HP Innovation Journal Issue 08: Winter 2017 | Page 20

Learn-to-earn starts here “HP on HP” — tales from our own transformation journey Customer Centered Support By Thomas Jensen, Worldwide Head of Channel Sales Strategy, HP By G  ilbert Rossi, Global Head of Customer Support, HP HP sales representatives and channel partners have a powerful shared re- source to accelerate their progress along the “Learn to Earn” continuum. The new- ly announced HP Partner University gives partners access to the HP internal sales force’s high-quality skills trainings. It’s a unique offering; HP is not aware of any other vendor taking this responsibility on behalf of their channel, in any industry. The curriculum will deliver across four pillars — Sales Skills, Product Trainings, Certifications and Specializations — as well as Marketing Skills. Collectively, the courses are designed to equip partners to win more business and make the shift from transactional to solutions focus, driving deeper relationships and more experience-based sales. By extending this access, and taking this level of re- sponsibility for the channel’s success, HP seeks to actively involve our part- ners in creating opportunity through sales transformation, and create a new, uniquely collaborative model for vendors and their channel partners.  A central objective for customer and partner sup- port transformation is to provide best-in-class, device-centric services using advanced digital technologies. 20 Innovation Journal · Issue 8 · Winter 2017 A n increased focus on meeting a cus- tomer’s higher-order business need, as well as putting the customer and partner first, is a significant shift from HP’s historical transactional, product-oriented focus. Today, HP Customer Support is inno- vating in every corner of the organization and is successfully balancing the dual ob- jectives of increasing satisfaction and gen- erating savings. For example, HP’s reinvented approach to warranty and customer care spans both front-end and back-end operations. An in- crease in digital processes enables more efficient routing, higher self-repair and faster unassisted issue resolution. Contracts ad- ministration automation provides efficiency and processes consistent with partner tech- nology. And the global parts supply chain is optimized from the global operating model to parts availability. HP now has a globa l hub to manage and share inventory across regions, and an analytics “nerve center” to provide actionable operational intelligence and fuel innovation. Other benefits include reduced waste, a tiered partner structure, and automated and improved workflows in repair and field operations. HP Customer Support is also scaling ser- vice delivery by enabling partners to deliver support services, training and technical tools, as well as reinventing the service experience “as-a-service” that provides innovative sup- port, preventive self-service and automated device-to-device issue resolution.  HP’s digital journey, powered by IT By N  aresh Shanker, Chief Information Officer, HP M odernized IT infrastructure is par- amount to creating a fast, nimble and efficient organization. HP IT is walking the talk — concurrently support- ing new go-to-market models and playing a central role in the transformation of HP business units, such as sales operations and customer support. HP IT is also re- architecting our infrastructure to increase user productivity, creating a best-in-class data architecture for business insights and shifting to outcome-driven cloud IT where appropriate. A major change within HP IT involves moving from enterprise and transaction-fo- cused solutions to digital, services-based solutions. Specific initiatives HP IT is under- taking include: • Replacing highly complex interdependent architectures with modular plug-and-play architectures, cloud infrastructure, and enhanced security. • Standardizing and simplifying the com- pany’s full technology footprint to reduce the cost of support, simplify the user ex- perience and increase speed to market. These moves have put HP IT well on its way to fully supporting an as-a-service offering portfolio and an omnichannel go- to-market model that takes advantage of the best of core technologies in social, mobile, cloud, fast data and security. • Streamlining development using a hy- brid of waterfall and agile methods and relying on partners in consumption-based arrangements for non-core services, in- stead of building applications in-house using waterfall development. For ex- ample, customers want to protect their intellectual property and their custom- ers’ confidential personal information. Printers have many of the
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