Thomas Christensen - Win-Win-Win

In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we sit down with Thomas Christensen, Vice President of Partner Ecosystem NCEE at IBM. Thomas has 30 years in the industry across all three layers of the channel, as a reseller, in distribution, and as a vendor, and now leads IBM's partner ecosystem across 35 countries in Northern, Central, and Eastern Europe. That breadth of experience gives him a perspective on ecosystems that is hard to replicate.

Thomas opens with what he considers the most valuable thing about having worked all three sides of the channel: you already know what the person across the table needs before they tell you. Having been a reseller, briefly in distribution, and for most of his career in the vendor space, he arrives at every conversation with an understanding of the other side's daily life, goals, and constraints. That understanding is what makes it possible to build win-win-win partnerships: a win for the client, a win for the partner, and a win for IBM.

That philosophy shapes how IBM approaches its Partner Plus program and how Thomas thinks about equality in the ecosystem. When a seller believes they did all the work and the partner should receive less margin, they are being binary. A partner who receives fair margin today is the one who invests resources in learning your portfolio tomorrow and brings leads the day after. The program enforces that long-term thinking, even when individuals do not naturally default to it.

Across 35 countries, Thomas finds more universality in what partners need than people expect. Trust, respect for how the other party's business works, and the simple question "how can I help your business grow?" transcend cultures and geographies. That is the foundation, and it is remarkably consistent.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we dive deep into the mysteries and secrets of partnerships and the channel. My name is Michel, I'm head of marketing at Chanext, and I'll be your host for today. And I'm very happy to chat with Thomas Christensen, Vice President of Partner Ecosystem for Northern, Central, and Eastern Europe at IBM. I'm super excited to hear your insights today. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Oh, great. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Such a pleasure and what a great topic to start off the morning, right? Whenever people see this, they don't know it's morning, but it is morning. So uh so good morning and thanks for having me and uh super excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Likewise. And and for me, this is a total step change because I speak to US-based leaders a lot. So I'm doing this stuff in the evening. I feel so fresh right now. It's unbelievable. Amazing. Amazing. We're both fresh and ready. That's good. Exactly. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this one. To kick off, let's start with the table stakes. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself,

Thomas’ 30 Years In IT

SPEAKER_01 1:00

your background, and your role at IBM?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yeah, absolutely. Born and raised in IT, I think I could say, right? So being 46 now, uh, I don't have any problem with any age stigma, so I can put it out there. But uh 30. I'm 25. Yeah, exactly. So 25 forever, right?

unknown 1:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

So, no, 30 years actually in IT, I can't believe it, right? So began early, obviously, with more junior roles helping, you know, a software reseller get going there in the mid-90s. But definitely, you know, it's been now 30 years in this amazing industry. So I've been through uh, you could say three of the key branches, right? So from reseller to Disty a short while, and then most of my time in the vendor branch. But really, now that we're going to talk a lot about ecosystems today, all three branches, you know, I experienced and thought was very important to be part of uh and enjoyed, uh, but probably found my home in the vendor space, and we can talk more about that uh later. So been with companies like uh like VMware, um Symantec, Veritas, now called TD Cynix, Tech Data at the time, and then uh for the last almost 11 years in the great big blue of IBM and and recently uh was entrusted with running our, as you said, I guess the title says it, running the ecosystem, but also the very big part of our client segment of acquiring new clients and clients we want to grow with and the breadth of clients, something we call select territory. I have the responsibility for that as well, in the same region that you mentioned, North Central Eastern Europe, which by the way is 35 countries and and doesn't make any necessarily sense in terms of of geography, but it's a it's a region that we have formed for different reasons. And by the way, it also includes Central Asia, so uh for flavors, all the SAM countries as well. So really a diverse, almost a replica of all of Europe plus a little of Asia, right? But in a smaller context. So uh very exciting, very exciting.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

I almost get like anxiety from the past when I was responsible for for leading marketing in EMIA and APAC. And while I was doing that, all I could think every single day was why do we even categorize regions this way? Because every single country in them is different, but then between the regions, there's massive differences. There's no such thing as one playbook. Absolutely. And uh, I'm sure we'll dive into that a little bit more later on in this podcast, but I wanted to hit on one thing that you started off with, which I think is fascinating. The the three branches of industry that you've been in, right? So you've basically seen every aspect, every angle, reseller, distributor, vendor. I'd like to assume that gives you a bit of a unique perspective compared to leaders who, let's say, have only seen one side of the business, only the vendor side, only the disty side. So when you look at today's ecosystem, what do people misunderstand because they've only experienced one side of that model?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

