The grit market: People who champion customer success everyday

Every minute of our time together counts, so let’s jump right in. I’m talking to you—industry colleagues and current and future NetAppers!

I think people have a natural desire and ability to help the people around them. This drives our happiness—and our customers’ success.

Over the past five years of the cloud era and throughout the rise in digital transformation, there’s been a crucial shift from the classic sales model of closing deals and maintaining accounts. Now, it’s all about creating relationships and value-rich journeys with customers to make them more successful.?

But success isn’t standardized; it requires a deep understanding of how to resolve and adapt to our customers’ needs.?

I’d like to make an unorthodox comparison between the cloud sales process and the Lalbaug Spice Market in Mumbai—a bustling wholesale market selling dried foods and spices to savvy customers. If you look around in the market, you’ll see a constant flow of new negotiations and interactions with customers, vendors, farmers, partners, marketers, and suppliers.

Cloud sales works the same way. Our success depends on a well-orchestrated, clear, and agile execution across teams, especially in marketing, sales, support, services, channel, go-to-market, and business units. As a cross-functional team, we can introduce new palates of products and possibilities, communicate real-time data in the form of conversations, and augment those conversations into proactive sales, customer interactions, and operational strategies. Together, we can produce and sustain trust to better cater to our customers’ growing appetites.

The “spice” we serve up to our customers is value—and it involves a lot of conversations, incremental change, and quick choreography from kitchen to serving table.

My team at NetApp is accelerating through an agile cycle of “touch, go, learn, and grow.” We’re dedicated to capturing new customers, quantifying successes, understanding churn, and eventually retaining a loyal base of advocates.

But all this multitasking cannot be done with one hand or one mind. That’s why we thrive on people who help us think differently.

A healthy mix of cultures, genders, experiences, skillsets, and knowledge is vital to our collective success. Everyone brings a unique outlook and approach to pursue our common purpose—helping customers thrive.

The most innovative conversations, solutions, and approaches I’ve seen have come from those with creativity and intelligence inspired by their personal histories, heritages, and lived experiences.

Our most disruptive thinkers at NetApp are the people obsessed with time-to-value ratios, who constantly evaluate metrics and really care about our customers.

We’re in the business of providing our customers with consistency and simplicity.

It’s a no-brainer that everything will eventually change, but what will always remain a constant is our determination to show up every day for our customers by driving profitable and meaningful growth across both core and cloud to deliver superior solutions.

Our customers’ loyalty and trust depend on us delivering our promises.

At NetApp today, it’s easy to forget about our past growth when we’re so busy focusing on getting ahead of the now (especially with hyper-growth and transformation).

We’ve come very far and have a strong sense of accomplishment.

To my future team at NetApp, let me try to read your mind:

• “I might be a good candidate ... How can I find out?”
• “I’m a recent grad with little experience but lots of drive. Should I take a shot?”?
• “Should I message him right now on LinkedIn?”?

This is your official invitation to reach out to me. I’m always in the market to meet new people, trade stories, and have good conversations with great talent from NetApp and beyond.

Today we’re in a remarkable phase of growth and opportunity at NetApp. This is your chance to be part of a vibrant, talented community.

Our personal happiness is directly tied to that of our customers. So, let’s be grittier, more resilient, and well-synchronized—because adding all the right spices for extraordinary customer success is a team effort.??