This week, I had the opportunity to interview Rebecca Power, the Director of Marketing at Numecent, Inc.  Rebecca has an extensive background of marketing and business development for various enterprise technologies, but surprisingly, her formal education did not include computer science.  That minor detail hasn't seemed to hold Rebecca back.  The business-minded marketing leader is preparing for her second year of the Citrix Summit conference in January to educate Citrix partners and spread the word about her company's technology and its role in digital transformation of the enterprise.

VMblog:  How has your stance on digital transformation in the enterprise been influenced by your professional marketing experience?

Rebecca Power:  I am a strong advocate of the shift toward enterprise mobility and the modern desktop.  My position builds upon my experiences working on cross-departmental and multi-geographical teams within and across organizations. People have other responsibilities in life which require them to be in different places at different times, and smart organizations are empowering their employees (and saving money on real estate) by supporting a remote workforce.

As a marketing professional, I have firsthand experience as an end-user of SaaS, dependent upon the digital transformation movement.  I utilize over 50 Cloud-based software tools on any given day, so I understand that the quick adoption of modern technological advances is imperative to staying ahead of the curve and maximizing collaboration and productivity across teams.

VMblog:  What resources have been most helpful getting you up to speed on the technology at Numecent?

Power:  I work with incredibly intelligent and helpful colleagues who have many years of experience as solutions architects, software developers, and computer scientists. When I began my current role, I shadowed our Director of Solutions and Partners, Tony Hughes, during nearly every one of his customer interactions. I literally typed in everything he said in OneNote. I would revisit the notes and ask questions until I had a good understanding of what problems our company's technology could solve for enterprises tackling digital transformation projects.

Several of the "Aha!" moments in my current role that have come from collaborating with members of our engineering team to produce technical articles and illustrations which explain how our technology works, how it integrates with other technologies, and how there is nothing else quite like it. Our development, support, and quality assurance teams have produced a library of well-written product documentation which has been another great resource available to me. 

VMblog:  What external resources have been most helpful to you as a marketing leader responsible for positioning Numecent's technology in the enterprise modernization marketplace?

Power:  Many fantastic turnkey marketing resources are available to Numecent through Microsoft and Citrix, as benefits of their partner programs. Microsoft provides several Go-To-Market Programs and marketing frameworks for their partners. As a Gold Microsoft Partner, Numecent is provided with a portal to access customized, co-branded content and campaigns covering a variety of topics for a variety of distribution channels.  Weekly online office hours are offered as part of the Microsoft's SureStep initiative to educate partners on industry trends and marketing tools. 

As a provider of Citrix Ready certified technology, Numecent has also benefited from the turnkey marketing resources provided through Citrix Partner Program.  Citrix recently introduced a digital marketing platform, Citrix MarketingIQ, which creates co-branded marketing materials on various industry topics which can be printed or distributed via email, social media, or web. This year, Citrix is introducing a Marketing Track of sessions at Citrix Summit '19 for marketing professionals, which I'm really excited about. 

VMblog:  In your own words, what does Numecent's technology do and what problem does it solve?

Power:  Numecent's technology enables the most complex legacy apps to run in a modern environment by assigning unique dispositions for isolating or integrating software assets and the end user's operating system. Numecent's technology extends the life of older, line-of-business, "legacy" apps as modern computing environments evolve, solving the application compatibility problem faced by many companies. For the IT professional, this eliminates the time-consuming requirement of re-packaging applications for deployment in different environments. What this means for an enterprise is substantial cost savings by eliminating the need to upgrade, repurchase, repackage, or rebuild expensive homegrown and legacy software when migrating to a new Windows environment.

VMblog:  How do you differentiate Numecent's technology from application virtualization?

Power:  Numecent's technology can address the compatibility issues of apps requiring kernel-level access to the OS, in addition to user-mode apps requiring isolation. Application virtualization only addresses user-mode apps.

VMblog:  Some technology companies believe it is counter-intuitive to hire a marketing leader without a computer science background.  What is your take?

Power:  Marketing for any industry, technical or non-technical, requires extensive research and understanding to be successful.  While most highly skilled computer science engineers will have a wealth of knowledge surrounding the capabilities and boundaries of the technologies they develop for commercial use, they often appreciate and benefit from diverse ideas which introduce alternative perspectives for evolving solutions.

VMblog:  Are there any challenges you've faced as a B2B technology marketing professional without a "technical" background?

Power:  The most obvious challenge is getting up to speed on the terms and capabilities of the older and emerging technologies.  I've always enjoyed figuring out how things work and translating technical jargon into the vernacular that resonates best with the appropriate audiences. When marketing enterprise technology, there are a wide range of unique personas to address: end-users, influencers, thought leaders, system administrators, business developers, software developers, procurement managers, decision makers, and more.  It's important to continuously adapt and evolve messaging.

VMblog:  Do you have any recommendations for marketers of enterprise technology?

Power:  The information surrounding digital transformation in the enterprise is always evolving so it's important to stay on top of it.  Read your industry influencers' blogs and engage with them in conversations and banter about relevant technology topics on social media. My personal go-to favorites for my research at Numecent: @appcompatguy, @rorymon, @VMblog, and @xenappblog, to name a few.  Microsoft's Tech Community is also a great resource, filled with information.  Join user groups. Join forces with your partners and customers. Network! Always be listening, learning, improving, and making connections.  And of course, be sure to embrace the digital transformation of marketing!

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For more information on enterprise technology marketing strategies or opportunities to add Numecent technology to your stack of digital transformation and desktop modernization solutions, contact Rebecca Power.