Enabling Data Management

Jessica Ly: I'm here with Jen Wahl, who is the director of professional services enablement at Informatica. Hi Jen, welcome to the show.

Jennifer Wahl: Hi, Jessica. Thank you for inviting me.

Jessica Ly: I would love to hear more about what's happening at Informatica because the company has been around for 25 years, you've got like, the top 85 of the 100 Fortune companies. So it's a phenomenal company with lots of experience and respect in the industry. But there's been a lot of shift to the cloud. So can you share with us the innovation that Informatica is bringing to enable that data management?

Jennifer Wahl: Absolutely. We're actually in the midst of a lot of evolution. And it's all positive. We’re moving to a cloud-based delivery model. So we both have on-prem as well as cloud delivery. And so, with that in mind, we're really addressing the needs of the marketplace where companies are looking for better ways in which to manage their data. And Informatica is really well-positioned to help ensure the fact that we can partner with them to move forward with those endeavors.

Jessica Ly: You help the professional services team, and that's like hundreds of people globally that you're trying to enable for more success in outcome. Explain to us a bit more about what is professional services now. How does that differ from, say, you know, solutions, engineers, or the sales team or the partners define for us, that team?

Jennifer Wahl: So professional services encompass a couple of different areas. We have consultants who basically work with the customer to implement the solutions. We also have a service advisory team that also works with the customer from a more strategic perspective on what the customer wants to accomplish. And then, the implementation of those solutions all reside in professional services. In addition to that, professional services also offer best practices to our partners because we look to our partners to also provide those same professional services areas. So we have a velocity area that encapsulates that information and delivers it to the partners as well. So professional services and companies encompasses all those different areas and ensure that they complete experience with the customer.

Jessica Ly: You have 20 years of enablement experience and you've been at software hardware, you know, convergence technology. So you've been around having a lot of experience, the expertise you bring is fascinating actually to understand. Because nowadays, I think there's been a shift in how do you enable folks to be successful is no longer just purely handing them collateral. Explain to us the evolution a bit and tell us some of the best practices you've seen work really well in the tech industry?

Jennifer Wahl: Absolutely. It's come a long way in 20 years. It’s been really remarkable. When I started in enablement, it was really handing the salespeople marketing material, and asking them to get out there and sell or it was product information, and ensuring the fact that they understood the product. The evolution for enablement has really gone beyond that. And it's taking into account different styles of learners, whether you've got a millennial person or someone who's been in the market and in the business 10 or 20 years now, and their learning styles change, as well as the different types of ways in which we enable individuals. So we've gone from classroom-based training with an instructor to virtual training to we have nano micro podcast, all kinds of different vehicles in which we can deliver training to sales, pre-sales or professional services.

Jessica Ly: And so I mean, the plus side is that with the technology and enabling this online remote learning, the tools allow you to actually track their learning, consumption and retention of the knowledge, then you have this ongoing updating of that knowledge. So it's been a journey where you do a lot more, but you also have a lot more tools to make it effective.

Jennifer Wahl: Absolutely, the tools have really come a long way in terms of what you use to develop your on-demand training, the capabilities of tools like articulate 360, for instance, to also using tools like decision trees, I'm using simulations instead of images, ways in which individuals can come back and refresh their knowledge because they may not be doing that. Selling that product or implementing that product ongoingly. They may only do it every three months or so. So the tools and the resources that help an individual consume that information and retain it have really come a long way. But also it affords us the ability to ensure the fact that how an individual consumes it, you can be in a classroom, you can be attending, training virtually, you can be on a plane and listening to a podcast or a train, or in your car, learning something new. So using the different tools and resources ensures the fact that the different styles of learning that you're going to encounter as an enablement professional give you the right message at the right time to the right audience.

Jessica Ly: And it allows you to then measure the impact of your efforts, right. You can actually tie it back to revenue. And there's an ROI to justify even further investment in enablement,

Jennifer Wahl: Absolutely. So you can understand where individuals are missing the mark when they're going to their training, you know, where they really connect with the message, you can actually use the best practices to train other people. And the tools and resources ensure the fact that you have that available as well. I'm a big advocate of peer-to-peer learning. And the reason for that is why I learn from someone similar to myself. It tends to stick. I understand it usually. And in addition to that, I'm respecting where it's coming from. So that peer-to-peer learning can be delivered as a podcast, it can be done as blogging, or even bringing trainers and subject matter experts together in a classroom or an online form so that you're sharing that information.

Jessica Ly: I like to touch on the content sharing aspect because I think that most companies have it clearly defined. You’ve got enablement for this audience, say professional services. But then you've also got maybe partners, and then maybe your direct sales, and then you've got existing customers and prospects. So these are different audiences. I feel like that should be a lot of content that can be leveraged to share and modify to be effective for each audience that you're targeting. Are you finding that the case at Informatica because I know you're in charge of enablement for professional services? How does that content get leveraged by other teams?

Jennifer Wahl: And we actually leverage content from other teams. So I'll give you an example. We just had our sales kickoff. It was phenomenal. The messaging, the positioning for the sales organization has really sparked interest, the excitement amongst the sales change. We’re using that same training to ensure the fact that our professional services team understands those same messages. When they're talking to the customer, they're carrying that same message to ensure continuity. In addition to that, we work with the sales organization and leverage some of the training that they've done. So they'll be it's a little bit more technical, it can be a more architectural focus. So with that in mind, it ensures the fact that we're not reinventing the wheel. So when you've got sales, pre-sales and professional services, leveraging each other's content from a customer perspective creates continuity,

Jessica Ly: Jen, let's talk about career advancement. You know, what would be your number one tip to share in getting people to be more successful in the organization?

