In the Spotlight with HPE | Our UK Customer Innovation Center

[Alex_Podmore]

Spotlight on HPE’s UK Customer Innovation Centre 

Our Spotlight series introduces some of our key team members, exploring their roles and delving a little deeper into their passions, shining a light on what makes them tick. This time, we’re looking at how the team at our UK Customer Innovation Centre (CIC) are enhancing relationships with our customers. Hannah Brier and Joe Richardson are part of the team that run our London CIC. 

Starting with a university/technology sandwich   

Hannah Brier is a Customer Engagement Advisor and has been with HPE for around seven months. Opting for a ‘sandwich’ degree, Hannah spent a year working in industry before her final year at university. Working at SAP for both her placement year and post-degree gave Hannah an insight to the tech industry, as her degree wasn’t technology based. 

“I studied business management with a specialisation in human resources, and I remember using SAP software as part of the course. I became a bit intrigued by it so applied to SAP. It became apparent quite quickly that the tech industry was a really interesting and fast-paced place to be. I think doing a business course provided me with a good range of skills. I really don't think that you need to have a technical degree to go into working for a technology company even though saying that sounds a bit bizarre! 

“Based on films, I thought that the tech industry would be very much people coding, sat behind computers all day but that wasn't the case! I've had a really wide variety of roles as well as working as CSM and working with customers and then also being creative, so there's a range of things that you can do.” 

Computer scientist to tech evangelist 

Celebrating his one year anniversary at HPE, Joe Richardson has already ticked off two roles on his career path. Starting in pre-sales in Manchester, he now works as a Technology Evangelist alongside Hannah in the CIC in London. 

With both parents already in the tech industry, Joe felt drawn towards a familiar career along a similar path. He chose a similar style ‘sandwich’ course as Hannah, opting for degree in computer science with a year in industry before his final year at university. It was this year that ignited his interest in the sales side of tech. 

“I went to Pepsico to do an IT industrial placement there, which was great. I was designing the Power BI dashboards for sales to present to customers across the food and beverages industry, but while I was there, I was in on the sales meetings, and they were doing fantastic presentations. I thought ‘I'm going to have to get involved with that - get in front of customers myself’. So that's what drew me to presales; getting in front of customers, using my technical expertise and some customer facing skills to get some sales.”  

When Joe looked into pre-sales roles, he discovered very few that combined both customer-facing elements and technical expertise. As soon as he discovered the role at HPE, he jumped at the opportunity. However, there were still some preconceptions that needed busting, once on the job. 

“It's not like The Social Network, it's a bit different to that! But from doing a computer science degree, I knew what the industry was about. I knew I could go in and be a software developer but that wasn't really for me. I realised instead that you need people to be in front of customers and as soon as I could do that, I jumped at the opportunity. I think that you need a range of degrees, you can't have all employees with tech degrees because you wouldn't have any diverse opinion. The range of degrees and experience at HPE is great. It’s a bit like having a glass of fizz or a pint of beer, you know both of them are great but a lot of one can give you a bit of a headache sometimes.” 

Creating exceptional experiences at the CIC 

Customers come to the CIC to accelerate business efficiently and we want to ensure that they each have a fantastic experience. Every member of the team plays a valuable role in the sales process, and Hannah and Joe, along with their team, ensure the success of the CIC in helping our customers. 

Hannah explained more about how each day is tailormade for the individual customer. “The customer will have the whole day mapped out for them. We start with welcoming them with introductions and then do the most important thing – the voice of the customer. This sets the scene and allows our customer to relay any concerns they have and let us know what they want to get out of the day. We’re not just talking at the customer, we want to know what they want to hear. Throughout the day they’ll have technical demos and get a full round up of HPE’s strategy. We’ll then wrap up at the end so we can be clear on next steps and map out what else has to happen afterwards.” 

Joe then picks up the baton as Tech Evangelist: “Once our Customer Engagement Advisors have qualified the opportunities from the sales guys and girls, they come through and we look at the deal and see how we can accelerate it further. After a tour and listening to the customer’s issues and problems, we then see how we can help them and provide interactive demos across our portfolio to help them understand more about HPE and how we can help them accelerate their business. Being more on the technical side, I’ll cover off anything, demo-wise, from our portfolio that is customer facing.” 

With unique and varying needs and issues, every customer deserves an experience to match. We ensure that is exactly what happens at the CIC, with the team eager to truly understand each customer and tailor-make their experience for them. Joe told us just how important the CIC experience can be to a customer. 

“Customers come to the CIC with an issue or problem, or sometimes come with nothing, but they’re definitely leaving with something. Either with a way of attacking their goals, a new knowledge of HPE and why to go with HPE for their infrastructure. From a sales perspective, it’s a 21% deal acceleration, but the main reason to bring customers into the CIC is to accelerate your customers’ strategic goals.” 

Fresh starts and new developments 

Undergoing a major transformation, the CIC is fast becoming the go-to hub to showcase HPE’s full portfolio. It’s an important space where customers can learn and experience solutions that promise to impact their business, and Hannah expanded on why these improvements are so significant. 

“We’re making the CIC more interactive and fun. Rather than having everybody in a room for the whole day and people falling asleep and ‘death by powerpoint’, it’s going to become more interactive. We’ll get them out of meeting rooms into a collaborative space with no desks and no distractions. Huge screens and whiteboards will keep people engaged instead. It’s about moving people around, keeping them interested.” 

Joe explained a bit more about the changes, “Soon we’ll have a gallery downstairs where you can bring customers, do their ‘voice of the customer’ session on some lovely sofas, laptop-free zones for face-to-face meetings where no one’s distracted by emails and Teams. They can come and talk about their problems and open up more than they would online. Any customer that comes in here gets a fantastic experience but also comes out with either new knowledge of HPE they didn't have before, or other opportunities.” 

Beyond the CIC

With a clear passion for their roles at HPE, Hannah and Joe are dedicated to their work, however they manage to maintain a healthy work/life balance. 

With multiple engagements each week, Hannah’s role is increasingly busy, but she enjoys live music, snowboarding and escaping into a good podcast. In a previous role, she actually worked on a podcast, and loves the opportunity to get creative. Although she told us that if her friends could describe her in a word, it would be ‘quirky’. “Hopefully that’s a good thing”, she added! 

Joe loves working in an ever-changing industry and seeing the developments each day at HPE, however he admitted he has a competitive streak, enjoying tennis, football and a range of other sports. He was recently involved in competing for, and winning, the Early Careers Charity Cup, and gave us a little insight to his character in one word - “I’d describe myself as driven!”, he told us. 

If you’d like to find out more about the CIC, visit here https://www.hpe.com/uk/en/about/customer-centers.html

Alex Podmore
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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