Don’t Break the Bank: Run IT, Change IT

If Only I Had Known That Before I Joined...with Jennifer Manry

Episode Summary

In this episode of Don’t Break the Bank, we talk to Jennifer Manry, Vice President of the Global Industries Group at VMware. Jennifer talks us through how to motivate teams and navigate businesses during times of digital transformation.

Episode Notes

3 Takeaways:

• Always invest time and effort in eliminating non-value added work and automating where possible. You can't continue to come back and ask for more money without demonstrating that you’re being responsible with the budget already given. 
• Make sure your tech experts feel connected to the customer experience. Ask IT to do ride alongs - listen to someone on the desk. Do empathy interviews and talk to people. 
• The growth mindset of the organization - the willingness to do new things and manage through change with positivity and energy - is paramount to making all of the technology work to its fullest capability. You need to get buy-in to move forward.

Key Quotes: 

• "Customer interaction is a really important thing to spend time on. So I definitely encourage people who are in tech to go talk to customers. You immediately know how important you are to the business.” - Jennifer
• “The theme I hear in most of these customer interactions is every one of them is grappling now with a transformation journey that they knew they had to make but now are having to do it on an even more accelerated timeline. I think all of them had multifaceted plans but now are having to execute on some of them in days and weeks as opposed to quarters of years.” - Jennifer
• “Teammates should look for ways to eliminate costs on one side so that they can free up money for new innovation and new investment on the other. You can't just continue to radically grow your technology dollars year over year. You've got to start to tidy up the house in order to make room for new things.” - Jennifer

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Links

Jennifer Manry LinkedIn

Women Who Code

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About the Hosts

Matthew O'Neill is a husband, dad, geek and Industry Managing Director, Advanced Technology Group in the Office of the CTO at VMware.

You can find Matthew on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Brian Hayes is an audiophile, dad, builder of sheds, maker of mirth, world traveller and EMEA Financial Services Industry Lead at VMware.

You can find Brian on LinkedIn.