EMC's Core Beliefs

I think having a vision is important for any company.

It's important to how your strategy evolves, how you engage with your customers, and how your employees and partners work with you (or don't!).

Call it the "vision thing".  Laugh all you want, folks.  It makes a difference.

But I think that underneath any vision is a set of core beliefs.

Understand the core beliefs, you'll understand the vision.

And when I talk to people about EMC, I've fallen into the habit of starting with EMC's core beliefs.  That includes internal audiences as well as external ones.

I think starting there helps to make everything else a bit more understandable (or, at least, that's what I've been politely told ...)

So, what are EMC's core beliefs?

Information is becoming the single most important asset in the world today.

Yes, there's going to be a lot more of it (thanks, IDC!).

And, yes, we'll all be able to connect ubquitously to it (thanks, Cisco and others).

And it will fundmentally change society as we know it.

We are of the belief that, with every passing day, information (and how you manage it) has the increasing power to save you money, make you money -- or get you in a whole lot of trouble.

I could make a reasonable argument that information could end up being far more important that buildings, people, brand, business processes, maybe even money.

If information is the most important asset, IT is poised for a promotion.

Who will be the CFO of information?  Who will take overall responsibility for the company's information portfolio?  Across all business units? 

Looking at cost reduction? 
Identifying information risks? 
Finding new ways to leverage the portfolio?

We think it's IT, or should be.  Call them "informationists".  Who else?

If IT is going to be the CFO of information, they're going to need new tools.

We use the phrase "information infrastructure" to describe the capabilities IT will need when they assume ownership of the company's information portfolio.

They'll want the ability to store, protect, optimize and leverage information -- and its infrastructure -- as a unified whole.  Separate from any application or business unit.  Independent of server, OS, database or network.

Back to the CFO analogy.  The CFO has tools and processes to control money (another important asset) across all business functions. 

Nobody gets to make up new rules for money management -- at least, not for long.

If you're going to be the CFO of information, you're going to need information infrastructure.

Beliefs Drive Vision, Strategy and Execution.

One way of describing EMC's vision is to transform how corporations manage information by providing new capabilities. 

Because information is becoming more important than money. 
And IT is getting a promotion. 
And they're going to need some new tools.

The strategy is then pretty easy to understand. 

Starting with "store" (which is where information lives) build up the required capabilities for protecting, optimizing and leveraging information -- independent of source or use -- through acquisition, integration and our own R+D.

And at each layer in the stack, there are clear groupings of technology that solve both tactical challenges, but also represent the next generation in IT technology.  And I've written about many of them here.

My day job at EMC is to exploit and enhance that rich value propositon by making sure it exploits those of other vendors like Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, Cisco, VMware and many others.  Not always intuitive how to do that, so it stays fun.

And then finally, bring it to customers wrapped in a consultative process that helps them transform how they cope with information, one step at a time, with clear business justification.

I could say a lot more ...

... but I already have. 

Matter of fact, if you go read the 70+ posts I've made since last fall, most (if not all!) of them revolve around these core beliefs.

Maybe I could have saved myself a lot of time by just starting with this post ... ;-)

Comments

[Michelle]

Chuck, I'm just wondering where change management comes into play. As we deliver a broad array of products, services and solutions to our customers they necessarily have to to review, revise and often 'redo' existing practices.

How do you think that we, EMC, are doing to help customers with this process?