Mobile Operators and 5G: Evolving into Digital Service Providers

5G is a revolutionary technology that’s expected to enable Industrial Digitization. It envisions a digital network that enables society to become mobile and connected, while driving value creation in sustainable business models. 5G implementation will have an impact in social and business developments some of them would be as:

◈ High-capacity or high-performance outdoor and indoor broadband access in high density spaces
◈ Increased user mobility
◈ Proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices
◈ Extreme real-time communication
◈ Ultra-reliable and lifeline communications

With 5G technology powering the next wave of business ecosystems and capabilities, a new and diverse revenue mix will be created for mobile operators who can turn their mobile networks into platforms for deeper interaction with content and services. This transformation to digital service providers will facilitate the creation of new disruptive business models coupled with lean operational efficiency. While this evolution has the potential to drive revenue streams for service providers into enterprises and vertical solutions, it is a significant business and technology transformation that must be visualized in an end-to-end fashion. The technology transformation is underpinned by the Network as a Service (NaaS) model, which creates a slice in the network to carry various types of traffic and service SLAs over a single network.

The Business Proposition for 5G

The new network infrastructure will address exponential bandwidth demands, massive logic scale, and the rise in low-latency requirements from new applications and services in an efficient, automated, and programmable manner using a flexible and agile network fabric.

Operators can grow Enterprise revenue streams through use cases like Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and create varied business models as 5G enables IoT, machine-to-machine communication at scale, and low latency services, also known as ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC).

The adoption of technology advancements in the radio domain also offers the potential for operators to accelerate the implementation and monetization of massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) technology. MIMO allows the dynamic transmission of data as highly focused beams to send and receive multiple data signals simultaneously over the same radio channel, with multiple users using the same time and frequency resources through millimeter wavelengths and small cells.

Bringing possibilities to life using Network as a Service (NaaS)

For operators to provide the use cases detailed above, the network must be used as a Service. There will be a need for a flexible, dynamic network configuration based on user-specific service requirements, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all architecture. To achieve the Network as a Service approach, network slicing – a critical service feature, is introduced in 5G technology. This feature, coupled with a slice orchestration engine, working in tandem and across various domains, as well as software-defined networking (SDN) controllers, allow operators to offer the NaaS solution to their enterprise customers.

Network slicing allows multiple logical networks to be run as virtually independent business operations on a common physical infrastructure. Network slicing provides a network with user-specific functionality without losing the economies of scale of a common infrastructure. Network slicing will be an end-to-end solution approach, traversing across the different layers of the packet network from access to core. For implementation, Network slicing will require platforms to be much more programmable, intelligent, and flexible in order to cope with heterogenous environments and requirements.

The new services enabled by 5G will require that separate slices can be provisioned for different services based on the operator’s requirements, as well as those of the enterprise customer. Network slicing can be a combination of hard and soft slicing; hard slicing comprises the creation of separate planes or topologies with dedicated links, while soft slicing is a logical isolation and traffic classification using VPN and quality of service (QoS).

In the 5G era, a single network infrastructure can meet diversified service requirements. A 5G E2E network architecture is envisaged to have the following attributes: Provides logically independent hard and soft network slicing on a single network fabric to meet diversified service requirements and provides Telco Cloud consisting of DC SDN fabric and virtualization stack, providing a platform to host 5G infrastructure services as well as business services. Radio disaggregation and virtualization will reconstruct radio access networks (RAN) to provide massive connections of multiple standards and implement the on-demand deployment of RAN functions required by 5G. This also simplifies the core network architecture to implement the on-demand configuration of network functions through control and user plane separation, on-demand distributed functions and workloads, and unified orchestration and management.

