2015 in review: Your picks for the Top 10 articles on Business Partner Voices
Submitted by Jamie Mendez on
As 2015 winds to a close, we thought it might be fun to look back at the Top 10 blogs on Business Partner Voices this year. We selected blogs based on the highest number of page views, so these blogs can be considered our “greatest hits” as it were, as indicated by you, our IBM Business Partners and loyal readers. Let the countdown begin!
Number 10: Enablement tools that help you sell – From September: Dave Carlquist discusses two valuable tools available to Business Partners—Conversations and FindIT—that enable you to quickly access the assets you need for any sales situation.
Number 9: Business Partners are transforming with IBM—Are you taking advantage of the opportunity? – From July: Mike Gerentine on the success of the Business Transformation Initiative (BTI), which in the first six months of 2015 alone resulted in over 160 BTI workshops with Business Partners like you around the world.
Number 8: Four reasons why you should sell IBM SoftLayer cloud offerings – From April: Denyse Cromwell-Mackey explains why you should be working with IBM and selling IBM® SoftLayer®—especially at a time when cloud spending is expected to grow to USD127.5 billion in 2018, according to the latest IDC figures.
Number 7: Calling all emerging leaders to join the IBM initiative – From April: Mike Gerentine again, talking about the IBM Emerging Leaders initiative. Have you recently hired a college graduate? Are you a recent college graduate who is now working for an IBM Business Partner? This is the blog for you!
Number 6: How to build relationships with key business contacts using Twitter – From July: John McHenry explains how for busy professionals, Twitter lists are a game-changer. The magic of Twitter lists is this: they allow you to scroll through content only from your selected accounts to get exactly the news you want.
Number 5: What’s on the cards? Four ways in which PartnerWorld email has changed – From August: One of mine—I’m honored, naturally. I asked my team to create and launch a completely revamped, card-style PartnerWorld email, and it was a resounding success. Even my blog about it performed very well, too!
Number 4: Team, the full Linux on Power Ecosystem has arrived! – From January: Dave Carlquist on the Red Hat and IBM collaboration, featuring Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.1 Beta support for little endian on IBM Power Systems™. This move enables clients and Business Partners to leverage the Linux on Power® ecosystem to its full capacity.
Number 3: IBM Cloud is “Open for Business”. . . Now more than ever – From July: David Wilson was appointed IBM’s leader of Cloud Business Partners and Channel Innovation early in 2015, and drew a lot of attention with this blog about IBM Cloud offerings, an upgrade to the SoftLayer Reseller Agreement and the ability to not only resell IBM Bluemix®, but to sell it for embedded-use cases as well.
Number 2: Solution Providers rank IBM #1 in Midrange Servers and Enterprise Network Storage – From August: Michele Stern on The Channel Company’s CRN Annual Report Card (ARC) Survey, recognizing the best-in-class vendors in the categories of partnership, support and product innovation. IBM is honored to have received CRN’s 2015 ARC Award for both Midrange Servers and Enterprise Network Storage.
Number 1: Leading the transformation in the era of CAMSS – From August: The winner this year by a long stretch was Dave Carlquist and his incisive take on IBM strategy for 2015. Cloud, big data and analytics, mobile, social and security (CAMSS) have changed the way businesses need to interrelate with their customers, to change and to grow. More than 146,000 Business Partners are now working with IBM to market their services and solutions as part of this new CAMSS marketplace.