Document 204568

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
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Agenda
ƒ WHAT does it mean to “sell” Notes internally?
ƒ WHO does the selling? To whom do you sell?
ƒ WHY me? Why is it necessary?
ƒ WHEN do you need to sell?
ƒ HOW do you sell?
ƒ How do you get numbers (TCO and ROI) for your argument?
ƒ WHERE will you do the selling? Where will you get information
for the selling?
What Does It Mean to Sell Notes Internally?
ƒ 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.
ƒ Act as:
ƒ Expert
ƒ Evangelist / Champion
ƒ Tech Support / Knowledge Base
ƒ Competitive Guru
ƒ Analyst
ƒ Support a constant and on-going process
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What Will You Be Up Against?
ƒ Competition
ƒ Notes Gets Blamed for Everything (redux)
ƒ Where’s your pithy one-liner?
ƒ Also:
ƒ Preconceptions
ƒ Hot-buttons
To Whom will you be selling?
ƒ Sell throughout the organization, and in partner/customer
organizations, when appropriate
ƒ Sell to peers (“bottom up” approach)
ƒ Build interest and consensus within the organization
ƒ Sell to the end users
ƒ Focus on: features, usability
ƒ Sell to decision-makers (“top-down” approach)
ƒ Write a business case
ƒ Focus on: ROI, cost, benefits to organization
ƒ Remember that most “top-down” decisions are new initiatives
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Who does the selling?
ƒ You do.
Why Me?
ƒ Is there someone better suited?
ƒ Is it more important to anyone else?
“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who
says differently is selling something.”
Westley, The Princess Bride
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Why Sell Internally?
ƒ Market and environmental conditions make extra support
necessary in many environments
ƒ Environmental conditions include:
ƒ Every end user is an IT professional
ƒ Home computing influences the office
ƒ Standards vs. keeping up with the latest
ƒ Interoperability
ƒ Market conditions include:
ƒ Standard IT refresh/re-evaluation cycles
ƒ Pressures from Microsoft (license bundling, CIO meetings, etc.)
ƒ Pressures from partners and customers to use similar technologies
ƒ 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”:
ƒ Concern and/or unhappiness about the evolution of Domino
toward Workplace
ƒ A desire for broad Outlook deployments
ƒ Wariness over lessening third-party vendor support for Domino
ƒ Concern over eroding Domino market share
ƒ Acceleration of Microsoft investments in e-mail/collaboration
products
ƒ 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.
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One More Why…
ƒ Notes biggest problem’s are…
ƒ What’s your pithy one-liner?, aka “What is Notes?”
ƒ 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.
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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."
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What is Notes? (pt 4)
ƒ 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)
ƒ “Notes won't print”
ƒ PC/Server Crashed/Slow/Needing upgrade – Notes/Domino
Blamed
ƒ PC Slow - Notes Blamed
ƒ Poor implementation/management vs. problem with product
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Is it Always About the Competition?
ƒ Competition is one reason, but not the only reason
ƒ Replace Notes with MS or other competition
ƒ Probably most common though
ƒ Support existing Notes/Domino environment
ƒ Add to or upgrade your environment
ƒ Prevent disgruntlement from taking over
ƒ Mergers & Acquisitions
It’s about existing perceptions, too
ƒ 16+ years in market carries with it a lot of history
ƒ Bad experiences, bad applications
ƒ Limitations from past releases
ƒ Notes is typically one of the most frequently used applications
ƒ Because users spend so much time in Notes, it is sometimes a love/hate
relationship
ƒ Users are exposed to a greater percentage of Notes features than other
desktop applications
ƒ Notes is often perceived as “expensive” because it requires
admin/ helpdesk/ development staff, rollouts, etc.
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Dollars, Euro, Yen, Pounds
ƒ Selling Notes internally is often a budget and cost exercise
ƒ The “cost” of deploying or running Notes is not just about
software
ƒ Even the best existing infrastructures need ongoing
investment…
ƒ 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?
ƒ Become the internal evangelist when:
ƒ Supporting an upgrade, migration, existing environment
ƒ Adding anything to your environment
ƒ Hardware, software, new applications, new domains
ƒ Migrate an application to Notes/Domino or other Lotus product
ƒ Add a collaborative component to your environment
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How Do I Sell It?