The key tenets of 5G network transformation

Traditionally, mobile operators have had network architectures that are complex, rigid, monolithic resulting in high operating costs. To be operationally efficient, agile and to deliver NaaS, Service Providers will have to transform to Network Cloud architectures for 5G. The key tenets of this transformation are as follows:

◈ Transport simplification 

     ◈ To reduce the number of devices from access to core, states and protocols on the IP transport layer with stringent timing considerations

◈ Network functions virtualization (NFV) 

     ◈ Benefits include virtualization, disaggregation, agility and the ability to drive Capex savings leveraging non-modified opensource technologies

◈ Distributed Edge Cloud 

     ◈ Hosting services at the network edge translates to bandwidth savings and a better user experience while reducing touchpoints for network operations and management if deployed correctly

◈ SDN and Orchestration 

      ◈ To build an automated network service and analytics framework visualized to a network management for reduced time to market and improve operational efficiency

Bringing it all together: Cisco 5G

Network as a Service is a key framework for operators to monetize 5G. Cisco’s approach is to build a programmable, packet-based network architecture with orchestration and closed-loop automation. This takes place across various domains of the 5G network like Transport networks, Central and Distributed Edge data centers to host cloud-native network functions in an agile manner. This approach empowers operators to transform holistically from the one-size-fits-all approach to a dynamic network slice architecture to capitalize on the opportunity 5G will bring.

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Cisco Advanced Malware Protection for Endpoints Awarded AV-Comparatives’ Approved Business Product Award

We are very pleased to share the news that our Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) for Endpoints won the Approved Business Security Award from AV-Comparatives. And we’re happy about this for a couple of reasons.

Most vendors’ marketing materials look great, your organization exists in the real world. So, having an independent third-party conduct months of testing against our technology, and us coming out a winner, helps to show the world what our customers already know: that the strength, flexibility, and ease of use of our endpoint security establishes our leadership. We have over a decade of experience in endpoint protection through Immunet (creators of AMP) and Sourcefire (creators of ClamAV).

AV-Comparatives’ Business Main-Test Series ran from March to June and consisted of two, in-depth tests:

The Malware Protection Test

This test ran in March and consisted of having 1,311 malware samples thrown at us during that time. A passing score required a 90% or higher detection rate and this time zero false positives. We did very well scoring a 99.8% with zero false positives.

The Real-World Protection Test

The idea here was to mimic what happens in, well, the real world. This test ran from March to June and was based upon 732 test cases. The focus here was on user behaviors such as clicking malicious links, opening malicious email attachments, etc.

An efficacy score of 90% or higher and a false positive count of 100 or less were the criteria to pass this test. And, we came in with 98.9% and ranked in the lowest false positive group.

In short, AMP for Endpoints achieved test results that demonstrated a balance of strong protection rates with very low false positives. AV-Comparatives also highlighted Cisco’s broad endpoint platform support and relative ease of deployment.

Beyond antivirus

Secondly, we view this report as further evidence that the security world has moved past the legacy world of antivirus. I’m not saying antivirus doesn’t have a role to play in endpoint security. Our own ClamAV is one of the several mechanisms that AMP for Endpoints uses. What I am saying is that the ‘antivirus as a sole means of endpoint protection’ ship has sailed – and sailed a long time ago.

The biggest problem with antivirus is that it’s not operationally efficient. That means a lower return on your investment and weaker protection of your business. Back in my IT days in the late 90s and early 2000s, antivirus was a big deal, but it was tough enough to administer when I was at a small, two-office operation let alone when I moved up a 50,000-user, global enterprise. And when the Love Letter worm hit us in 2003, that was a couple days and nights of manual remediation for our entire department, worldwide, because antivirus couldn’t remediate the problem or identify infected hosts.

Now fast forward to today’s world of fileless malware and multi-vector attacks that combine email, web, endpoints, etc. What’s antivirus going to do about those? The answer is pretty obvious.

What was surprising for me to learn recently was that the majority of organizations out there still rely on antivirus for their endpoint protection. I attribute this to deployment fatigue. Rolling out software is hard. I know. I’ve deployed my share of enterprise software. The good news about AMP for Endpoints is that we can be up and running quickly, as noted on page 28 of the AV-Comparatives report:

“Getting started with Cisco Advanced Malware Protection for Endpoints is very straightforward. The console requires no setup, and deploying the client software is quick and easy.”

