In a business environment defined by rapid technological change and rising customer expectations, successful transformation requires more than implementing new technology. It demands strong partnerships, deep collaboration and a shared commitment to delivering measurable business outcomes.
In this episode of Frontier Forward: Asia Edition, Kerri Lampard, SI & Advisory Lead for Asia, Microsoft, sits down with David Haigh, Senior Partner, APAC Offerings & Growth Leader, IBM Consulting, to discuss how IBM Consulting and Microsoft are working together to help organizations navigate complex transformation journeys. This conversation highlights how deep partnership, early engagement and a shared focus on customer outcomes are driving success.
Key takeaways
- Delivering end-to-end digital transformation for complex enterprises:
IBM Consulting and Microsoft partnered with a large manufacturing organization in India to implement a centralized control platform across 40 manufacturing sites. The solution delivered increased digitalization, real-time operational visibility and data-driven insights, helping the organization improve efficiency while creating a scalable platform for future growth.
- Building solutions designed for long-term business expansion:
Transformation initiatives must deliver immediate value while supporting future business needs. By creating a platform capable of seamlessly onboarding newly acquired businesses, IBM Consulting and Microsoft helped the client establish a foundation that could evolve alongside its growth strategy.
- Overcoming complexity through early collaboration and co-design:
One of the strongest themes from the discussion was the importance of engaging ecosystem partners early. For a large-scale ERP migration in Australia, IBM Consulting and Microsoft worked together during the solution design phase before project award, creating alignment, building trust and establishing a shared vision throughout the project lifecycle.
- Creating stronger customer outcomes through trusted partnerships:
Customers increasingly look to technology providers and consulting partners to bring the power of the broader ecosystem to their transformation programs. Success comes from understanding each partner’s strengths, fostering trust between teams and maintaining a unified focus on delivering customer value.
- Investing beyond individual projects to unlock greater value:
Strong partnerships are built through ongoing investment in relationships, knowledge sharing and joint innovation. David emphasized that long-term strategic partnerships create greater value for customers and partners, with the hard yards of collaboration between major milestones often laying the foundation for lasting success.
- Translating innovation into tangible business value:
As AI and emerging technologies continue to advance, organizations are looking beyond technology adoption to measurable outcomes. IBM Consulting and Microsoft share a focus on helping customers apply innovation to business challenges, improve operations and create measurable business value.
Stay connected
Keep tuning in to Frontier Forward: Asia Edition for more partner stories and insights that showcase how organizations across Asia are navigating transformation, embracing innovation and delivering meaningful business outcomes through the power of collaboration.
Full transcript:
Disclaimer: This AI-generated transcript may contain errors. Please verify with the original audio or script for accuracy.
Kerri Lampard:
Hi David, it is so great to have you join our Frontier series, and I'm really looking forward to the conversation today. Could you just briefly introduce yourself?
David Haigh:
Hey, good morning, Kerri, really good to be with you. Thanks for having me. So my name is David Haigh. I lead offerings and growth for IBM Consulting across Asia Pacific based in Singapore.
Kerri:
And I think everyone knows IBM, but it might be worth providing a little more context on IBM Consulting and the markets that you are in Asia.
David:
We're a well-established technology hardware company, but on the consulting side of the business, we operate across all of the major markets in Asia Pacific. And just for some context, we have about 15,000 professionals working to deliver value to our clients. We get the pleasure of working with you and your team every day, which is amazing.
Kerri:
And that's probably a good segue into talking about what the teams are doing together. So from all the amazing work that our teams do to deliver for our customers, I know it's going to be really hard to choose, but I'm going to put you on the spot and ask you to share an example of where together we have delivered some transformation for our customers.
David:
Yeah, you're right, Kerri. There's a lot. I mean, I'm really excited about the partnership, but maybe if I can just zoom in on one example that I think has been really quite impactful, not just for us, but for our client also.
So we worked together for a large manufacturing organization, part of a conglomerate in India, to deliver a centralized control platform that would allow them to have clear visibility over 40 manufacturing sites that they've got. So, big challenge, and across some of the legacy infrastructure.
I'm delighted to say that we were able to deliver that project successfully, provide 100% digitalization, give them real-time data-driven insights across their business. A fantastic example of collaboration between Microsoft and IBM.
And I think not only delivering better, faster insights, but cost reduction on quite a significant basis. And this is a client that is quite acquisitive in its nature and it's got a very aggressive inorganic expansion strategy. So a big part of the brief was that whatever we built had to be able to onboard new businesses in a relatively seamless fashion. So I think it's been a great example of the collaboration.
Kerri:
I agree with you. It's been amazing to see what we've done together in that client, and then the opportunity to expand within that client and also to take those best practices across into other organizations as well.
David:
As I said, it's a conglomerate. So we're already working in other business units separate to the one that I just referenced there. And again, I see nothing but opportunity for the partnership going forward with that client. And many more too.
Kerri:
So if we think about helping our customers on these transformation journeys, sometimes they have expectations that are challenging to meet. So how do we, in your experience and listening to your customers, what's one example you could share how we work together to overcome one of those?
