SUCCESS STORIES

Great Leaders Make a Great Company: The BMC Story

Ideas and Ideals in Motion

BMC Software is the global leader today delivering Business Service Management solutions IT needs to increase business value through better management of technology and IT processes. Founded in 1980, BMC has offices worldwide and posted fiscal 2006 revenues of more than $1.49 billion. Over the past 4 years BMC has steadily delivered on its promise and potential of Business Service Management. In late 2002 however, BMC was at the beginning of a turn around. The company had weathered both Y2K and the overall economic downturn. Like every other company in their sector, the IT winter had been long and hard. Overall revenues had shrunk from their one-time high. BMC now found themselves with products that had been innovative in their time, but given their focus on mainframe and distributed computing were increasingly becoming a legacy of the past.

And while these legacy products were focused on the management of IT processes and technology, they delivered functionality on par with their leading competitors in the traditional world of Systems Management. The idea of Business Service Management was just that, an idea which had the potential to become a strategy for the company but had much ground to cover in its realization in the marketplace.

Led by Bob Beauchamp, BMC’s young CEO, the company began to reshape itself to deliver Business Service Management as opposed to Systems Management solutions. At every step of the way, Selker Leadership has been a partner with BMC, assisting the company with key strategic searches of executive personnel in their product development, sales, services and operations divisions, board directors, and with the leadership development of their senior team.

The turn around began in earnest in late 2002 with BMC’s acquisition of Remedy Software. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, with 30 offices worldwide, Remedy had a successful track record of providing industry-leading service solutions that enable organizations to reduce costs, improve quality of service, and maximize operational effectiveness. Remedy’s products, along with other products and companies acquired over the past four years, became the heart of the Business Service Management solution suite.

Finding and Assigning the Best Talent

Driving the execution of this strategy and the realignment of BMC’s technology to deliver Business Service Management has been Jim Grant, the former Vice President & General Manager of Hewlett-Packard Company’s Open View division. Jim was successfully placed by Selker Leadership into BMC in March of 2003. Originally hired to run the recently acquired Remedy Software, Jim is now Senior Vice President Service Management Solutions at BMC Software, responsible for all product development, product management and customer support activities for BMC’s Business Service Management solutions.

Over the past three years Selker Leadership has assisted Jim in building out his senior team by bringing in additional key executives. Paul Avenant, formerly a Senior Director within HP’s Software business joined BMC in April of 2004 to lead all product development efforts within Remedy. Now Paul is the Vice President Product Operations and one of the key development executives within BMC’s Services Management business, heading up all product development and product management for their Business Service Management solutions. In mid-summer of 2006 Selker Leadership successfully completed the search for a Vice President Customer Service and Tech Support placing Allisa Nessler into the role. Under Jim Grant’s leadership these executives are delivering the products, technology and support which has taken Business Service Management from a good idea to a proven reality in the marketplace.

In the summer of 2004, as the key development positions were filled within BMC’s product operations organization, it became clear that new field leadership was also required. Again, BMC turned to Selker Leadership to conduct a highly confidential search. BMC needed a seasoned and senior executive who knew how to transition a company from a value proposition which was technology based relying on the selling of features and benefits, to a value proposition which was solutions based encompassing a clear understanding of the business issues confronting the marketplace. To a sales executive in the technology sector, this meant the difference between selling to an IT executive versus selling to the executive suite.

In November of 2004, Selker Leadership successfully placed Cosmo Santullo into BMC as their new Senior Vice President Global Sales and Services. Cos had a long track record of success as a sales executive at IBM. His past accomplishments at IBM included authoring what become known as the IBM Playbook in the early 1990’s as the company reshaped itself into the services-oriented juggernaut it is today, running the Manufacturing Sector in Asia Pacific, and as their first Vice President Americas for IBM’s PC Business. Upon his departure from IBM in 1999, Cos moved to EMC where he was their Chief Marketing Officer and then the General Manager of their Internet business.