The Big Picture

We believe it’s important to put our technology to the test and we feel the results speak to how our solution helps our customers protect their organizations. (I’ve included links to other real-world tests below.) We also believe that strong endpoint protection comes from being a part of an integrated security portfolio. One that dynamically shares the latest threat intelligence is the most effective way to defend against modern attacks. And we’ve designed our integrated security portfolio to do exactly that. But that’s another story for another day.

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Take bigger risks with the right trusted advisors

When I look back at all the chances I have taken in my life – moving to New York City out of college having never visited prior, to leaving that career with no direction of what was next, to joining Cisco back in 2012 having no technology background whatsoever. I ask myself what gave me the strength and resolve to do so (after I ask myself was I crazy), and the overwhelming response is that I have always had a strong support system.  My parents packed me up and drove me from North Carolina to New York, and they also packed me up and drove me from New York back to North Carolina.  My husband and my friends helped me formulate my plan, provided me with sound advice and lent their shoulders to lean on when I took the leap of faith to come to Cisco.  Without any of these people, I would not be here today.

The same can be said for our customers and partners as they work to differentiate themselves in an ever-increasing competitive market.  Those who want to set themselves apart must be innovative, provide an amazing customer experience, but also insure a high level of security at the same time.

According to Steve Martino, SVP and CISO for Cisco; “Companies need to balance security vs business risk, and user experience. Once you have that balance, you need a program that applies defense with an active response for when things go wrong. Human error is a reality and there’s a multi-billion dollar cybercrime industry today that bets on it. You need to plan for that error and be able to respond quickly when it happens. Every day we find successful attempts to defeat our security defenses due to human error, or dedicated bad actors targeting our assets, or to software vulnerabilities; and every day we validate that our active detection and responses are finding and containing these attacks. That’s how I know we have a fully functional security program..”

When you have a strong incident response plan in place, you are able to take bigger risks, but where do you start if you don’t have a plan?

All rights reserved to Sandra Cifo

Cisco Incident Response Service

You need proactive plans to help you prepare, and expertise to coordinate and carry out a response.  Cisco’s Incident Response Service provides everything a business needs to develop, implement, and manage the plan, including the option of setting up a flexible retainer to provide proactive and emergency defense services.  An elite team of experts is available and ready to respond within four hours, and they can be traveling to your site within 24 hours.

Cisco Talos is the world’s largest threat intelligence service, to back up the response team.  This is combined with the full Cisco portfolio, including AMP for Endpoints, Umbrella, and ThreatGrid.  These tools not only protect against exploits, but can also identify and trace attempts and breaches across the network.

With all of this, the customer receives the benefit of a stronger security posture through a robust and resilient SOC environment.  This results in a savings of money and reputation and can get a business back to normal operations quickly after a breach.  This solution also works with the existing security infrastructure.

When I came into Cisco, the smartest thing I ever did was partner with people who were smarter than me and could support my learning as I have grown in this career.  The same can be said for our customers – the smartest ones are the ones that realize they can’t do this on their own and reach out to trusted advisors for help.

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Drive Your Cloud Services Portfolio with Webex and the Jobs to be Done Framework

How service providers (SPs) can use the Jobs to be Done (JTBD) framework to better engage with their customers and achieve superior results. In this post, we look at how JTBDs are applied for the Cisco Webex suite. We look at key elements of JTBD construction such as the buyer and purchase dynamics.  We then learn how you can extend Webex JTBDs to differentiate and target your own cloud services offer.

Jobs to be Done Overview

As we learned in Part 1, the JTBD framework is especially powerful when combined with advanced digital engagement methods and larger go-to-market transformation initiatives. In go-to-market transformations, SPs apply digital capabilities to better orchestrate customer interactions across digital and non-digital channels through the end-to-end customer lifecycle.

JTBDs are woven into customer touch points and achieve maximum impact where SPs deliver the right message and experience, to the right persona, at the right time.

Using this approach is especially important for cloud services where customer experience is king, and churn is your biggest enemy. Forbes recently reported that 89% of businesses now compete primarily on the basis of customer experience, up from 36% in 2010.

