IBM Systems Magazine, Power Systems Edition - August 2010 - 54

IBM Perspective
Power Systems directions

Supporting Business Needs

I

BM Systems Support provides worldwide maintenance and technical support to Power Systems* products as well as

event—often before they’re aware of the impact or intervention.

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System x*, System z*, System Storage*, BladeCenter* and

point-of-sale products. Systems Support interacts regularly
with development, client teams, service planning and delivery, engineering, procurement and manufacturing to deliver innovative, end-to-end support for the entire product lifecycle. Clients drive every piece of Systems Support business, which is clear as we anticipate needs and leverage technology and system data to improve their experiences, proactively identify concerns and provide a single point of value. To serve our clients, we: h Think and act globally and deliver locally with high quality h Deliver benefits to clients that fully leverage the breadth of IBM h Ensure availability of skills at the right place to meet client needs deploy a single data repository to make information available for all personnel levels, and consistently execute on outstanding quality processes to guide our highly skilled support staff.

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We c ont i nue t o ac c eler at e t he end-to-end optimization, integration and transformation of the support structure to let our clients experience the full benefits of IBM’s offerings. Wit h complex env ironment s driving the need for complex support, we’re transitioning from supporting products to supporting solutions. We’re collaborating with our IBM colleagues in hardware, software and research to help clients simplify while

Deep technical expertise is the main pillar of our vision, so we require a personal commitment to sk ill enhancement. We build skills through an internal internship program that includes participants from mature and growth markets training at our technical hubs around the globe. Internships provide excellent skill transfer, technical networking and hands-on experience to speed overall problem resolution and increase customer satisfaction and geographic self-sufficiency. We aggressively develop skills and expand infrastructure in the growth markets to fuel this increase as clients move to multiple-location delivery models. We also provide value with our global, diverse support model as emerging economies are growing fast, expanding requirements for language and culture. Our support teams ensure continuous improvement of skills in all markets.

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Our clients expect a quick, live response from the correct team of engineers. This means we must have highly skilled engineers who can solve defects, r e s ol v e p r o blem s a nd drive consistent support processes across all areas. Our product portfolio has expanded greatly to meet the needs of the market. Clients’ needs continue to evolve and we adapt our business model to respond. We take client satisfaction seriously. We use matrices and business intelligence (BI) to analyze field data. We incorporate tools to provide continuous workload prioritization for our support engineers,
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AUGUST 2010

We’re transitioning from supporting products to supporting solutions.
—Walt Ling, vice president, IBM Systems Support

supporting their business initiatives. IBM’s BI capabilities let us leverage the gold mine of diagnostic data for improved tooling. This lets us automate problem analysis and determine our next steps. Our client touch points include telephone and Web-service portals. Predictive analysis notifies IBM of a client

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No support process is ever complete. We continue to identify our next set of goals to reﬁne best practices and offer world-class support for our clients. Walt Ling, vice president, IBM Systems Support

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IBM Systems Magazine, Power Systems Edition - August 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IBM Systems Magazine, Power Systems Edition - August 2010