No, I think being, you know, being one-sided is I can't even think of a time where that would be good or an advantage, right? So it's basically understanding the person you sit next to or opposite to or in the same room as, and you want to try and develop a business, a partnership, understanding where they come from is, you know, naturally an

Seeing Resellers Vendors And Distribution

SPEAKER_00 4:20

advantage, right? So if you understand a bit more about, you know, what's their uh daily life, what's what's their goals, how is the business run, what's important to them as a business and the dynamics of how they run the business, that's naturally an advantage, right? And I felt that, you know, as I believe in long-term partnerships, as I truly believe in, as our CEO, Arvin Krishna, also said, win, win, win, right? It's it's it's it's about the the client at the end. We're all here to serve the clients, let's make no mistake. We love channel and ecosystem and partners, but we're here to serve end clients that consume the technology. Sometimes that can be the partner as well, by the way, if they if they build solutions. We can talk more about that maybe later. But the client we're here to serve, so that's the first win. The second win is the partner, and the third win is the is the one trying to sell their solution, in this case, I IBM, right? So I think it's it's just it's just naturally, you know, gives you a perspective of the one you sit next to or above or or or in the same room, you know a little bit what their goal is before they even tell you, and that that gives you an advantage of how you position your solution, how you build your business plan, what goals you're trying to achieve, because you know a little bit about what's important to them, right? And and I would say especially people tend to be at resellers or you know, kind of the ISV reseller, system integrator part of the world, or the vendor branch. I've seen a lot of people that have been in the in those two, but very rarely has added the middle component, you know, in the whole puzzle piece, which is distribution, which which is I always try to find a new word for distribution because I didn't think it it served them justice. So in in the modern world, I would say, so more they're more like a tech broker, tech aggregator, bringing tech together, stitching things together, and really being in the center piece, both good and bad, because they're also being squeezed from every side. So I I guess the short answer is insight, and insight is is insight and knowledge is power when you uh when you sit in negotiations and and partnerships, and not negatively meant, not like you know, power can also feel like a negative term, but I meant it in a positive way that you have the power to really develop win-win-win agreements, right? So so that's that's that's how I've I've um I've felt it on my on my own body, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Yeah, no, I I think maybe the term we can use is empowerment. Yeah. Right? In that sense. And and I've a lesson I learned early on in my life, not just in my career, was my grandfather used to say this and I love uh say this and I loved it, and it was put on someone else's worldview like a hat. And I think that's such an important part in in this area of business. By the way, you mentioned that w we shouldn't be calling distributors distributors. Uh, I fully agree because it it makes it so kind of um emotionless and and binary. Um I think maybe like like force multiplier. I've been hearing that term so often. I love that. It makes it sound so powerful.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah, yeah. But that's what it's all about, right? Ecosystem partnerships, whatever the channel, you know, whatever labels we've put on this discipline, it is basically about scale, amplification, cost of sale, you know, risk mitigation, many of these things is why there is an ecosystem, right? Um and and and if you understand that, then you can make it more successful, right? And you need all the different components to make that happen. Of course, as we probably also will touch today, the world is changing and will continue to change. So there's more, there's different tiering models, right? So, you know, where the one tier is taken out of the equation and then suddenly it's only one tier, and sometimes even, which we don't like as ecosystem people, tier zero, where you go directly from vendor to client, right? But you know, I'm talking about marketplaces and and other aspects where I think it's super important to keep the ecosystem dimension in there because it really adds value if you do it right, but it still challenges the traditional way of doing business. So it's it's super important that people working who work in this space challenge themselves. And I think especially the distributors, not to make the whole podcast about them, but just understanding the different dimensions, if they don't reinvent themselves, part of their mission, not all of their mission, but part of their mission will then become obsolete and not important anymore. And and and then they're they will lose significance, right? And I do believe they are super significant in the in the ecosystem that we that we have today, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah, I think it comes back to the point of being able to understand all these different facets of the channel, so to speak, from vendor side, partner side, from disty side. And that allows you to make better decisions because you can actually make certain assumptions that align with reality, especially about where you have to go. And I think knowing the other side, it's actually one of the reasons why I encourage everyone in my teams to, for example, do a day of cold calling, you know, especially with with more junior people or sit down with finance to understand how revenue recognition works and things where people say, Oh, but that's not my job, you know? It's like, no, yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Exactly. We actually call it, we have an expression for it at IBM. I don't think it's an IBM-owned expression, but day in a life, right? Day in a life of so, you know, mentoring, shadowing, you know, depending on which side you are at the fence. We we try to really do it. I do it in my team uh as much as I can, right? Really sitting with someone, I try to do it myself as well to say, let me shadow a young seller in our automation brand and see how they work with modern selling, right? Today it's all about social selling, capturing the client where they are early in the phase where they're using social media to and network to get knowledge about the technology they want to buy. How do you tap into that and capture them while they're in that phase and not just in the procurement phase? And how do they work with RevTech tools, which also at IBM is a massive thing now? How we work with all the different tools to get the right contacts at the right time, running campaigns. So RevTech is becoming massive. And if you are a seller or sales leader that has been in the industry for like me for 30 years, or even just maybe 15 or 20, your way of selling is probably quite more traditional than how it works today. So that whole shadowing, and then to tie the loop back to ecosystem and the different tiers, you know, going there and not just sitting with the disty or sitting at the reseller or sitting with the partner. It's actually sitting there but asking permission to be

