One of the largest IT service companies in the world, and consulting partner of both Slack and Salesforce, IBM is receiving The Excellence Award for using Slack as its digital HQ, innovatively leveraging the platform to transform its operations, automate the future of work and stay on the cutting edge of technology.
IBM is one of Slack’s largest customers with 250,000 global employees who send an average of 9.2 million Slack messages per day to facilitate work. Since 2015, the company has installed more than 3,500 off-the-shelf and custom apps and uses 3,400 workflows each month. In a display of their commitment to operating from a productivity platform, IBM’s executive team also uses Slack during Ask Me Anything sessions.
‘We use Slack every day at IBM. The fact that I can connect my Salesforce opportunities inside Slack and see exactly what’s going on from one single source of truth is invaluable.’
IBM’s CIO team drives the company’s implementation of Slack, led by director Konrad Lagarde and Slack product technical owner Guillermo Valdivia. ‘Thanks to Slack channels, workspaces and integrations, Slack transformed how IBM does business,’ says Valdivia. ‘It’s magical. And then there’s Slack Connect, where you can collaborate and connect with external organisations right away, without waiting for emails.’
IBM has also deployed Salesforce Service Cloud across its service organisation, Salesforce Sales Cloud for its global sales function, and Salesforce partner management solutions to thousands of IBM business partners. These optimised solutions, with Watson AI-powered integrations, are speeding up problem resolution, improving insights and increasing business outcomes.
In relying on Slack to ensure that its teams and individuals stay connected and productive from anywhere, IBM is redefining the modern workplace and setting a new bar for IT service organisations. ‘People just gravitate toward Slack,’ says Bob McDonald, IBM’s Vice President of CRM Experience. ‘It’s so effective and intuitive that teams naturally want to use it. With Slack, you can deliver business results inside the company – as well as extend those to customers and partners.’
Joining forces to help companies create their own productivity platform
Navigating an enterprise digital transformation – all while continuing day-to-day operations – can be overwhelming and cumbersome. That’s why Slack and Salesforce have partnered with IBM Consulting to advise companies trying to adapt to rapidly changing work environments.
The IBM Consulting team that guided IBM through its own successful digital transformation with Slack and Salesforce – from integrating existing tech stacks to globally enabling all of its employees – now helps organisations across all industries pivot to this new way of working in a productivity platform. IBM uses its proven methodology, Enterprise Design Thinking for Data and AI, to identify the business opportunity and intent and then creates user-friendly Slack applications that orchestrate intelligent workflows across multiple enterprise platforms.
In fact, IBM Consulting was recently recognised for this work with a Salesforce Partner Innovation Award, honouring its deep knowledge and technical expertise in using Slack to help organisations overcome business challenges and drive success.
