I am very pleased to welcome Bill Schmarzo to our Hitachi Vantara community. Bill is very well known in the Big Data Community having authored two books, “Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business” and "Big Data MBA: Driving Business Strategies with Data Science." He is considered the Dean of Big Data. He’s an avid blogger and frequent speaker on the application of big data and advanced analytics to drive an organization’s key business initiatives. Bill teaches at the University of San Francisco (USF) School of Management, where he is their first Executive Fellow.
Bill joins Hitachi Vantara as a Big Data Analytics Visionary, CTO IoT and Analytics. In this role he will guide the technology strategy for IoT and Analytics. With his breadth of experience delivering advanced analytics solutions, Bill brings a balanced approach regarding data and analytic capabilities that drive business and operational outcomes. Bill will drive Hitachi Vantara’s “co-creation” efforts with select customers to leverage IoT and analytics to power digital business transformations. Bill’s background includes CTO at Dell EMC and VP of Analytics at Yahoo.
When he joined Hitachi Vantara, he posted two blogs on LinkedIn which I am linking to below to help you understand his thinking and his perspective on what we are doing at Hitachi Vantara.
In the first post, Bill’s Most Excellent Next Adventure, he explains why he left Dell EMC with a heavy heart after 7 marvelous years and decided to join Hitachi Vantara. Here is a quote from that post. Please take the time to read the complete post.
“I will be joining Brad ( Brad Surak, Chief Product and Strategy Officer ) at Hitachi Vantara – the digital arm of Hitachi – as their Chief Technology Officer for Internet of Things (IOT) and Analytics. I will have a chance to leverage nearly everything that I have been working over the past 20 years. And instead of just talking, writing and consulting on Digital Transformation, this time I will get the chance to actually do it; to get my hands dirty and bloody my elbows making it all work. It truly is the best job I could have dreamed off, and if this will be the final chapter in my working career, then damn it, let’s make it a great one!
And I promise to take you all along on this most excellent adventure. You can learn first-hand what’s working, what’s not working and what we all can do to make Digital Transformation a reality. You will learn from my successes and learn even more from my failures. And in the end, I hope that we will all be a bit smarter from the experience.”
In his second post, My Journey Through the Looking Glass: Hitachi Vantara IntroductionBill gives his impressions on his first week in Hitachi Vantara.
“I spent my first week at Hitachi Vantara attending sales kickoff, and wow, was I impressed! Hitachi Vantara is making a pivot to build upon its core product and services strengths to deliver data-driven innovations around data monetization and business outcomes. And I could not be in a happier place (sorry Disney), as this is everything that I have been teaching and preaching about the past 30+ years; that organizations must become more effective at leveraging data and analytics to power our customers’ business models.”
In this post he goes on to give his basic views on Big Data, digital transformation, IoT, and analytics. Business Model Maturity, helping customers with their digital journey, the why of digital transformation (starts with the business), monetizing your IoT, Digital Transformation value creation, Digital Transformation customer journey mapping, and providing links to previous blogs in which he addressed these topics. Please read this post and link to these topics for a wealth of great insights. I expect to see even more as Bill begins posting on our Hitachi Vantara Community.
He concludes this post with the following comment:
“I can’t say enough about how energized I am about where Hitachi Vantara is going from an IOT, analytics and digital transformation perspective. It matches everything that I have been teaching and preaching over the past many years, and I am eager to build it out in more detail via hands-on customer engagements.”
I have been reinvigorated just by meeting Bill and hearing his validation of our strategy and direction. Please welcome Bill Schmarzo to our Hitachi Vantara Community!