Similar to Jim Grant, Cos and BMC turned to Selker Leadership to assist the company in bringing in key channels and services executives. In early 2005 Selker Leadership successfully placed Lori Cook into BMC as their new Vice President Channel Sales. Lori had a successful track record at IBM as a sales and channel sales executive. In the almost two years since she joined the company, Lori has restructured BMC’s channel organization into one that is now recognized as one of the most effective channel organizations in the industry and in 2006 took over the additional responsibility of building out BMC’s professional services organization. In fact, recently Lori was acknowledged by CMP Media's VARBusiness magazine as one of the 50 most powerful women in the technology channel business.

In the two years post joining BMC, Cos and his new team of executives have led the restructuring of the sales and services force. Cos and his team are now delivering quarter over quarter and year over year revenue growth. They have built a sales and services force with the knowledge and wherewithal to deliver Business Services Management solutions.

Today, BMC is recognized as the leading provider of Business Service Management solutions. The key executives brought into the company by Selker Leadership have been instrumental in bringing this vision to a reality in today’s competitive marketplace.

Completing the Work

In 2005, Bob Beauchamp, BMC Software’s President & CEO, realized that the company would accomplish its long term strategic objective to deliver Business Service Management capabilities - the most effective approach for managing IT from the perspective of the business. BMC now had the bulk of products and underlying architecture in place. In addition, they had the right sales model and new sales leadership to effectively deliver Business Service Management solutions to the marketplace. However, it became equally clear to Bob and the board of directors, that while the company had restructured how they were viewed externally, there was a need to focus on internal operations.

BMC, like many other technology companies that had grown through acquisitions, had never truly optimized internal operations for maximum efficiency. Additionally, given the dramatic shift in the company’s product and sales strategy, all internal operations also needed to support the delivery of Business Service Management. Bob realized that if the company did not address these core issues of internal optimization, many of the financial gains they were about to realize would be eroded from the sheer weight of doing business inside the company.

It was clear to Bob he needed a true change agent to drive this effort. He needed a strong manager who understood that there were multiple steps comprising the value chain of transforming a company’s operations spanning technology, systems, and processes. And lastly Bob understood that if people did not change how they thought about what they did, whatever new systems and processes put in place would be fought, resisted, and ultimately fail.

Given this reality, in order for the company to sustain its turn around, their internal operations needed to change. BMC needed to bolster its senior ranks with someone who understood the business transformation value chain of technology, systems, processes and people, with a track record of multiple successes. With the stakes never higher, once again BMC retained Selker Leadership to assist in this strategic effort.

Upon initiating this search, it was obvious that the ideal candidate would have to be someone who crossed many different levels and disciplines. BMC needed someone with the consensus building capabilities and change management experience of a top consultant, the knowledge of technology systems and infrastructure of a senior business-oriented CIO, the experience of driving process and infrastructure optimization and simplification found in a highly regarded supply chain management guru, and the operational skills of a top GM or President. Given this criteria, the global candidate pool was limited to a very small group of select individuals.

In late September 2006, Jae Chung, the former Senior Vice President North American Technology Operations of MBNA, joined BMC Software as the new Senior Vice President Business Operations. Jae had been employed at MBNA for six years in a variety of senior roles spanning multiple disciplines. In addition to his most recent position as the senior leader of MBNA’s technology operations, Jae had also created and driven MBNA’s internal consulting organization, and had managed marketing with a focus on generating growth in their US Card loan business. Prior to joining MBNA, Jae had a lengthy career with McKinsey & Company working his way up from Associate to Partner. Jae’s successful careers at both McKinsey and MBNA demonstrated his ability to implement innovative ideas which changed the way people did their jobs, positively impacting results while gaining buy in at all levels.

The addition of Jae to BMC’s senior team represents one of the final pieces of the puzzle necessary to sustain BMC’s transformation from a legacy software company to the leading provider of Business Service Management solutions to the marketplace. However, as the entire leadership team understands, this is not the end of the game for BMC in sustaining an outstanding concentration of talent.

BMC is continuing the work of leadership assessment and development. Internal leaders are continuously challenged and supported in their efforts to get to the next level of performance professionally and individually. The search for new talent is a persistent program internally and out in the global business markets. The BMC experience and the work they have done in learning how to create strong teams has given them the confidence and the competitive understanding of how to find and assign the best talent on earth and organize them for un-matched success.