Q&A with Div Manickam, Director of WW Services Marketing and Portfolio Management (Data Center Group) at Lenovo

Media 7 | March 24, 2021

Div Manickam, Director of WW Services Marketing and Portfolio Management (Data Center Group) at Lenovo, has led B2B SaaS initiatives in startups and Fortune 500 technology companies for 10+ years. With disciplined product marketing across the buyer journey and cross-functional relationships, she empowers mindful teams and fosters a vulnerable culture where everyone's voice is heard. 

She enjoys sharing her experiences on authentic leadership and evolution of product marketing in Forbes Communications Council and Product Marketing Alliance. Just as committed and passionate, she enjoys traveling, is a foodie at heart, and a proud Google Local Guide exploring the world. And one day, she aspires to share her passion and story on TEDx.

Winning together starts with the perfect pitch from a product, its sales, and marketing. When done right, we can see the synergy flow in the right direction.



MEDIA 7: Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself? What led you to your position as the Director of Service Marketing and Portfolio Management at Lenovo?
DIV MANICKAM:
Here is a picture-perfect introduction.



I am extremely passionate to empower a mindful team and foster a vulnerable culture where everyone feels their voice is heard and can truly be themselves in a safe environment. I have led product marketing efforts in startups and Fortune 500 technology companies. I hold a Masters in Cyber Security, Bachelors in Information Technology from India, and an MBA in Marketing from California State University East Bay.

I have been recognized as a 2019 40 under 40 CSUEB recipient for contributions toward her workplace and community, as well as one of the top 50 Product Marketing Influencers in 2019 by Product Marketing Alliance for redefining standards, helping shape the evolution of PMM, and elevating awareness among the C-suite.


Collaborating with sales leaders and champions is the key to make sure they are part of the narrative. The perfect pitch needs to bring the right feedback to make sure the narrative resonates with customers and partners. 



M7: How do you ensure that your sales team delivers a perfect pitch for the services offered by Lenovo?
DM:
Collaborating with sales leaders and champions is the key to make sure they are part of the narrative. Winning together starts with the perfect pitch from a product, its sales, and marketing. When done right, we can see the synergy flow in the right direction. And the perfect pitch also needs to bring the right feedback to make sure the narrative resonates with customers and partners.

M7: How do you identify investment risks for effective portfolio management? How do these risks affect your investing strategy?
DM:
Portfolio Management is an art and science. Not every feature and product are important for every customer. So, it’s important to prioritize and focus on the right investments. With the right investment risks, we balance the portfolio management of service offerings to meet the maximum customers’ needs and build a competitive edge. We have the offering launch process to make sure the right stakeholders are involved and approved.

M7: What do you think is essential to stay competitive in a market that is going through constant digitalization?
DM:
We try to not think about competition, but look at what the market needs and how we can serve the market better and move it forward to the next transformation. This is key to bring the balance as we can be quickly focused on competition but it’s important to look ahead and not just try to catch up to the competition.
Digitalization is a start for every transformation and only brings the world together in ways we cannot imagine. We should foster growth and innovation through the right mindset and business models for the future. What worked in the past is not going to take us to the future.


Prioritizing investment and budget has always been a challenge and even more so right now when all budgets are cut to zero. We need the resources to focus on the initiatives that will bring confidence to the teams that we are supporting them in times of need.



M7: What do you believe are the top three product marketing challenges in the post COVID-19 era?
DM:
Prioritizing investment and budget has always been a challenge and even more so right now when all budgets are cut to zero. We need the resources to focus on the initiatives that will bring confidence to the teams that we are supporting them in times of need. So, building the momentum and not trying to do more with less. This has to stop and as leaders, we have to be the voice to help our teams.

M7: You are extremely active on social media and frequently write articles for Forbes. What is your secret to maintaining a healthy balance between your work and such productive commitments?
DM:
I recently stopped posting on social media (Jan 2021) as it was taxing and counterproductive – I felt like I was contributing to the noise. So, I streamlined my efforts and I will continue to write my experiences on Medium – divmanickam.medium.com as it helps to share my learnings with the world. Finding the balance was critical for my personal wellbeing and reading has been the bibliotherapy this year that helped me with stress and anxiety.

M7: What is your advice to young women considering a career in marketing and technology?
DM:
I was fortunate to find the mix of technology and marketing to flex both my technical and creative skills. I encourage everyone passionate about portfolio marketing to reach out and find their dream job. I have been lucky to mentor some amazing women who are teaching me every day something new as part of the Career GROW and personal OKRs career conversation.

ABOUT LENOVO

Lenovo is a US$50 billion Fortune Global 500 company, with 57,000 employees and operating in 180 markets around the world. Focused on a bold vision to deliver smarter technology for all, we are developing world-changing technologies that create a more inclusive, trustworthy and sustainable digital society. By designing, engineering and building the world’s most complete portfolio of smart devices and infrastructure, we are also leading an Intelligent Transformation – to create better experiences and opportunities for millions of customers around the world.

