I want to have another conversation here.
And we just heard about what we can do for clients;
I now want to introduce you to Tery Howard.
And Tery is a client who has graciously agreed to come
and join us today and me today in a conversation.
And she is the CIO and Chief Technology Officer for Sun Life Stadium and the Miami Dolphins.
And even if you are not from the United States, that is football, okay?
Football by our definition of football.
And Tery, come on up here with me.
Thank you.
[ APPLAUSE ]
But I think this is a topic, no matter who you are everybody is going to be able to identify
with this, sports lovers around the world as well.
But before I get started I want to...before I do anything,
I want to thank you for being an IBM client.
And you have been on a great journey with us, and the fact that you would take all the time
to be here, I would say "actions speak louder than words" says everything.
So, let me introduce you to, you know, my 430,000 IBMers.
[ LAUGHTER ]
Okay, and so, but I want you to first give everybody a sense of the business you're in,
the strategy, tell us a little bit about that.
And it's a global audience, but again,
they've got all different sorts of familiarity with sports.
But go ahead.
HOWARD: Well, thank you for having me here.
It's a pleasure.
So, we are the Miami Dolphins, and we are centrally located in South Florida,
we're in the entertainment business.
We're one of 32 teams that compete nationally for the Super Bowl championship.
And so, we're also very fortunate because our owner, Mr. Stephen Ross, also owns the stadium,
Sun Life Stadium, which has a capacity of about 72,000 people or fans.
The interesting part of the stadium, because we have jurisdiction on it is that we host a lot
of major events annually such as a multitude of Super Bowls championships on the college level.
We just had a very busy month this past month; we hosted four European soccer events, matches,
one of which culminated with Real Madrid versus Chelsea,
where we had 68,000 people in the stadium.
ROMETTY: Oh, so you had some empty seats.
[ LAUGHTER ]
HOWARD: So we also hosted Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake a couple
of weeks ago with a sold-out performance.
We've had Worldwide Wrestling at the beginning of this year with 80,000 people at the stadium.
So it's a phenomenal asset to have and to be able to be game changers in the technology
that we use to impact fan experience.
ROMETTY: But now, in this day and age, and when I say to compete for your customers' times,
these are the fans or audience goers, right?
So, and they have other choices of what they do with their time.
And so, it's an experience that you actually sell.
HOWARD: Yes.
ROMETTY: So, tell us a little bit about this journey of an experience,
about how you're competing for my time to get me there.
HOWARD: Well, believe it or not there's two things that we compete with,
and the major one that's at the core right now is we compete
with the home viewing experience, with the couch.
The proximity to the refrigerator.
[ LAUGHTER ]
You know, with the proliferation of 3D and the advent of 4K, smart TVs,
the multiscreen technologies that are now being delivered to the home very eloquently
by the broadcasters and the networks is really becoming challenging for us.
So, we have...we need to be nimble.
We need to have accessibility to different types of tools and technologies
such as what we're talking about today.
Changes the whole dynamics of our business, and we have to be very in tune with our fans,
with our customers and knowing what it is that's important for them.
ROMETTY: So tell us about what that strategy, what it is you're offering and why on the cloud,
but the whole picture of what is it that will make me come to then the stadium.
CROSBY: That's right.
So we need to know our customers.
We need to know what makes them tick.
We need to know why they're coming to the stadium.
Are they coming to the stadium to bond with their children, with their family?
Are they coming because they want to tailgate with their friends
and their buddies out in the tailgate area?
Are they coming because they're prospecting new leads and customers?
All of those types of behaviors, we need to have a really good understanding
so that we can target them, provided that they share that information with us,
we need to make sure that we provide them with messaging,
with promotions, with behind-the-scene access.
We want them, Ginni, to leave our stadium, irrespective of what happens on the field --
which, by the way, we can't control...
[ LAUGHTER ]
...with a memorable experience, which is an interesting dynamic for us,
because we don't control our product.
We don't know what's happening on the field.
But we want you to leave the stadium with a memorable experience
that you can then become ambassadors of our brand.
You can then bring others, because you have to experience it live.
So, we are on a journey, and our journey begins on game day.
The very moment that you wake up in the morning to go and experience our game,
we want to make sure that we know what route you're taking
so that we can provide you with traffic alerts.
We want to make sure that depending on the seat you're sitting in,
we want to get to you the closest gate.
When you enter the stadium, we want to send you a virtual parking stamp so that you know
where you parked as you exit the stadium.
When you're in the tailgating area -- if you decide to tailgate --
we want to make sure you understand what's going on in the plaza level: if there's rock climbing,
if there's a pregame concert, if there's promotions in the store,
if we've got social going, if there's a barbecue with the alumni.
An assortment of things that we don't want you to miss out on because you're tailgating
or you're socializing before the game.
We want to make sure that our cheerleaders are going out into the field,
when the flyovers are going to come by.
We don't want you to miss a beat.
And we want you to make your decisions, you know, consume what you want,
when you want it and how you want it.
And at the core of that is mobility -- mobility and how do we take that type of platform
and all these data points and create intelligence behind it, which is where IBM
through their Smarter Stadium has given us the opportunity to really look at all
of these different touch points and data points and organize it in such a way that allows us
to be flexible, allows us to be able to cater to 70,000 people, individually.
So we've established working with IBM and Flagship Solutions,
what we call the Intelligent Operation Center -- or, the IOC -- to help us take us to the future.
ROMETTY: Well, so why...the IBMer should know Intelligent Operation Center; that's at the core
of our Smarter Cities like offering that integrates all different kinds of services.
But why did you go with a cloud base sort of approach with this?