JTBDs take considerable effort to develop. Building these out requires deep customer engagement, rounds of working with product UI/UX, testing via focus groups, and then verifying via A/B testing and analytics. Finally, you bring your JTBD to life through creative teams and designers.

Apply Jobs to be Done for Webex

To give you some examples of this, we will walk through JTBD highlights for Webex. Note that these Webex JTBDs are new. Webex now incorporates a broader set of capabilities, delivering not only meetings, but Webex Teams, Webex Cloud Calling, and Webex Conferencing Devices. These can be packaged and delivered alongside Cisco handsets, headsets, and other enabling hardware. This powerful suite enables you to target more important jobs for your customers. In addition, the expanded Webex suite can be delivered via the Cisco cloud, offering open APIs to third-party applications and better support for customer cloud migration strategies.

One of the first and most important elements of JTBDs is the focus on the buyer. For Webex, there continues a focus on seamless user experience and industry-leading benefits for IT leadership.  With an expanded set of capabilities, Webex becomes even more important for the IT buyer, firm leadership, procurement activities, and businesses operations.

We see two ways that you can apply JTBDs as you engage IT leadership in their purchase process:

1. Buying groups: While IT may lead the procurement process, the decision itself is more likely done in a group setting with multiple interests or JTBDs represented. Sirius Decisions recently reported that 59% of B2B decision-making is now made by “buying groups.” This dynamic suggests a benefit in identifying multiple JTBDs and how they can appeal across different key purchase influencers or personas in these buying groups.

2. Consumption dynamics: Although Webex is typically purchased by an IT Director, CIO or business owner, the success of the implementation depends on user adoption and consumption. Buyers need to reflect the interests of the firm’s target “end users,” e.g., the broader base of employees who need communications and collaboration tools. Not to be too clever here, but one of the “jobs” of the buyer (and buyer group) is to represent the “jobs” of their end-users.

Figure 1:  How JTBDs are “rolled up” to the CIO for communications solutions from 1) C-suite buyer groups and 2) end-user consumers

To address the above purchase dynamics, our Webex JTBDs focus on the IT leader but include the context of other key stakeholders. By taking related C-suite issues into account, Webex JTBDs give you an ability to target the majority of the C-suite as your potential buying group. We also worked in key end-user issues and common challenges related to mobility, device UX, and inter-generational demands.

Webex Jobs to be Done Summaries

In sum, we identified three starter Webex JTBDs and have presented them in the tables below.  These tables include the target C-suite personas, the C-level purchase priorities, the JTBD classic statement format, and a small amount of supporting third-party data:

JTBD 1	Workplace Transformation to Serve Agile Staff
Targets	CEO, CIO, COO
Priorities	CEO, CIO, COO
JTBD statement	- Employee engagement - Retain top talent - Productivity & execution
JTBD statement	“Agile workers are the future of our business but struggle with an antiquated and inconsistent communications experience. Webex offers ease-of-use, device flexibility, and analytics to transform the workplace and create a connected business environment. This helps us retain top talent and lets agile workers not only engage in the business but achieve greater productivity and execute against their targets.”

JTBD 1 key insight: Webex is not about meetings or calling but about managing your workforce, employee retention, getting the most from your talent, and the culture of your organization.

JTBD 2	Cloud Migration to Drive Growth Initiatives
Targets	CIO, CFO, COO
Priorities	- Drive growth initiatives - Control costs - Support distributed workforce
JTBD statement	“Moving business applications to the cloud is a strategic imperative. The cloud is key to growth and better supports our distributed workforce. We need a path to the cloud with minimal disruption and at a pace that fits our unique mix of site needs and budget. Webex provides hybrid support, flexibility, and channel support to let me move mission-critical calling, collaboration, and contact center applications to the cloud with assurance and confidence.”
Snippets of supporting data	“Data and Analytics” and “Cloud” are cited as #1 and #2 disruptive technologies (77% and 74% impact) affecting how businesses are running their operations, i.e., driving productivity, running workflows, moving goods and services, operating infrastructure, and carrying out business activities, according to KPMG, 2017.