ƒ Different techniques for different audiences
ƒ Numbers
ƒ What’s your cost – really
ƒ What’s the cost to make a change
ƒ What’s the return on your investment
ƒ What are the bottom line benefits
ƒ Education
ƒ Anecdotally, most users like Notes client just fine if they can do what they
want to do
Notes/Domino costs: Elements
ƒ Software acquisition
ƒ Software maintenance / support
ƒ Hardware maintenance/
upgrades
ƒ Server hardware (including disk),
operating system, networking
ƒ Help desk staff and training
ƒIncluding “utility” servers
ƒ Redundant hardware for disaster
recovery
ƒAnd potentially, cost of downtime
ƒ Administrator training
ƒ End-user training
ƒ Desktop software rollout /
upgrade costs
ƒ Third-party software (anti-virus,
anti-spam, etc.)
ƒ Compliance management
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Customer Story: ASPCA
ƒ Challenge: Mission-critical Windows® server crashed
repeatedly, stalling ASPCA operations and
threatening the operations
ƒ Why On Demand? With new, reliable, resilient and
secure infrastructure, employees would regain focus
on ASPCA’s humane mission, improve productivity
and save money
ƒ 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
ƒ
Key Benefits: 100% availability in 5 months since
solution went live 30% reduction in TCO, including
savings in maintenance, licensing, server and ISP
costs
ƒ 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
ƒ 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
ƒ To justify the cost, examine your environment
ƒ Show how Notes works for your users
ƒ Examine what the problems are, how to solve them
ƒ Your homework:
ƒ Research company goals
ƒ Know how your company functions
ƒ Determine areas of “pain”
ƒ Find decision-makers’ “hot buttons”
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Gather Ammunition
ƒ The story is there
ƒ Logs: What’s being used, how & when
ƒ Logs: What errors are users seeing
ƒ Help desk log: What kinds of errors are out there
ƒ Help desk log: What applications are being used; which ones have
problems
ƒ User surveys: what do your users do
ƒ Audit your environment
ƒ Don’t separate mail and collaboration discussions
ƒ Does more, takes more examination
ƒ Allows point commoditization at risk of seeing “whole is greater than the
sum of its parts” value
Advanced collaboration vs. pure e-mail
ƒ “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
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Customer Story: Fujifilm Electronic Imaging
ƒ 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.
ƒ 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.
ƒ 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
ƒ Internal selling often pertains to upgrades
ƒ Notes/Domino 6.5:
ƒ Integrated IM
ƒ Mail usability
ƒ Domino Web Access updates
ƒ Notes/Domino 7:
ƒ So many cool client tidbits
ƒ Mail threading
ƒ Policies/client lockdown
ƒ Optional DB2 store
ƒ Scalability/ manageability improvements
ƒ Notes “Hannover”
ƒ Notes/Domino progression into the future
ƒ Another hot button: Relationship to other IBM products
ƒ IBM Workplace family
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eWeek: Lotus Notes/Domino 7 review
January 16, 2006
ƒ “With Version 7 of the Lotus Domino server and Notes client,
IBM continues to provide the richest integrated collaborative
environment available today.”
ƒ “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.”
ƒ “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*
ƒ 15% reduction in direct costs
ƒ 15% reduction in user productivity costs
ƒ 8.5% reduction in overall TCO
ƒ 22% reduction in overall TCO for customers upgrading from R5
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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
ƒ Use your data (“homework”) to:
ƒ Create a basis for a business case
ƒ Compile feature to business need comparisons
ƒ Tailor your message throughout the organization
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Where to “Sell It, Baby…”
ƒ Do some internal education, aka marketing
ƒ Departmental advocates “sneakernet”
ƒ Tip of the week
ƒ Daily/weekly feature explanations
ƒ Bring improvements in service, time to their attention
ƒ Quick reference cards
ƒ Offer “brown-bag lunch” training
ƒ Features
ƒ Get the help desk to do Q&A
Selling Up
ƒ Use your homework
ƒ Cost materials
ƒ Logs
ƒ Surveys
ƒ Tell them what they care about
ƒ Cost
ƒ Benefit to the company
ƒ Benefit to them
ƒ Issues and solutions for existing flaws
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“ 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
ƒ Case studies: www.lotus.com/success
ƒ User groups: www.lotususergroup.org
ƒ IBM developerWorks: Lotus:
www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus
ƒ Blogs:
ƒ Alan Lepofsky’s Notes Tips at www.alanlepofsky.net
ƒ Christopher Byrne’s “Fighting FUD” at www.controlscaddy.com
ƒ edbrill.com
ƒ OpenNTF.Org
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Thank you
[email protected]
[email protected]
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