HOWARD: So, we need to look at technology different,
and I think Lance alluded to that just previously to this.
We have to be able to bring these, provision these types of resources quickly.
We have to keep up and anticipate the business demands of our business,
because if we don't continue to innovate, we're going to stay stagnant.
So, cloud is inevitable and it's something that you have to...you have to get to,
because we don't have the time or the resources or the investments to be able
to provision hardware and to stand up and to manage security and manage the monitoring.
We're not in that business; our business is the entertainment business.
I'm an enabler for how we're proceeding forward in our strategy.
Cloud is here.
We're extremely excited about where it's going.
And it was a natural fit to be able to incorporate that and give us the scalability
and give us the growth potential to be able to get to the next level.
ROMETTY: Now, you've been on a journey, and you started on a public cloud, our public cloud,
and then you ended up transitioning to private cloud.
I think this is an interesting lesson, right, as things mature and learn and what you're doing.
So, what made you move from one to the other?
HOWARD: Yes, so, we started, and again, we like being on the public cloud because, again,
it gives us a lot of flexibility.
And there's certain legacy things that are more conducive to public
and then there's some more solutions that would be more conducive to private.
The reason why -- and it was a seamless process, by the way, going from public to private.
But the reason why we went to private, was because we had a technology constraint.
One of the Intelligent Operation Center capabilities is to be able
to manage the alcohol sales in the stadium.
So, what does that mean?
At the beginning of the third quarter, we shut down alcohol sales
in about three-quarters of the stadium.
That's a compliance issue that we need to comply with.
And so, traditionally what we did is we had to deploy game day staff members
to stand behind lines to ensure that they don't sell any more alcohol.
With the IOC in place, we've automated that.
But here's the challenge third quarter.
Third quarter could be anything, right, because that's all contingent on penalties.
ROMETTY: You don't know what time it happens.
HOWARD: We don't know what time it happens,
but the IOC does now it has integration to the game clock.
Well, that integration had to happen internally and within our private system,
so that's why we went to the private cloud, which worked out really nicely.
ROMETTY: So, it's an interesting point I want to take you back to what Jim and Erich said
on their video about privacy, security, compliance --
the kinds of things that will drive you to have to make different decisions.
And you'll move things between different areas.
And I think it's a very human, great example of something that you've got to comply private,
the issues attaches in to systems that are not publicly exposed
and you can't make them publicly exposed.
And that's why you made some choices in what you did.
HOWARD: Yes.
ROMETTY: So, I think it's a great reinforcement of what you guys just described.
So, tell me a little bit about, what do you think, given your experience here
and the focus has been on how to quickly put up services, right?
And I was telling Tery that I happened to over the weekend be with a crowd of one
of the competitive stadiums, and they were telling me about a benchmark.
They didn't know I was going to see her, you know,
[so that I was] gathering information here.
And they were talking about a benchmark their stadium did of her stadium
and that the big difference was her services were all integrated together.
Right? So, connected and all from the individual users' point of view
versus all little stovepipe applications that came up, which is a mistake people often,
you know, in an effort they get going one at a time.
So, you've learned a lot now.
So what do you think it implies and the implication is for CIOs, any industry, right?
This new world, about how would you approach what you do as a CIO today
that you wouldn't have years ago, in kind of from what you learned here, what advice?
I'm a new CIO and I'm asking you as my mentor, what would be your advice to me about my job
and the impact this new world, this new cloud world has on my job, what would you say?
HOWARD: You know, and there's traditional CIOs out there, and pardon me for saying this,
but I think as CIOs we really have to be more strategic.
We really need to make sure that we guide our organization
as they are coming up with their needs.
We need to make sure that we anticipate those needs and utilize the resources,
the best of breed, the partners such as IBM, that can provide us with these types of tools
and technologies so that we can speed to market the different types of solutions
and innovation that is happening within that.
So, literally what our role should be is to be able to understand the needs of the companies
and quickly bring them to market in an iterative process.
It's not no longer the days where we to take the time to look at hardware and platforms
and how we're going to be managing and monitoring.
Spin that off.
Give that to somebody that that's what they're doing at the core of their solutions,
and then let us understand the business better.
Let us identify solutions so that we can then anticipate those business needs
and scale those business needs as they're happening for sustainability of growth
and for different types of entry points, whether it's revenue, operational efficiencies,
services that we have to offer and staying in tune with our clients.
ROMETTY: So, I want to sort of summarize and go back to this point where the point of view,
the IBM point of view and the three points that Craig made in that video.
You'll notice the first comment was about, it's all about reinvention and innovation.
That's what you're saying your job is now.
HOWARD: Yes.
Yes.
ROMETTY: And reinvention and innovation [COUGHING] as long as I don't cough.
[COUGHING] This is live TV.
The second point, analytics.
We didn't get a lot into it, but you started by saying, I need to know what every one
of you wants to do as a customer, right?
And where you're at, what gate, how do I send you there.
You're not sending blast e-mails out; they're targeted one on one.
HOWARD: Yes.
Yes.
ROMETTY: So it is about the data.
HOWARD: Yes.
ROMETTY: And then the third, interestingly, the third point was, hey,
and this is going to be about this world of hybrid.
It's, you know, I moved from one, I went to the other.
I had to connect them, a new service.
And you are just -- we didn't plan it that way -- a perfect instantiation of our point of view.
HOWARD: Yes.
ROMETTY: Thanks for that.
But more important than anything, thank you for being an IBM client
and such a wonderful role model for us.
And thanks for taking the time today.
HOWARD: Thank you, Ginni.
[ APPLAUSE ]