Information Technology Solutions: Asking the Right Questions
I outline the required information for a lead report for any campaign outlined by need.
What is on your storage roadmap?
In this cold call I seek CIO, CTI, IT Director, IT Manager(s).
Call Introduction:
Hi, my name is Tony Crilly and I’m calling on behalf of IBM. I was directed to you as the best person to speak to about your organizations storage environment, is that correct?
IF YES – Great! Essentially the purpose of my call is to send you some information on IBM storage solutions. IBM has storage solutions for all different sized environments and needs. What is the best email address to send this information to?
IF NO – Obtain name of correct contact and contact information.
Discussion Points:
1. How are you currently handling data growth? What storage solutions fo you have in place?
a. How old is this solution?
2. At what $ capacity is your current solution currently at?
3. In which direction, would you say that your storage capacity needs trending?
a. Rspidly expanding?
1. How effective is your current data storage solution in meeting your growing enterprise data storage demands?
b. Maintaining at the current level without any forecasted growth or decline?
c. Declining?
4 How have you managed your existing storage capacoty/complexity needs over the years?
a. Has it been costly and to add new hardware or new software licenses or to otherwise make structural changes to your storage model?
5 How often fo up yest your DRP? What is your recovery time?
6. Have you looked into Cloud Computing for your business? What interested you most?
7. Are you already utilizing any cloud based solutions? If YES, Public? Private? Hybrid?
REQUIRED BACKGROUND INFO *By Need
General Storage need:
1. How old is your current storage solution? What brand?
2. How much data are you storing, total? (TB amount)
3. At what percent capacity is your solution currently at?
4. Are you looking at on-premise or cloud-based solutions or both?
5. How much data capacity are you looking for in a new solution?
Back-up need:
1. Why are you looking to add to/change your back-up solution?
2. What kind of solution are you looking into? (Cloud, on-premise)
3. What brand backup solution are you using now? How old is this?
4. How much data are you backing up? (TB amount)
5. How much data capacity are you looking for in a new solution?
Cloud Computing need:
1. What are you looking to move to the cloud? (back-up, all storage, servers, applications)
• For cloud back up or storage: what type of data are planning to move to the cloud?
• For cloud/hosted servers: How many hosted servers are you wanting on the cloud?
• For applications: What types of applications are you considering moving to the cloud?
2. Are you considering public, private or a hybrid version of those?
3. How much data are you looking to move to the cloud? (TB amount)
4. Are you currently utilizing cloud services?
• If yes
■ Who do you use for cloud (IBM, Azure, AWS, Google, Oracle, Alibaba)?
■ Why aren’t you looking to stay with that provider?
Converged Infrastructure need:
1. How many servers are you currently utilizing? Brand? Age?
2. What storage solution do you currently utilize? Brand? Age?
3. How much data are you currently backing up? (TB amount)
4. Do you currently have any converged/hyper-converged infrastructure?
Power need:
1. Are you using IBM Power i or IBM AIX servers?
a. If IBM i
i. Which of these IBM Power i servers are you currently actively running and how many of each are being used actively: (note if any are for archived data only)
1. Power5 (# of boxes)
2. Power6 (# of boxes)
3. Power7 (# of boxes)
4. Power8 (# of boxes)
ii. What version (s) of IBM i OS are you currently running the machine (s) on:
1. IBM i 7.1
2. IBM i 7.2
3. IBM i 7.3
b. If AIX
i. Which of these IBM AIX Power servers are you currently actively running and how many of each are being used actively: (note if any are for archived data only)
1. Power5 (# of boxes)
2. Power6 (# of boxes)
3. Power7 (# of boxes)
4. Power8 (# of boxes)
ii. What version (s) of AIX are you currently running the machine (s) on:
1. AIX v 5.3
2. AIX v 6.1
3. AIX v 7.1
4. AIX v 7.2
2. What specific software applications are running on the servers you want to replace, per server?
(Examples: JD Edwards [EnterpriseOne] [Oracle], Infor [A+, M3, LN, VISUAL], VAI [S2K Enterprise])
3. Have you already received quotes for a new POWER server? If so, did the vendor who currently supports the IBM Power server for you provide a quote?