JTBD 2 key insight: cloud migration is the number one initiative and all-consuming for many CIOs. It is a huge gating factor to growth and breakthrough leaps in efficiency.  Webex gets you to the cloud faster.  Tap into that.

JTBD 3	Secure Communications or Lose Our Jobs
Targets	CIO, CFO, COO
Priorities	- Protect customer data - Reduce loss of intellectual property - Manage compliance & reduce regulatory risk
JTBD statement	“Security is now a critical part of everything we do, especially with sensitive communications and customer data. I need communication and collaboration solution with security "baked-in" so we can focus on growth initiatives and sleep soundly at night.”
Snippets of supporting data	The Conference Board reported that US CEOs rank cybersecurity as their #1 external concern for 2019. Security is the #1 management issue cited by CIOs and other IT executives surveyed by the Society for Information Management (SIM).

JTBD 3 key insight:  security is  non-negotiable.  It keeps CIOs and other C suite leaders up at night.  IT staff lose jobs over security.  Piece-part security solutions create enormous amounts of work and headaches for IT.  Do your customers an enormous favor and remind them of the depth and breadth of Webex and Cisco security capabilities.

Use Jobs to be Done for Your Offers

We feel that these JTBDs offer a strong starting point to engage prospects and customers. Instead of talking “product-out,” your sales teams and marketing content should lead with the customer concerns, or “customer-in” challenges. Instead of talking about specific features, hardware, or phone systems, the discussion might start with business objectives, growth plans, and customer experience.

These JTBDs are just the beginning for partners. As partners wrap their unique capabilities around Webex, even more compelling JTBDs are created. You can tackle the bigger and even more important “jobs” of your customers by combining Webex solutions with your broader solutions portfolio. Partner services that align with Webex include network solutions, managed services, migration services, systems integration, and overall service assurance. Not only does this help differentiate your Webex offer, but it can you drive an improved overall experience and set of outcomes for your customers.

Another important consideration is where you can enhance Webex JTBDs in combination with additional Cisco technologies and services. This includes Webex combined with Cisco networking, hardware, security, and channel certifications. These extended JTBDs bring even more tightly orchestrated and compelling value to customers, and even greater benefits for the CIO and key stakeholders.

In conclusion, SPs face an incredible opportunity to target and win the $2.1T enterprise spend on digital transformation that IDC forecasts  for 2019.

To best address this opportunity, you should:

1. Embrace digital engagement,
2. Lead with Webex and the greater Cisco portfolio, and
3. Use advanced go-to-market frameworks such as Jobs to be Done.

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Secure and Compliant Collaboration with Webex Teams

Easy, Secure Collaboration

In today’s modern and digital workplaces, teamwork transcends organizational and functional boundaries. Effective, secure, and compliant collaboration with your stakeholders, partners and customers is paramount to improving productivity.

Compliance, administration security controls and policies vary greatly across organizations and industry verticals. For any modern collaboration platform, it’s critical to have the flexibility to facilitate communications with external participants outside of the user’s organization – coupled with security controls that minimize friction for users. Webex Teams has a rich set of features spanning compliance, administrative controls and visibility – giving you a secure collaboration experience.

Webex Teams is the easiest messaging platform to set up for cross company collaboration

By default, Webex Teams is an open platform allowing users to communicate with others both inside and outside the organization – while still maintaining end to end encryption and control.

Compliance

Organizations need to comply with internal and external rules and regulations. Companies in regulated industries have to meet regulatory mandates in addition to their own compliance and data loss prevention policies. Cisco Webex Teams allows organizations to ensure compliance around data loss prevention through integration with leading CASB solutions like Cisco Cloudlock. These integrations allow visibility into all user generated content with immediate detection and remediation of user actions and posts that violate your compliance policies.

In addition, Cisco Webex Teams also supports “legal hold” to help organizations with data retention requirements to support legal investigations for compliance. During a litigation proceeding, organizations may be required to preserve data for a period that may be longer than their normal retention policy. In this case, legal hold can be enabled to ensure that relevant information is not purged, but instead retained until the litigation or investigation is complete.