Jennifer Wahl: I think a collaboration would be number one, it's really important that you get in front of the leadership, and everybody gets on the same page with regards to what it is that you'd like to accomplish. And to do that requires collaboration and sharing the fact that the plan or the strategy that you're outlining resonates with the sales leadership, because if it doesn't, it's unlikely that they're going to ask their teams to go down the path that you've laid out, and so it won't be successful. But with that volume, and the establishment of common goals and objectives, and what that does for the company ensures the fact that if you maintain and ensure the fact that you hit those objectives, you're going to develop credibility with those sales leaders, you'll become a part of their decision-making process. When they roll out a new product or a new service, they're going to think of enablement first. And the reason for that is to ensure the fact that everything that is rolled out to the organization is going to help move the business to afford for momentum. And so, with that in mind, you're part of that key leadership team to ensure the fact that everybody is rowing in the same direction, everybody's going after the same goals. And enablement actually helps salespeople meet their sales objectives, pre-sales to ensure the fact that they have that technical competency, as well as professional services to ensure that the delivery of the solution that was sold meets the customer's expectations.

Jessica Ly: Okay. I think that the progress for women in the role that I think sales enablement, in particular, does have a lot of women in that role. And I see a lot of more importance placed on that role with titles as VP of enablement and all that. You know, because I think that there's really a recognition with the subscription model services software as a subscription model. Also, there have to be ongoing sales, not just close to doing so enablement. Actually, I think it's been significant in how it impacts ongoing revenue. For organizations, that's sales and customer success.

Jennifer Wahl: Absolutely, in fact, inside Informatica, enablement is embraced so much that we actually have enablement teams for our customer-facing. So we're enabling the customer, we have enablement for our sales organization, as well as our professional services. What's really cool about Informatica is that we get together on a monthly basis and share best practices, we share what we're doing to ensure the fact that we stay aligned to your point Jessica, we do have vice presidents within the enablement organization that reports directly into the sales leadership. So again, maintaining that collaboration and ensuring alignment for the success of Informatica.

Jessica Ly: I want to ask you about women in tech, get your thoughts on the progress that we're seeing. There’s still a pay gap. And there's still a lack of women in those executive leadership positions of VP level. Do you have any suggestions on how we can improve that area? Now that you're, you know, in tech for 20 years doing this and you're at a big company, what's Informatica doing? What are you doing to try to improve that?

Jennifer Wahl: Actually, there's a lot being done. My suggestion is to ensure the fact that you're developing a quality product. A quality product is respected, regardless of where you sit in the organization, as it happens to be professional services, male-dominated, it's just the nature of the state. I think less than 5% of the women in professional services are women. But with that in mind, the women within professional services are highly credible. What they deliver to the customer is a high-quality product. So, therefore, that respect comes along with that. Same for the enablement leadership and women in the enablement leadership arena, again, collaboration, ensuring that you're developing a quality product, and you're delivering on your vision. It's well respected in the tech industry in the sense that I think that women and technology are respected, but you actually have to earn that respect. It's not given, and the so-called product that you present and deliver on helps build your credibility within the market. And that's actually how my career has been built. I didn't go in with the expectation that because I'm a woman, I should be promoted. I came in with the expectation that I'm developing a high-quality product, I deliver on my objectives, and I ensure that I'm contributing to the success of the business.

Jessica Ly: Good suggestion there. What are you looking forward to doing at Informatica? What’s the big initiative for this year?

Jennifer Wahl: I think we're very forward-thinking because we are enabling our professional services organization that's a little bit unusual, believe it or not. And in the ways in which we're doing it is multi-pronged. So we deliver traditional instructor-led training, but we also deliver a professional services event called wave and within that wave environment where we actually have four days of training that's based on use cases. So it's not the theory is not all products. You’re actually being trained on how to implement something that is going to be purchased and deployed to a customer. So that's really interesting because now you have to get all the nuances associated with it. What is that use case look like? What are the customers’ questions going to be? What's the business value? Again, that's really important. It's not just implementing it. But when a customer takes you aside and says, Can you tell me how's this gonna help my business, then you are able to articulate that vision. So those wave events are really powerful because it ensures the fact that the professional services organization inside Informatica can have those conversations with the customer address their questions, but also suggest other ways in which the customer can improve their business. So that's very exciting to me. We're also adopting tools and resources to ensure the fact that, as I mentioned that nano learning that microlearning professional services are a little different because the staff is billable. So when they're out in the field, they're generating revenue for the company. So their training has to be very on target, very succinct because we don't want to take them out of the field for very long.

Jessica Ly: Explain what that is that the nano and micro.

Jennifer Wahl: Oh, nano learning is really cool because it basically puts information into a bite-sized chunk, it can be two to five minutes, and basically gives an overview of a best practice, how do I do something, microlearning tends to be a little bit longer, it can be anywhere from five minutes to 10 minutes, for instance, you'll see your podcasts fall into that category. That's also where you use your peer-to-peer learning. You get a subject matter expert talking about how they're doing something that's really convenient for anybody in the field because you can listen to it on a plane, on a train or even in your car. And so that's really important because then I'm not taking them out of the field to provide just-in-time training. And then using communities and ways in which you're passing along best practices and information are also highly available and available on your mobile devices. Whether it's a tablet, a phone, or something else that you're using in the field, I think that is one of the biggest innovations I've seen in enablement is the ability to be in the field and be able to consume the latest enablement.

Jessica Ly: Yes, we have a lot more different ways to learn and just in time learning, and also everything that is tractable, so fantastic. It's been a great conversation, Jen. Thanks for talking to us about Informatica and enablement, professional services in particular, and your thoughts on women in tech. Appreciate your time on the show.

Jennifer Wahl: Thank you, Jessica. I really enjoyed it.