David:
Whenever you embark on a transformation journey with a client, you're never without challenge, but I think it's how you respond that matters. And maybe picking on another example where we've successfully worked together, a different type of organization, a consumer products food and beverage company down in Australia, where we delivered a different type of project.
This was migrating off a legacy ERP infrastructure onto a new cloud-based Azure infrastructure. An incredibly complex project, not least because the organization has significant manufacturing and distribution operations. And this had to be completed with minimal interruption to the production environment. And I think, as you alluded to, the timeline was particularly aggressive. For me, one of the real success factors of this engagement was the early engagement of the teams.
Even before we'd been awarded the contract, there was close interaction and coming together through solutioning and design, such that we were both at the table from a very early point in the journey.
I think that helped from two perspectives. Obviously, from a technology solution perspective, we were very clear where we each played. But I think more importantly, it allowed that trust to build between the teams on the ground. And if I think about what clients are asking us for today, it's very much to bring the power of the ecosystem to them.
We know that one firm can no longer do everything, but it comes down to people on the ground at the end of the day. And I think the earlier we can get the teams working together and allow that trust to build, the better. And I'm really proud because one of the points of feedback that the client gave to us was that both organizations very much left their corporate boundaries at the door.
And this was all about coming together to deliver for our mutual client. And I'm delighted to say that we delivered successfully, with very minimal downside. A great example of that collaboration.
Kerri:
Yeah, it's an amazing story of how together we jointly listened and consulted with our customer to understand what they wanted to do. And then how we showed up as one unit, IBM Consulting and Microsoft, to go deliver that for the customer. So it's really listening, having the right conversation, and then executing on that.
David:
Absolutely. And I think it's worth pointing out, this was one of the largest ERP migrations of its kind in that market. So again, the level of complexity here was significant and you need that trust because, without a doubt, we went through difficult moments on this project, as you do on all projects. But you can overcome most things if that trust is there and you've got that good working relationship, which I think we do.
Kerri:
If we think about your experience working with us, if we think about the conversations that you're having with customers, I'm sure you've got a lot of advice and some best practices. What would be one that would be top of mind for you that you could share?
David:
As I mentioned up front, clients increasingly coming to you and coming to us are wanting to see impactful partnerships to help solve their business challenges. So I think a couple of things, Kerri, I would say. We've touched on the early engagement point.
And I think now that our partnership has got to a level of maturity where it's not defined by individual customer engagements. It's an ongoing flow of information exchange and ideas exchange. Once you get to that level, that requires investment.
Obviously, you've got investment of time, money, and effort. And I think the one thing I've taken away, and obviously I've worked with Microsoft for a few years now, is you have to make that investment up front in order to reap the benefits downstream.
If you continue to think about this as a project-by-project relationship, then I think we'll never unlock the full benefit either for ourselves or for our clients. So I think the hard yards in between the glory moments of delivering for our clients are really, really important. And we'll continue to make that investment from our side. And I know you will from your side as we look to deepen the collaboration across multiple geographies.
Kerri:
Yeah, you're right. I love how you describe it as the hard yards in between the hero moments that we have when we win a deal or deliver for a customer. And it's a lot of work that the teams do, both from what we have in our executive engagements all the way to how our field teams are working together.
And as you said, they have that trust of working together that collectively we are both delivering for our customer, which is the end result here. So it's great to see all of that coming together.
David:
Yeah, and I would just add to that. I think we obviously sit here in Asia Pacific, which is an incredibly dynamic market, but as you well know, we've got top-down support from our respective organizations, from corporate headquarters in the US.
And this partnership is really, really important for us and for our clients. So that's really reassuring. And when I see leadership from Microsoft engaging, top of the house, with leadership from IBM, that's terrific. It really gives us a great platform to build off in this part of the world.
Kerri:
David, as we're wrapping up this conversation, it would be great if there was one thing that you would leave us with, what would that be?
David: The professional services market and the technology market are changing very, very rapidly, along with client expectations and how clients want to procure from us. So I think what's incumbent upon all of us is to embrace innovation and embrace different ways of engaging with our clients.
If you think about the AI age that we're in, it's incredibly important that we're able to adapt to what clients are looking for. I know Microsoft is absolutely at the forefront of driving new innovative technologies, as are we at IBM.
So I think how we bring that innovation to clients, and ultimately how we're able to articulate value to our clients. There's a lot of buzz around new technology. Almost every morning we wake up, there are new AI models out there. But for me, it's how do we translate that into business value for our clients?
And I think if we can jointly curate that message and communicate it effectively, then we'll be able to help many more clients on their journeys.
Kerri:
So David, thank you for joining me today and sharing your insights. And I know we'll continue this conversation going forward. We appreciate the partnership with IBM Consulting and look forward to how we'll deliver together for our customers.
David:
Thanks, Kerri, and thanks for having me. It's been great to talk with you. Super excited about what we can do going forward and yeah, I really enjoyed the conversation.