Control

Under certain circumstances and regulatory environments, it may be necessary to block communication with external users who belong to a different organization. Administrators can enforce this policy and block external communications easily with native controls built in Webex Teams. When configured appropriately, users in the organization will no longer be able to message users outside their organization. We are enhancing this capability to allow limited communication to users only in approved domains via a Whitelist created and maintained by admins.

Visibility

Communications with users outside an Organization represents a fairly significant surface area of risk and exposure. With some messaging solutions, administrators and compliance teams have no visibility when users communicate with people outside their organization. Webex Teams enables users from multiple companies to create cross-company channels and allows administrators or compliance officers from both companies to have visibility into all communications generated by users who belong to their respective organizations.

The built in ediscovery search tool provides Compliance officers the ability to search and extract content generated by specific custodians (users) across a time range of interest.

Additionally, many enterprises have invested in enterprise content management (ECM) solutions. Webex Teams allows integration with ECM solutions, such as Microsoft OneDrive and Sharepoint Online, and ensures that only files permitted by the ECM solution can be shared via Webex Teams. Access control policies and permissions configured in the content management system extend to users of Webex Teams in a seamless fashion without the need for any replication.

The setup has zero deployment cost, requiring just a simple toggle in Webex Control Hub. Additionally, it requires no change to an organization’s existing data loss prevention (DLP) policies, or the need to buy additional licenses. Moreover, Webex Teams also provides IT administrators with full control, so they can decide which SharePoint Online and OneDrive domains or Office 365 Tenant they want to use. This means that only IT-approved domains are available to users, thus minimizing the risk of data leakage while providing greater protection against malware threats.

Webex Teams also allows IT managers to disable storage of user documents in the Webex cloud without impacting user workflows. All user files are stored only in IT’s selected file storage system- including file previews. Content Management settings are very easy to configure as shown below.

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The Agility Quadrant

Last evening, I had a lively discussion with my friend Paul on the state of agility in his organization, a midsize company of about 6000 employees. He mentioned that agile is the flavor of the year in his organization and that their executive Samuel had set a goal “We shall be agile by the end of this fiscal year!” He further mentioned that Samuel had directed all his reportees to comply and put Melissa in charge of the transformation

Melissa was Paul’s manager and – guess what – in their last one-on-one discussion, she tasked Paul with this responsibility. So, the responsibility of agile transformation had been delegated to Paul.

My next question to Paul was on his action plan. Paul mentioned that he had been given a good budget. So, he had reached out to the best vendor in the market to come in and ensure that “We shall be agile by the end of this fiscal year!”

Clearly, Paul and his organization had not heard of the Law of Conservation of Agility, which states that:

Agility can neither be delegated nor be outsourced; it can only be cultivated by self and instilled, ingrained by leadership, within and outside.

Let’s try understanding the implications of delegation and outsourcing of Agility. I love to explain this through the LIDO Quadrant.

1. DI —The Quadrant of FRUSTRATION

This is where Paul’s organization started. Leaders have heard the buzzword “agile” and wish they could use the adjective for their organization. There is no effort in place to change things from the top. Agile is considered as a thing for IT and more specifically software development portion of the entire value stream. Leaders expect the people to adopt agile practices. Leaders believe that agile is a shiny cloak that can be worn over the same old dirty clothes without any effort of cleansing the clothes and the body that clads the cloak.

Organizations in this quadrant have a bunch of employees with fancy certifications who are expected to help transform people into agile beings. Employees in such organizations end up taking the same instructions as before from the leadership by standing up instead of sitting down(through Daily Stand Ups). Concepts of continuous prioritization at the portfolio; framing and evaluating the hypothesis behind portfolio initiatives; funding value streams as opposed to projects remain alien concepts.

The empowerment and transparency tenets of Agile are conveniently overlooked. Employees continue to work on fixed scope and delivery date mechanisms but are expected to provide status updates daily.

This is the quadrant of demotivation and frustration where employees feel micromanaged in the garb of Agility. The most likely comment that you may hear from organizations in this quadrant is “Agile doesn’t work!”

