First published in the InTandem e-newsletter distributed internally world wide

Ross Kelly is Vice President and General Manager of NonStop Integration Services, Compaq’s Professional Services organization dedicated to finding Himalaya-based solutions for U.S. customers. In this article, Ross talks about the opportunities and challenges of marketing professional services for Tandem products in a world rapidly going online.

With the addition of NonStop Integration Services, Compaq has another star in its cast of business units. NIS workers have developed an intimate knowledge of both customer needs and Tandem Business Unit’s NonStop Himalaya solutions which allows them to tailor the best possible solutions for each customer. As a group of innovators, NIS personnel are market-savvy and fast on their feet. Ross Kelly, as the leader of NIS, sets a great example with his experience, energy and charisma.

Kelly came to Compaq after almost a decade of driving DEC’s consulting systems integration business. Now, his finely honed skills are being brought to bear on NonStop Himalaya solution building. Online business is changing the way almost every company does business, and Ross’s organization is set to help them via solutions on Himalaya systems. “Customers are trying to get to transacting business on the web,” said Kelly, “something the Himalaya hardware and platform are great for.

“I see more in a Tandem box, which has more potential around transacting business on the web, non-stop, than any other box in the industry, and we’ve got to think of it in those terms, web transactions, rather than just the best ‘box’ in the business,” said Kelly.

“Industry-wide, the traditional thought has been to get the customer to buy the product, then let them worry about the steps to achieve an Internet solution. Bill Heil and Pauline Nist are saying, ‘we want to be a solutions oriented business,’ so now we are selling not just Himalaya units but total solutions, ” he added.

Working Hand in Glove
“My message is we not only have the best high-end server in the industry, but we have the service capabilities to create business solutions. If someone wants to buy a ZLE solution, we have the services to fulfill that, and those services pull a lot of Himalayas behind them.”

Yesterday and Today
Kelly has spent the last eight months bringing NIS up to speed. “The year has been organized into two segments,” he said. “Quarters one and two have been spent reestablishing our presence and relevance with sales and work forces. Quarters three and four are being spent migrating from an expertise-oriented services firm to being a solutions-oriented firm. Our challenge has been to execute that migration.

“Up to this point, our business has been predominantly staff augmentation, providing resources on an hourly rate,” said Kelly. “It keeps the lights burning, but it’s sort of a commodity of services, basically a customer having a Himalaya running NSK and wanting to write or modify an NSK application. That’s on the lower end of the services food chain, so in the second half of 1999 we shifted from a background services orientation to a solutions orientation. The trick is to make the shift and at the same time maintain profitability and we’ve done that,” he added

Instead of a two-part process, TBU reps selling a hardware system and requiring various ISVs to bring in the applications, NIS is a one-call-does-it-all organization selling the total integrated solutions package. “We now have a solutions portfolio that is rich enough for us to bank on,” said Kelly.

Hand on the Tiller, Eye on the Horizon
For the rapidly approaching future, NIS is focused on four markets. “We will continue to focus on banking and telco, because that’s where Tandem BU’s strengths are,” said Kelly. “Manufacturing is a start up for us, and retail has a very strong pull.”

Online and traditional retailers have many of the same needs and since the ZLE fits the online solution profile, “that is the area we are pursuing,” said Kelly. That pursuit requires feet on the street.

Kelly has doubled his staff in eight months to 65 and plans to double that number again by the end of Q2, 2000. “Our best prospect base is Himalaya-knowledgeable people who have left in the last five years and want to come back to work for us,” he said, and he’ll need all the skilled people he can get because NIS is growing.

Success Begats Success
As a pilot program, NIS has been a success in North America and Ross now has the go ahead to incubate NIS organizations in other regions. “We now have European, Asia-Pacific, Japan and Latin America organizations modeled after the North American piece,” Kelly said.

As the price of his success, Kelly will now have two roles, managing the North America NIS and overseeing development of the new international service organizations. Services requirements for High Performance Server Alpha systems are also being scrutinized. “It makes sense to have one services organization for both Tandem and Alpha converging around the ZLE,” he said. “When you see these large mission critical solutions come together, it will very seldom be exclusively Himalaya-based.

An Exciting Challenge
It is easy for Kelly to get excited about his job because he believes in what he is selling. “With the whole dot-com phenomenon, and NonStop being critical to the Internet world, Tandem is going to be a good story. It has a new relevance in the world of technology,” he says.

“I love the loyalty that I’ve seen with this product. I love the employee passion associated with this division. The challenge is for this division to move that passion into the centerpiece of the Compaq NonStop e-business strategy, and Compaq corporate has given us an opening the size of a truck, he added. “