This blog was originally published on 11/16/2018 and has been updated.
We sat down with Shan Jegatheeswaran, VP of Sales Operations at Baker Hughes; Keith Schilling, Director, Sales and Commercial at Baker Hughes; and Ray Wang, Principal Analyst and Founder at Constellation Research, to talk about how Baker Hughes tackled a project that costs many enterprises tens of millions in development costs alone.
Watch the video to hear Shan, Keith, and Ray discuss the radical digital transformation at Baker Hughes and hear what makes the business so successful.
Use existing infrastructure.
For a company as large and complex as Baker Hughes stitched together through a decade of mergers and acquisitions, the options of buying more software, or launching a multi-million-dollar development project to help modernize and integrate its systems, were not on the table.
Instead, Baker Hughes used Skuid to transform the platforms they had already invested significant time and resources into.
Using Skuid’s ability to create horizontal access to data located in many different places, and its declarative development environment that simplifies coding through drag-and-drop and point-and-click operations, Baker Hughes avoided adding additional complexity, time, and costs.
“Skuid helps us transform because it takes technology off the table,” says Shan. “I don't have to worry about, ‘Can we do this?’ It's, ‘Why can't we do this?’ or ‘Why not?’ Let's get it done.”
Follow a trusted process.
To zero in on their digital transformation strategy, Baker Hughes began by putting its experts in a room to try and figure out the problems they wanted to solve.
While they loved getting to connect, the Baker Hughes team quickly realized that whiteboards and sidebar conversations about a dozen different problems weren’t scalable.
But, facing adversity, the Baker Hughes team thrived. To respond to this change management challenge, the team created a process they call D5. The five D’s represent five stages—discovery, data, diagram, design, and deploy. Though each step is integral to the process, Shan stresses the importance of data and design:
- Data—Thoughtfully design your data models to match what you want to do with your data.
- Design—Use the interaction between technology, design, and culture to drive the right behavior.
Take technology out of the equation.
Wait—we’re still talking about digital transformation, right? Ultimately, Baker Hughes found that digital transformation isn’t about flashy new features or automation for automation’s sake.
Digital transformation is about optimizing the processes you use to do business and using technology to make your business goals a reality.
By choosing the right technology or platform, you can spend your time understanding the business problem and creating the right solution.
“Digital transformation, for me, is a new approach to how we apply technology to our employees,” Shan says. “Digital transformation for me is also how leadership thinks about that technology, and what we do with that data, and then monetizing it and driving insights for the decisions that you make.”
The company built the initial solution using Skuid, which they integrated with their existing tech stack, including Salesforce, Tableau, Seismic, AWS, Office, and more.
So far, Baker Hughes’ surprisingly nimble digital transformation has yielded incredible productivity and efficiency in their sales organization—and they’re not stopping there.
Since its initial success, the company continues its transformation throughout the business, looking next to inventory, HR, marketing, and demand planning.
Baker Hughes is now leveraging Skuid to build a suite of connected apps, tied together with common data taxonomy and design strategy to deliver an enhanced employee experience.
This new solution will correlate their data, operationalize insights, and measure and solve risks.
Interested in similar results? We can show you how they did it. Schedule a personalized demo today to speak with a Skuid expert.