Equality Versus Transactional Partnerships

SPEAKER_00 10:50

part of their life and calling together and working together and you know doing RevTech activity together, that's where you learn, right? That's where you really learn and grow.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Well, 100%. And I I think that if I were a reseller or a Disty and a vendor would do something like that with me, I would be very excited about that because it's a different level of investment, right, from a vendor side. But it's it's a again, a mutual lift. The rising tide lifts all boats, right? That's what a partnership is is all about. And I think that actually dovetails nicely into something you said when we were discussing some of the topics for this podcast. You I thought it was very profound. You said you can't create an ecosystem without equality. But let's say that a partnership is one-sided. So where do you then generally see those relationships break down first?

SPEAKER_00 11:38

No, I think it's it's it's first of all, you couldn't call it a partnership if it's if it's one-sided. That's the whole, you know, the whole golden nug, right? Or silver bullet or whatever you call it. Because then it just becomes kind of transactional, right? And you feel instantly that the balance of power, uh, again, or empowerment or whatever expression we used before is is disbalanced, right? So you feel it instantly, you feel it in the way people engage. Uh, now I'm speaking generally, right? Because you get your situation can be different. But you could experience, you know, the behavior of the person, the arrogance in the room or in the conversation, the willingness to meet different demands about delivery, price, you know, terms and conditions, you know, things like, yeah, we have a partner program, but you understand in this case I did all the work, and you know, so we have to lower the margin. And, you know, sorry, there's only X percent for you because you know I did everything and you're just fulfillment. So it it becomes almost disbalanced from from the beginning when you don't um when when you don't have that equality. And that's why I think, you know, a program like Partner Plus that that we run at IBM, that that's the name of our partner program, is is really we're really strict on that program needs to be followed in every situation because it's designed also to create equality in all of all of the different stakeholders in the uh in the partnership, right? So that being the vendor, the reseller, the ISV, the system integrator, the disty, whoever takes part in that big ecosystem across what we call a sell, build, and service, because we cover all types of ways of doing business in the program. And of course, the Disty is in there. And we are super strict on not breaking that. So back to my my term, like a seller said, Oh, I did all the work and I want you to have lower margin because you don't deserve it. That's not equality. The program ensures as well that even if the seller thinks like this, it's actually forced that maybe not on this transaction, but dear seller, what you forgot in your way of thinking now is you are binary. Partnership is long term. So tomorrow they are investing 10 people in educating themselves on the HashiCorp portfolio or the toponymic portfolio uh or sorry, toponomic resolution, or the confluent that we we just acquired at IBM portfolio, and then they're gonna generate leads for you on that. You don't see that. You're only thinking about your binary transaction, but we give them margin that you think they don't deserve to invest in the future, thereby creating equality. So I think the program, if that makes sense, really helps us to create it. And then of course it's up to us as leaders also, which I do every day, remind people about the long term, don't be too binary or give to get, you know, as as as we also call it, right? You you may be giving a bit more if if the if the imbalance is by design, then it's okay. Because you know over time your aim and your goal in your business plan is to get to equality. So you give one deal where you have done more work than the partner, but over time, the partner gives back if you understand how the ecosystem works and you have invested in it, you have created equality, you are you are truly win-win-win mentality. So that's that's uh, and I think you and I talked about it um also about the networking principles that it's like a bank account, right? So you do need to put money in your bank account to be able to withdraw at a certain time. If you don't do it, you have to ask the bank if you can get a credit, right? And then you have to pay interest. So it isn't free. You have to put something in the bank account. And that's a little bit, you know, how this example kind of ties together, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah, and