2. LO — The Quadrant of INSECURITY

This quadrant is a mixed bag. Leaders understand the basic but outsource the transformation completely to outside consultants. Outside consultants can be wonderful agents to educate an organization and kick start the process of transformation. However, familiarity and respect for the organization’s culture is very important and is the critical missing piece here.

An internal Agile Centre of Excellence can vastly mitigate the cultural shock. Purists may agree that you cannot do “part time” agile. At the same time, agility is not a cookie cutter that can be applied to any organization. The focus needs to be on values and principles of agility and not on mechanics of Agility like how to use an agile project management tool or how to settle the debate on a user story being five story points or three. An internal Centre of Excellence with the right coaches can be a great recipe for success as it helps people soak in these concepts.

Organizations in this quadrant may see initial signs of success due to “compliance” but it ultimately wears off as the outsider vs insider debate catches on. Employees tend to have a sense of insecurity as they are often expected to change their way of working based on the view of people who do not have a complete stake in their success. The most likely comment that you may hear from organizations in this quadrant is “Do we really need agile?”

3. DO — The Quadrant of INDIFFERENCE

This is the quadrant that Paul’s organization landed in after starting with DI, the quadrant of frustration. Organizations with large wallets often end up in this because they think that agility can be bought. Statements of Work with outside vendors are created with the expectation that they bring the magic potion that can transform the organization. There is a lack of sincere attempt by the leadership to imbibe and practise the basics.

This quadrant gives you the myth of agility. Leaders feel they are agile because they have invested in the best vendor and the vendors provide vanity metrics to show the organization is now agile. Everyone is happy and the organization claims victory. The myth “we are agile” has engulfed the organization.

Organizations in this quadrant end up going nowhere. Agility, which talks about taking a product view as opposed to project-centric view, itself ends up being a project! And once the project ends, things are back to the old ways. The most likely comment that you may hear from organizations in this quadrant is “Who cares!”

4. LI —The Quadrant of RELENTLESS IMPROVEMENT

This is the quadrant where leaders inspire the organization to agile maturity through their actions and practices. Leaders understand the values and principles of agility and catalyze the mindset transformation of their organizations. They do so by empowering in-house change agents and leaders. These change agents are mindful of the culture of the organization and have a good understanding of the precise areas to focus.

People feel happy about the change as they see every level of the organization living those values. They get the feeling that “we are all together in this.” They understand that it is not a directive but a transformation. This is the quadrant of relentless improvement.

Organizations in this quadrant are likely to be on the path to relentless improvement through continuous learning with the help of small experiments and sticking to the ones that are helpful; all the while remaining grounded to the values and principles of agile.

The most likely comment that you may hear from organizations in this quadrant is “Agile makes sense!”

Which quadrant is your organization in? A lot of organizations start with DO or DI. The really successful ones make it to LI, the quadrant of relentless improvement. Paul’s organization may take some time to reach there.

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Six Essentials for B2B Email Marketing Success

“That might work in B2C, but we’re B2B,” said my client, as if B2B marketers are from Mars and B2C from Venus. And true, while it sometimes seems that way the good news is we’re both inhabiting planet Earth which is populated by human beings. Luckily human beings – whether they’re receiving email in a business or a consumer context – tend to think and act in remarkably predictable ways.

So now whenever I hear the all too common “but we’re B2B” refrain, I sympathetically respond that whether your company sells to other businesses or to consumers, people are on the other end of your email making decisions about if and how to engage.

Nonetheless, as a B2B marketer myself I am acutely aware of the differences between B2B and B2C. I know the challenges we face specific to email; like smaller email list sizes, longer and more complex sales cycles, business models that don’t (or can’t) support ecommerce, and difficulty in reaching the inboxes of (let alone influencing) decision-makers.

With the business-to-business marketer’s unique distinctions in mind, here are six essentials for B2B email marketing success. As we explore them in more detail, let’s also take a lesson or two from our B2C cousins who’ve paved the way to optimal performance in this powerful marketing channel.

