Feb 6, 2024
In this episode of CMA Connect, Alison Simpson, the CEO of the CMA, welcomes Jay Badiani, Chief Marketing Officer at IBM Canada. They'll explore the shifting B2B landscape, from new trends to cybersecurity challenges, and discuss IBM's mission to lead in business AI solutions, particularly within the Canadian context.
00:00:02:10 - 00:00:45:15
Welcome to Cinema Connect Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMS CEO Allison Simpson.
Alison Simpson
In today's ever evolving B2B marketing landscape, we're witnessing a transformative shift in both strategies and priorities. So as Canadian businesses are seeking to stay competitive and relevant through an incredible tsunami of change, it's absolutely imperative that marketers embrace new technologies, really bring a learning mindset to what they're doing, and take advantage of all the tools that are available to them today.
00:00:45:17 - 00:01:06:11
Alison Simpson
So to guide us through this very exciting time, I'm absolutely thrilled to have Jay Baghdadi, the chief marketing officer of IBM Canada, joining us today. With Jay's wealth of experience leading a client centric and agile team across the full marketing mix, he's uniquely qualified to offer a great vantage point into the insights that are shaping the needs of B2B companies across diverse industries.
00:01:06:12 - 00:01:26:14
Alison Simpson
So welcome, Jay. Thank you very much for having me, Allison. So let's kick things off with the diversity of clients and industries that IBM partners with. You have a really broad perspective, broader than most. So now that you were in the first quarter 2020 for AJ, what B-to-B trends are you seeing yourself from your role and also among your clients?
00:01:26:16 - 00:02:13:19
Jay Badiani
Yeah, that's a really great question, and especially because we've seen really strong economy in the last few years being slowed down a little bit. So there are some shifting trends where we see clients coming to us talking about growth and where they're going to find new clients and how they're going to retain clients. It's very important giving the slowdown in the economy that some are projecting and as well, we're seeing clients talk to us about their bottom line and always looking for help on managing cost and even more so looking at productivity and how they can help their employees work on the right things, work smarter and do a better job again, serving clients.
00:02:13:21 - 00:02:39:22
Jay Badiani
So those are two real trends we're seeing in industry today, is ever more focus on the top line and a continuing focus on cost management and the bottom line.
Alison Simpson
I know all of those will absolutely be resonating with our listeners. So without giving away anything confidential, can you share some of the recommendations? Are ways that you're advising or helping support your clients, answering those important questions?
00:02:40:00 - 00:03:07:20
Jay Badiani
Yes, absolutely. So I'll start where IBM comes from, the position that we want to be the number one provider of artificial intelligence services for business. AI for businesses is what we call it. It's actually a marketing campaign and it very much addresses what those concerns are and the challenges that we see clients having. We come at this from the context of how can IBM help?
00:03:07:21 - 00:03:48:11
Jay Badiani
There's been a, you know, a giant amount of conversation around A.I., and we come at this from a point of view. A we can be a trusted AI provider for our clients. And, you know, just talking about the top line and where where clients can scale and find new clients as well as how they can be productive. We have a platform we've introduced called Watson X and Watson has different elements of the platform that provide clients with the ability to look at their customer base, understand better where the clients are and what they might be seeking.
00:03:48:13 - 00:04:19:18
Jay Badiani
There's actually an assistant. It's an app that's built on Watson X called Watson X Assistant, and we have many clients using that to serve their clients better. And then we've also got another app on the Watson next platform called Watson Next Orchestrate. And that's one that's the generative AI digital app where our clients can go in and understand their course better and feed in a corpus of data feed in as big a model as they have or as much information they have to help their employees be more productive.
00:04:19:19 - 00:04:36:20
Jay Badiani
Like you said, not trying to share anything confidential, but this is an app I really like to share when I'm just meeting with people. An example of this Watson orchestrator app is something i have on my phone called Ask h.R. And no matter where I am, no matter what time of day it is, i can go to that app and all of our h.r.