it it it's almost ironic, right? Because we're talking about how these relationships shouldn't be transactional and we're still using banking analogies, but they just apply, you know? And I think there is something um almost paradoxical, especially for sellers. Uh I mean, I don't mean to rub anyone the wrong way, uh, so please, audience, forgive me if I do. But uh, I understand that there's kind of this short-term drive for every seller, right? I have to hit my number, I have to hit my revenue, and I'll do whatever it takes to do that. But when you're looking at partnerships, I mean, it might work for the next year or the next two quarters. But if your partners no longer trust you, then after those two quarters are up and you've your leads have run dry, what are you going to do? You haven't built and maintained that relationship. So your your invest and withdraw analogy works so well. And I'd like to add one thing to that. There's um a really strange psychological effect called the uh Abe Lincoln effect, which says that if you do a favor for someone who you don't think deserves that, you will gain more respect for them as well. And I think like you can apply that directly to partnerships where it's like, hey, you need to invest and just know that you're going to feel better about that relationship, and that's going to come back to you as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, no, but it's beautiful because, you know, all my life I've been super passionate about people and succeeding through people, which is, you know, obviously why I ended up in leadership, not management, very intentional, but leadership, which I think is the most beautiful, amazing, complex thing you can do. But you also need to be very deliberate about it, right? And in all of that, you know, the whole unlocking the human potential, right, in every aspect, which ecosystem is very much about to because you don't unlock the scale and the amplification if you if you don't. One of my favorite books I read, and and actually maybe even better, the movie, was Pay It Forward, right? So a little bit like Dabe Lincoln uh mentioning here. And it's about you know the simple principle of do something good for someone who doesn't deserve it or who you don't know. The only requirement you have of that person or individual or partner in this case is do something good for three others. And that's the multiplier. And I've I I know that's a little bit unapplicable to business, back to your comment of delivering results in the month and the quarter, and because it's a little bit more unplanned. But how I've applied it is instead of going all in, you know, philanthropy, uh, you know, that's how I drive everything, I couldn't because it's it's unplanned results, and you do need some planning, some predictability, some numbers to come in. But applying it on top of your business plan as a mindset, saying, Let's think like this in the partnership. And if you think like this in the partnership, the whole community becomes better. So, right, so so I've I've used it in you know networking outside of IT because I believe in the principle of pay it forward, right? I I think it's so beautiful and the world needs it, by the way, maybe more than ever. Yes. But in business, you can apply a portion of it and still be very focused on the results we need to deliver because it's also a way to differentiate yourself, right? Which is what we all try to do, right? You want to stand out, people only have X number of hours, you're you know, speaking to busy people, or you're fighting for the attention of this large partner, right? Do they want to go with your solutions or the competit competitive solutions? How do you differentiate yourselves? Is sometimes not in the product or the solution, it's in the person, it's in the philosophy, it's in the how you approach partnership. At least that's how I've seen

Investing Early With Pay It Forward

SPEAKER_00 18:55

it. And how I try to my team, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:57

I love that. And and I think it really hits on an important point for everyone in the industry, and that is that like these quantitative metrics are super important, right? I mean, we're in we're in business, we need to make a profit, we need to do our thing. But I'd say the qualitative side of things almost has to be like why? As opposed to how or or what? It's like, why are we doing this in the way that we're doing this? And it really allows you to kind of look in the mirror and say, oh, these numbers that I'm getting, why am I trying to achieve this? Why does this feel like I need the this responsibility? How am I going to change this in a way that kind of again, rising tide lifts all busts? Like, how do we do this together to achieve mutual success?

