is often a budget and cost exercise The “cost” of deploying or running Notes is not just about software Even the best existing infrastructures need ongoing investment… It is in your best interests to complete and maintain a cost analysis – and ROI where possible – for your Notes investment When do I sell internally? Become the internal evangelist when: Supporting an upgrade, migration, existing environment Adding anything to your environment Hardware, software, new applications, new domains Migrate an application to Notes/Domino or other Lotus product Add a collaborative component to your environment 10 How Do I Sell It? Different techniques for different audiences Numbers What’s your cost – really What’s the cost to make a change What’s the return on your investment What are the bottom line benefits Education Anecdotally, most users like Notes client just fine if they can do what they want to do Notes/Domino costs: Elements Software acquisition Software maintenance / support Hardware maintenance/ upgrades Server hardware (including disk), operating system, networking Help desk staff and training Including “utility” servers Redundant hardware for disaster recovery And potentially, cost of downtime Administrator training End-user training Desktop software rollout / upgrade costs Third-party software (anti-virus, anti-spam, etc.) Compliance management 11 Customer Story: ASPCA Challenge: Mission-critical Windows® server crashed repeatedly, stalling ASPCA operations and threatening the operations Why On Demand? With new, reliable, resilient and secure infrastructure, employees would regain focus on ASPCA’s humane mission, improve productivity and save money Solution: Open-source platform accessible through Web browsers and built on reliable Linux cluster enables reliable communication among ASPCA staff using Domino on Linux, & Domino Web Access Key Benefits: 100% availability in 5 months since solution went live 30% reduction in TCO, including savings in maintenance, licensing, server and ISP costs Ability to focus on core mission of ASPCA and be responsive to employees' needs and the animals in their care Seamless migration to new platform due to ease-of-use of Lotus® Domino Redundancy at the server and software levels with Domino clustering and xSeries OnForever(tm) “We have actually done several tests for failover, and the system didn’t even hiccup,” says Giantelli. “It failed over immediately, and I attribute that to the way Domino as well as the servers were designed. If you’re running this with a different platform-Microsoft Exchange, for example--the failover is not built in. You have to buy third-party software to make it happen.” --John Giantelli, Senior Director of IT, ASPCA Justify the Cost To justify the cost, examine your environment Show how Notes works for your users Examine what the problems are, how to solve them Your homework: Research company goals Know how your company functions Determine areas of “pain” Find decision-makers’ “hot buttons” 12 Gather Ammunition The story is there Logs: What’s being used, how & when Logs: What errors are users seeing Help desk log: What kinds of errors are out there Help desk log: What applications are being used; which ones have problems User surveys: what do your users do Audit your environment Don’t separate mail and collaboration discussions Does more, takes more examination Allows point commoditization at risk of seeing “whole is greater than the sum of its parts” value Advanced collaboration vs. pure e-mail “An advanced collaboration platform is finding favour in the market vis-à-vis pure e-mail applications. Many experts believe that many business processes on Notes have seen incremental difference in performance; they are of the opinion that Domino 7 increases the opportunities for workplace collaboration. In many ways, IBM is a leader in collaboration platforms.” – Alok Shende, Director, ICT Practice, Frost and Sullivan, quoted in Express Computer, IBM throws down the collaboration gauntlet, 7 November 2005 13 Customer Story: Fujifilm Electronic Imaging Implemented: An integrated messaging, workflow, and statistical reporting system based on IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 7, and two Lotus Domino-based sales and support applications from IBM Business Partner Kelros. Benefits: Enhanced capture of customer suggestions; better delivery of management information; improved people productivity with ability to handle more calls using the same call-centre team. Customer testimonial: “We wanted to provide information our way, and only Lotus Notes and Domino gave us the flexibility to do that. We wanted the history of the call, with the direction of the communication, to be clear from a single main page. With help from Kelros, we have achieved a solution that matches our business processes, rather than having our software define the way we work. It’s a testament to the system that we’re now handling more calls – support performance has increased because of efficiencies in the system, but also because our distributors are realising its value and ease of use.” – Bob Willis, FFEI Hot Buttons Ù Features Internal selling often pertains to upgrades Notes/Domino 6.5: Integrated IM Mail usability Domino Web Access updates Notes/Domino 7: So many cool client tidbits Mail threading Policies/client lockdown Optional DB2 store Scalability/ manageability improvements Notes “Hannover” Notes/Domino progression into the future Another hot button: Relationship to other IBM products IBM Workplace family 14 eWeek: Lotus Notes/Domino 7 review January 16, 2006 “With Version 7 of the Lotus Domino server and Notes client, IBM continues to provide the richest integrated collaborative environment available today.” “For companies looking for a messaging solution, Notes and Domino is the most flexible one available. Not only does Domino run on a wide range of operating systems and server hardware, but it also provides a platform for delivering database-driven applications, e-mail and group calendaring, scheduling, and instant messaging.” “Domino's ability to manage Notes client updates and policies makes it unique in the way the entire client/server architecture can be managed without the need for third-party tools.” IBM Lotus Notes/Domino 7 Poised to be Significantly Less than Release 6 TCO Continued Focus on Reducing TCO 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Relative TCO Release 5 Release 6 Release 7 IBM Lotus Notes/Domino Ferris Research study estimates reductions in key TCO areas* 15% reduction in direct costs 15% reduction in user productivity costs 8.5% reduction in overall TCO 22% reduction in overall TCO for customers upgrading from R5 15 Notes/Domino are part of the IBM Workplace family Solutions IBM Workplace for … Business Controls and Reporting; Procurement; HR Managers; Branch Banking, Sales Managers, Business Strategy Execution … Products for Enterprise Products for Small Businesses and Departments IBM Lotus Domino Express IBM Workplace Services Express IBM Workplace Offerings IBM WebSphere® WebSphere® Portal Express IBM Lotus Notes IBM Lotus Domino IBM Workplace Collaboration Services IBM Workplace Managed Client™ Client™ IBM WebSphere Everyplace® Everyplace® IBM WebSphere Portal Tools and Technology IBM Workplace Builder IBM Workplace Designer IBM Workplace Client Technology™ Technology™ IBM Lotus Domino Designer Sell Your Point of View Use your data (“homework”) to: Create a basis for a business case Compile feature to business need comparisons Tailor your message throughout the organization 16 Where to “Sell It, Baby…” Do some internal education, aka marketing Departmental advocates “sneakernet” Tip of the week Daily/weekly feature explanations Bring improvements in service, time to their attention Quick reference cards Offer “brown-bag lunch” training Features Get the help desk to do Q&A Selling Up Use your homework Cost materials Logs Surveys Tell them what they care about Cost Benefit to the company Benefit to them Issues and solutions for existing flaws 17 “ The impetus for a potential migration often has more to do with emotions and politics, rather than sound business reasoning. Organizations must approach continuation/migration decisions with care, because of the vast expense, complexity and IT group burden that come with large-scale e-mail and application migrations.” From Gartner Report: Focus on Business Issues, Not Emotions, When Considering IBM Lotus Domino Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00136165, Matthew W. Cain, Tom Austin, 23 November 2005 Resources Case studies: www.lotus.com/success User groups: www.lotususergroup.org IBM developerWorks: Lotus: www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus Blogs: Alan Lepofsky’s Notes Tips at www.alanlepofsky.net Christopher Byrne’s “Fighting FUD” at www.controlscaddy.com edbrill.com OpenNTF.Org 18 Thank you libby@lotususergroup.org ed_brill@us.ibm.com 19