Right Mindset: Long-term Commitment

It’s time for B2B marketers to take the channel as seriously as B2C marketers do. Consumer-facing retailers and ecommerce brands have mastered the use of email to directly drive sales revenue (and a lot of it). Even though the path to sales may be indirect vs. directfor B2B marketers, email goes a long way toward progressing prospects through the sales funnel faster, empowering the customer journey, and strengthening confidence and loyalty. “Taking it seriously” means committing toconsistentintentional messaging, a channel budget, integration with sales, human/agency resources, and strategy while avoiding an on-again, off-again approach.

Think Dialog, not Blast

The days of “batch and blast” email campaigns are long gone (or should be!).B2C email marketers learned this during the fledgling days of marketing automation when they began pioneering “sense-and-respond” emails that were deployed to recognize high-value actions or prevent conversion attrition; like welcome, onboarding, repurchase and abandonment-recovery campaigns. Programs such as these are intentionally designed and sequenced to align tightly with the customer lifecycle and natural inflection points on the customer journey. They mirror a conversation vs. simple one-way communication. It’s time for B2B email to do so as well.

Mine Data for Gold

B2C email marketers have long treated their email lists as a high-value asset, but also know data isn’t limited to merely the subscriber information they collect and campaign response metrics tracked. When married with CDP (customer data platform) and ecommerce data, email subscriber data can be mined for all sorts of nuggets that make segmentation and customization a powerful reality. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all campaigns. Now that we can identify subscriber segments based on behavior, we can dynamically and intentionally message them to reflect their actions preferences, present ultra-relevant offers and entice with timely calls to action. Today’s more advanced systems, APIs and middleware solutions mean data integration from across multiple platforms is practically seamless and far from the painful tech miasma it once was.

Content is King 

Because of B2B’s longer sales cycles often necessitating prospect nurturing to foster eventual conversion, content marketingplays a more important role in B2B than B2C. Yet even with their often direct route from inbox to sales, B2C emailers know that constant promotional messaging without breaks for education, entertainment and information lead to subscriber fatigue and eventual burnout – or worse yet, complaints. So, content-oriented messages designed more to sell by way of serving are an integral part of the mix. B2B marketers are often content-rich and should leverage and extend their content assets into email. Content like case studies, success stories, white papers, webinars, worksheets, comparison grids, feature lists, and research findings make for excellent subscriber engagement and confidence builders. Plus, interaction with content can be scored to identify hot vs. warm vs. cold leads and segment them for unique and appropriate automated follow-up emails

Personality Please!

Once upon a time, B2B marketing became synonymous with “boring” while B2C marketing was allowed to be edgy, creative and fun. I say no more! B2B email can be just as personality-driven as B2C, and is more memorable and welcomed when it is. Take Phrasee for example (a language optimization AI company). They have a distinct brand personality and tone unmistakable in every one of their weekly email newsletters, down to the emojis in subject lines. If your brand or company has a unique personality – or is known for the personality of your founder (think Steve Jobs and Apple) – your email should be letting it shine. In fact, we need more B2B email with personality and style like this one:

Measure Engagement Every Step of the Way

Finally, B2B marketers must close the loop by measuring the results of all our hard work. B2C marketers invest heavily in accountability and attribution, tracking both basic process and key success metrics like completed CTAs, Average Order Value (AOV), sales, revenue, and repeat buyers. Even if channel attribution is more difficult in B2B than B2C, you still need to know what’s working and what isn’t to generate opens, clicks, completed CTAs and more on a campaign-to-campaign or month-over-month basis. But don’t stop there!

What does engagement mean to you? Is it an open, a click, time spent with content, time on site, a call to a sales rep, or some other measure of response such as time to conversion, # of emails opened/clicked per quarter/year, content downloads? Take the time to define what types of engagement prompted by your email are meaningful measures for you, then keep track of them.

If you’re a B2B marketer, there’s no reason that second “B” needs to equate to “blast” or “boring”. With a little ingenuity and a quick study of your B2C contemporaries, B2B email can be just as relevant, timely, tech-savvy and fun as B2C email. Remember these lessons and challenge yourself the next time you’re tempted to say “… but we’re B2B”.

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