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Exactly. But it's almost like, just to add to what you're saying now, it's almost like I just came to think of it as you were speaking, it's what's more powerful being asked to do something or driving a quantitative measurement for for that specific reason, or doing it because you have purpose. Yeah. I don't need to why, yeah. I don't need to the why, exactly. That's why I thought about it, because purpose is a different why, right? And I don't need to answer the question because I think the listeners should should answer themselves. But but I I know how I want to build my teams and how I'm trying to unlock that purpose and why and how powerful I think it is. So, but I'll I'll leave it to the listener to decide for themselves how they wanna how they wanna do that. But I think it's worth thinking about.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Yeah, no, I love it. And I I think it all comes down to right, that engagement and that knowledge sharing and and building those real relationships. And I wanted to hit on that for a second because I feel that investing in these real relationships feels more relevant today than ever because a lot of our work is starting to become digitized, AI augmented, and every day I hear executives beating this drum. Human aspect is more critical today than ever in the channel. So as the workflow workflow gets more automated, where do you feel that that human layer will add even more value than it used to?

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah, no, so so I, you know, also stolen from somewhere or borrowed maybe a more nice word, human to human. I think says it says it a lot in in because we normally talk about B2C, B2B, blah, blah, blah, right? I I use the H2H expression quite a lot, and I loved when I saw it somewhere from some clever marketing person that that found it. Because it really sums up very, very well how much things are still between human beings. And you can start with technology. That's the big mistake. Technology will keep enhancing, will keep accelerating, will keep you know helping you. And with AI, you know, the hottest ticket of the town, I guess, right now. You cannot be an effective leader or even be effective in most companies today if you say, I'm not gonna use AI, I'm just gonna be, you know, old fashioned, quote unquote, working human to human. That's not what I mean when I talk. About it. I mean embracing AI, increasing your productivity, your becoming inspired by AI, but of course still applying your common sense, your critical sense, learning how to prompt, all of these things. So I'm all in on all of those productivity gains and becoming an AI-infused leader in my case, right? Or AI-infused seller or AI-infused technical seller or whatever. But where I think the missing link is, it's really, if you start the wrong way, then you miss the human touch and you just become uh one in the, you know, one in the in the big fog of noise out there. So if you want to break through the noise or the fog using those pictures, you need to use your competitive advantage. And that is human beings connecting, right? And it's all the way down to insisting on a physical meet and doing a handshake or however people greet each other in around the world. Or it's it's it's you know, yes, we saw it working in corona that, you know, you and I also never met, you know, physically. And and and and it's amazing that we can do these things and just meet online and still have a great conversation and connection and all of this. But but I just think that that that that physical thing and and connecting with people becomes a competitive advantage. And it's something that we should we should train because the more the world becomes digitized, the more the world becomes AI infused, the more generic it becomes. What people haven't noticed,

AI Productivity And Human To Human Selling

SPEAKER_00 23:30

if you use AI tools, right, like What's the next platform to do something for you, if you're not super, super deliberate about your prompting, you get a generic answer, right? Yep. And that generic answer to something, to a quote you're sending out or a reach out on LinkedIn or LinkedIn posts online for your followers, it becomes unpersonal, generic. And and I think now we're circling back to why H2H is so important, is that we it is still needed and it's still visible when it's human beings connecting, right? And and yes, I get it. It will probably evolve and AI and gen AI and all of this will become more and more intelligent, uh, mirroring you know, people more and more chatbots when you go in. You know, two years back, you were like, let me talk to a real person instantly. Now you actually see intelligent chatbots that you can have a you know pretty decent conversation. So you're not going directly to the customer service rep. So I do recognize it will evolve, but I think that that it actually becomes a competitive advantage back to what I said, that you understand what that human-to-human connection means, and then circling back to partnership. Do you really want to trust your business, uh, invest your resources, invest your time in somebody who doesn't even prioritize getting to know you as a person, showing up at your office, shaking your hands, sitting down over a cup of coffee or tea or water or whatever you drink? I think the answer is no, right? So you can do a lot in the digital world, but it will never ever, I believe, be not relevant to meet as human beings or connect as human beings.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