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Matt Amundson, VP of Marketing at EverString has over 10 years of sales and marketing experience. Matt has held roles in Demand Generation and Sales Development at TIBCO, Marketo, FGXI and Red Bull. His primary focus has been on creating processes that generate a consistent, pipeline. MEDIA 7: Could you tell us about your mantra “Go for the run”? MATT AMUNDSON: On December 29th of 2017, I decided to change my lifestyle habits and decided that I’m going to run a minimum of one mile every single day. So, every day since that day I’ve got up and ran. It’s been a seminal moment where my approach on life and work has changed dramatically. And as a result of that, it’s become a personal mantra, which is to not be afraid of where you might be today. If you’ve got some lofty goals or if you want to try something new, just get out there and give it a try and see what the results of it could be. On a personal level, whether you’re physically tired or don’t feel like doing it, just give it a shot and go for it. On a professional level, if it’s something that can benefit you or your brand give it a try, go for it and see what happens. M7: What is your favorite part about working at EverString? MA: I really love the people that I work with and I’ve been at the organization for about four and a half years. Some of the folks that I’ve worked with since the beginning are still here and it’s just been an awesome journey to be on with some incredible colleagues and that’s just on a personal level. On a professional level, I think we’re all solving a major problem that a lot of organizations are suffering from – which is related to data. As a marketer who has existed in the mar tech space for the broader part of my career, we often think of our process improvements and workflow improvements to gain more efficiency. Whether that’s marketing automation system or a cool new technology like conversational AI most people fall into two camps when it comes to data, either they’re just not conscious of data or they are. The data that they purchase or the data they acquire ultimately powers everything they do from a marketing perspective or they’re used to the status quo of current data providers that provide low quality of data and are sort of mired in the “well I guess that’s the way it is and that’s just the quality level that I have to deal with”. The fact that we’re changing that for some of the world’s biggest brands like Capital One, FedEx, Staples, Autodesk, Oracle as well as the smaller brands is really exciting to me. ...

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Red Hat and Oracle expand their partnership, allowing Red Hat OpenShift to run on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and providing more deployment options for enterprises. OCI's distributed cloud, offering high performance and security, now supports Red Hat OpenShift with certified configurations for virtual machines and bare metal instances. Customers gain flexibility in choosing deployment locations, while the partnership builds upon Red Hat Enterprise Linux support for OCI, enabling customized Linux images for various workloads. Red Hat and Oracle have announced an expansion of their partnership to offer customers more options for deploying applications on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Red Hat OpenShift, a well-known Kubernetes-powered hybrid cloud application platform, will receive support and certification to run on OCI as part of this collaboration. This move aims to provide enterprises with the flexibility to run their workloads on OCI's distributed cloud, known for its high performance, security, and cost-effectiveness. Customers will have the confidence to deploy Red Hat OpenShift on OCI using certified configurations, whether on virtual machines or bare metal instances. Additionally, this partnership allows for seamless migration of on-premises Red Hat OpenShift environments to OCI, with joint support from both Red Hat and Oracle. Karan Batta, Senior Vice President, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, reportedly stated, Enterprises are migrating to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to take advantage of the platform’s highly performant, secure, and low-cost services. Fully certifying and supporting Red Hat OpenShift on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure will enable Red Hat OpenShift customers to simply and easily run their workloads anywhere in the world on OCI’s distributed cloud. [Source – Webwire] OCI's distributed cloud spans more than 100 services across 45 public cloud regions, including specialized regions for government and dedicated regions at customer-controlled sites. This variety of offerings enables customers to choose the location that best suits their needs in terms of regulatory compliance, performance, and cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, the certification and support for Red Hat OpenShift on OCI build upon the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux on OCI, including support for OCI bare metal servers and Oracle VMware Cloud Solution. This expanded compatibility empowers customers to create customized Red Hat Enterprise Linux images for OCI to meet various application workloads and security compliance requirements. While the partnership between Red Hat and Oracle to enable Red Hat OpenShift on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) offers significant advantages, there are some potential drawbacks to consider. One concern may be the complexity of migrating existing on-premises Red Hat OpenShift environments to OCI, despite the joint support provided by both companies. This process could entail challenges related to data transfer, application compatibility, and reconfiguration. Additionally, as with any cloud deployment, organizations need to carefully manage their costs, as cloud services can accumulate expenses over time. Proper planning and cost monitoring are essential to ensuring that the benefits of this technology expansion are maximized while keeping expenses in check. The collaboration between Red Hat and Oracle to bring Red Hat OpenShift to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) offers numerous benefits for enterprises. Firstly, it provides organizations with a wider range of deployment options, allowing them to leverage the power of Red Hat OpenShift on OCI's distributed cloud infrastructure. This infrastructure is known for its high performance, robust security measures, and cost-effectiveness, making it an attractive choice for enterprises. Furthermore, the support for certified configurations on both virtual machines and bare metal instances enhances the flexibility and scalability of deployments. Last but not least, the ability to seamlessly migrate on-premises Red Hat OpenShift environments to OCI simplifies cloud adoption and guarantees operational continuity thanks to the combined support of Red Hat and Oracle. Overall, this technology collaboration empowers enterprises to optimize their cloud strategies and drive innovation in their application deployments. In summary, Red Hat and Oracle's collaboration facilitates greater choice and flexibility for enterprises looking to deploy applications on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, with Red Hat OpenShift now being a certified and supported option for OCI users.

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Ericsson | September 25, 2023

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Oracle | September 15, 2023

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