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 How can enterprises best stay in touch with their customers? That's a crucial question, and answering it delivers a double benefit—a classic win/win scenario for both the enterprise and its customer base.
By fostering ongoing communications with customers, the enterprise increases the odds of delivering what those customers require, improving its market share and ultimately enhancing the business bottom line. Similarly, for customers the direct conduit to the enterprise translates into an opportunity to make product suggestions, report problems, and explore possibilities—all of which leads in turn to improved solutions and services.
 One example of this symbiotic relationship is apparent in the Global Tivoli software User Community site (GTUC), a nonprofit e-community, sponsored in part by IBM, in which IBM and IBM Tivoli customers can interact, addressing many issues of common concern through many different vehicles of communication.
Here, topical Webcasts help to explore new developments in key fields of customer interest. Mailing list archives serve as a repository of exchanged ideas, questions, and answers. New features, such as the site's Be Heard! function, help foster the free exchange of information by allowing site members to respond directly to posted content with comments and/or pertinent files.
Thus, the site helps customers get critical information quickly and easily, and IBM is similarly informed about customer interests, needs, and pain points—information which is subsequently used to improve its offerings.
In just a few years, GTUC has grown into one of the most active, dynamic communities of its class, with members drawn from nations around the world and a rapidly growing population. In the last year alone, site membership has climbed from roughly ten thousand members to more than fifteen thousand—an increase of 50%.
How successful has GTUC been in the pursuit of its goal to link IBM customers with the key information they need? One answer comes from a site member who works in enterprise applications at a major insurance provider.
When asked, this member singled out the fact that GTUC participation gives users a chance to interact directly with IBM, passing on feedback and receiving support on demand. However, he went on to cite other benefits as well, specifying improved granularity of information; because members can select information on the subjects they want, in the detail they want, they get faster time-to-solution. Finally, he said, the site plays a key role in fostering strong business relationships with peers through calls and meetings.
Asset Management Is a Major Focus for IBM Tivoli users
One area of particular interest to IBM Tivoli customers in recent months concerns asset management, a consequence of IBM's acquisition of Maximo and its enterprise-class asset management portfolio. Asset management is a core focus for enterprise IT going forward, as the array of IT solutions in place has increased and become more complex and sophisticated. Achieving best business value from those solutions through end-to-end asset tracking and monitoring, at every stage in their lifecycles, has become more important than ever.
Furthermore, for enterprise-class organizations, there will be many assets that fall outside the traditional range of IT, such as pumps, generators, delivery vehicles, operational plants, and electrical facilities in general. They, too, contribute to the overall success of business strategies, and just as with IT assets, require comprehensive, holistic tracking to ensure that they are utilized appropriately in the pursuit of business goals.
An ideal asset management strategy would link both classes of assets with the business side of the equation as well. For instance, in the case of licensed software, asset management solutions can deliver key information about which software, in which versions, is deployed on which systems—information that not only helps pair technical resources with business needs, but also helps fulfill compliance initiatives and informs purchasing and financial managers in their forecasting.
IBM's Maximo acquisition delivers all these benefits and many more. By way of a unified interface and platform built atop six key management modules, the IBM Maximo family empowers enterprises to visualize all their assets holistically, both inside and outside the IT infrastructure, mapping those assets to business strategies to fulfill initiatives, minimize costs, track asset status, reduce total cost of ownership of assets over time, and leverage untapped potential to optimally align assets with overall business needs.
GTUC Now Offers Targeted Content for IBM Maximo Users
That GTUC members should be particularly interested in the IBM Maximo family is therefore no surprise—and the GTUC site has responded to that interest via many new offerings available on the site.
At present, Maximo groups represent the fastest-growing area of the site; there are 17 different user groups dedicated to IBM Maximo topics, broken down into different geographical, technical, and industry subcategories. IBM clients in, say, Northern California or New Zealand, will be pleased to discover there are Maximo groups available solely to suit their interests; similarly, IBM Maximo users worldwide who focus on oil and gas or life/sciences will find Maximo groups specifically targeting industries and their needs.
Another compelling example of GTUC developments designed to meet the needs of IBM Maximo users is evident in Maximo-centric Webcasts hosted on the site; fully a quarter of GTUC Webcasts in calendar 2007, two of eight, focused on this topic.
In December of last year, the site offered a Webcast titled "The Future of Asset Management—Consolidation and Convergence." Delivered by Rich Caplow of IBM, it focused on the extent to which industry consolidation and convergence are creating new challenges in asset management strategies as systems and vendors consolidate, and at the same time assets not traditionally considered part of the IT infrastructure migrate there via digital convergence technologies.
The IBM Maximo product family is optimally designed to address such consolidation, since it offers the industry's only unified, holistic platform for asset tracking across all asset types, including production, facilities, transportation, and IT. Furthermore, as production, facilities, and transportation converge over time with IT, IBM Maximo solutions will support that convergence as well through features, such as support for RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), by which non-IP-based assets can broadcast their status over an IP infrastructure.
GTUC also offers a news page dedicated specifically to IBM Maximo topics. Here, site members can find a variety of different items and links designed to help them pursue areas of interest, develop new business relationships, answer technical questions, and generally achieve best business value from the IBM Maximo product portfolio. At present, the cited information includes links to IBM Maximo customer support resources; a center of best practices; Maximo success stories and case studies which spotlight different deployments globally; and a list of Maximo-centric trade shows, among other information.
Finally, IBM Maximo customers who have developed relationships through GTUC are encouraged to attend PULSE 2008, the premier service management event of the year. Seven different Maximo-focused GTUC groups will be meeting to discuss new developments in different areas, including utilities, oil and gas, life sciences, transportation, facilities, IT, and airports. Also meeting will be McSIG, a special-interest cross-industry group focusing on best practices and common approaches.
With asset management a key focus for enterprises going forward, the IBM Tivoli User Groups site is where IBM Maximo users can turn to for support, content, news and other resources dedicated to meeting their specific needs.
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