I fully agree. And I think that shows how broad the spectrum of spectrum of trust is, right? Because I can trust the output of an AI, let's say, right? But trust between humans is an entirely different paradigm. And and I I love actually that you mentioned mentioned COVID because obviously we were doing everything remote, and I'll never forget I had to go to the headquarters of the company I was working with at the time, and that was in Sweden, in Stockholm, and they didn't have social distancing there. And I went there and someone stuck out their hand to me. And I first I was like, what is going on? But then I gave them a hand, and there was something I will never forget that moment, because it said to me, Oh, don't take these moments for granted. Looking someone in the eye, shaking their hand, you're absolutely right. I think there's a second element there when it comes to partnerships, and it's something I've heard before, which I find fascinating, is if you remove the human connection, you're going to miss a massive amount of insight into your end customer movement and mechanics. So, what this person said is I said, like, how do you use your MSPs, for example? Like, what does that look like? And he said, Well, the most important thing is I use them to listen to what they're hearing, like through the grapevine when it comes to end customer mechanics and strategies and things like that, and feed those back in. And I'm like, you can't get those out of a model. You you you can't because these are human perspectives and initiatives, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Yeah, and it comes back to one thing to sum up this section, listening to what you said now and and thinking about what I just said, and that's one word, and that's trust. So, because, you know, not that you can't trust a lot of what AI is doing if you're critical. We just establish that you can, absolutely. Especially if you're critical, right? And if you have governance and all the things that we also do at IBM, right? We we really make AI for business because we know it's not just a generic AI model. It's really about what models are you using, what data are you does those models have, and what governance have you put around it, and what industry are you working in? So it's it's context governed aware AI, right? And that's where many people miss out in that sort of AI can absolutely be trusted. But back to trust is is I think it's fundamental for the human interaction and for establishing partnership, which is what this is about, right? It is that that will not happen with AI. And then what you said, which is so beautiful, is all of those small things of insights here and there, or oh, I just heard the other day, I just gonna text my my good partner about this, or call them and say, hey, this is not directly linked to the business plan we have, which AI would advise me on. This is something that, hey, let's look into this in the future because it may be a business opportunity, or you should hire this guy, or AI would not figure that out because there's no data link. There's there's no there is trust between people, and I care about you. I care about you enough to think outside the box, in this case, outside of the AI box, and give you a context that AI respectfully, and I may be wrong because I mean there's bigger AI experts out there than me, but AI would not be able to make that connection because the connection is not there. It's human, it's human nature and trust. I think that's super interesting, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:36

I fully agree, and I have a really clunky, convoluted example of that specific thing, but then in the context of music, because as a musician, obviously, I see they're not just props. I I actually can can play a little bit of a virtual background that gets drama. Yeah, I see. I want to look cooler than I am. No, there's an important angle here when when people talk to me about, hey, what do you think of AI music and things like that? And I'm like, well, what it does is it obviously just takes a pastiche of what we already have and just does that again. And I understand that if if you're not that into music, that you can say, well, we all use the same chords, you know, we all use the same, you know, chorus verse structure. But there's one thing I always say, and that's I can be inspired to write something by things that cannot be computized. So I can be inspired to write something by seeing a certain ray of light through shining through a tree, and you cannot tell me that that ever can be replicated by technology. And that's why whatever happens, whatever incredibly positive utopia or dystopic nightmare we go into, humans are still going to have some type of edge, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Yes. It's creativity you're describing there, right? And I don't think that the creativity that people think is there in music, right? I I remember some of the recent AI music services, right, where you can put a nice prompt and you're like, wow, it created a song for me, right? I even tried it before, uh, of course, respecting copyright and not using it in any wrong way, but just for fun, at a partner event, um we did across the region every uh every year we do business partner summits, right? And I have to do quite a few because of the 35 countries. And we did one in Croatia in Sadar for the CET region. And I thought,