4. Do you have an IBM partner that you already work regularly with for your IBM Power server?
5. Are you planning to move the Power server to the cloud? If yes- Please explain.
Phone System need:
1. Do you have an on-premise or IP based phone system?
2. How old is your current phone system?
3. What brand system do you have?
4. How many users do you have?
Unified Communications need:
1. Do you have an or-premise on IP based phone system?
2. How old is this system? Brand?
3. Do you have a standalone phone system, or it is a unified communications platform?
4. What solution do you use for WebEx, messaging, video conference, desktop sharing?
a. Is it an integrated solution or are they all separate solutions?
5. How many users do you have?
a. How many (if any) would you estimate are remote?
Server need:
1. How many servers are you looking to purchase?
2. How old are your current servers? How old are the ones you are looking to replace?
3. How many servers do you have now?
4. What brand servers do you currently use?
Virtualization need:
1. Server Virtualization
a. How many virtual servers are you wanting to add?
b. Are you open to any brand or do you have a preference of something like VMware or HyperV?
c. Have you done any server virtualization before? (if yes) What solution did you use and how much of your environment is virtual?
2. Storage Virtualization
a. Is there something in particular that is making you want to virtualize your storage environment?
b. What features are you looking for in a virtual storage solution?
Security need:
1. What area of security are you looking to evaluate/improve? (email, intrusion, internal access, firewalls)
2. What led you to want to investigate new security solutions?
3. How many users do you have?
4. Do you have any compliance regulations that you have to adhere to?
5. What security solutions do you have in place? (it must be noted that this question was asked, if the prospect is not comfortable answering this is ok but it must be noted)
Networking Hardware need:
1. What brand routers and switches are you using?
2. How old are your current routers and switches?
3. How many routers and switches do you currently have?
4. Are you a single location or multi-locational type campus?
5. How many access points do you have? Do you need more?
IoT need:
1. Are you involved with your group’s use of IoT?
2. Have you had any discussions around digital transformation or “connecting” your current product offering?
3. Do you currently use any business intelligence or analytics tools to analyze the data gathered from your IoT devices?
a. (If yes) Great! What solution do you use?
b. (If no) Have you ever explored analytics solutions in the past?
4. Are you beginning to research the latest IoT asset management solutions for your organization?
5. What cloud-based AI or cognitive services do you require or suspect you may need?
6. Do you have a data-to-response time requirement?
7. How do you currently handle field device management?
Managed Services need:
1. Are you currently working with a managed services company? Who?
2. Are you under contract?
o If yes- How much time is left on the contract?
3. Are you looking for Tier 1 (help desk), Tier 2 (Product specific experts), Tier 3 (advanced technical issues), or full IT support?
4. About how many support tickets per month do you see on average?
5. How many users do you have?
Software (SaaS) (note that this is very general as each software message is unique):
1. What solution are you using to help you accommodate this pain/need currently?
a. If a competitive software-
i. How long have you had this solution?
ii. How many licenses/users do you have for this product?
iii. What is the biggest issue with this solution? (users don’t like, price, not comprehensive, etc).
b. If an internal work around or manual solution- outline what they are currently doing now to try and accommodate this process/pain.
i. How many employees do you have that work on this process currently? [gives us an idea on license count that would be needed]
ii. What is the most painful part of this process?
iii. If you were to outline the improvements you would like to see a software make to this process, what would they be?
Desktop/Laptop Refresh need:
1. Is there a particular brand you are evaluating or are you open to evaluating brands based on the best fit for your environment?
2. How many are you looking to refresh?
3. Are there any features that are a must have for your new desktops/laptops?
4. What price range per computer are you aiming for? Or do you have budget for the entire project?
5. What do you currently have in place? Are there any features you felt were missing or wish you had with those?
You can reach me directly at my email address anthony@anthonycrilly.com or (585)484 – 1456. Looking forward to connecting!
Best,
Anthony Crilly
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