Trust As The Real Competitive Edge

SPEAKER_00 30:25

hey, couldn't it be fun to see if I could write a meaningful song on IBM, partnerships, AI, quantum, automation, data, um, how we build together, how we create together, but in the context of being there in Sadar, close to the sea, and all of this. And I put all of that into, I think it's called Suno, one of the apps, at least out there, right? And just for myself and and kind of showing a few colleagues, I said, listen to this. It was two minutes of pretty high quality. I mean, you know, catchy song, but it wasn't creativity from the AI. It was my creativity put into the AI and it could only stitch together what it knew. It couldn't create something new from if I asked you to do it, you would sit and look at that ocean, you know, for instance, if you were with me in Sadar, and you would be inspired and look at the waves and stuff, and something new would come up, back to your comment, right? So that's why, again, circling back to the human edge, that's why in in partnerships and ecosystem in today's topic that we're discussing, that's why also that trust, that creativity, that you know, um anomaly that makes the partnership beautiful, creates the unexpected, takes it from just delivering the numbers in quarter to suddenly doubling the business because we found that anomaly that was cool because of human beings and trust and the connection. I don't believe technology will help us solve that. It will empower it, infuse it, I embrace it, but I'm not worried that we will be obsolete or that the human angle will get lost.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Yeah, I love it. I I think Bob Ross says that, right? Happy little accidents. Yeah. A computer can't really make those. And if it does it on purpose, they're not accidents, right? So I think that's really important to take a look at that edge. There was one thing I wanted to touch on before we kind of wind down, because I think legitimately we could talk about this every week for an hour and it it would be really funny. Really fun. But uh, you talked at the beginning a little bit about how you lead the partner ecosystem at IBM across 35 countries, right? And I'm sure you experience enormous variation in market dynamics, partner expectations, business culture, to which I always say to everyone, leave all your assumptions at the door when you start working with a new culture. But I normally always ask my guy my guests to dive into the differences between these markets. But I want to ask you something else. I want to ask you what patterns are the same across these markets?

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Yeah. And that's that's very interesting because as you say, it is inherently quite different working in from Denmark, Sweden to Netherlands, Belgium to Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia to Uzbekistan. There was kind of a line drawn through the territory. So that is in in you know, in itself super, super different. And and I love uh your expression, right? Uh leaving everything at the door in terms of your biases or thinking you're knowing. But there are, as you say, things that are the same. And that's very, very important, I think, that we as human beings are in that sense quite predictable. And it's back to some of the words we already talked about, right? Everybody wants a trusted relationship. They want to know that if they go into a new partnership with my team at IBM, that they can trust that we are there with them. So what we laid out, the investments we agreed to make, the partner plus program, it's a ramp-up phase, right? And it's built on trust, expectations, business planning, but we haven't done it yet, right? That is universal. If that trust is not there, back to we actually go there and sit with the partner and show them respect for their business, listen to their business model. And one of my favorite expressions, which is also universal, is don't try to sell a partner or a client your products, ask what they are trying to solve or achieve themselves. I know it's basic, you know, sales school logic, but sometimes forgotten, right? Because in the eager of getting my agenda through, my vendor agenda or my whatever product agenda, you forgot to you forget to ask the most important question, which is also again universal across the 35 countries. How can I help your business grow? What is it we need to infuse in terms of selling products or embedding technology or system integration or MSP world that you touched on, right? How can we fuel the MSP world, which is a very sensitive world, by the way, right? You you can only be successful in

Creativity Lessons From AI Music

SPEAKER_00 34:55

an MSP world if you dramatically help them lower cost or add a product on the shelf that from day one is selling or service. That's the only way, right? In my view. So I think those things that make us human and the human side of partnership is really, really universal and something you can always use as a foundation. So while you should respect very big differences in culture, business culture, how human beings interact, uh, you know, what they see as success and failure, and I mean all of these differences. Political environment, right? Not to not to forget, geopolitics and all of this. It's it's it's truly different. There are these universal things of why are we sitting here? We're here to win. Both of us win at both sides of the table. It's almost like everybody should make sure they have these basic negotiation skills, right? Because that talks a lot about it as well. How do you win in a negotiation? It's not about you winning, it's about us winning. So I think that that's kind of my take on it, is that there's much more that is universal than people think. Because, as you said in your question, we often try to look at the differences because it's fun to compare. When I go to Uzbekistan and I come back to Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, they all say, So how was it different there? You know, what kind of world is it? And how do they, you know, the and and and I actually come back and think, wow, there's a lot of things that is just human beings trusting each other or not, wanting to work with each other, um, you know, sitting down, agreeing things, looking each other in the eye, greeting each other. And I think that's universal. And that's why the things we talked about here in this podcast about paying it forward, you know, dig your well before you're thirsty. We didn't touch on that one, but but it's the same as the bank account, right? If if you haven't done the investment when you need it, it's too late. You're done, right? So you have to do it in advance, proactively. And that's the same in in all countries. If you're not proactive, if you don't think ahead, it's too late once the opportunity is there. Also universal. So so many universal things.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

It's it's awesome. It's almost like the the laws of logic, right? They they exist everywhere at all times, in in in kind of all configurations, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

And I love the most simple things in life is often not difficult saying, but very difficult practicing.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

100%. So there's one Dutch expression that I love so much, which is it it roughly translates to, I wanted to write you a short letter, but I didn't have the time. And that that does that's like the easiest to describe things are often the hardest to embody. Before I ask you for your final nuggets of wisdom, of which you probably have many, I feel like we could just capture all of them in this conversation already. Um, we always ask our guests to nominate the next guest on this podcast. So who do you have in mind for this?

SPEAKER_00 37:49

Yeah, so super tough question. You know, with with 30 years in the industry, the uh the network is vast and the number of great people is endless, right? Because I guess that's also why I stayed in the industry for 30 years is twofold, right? Uh super exciting to work in technology and in IT. That's never gonna get boring, that's for sure. Ever changing, but also because of the people, amazing people in this industry, visionaries and passionate passion is a is a good word as well, passionate people. So, no, I was thinking um to nominate one who I met at VMware. She came into my team, and instantly I saw all of those, I would call them at least argue, qualities that we discussed today on partnership, human-to-human, energy, passion, drive. That is also very important. So Anna Maria Löweberg, which is which is how you pronounce it in English, I guess, but um but Löweberg in uh in uh in Swedish from GitLab. She was just recently uh with us at IBM through the HashiCorp acquisition, but is now at at GitLab and uh working with partners across EMEA. And I think it would be

What Stays True Across 35 Countries

SPEAKER_00 38:55

interesting for you and for the listeners to get her perspective on on ecosystem and and the journey that she's been on. So that would be my my nomination. Uh, a good friend for many, many years and partner in crime, I would say Anna Maria.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Fantastic. I'm already looking forward to this one. I'll definitely reach out to her. Um, awesome recommendation. To wrap this up, do you have any final insights, words of wisdom, tips or tricks that you'd like to share with me or the audience?

SPEAKER_00 39:21

Well, as you said, I think we uh really actually got through to a lot of them, but but it would be probably summarizing a bit more than adding a lot of new things, right? So I think in summary, human beings and the qualities that we have and the qualities we have in business is important as ever. And my belief, my prediction is they will stay that way. So I think let's let's remind each other that in the in the craziness of of AI uh productivity and uh and AI eagerness. Let's remind ourselves that it takes investment to get the result that you want a long term. So that's back to, and maybe I can put a few more words on on the dig your well before you're thirsty, right? Because I think that's an even better picture than the banking account, is you know, the metaphor standing in the middle of the desert being very thirsty and you wish you had dug a well because the water is 20 meters down, it is just inherently too late, right? But if you dig a meter every day, right, around that base you have in the desert, and then once you're thirsty, you know, and your water runs out, you have ducked that 20 meters down and you have your water, then you know, you have a better foundation. And that's exactly what I believe in in business, in partnership, in life, in ecosystem, is that's how you need to think, right? Prepare, don't take things for granted, you know, invest in it, think ahead. And then lastly, I have to put the the, you know, again, as I said, a little bit uh hard maybe to apply in business because we're going after quantitative goals every day. It's pay it forward. Remember to do something good for people, do something good in your partnership, in your relationship, in the business, in your company, for your team,

Next Guest Nomination And Final Wisdom

SPEAKER_00 41:10

where you don't think about what do I want back? What was the goal of this? The only goal was to help someone, make them smile, give them a better day. So pay it forward and just maybe even saying once you you've done it, right? The person says, Why did you do this? Right? I don't get it. You're you're you're helping me for no reason, or you said this for no reason. You know, they they sometimes they actually do ask you why did you do it? And I think our obligation or my my um could I call it call to action, let's call it that from this podcast, is try to explain people why you do it. First of all, do it. Second, explain why you're doing it, and then tell them to go do it themselves, because then we spread some, yeah, I would almost say love and care, which is also applicable in business, right? And I and I think it makes business better, it makes the world better. So there's absolutely no reason for not doing it.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

I have literally nothing to add. I fully agree. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and uh taking the time to speak with me. I had a blast. Uh I really appreciate the insights you shared. It's it's a fascinating look into how someone like you with your experience can really take all these learnings and condense them into such an easy-to-understand narrative. And I think our listeners will definitely pull a lot out of this. Speaking of listeners, dear listeners, thank you for tuning in. And uh, we'll see you in the next episode. Thanks, Thomas. Thank you so much.