00:04:36:20 - 00:04:55:05
Jay Badiani
Policies are in there. It's connected into our actual h.r. system of record, and i can connect any h.r. Transaction day and night, whether it's publishing a salary letter, whether it's for someone who's looking for i have an employee is looking for a mortgage, and they need a salary letter. You know, I can get that out to them any time of day or night.
00:04:55:06 - 00:05:19:03
Jay Badiani
If I have an employee to changing departments, I can, you know, move them from one department to another. If I have an employee who's looking for information about taking a leave of absence or if I need to even process a leave of absence of someone, you're not going to be at work for a period of time. I can do that all from a simple app, just literally typing in a natural language, English language, and on the transactions will actually happen.
00:05:19:03 - 00:05:41:22
Jay Badiani
So that's just an example of digital labor in a way that, you know, IBM, we're doing this internally for ourselves and we're actually marketing it to clients as well to help them be more productive.
Alison Simpson
That's a great example. And you're absolutely right. They’re not just marketers all business people are looking at how do I understand Gen AI, and how can I leverage to help it make me more efficient and make my teams more scalable and more productive?
00:05:42:00 - 00:06:03:04
Alison SImpson
I love the example that you used on the H.R. side. Do you have some other examples, IBM or for some of your clients on what needs they're trying to help solve with Gen AI? I think it it's instructional for listeners to really see how other businesses and marketers are, what problems they're trying to solve with gen AI.
Jay Badiani
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:06:03:04 - 00:06:38:10
Jay Badiani
So the priority areas for clients, you know, we've talked a little bit about the top line and you know how it's harder to grow the top line in a market that's slowing down a little bit. But they also come to us with their priorities around ESG and particularly sustainability, regardless of what sort of what's happening in the market around revenue and costs, they've made commitments to shareholders around achieving certain sustainability goals, whether it's a reduction in carbon emissions, whether they've made net zero goals, whether it's, you know, business model transformation.
00:06:38:12 - 00:07:04:01
Jay Badiani
And we absolutely you know, I talk about AI for business. We absolutely have AI embedded in our sustainability software as well. So two really good examples of that is new software company IBM acquired, called Envisi helps you see your entire carbon footprint across your organization. You know, when we implemented in a certain way for them, it helps them manage it, right?
00:07:04:01 - 00:07:22:12
Jay Badiani
So you can be a utility or an energy company or you can be a bank, you know, a lot of different kinds of institutions have different sustainability goals they're trying to achieve. And in this is fabulous software that lets them see the entire their entire footprint and you know, what's what they could change that might make a difference.
00:07:22:14 - 00:07:51:10
Jay Badiani
Another element of sustainability, we always say, is sustainability isn't separate from profitability actually being a sustainable organization helps you be more profitable as well. And we have artificial intelligence based app called Maximo, and Maximo is around asset management. So when you're infrastructure heavy company, again, you have a lot of real estate, you might have a lot of vehicles.
00:07:51:15 - 00:08:24:23
Jay Badiani
Maximo Helps you predict the maintenance required on those assets, helps you understand exactly where all the assets are, you know, where they are in their life cycles and helps you then manage how much maintenance is needed or schedule maintenance. And you know, a lot of our infrastructure heavy clients look at that as very helpful to them to know that we can maintain machines better, make sure that they're not breaking down, make sure that they're not using excessive energy and making sure we're optimizing the assets that we have.
00:08:25:01 - 00:08:54:15
Jay Badiani
It's another way for organizations to be more sustainable and another area where, you know, again, clients, regardless of what's going on in the economic marketplace, is cybersecurity. So we have a lot of clients coming to us with cybersecurity challenges. Cybersecurity has never been more important than it is today. And some of our surveys that we do show that the cost of a data breach has been never been higher to remediate these costs, even in Canada.
00:08:54:18 - 00:09:15:17
Jay Badiani
And I'm not even talking about the cost to the brand and the cost of the value of a brand. I'm just talking about the actual cost to get in and figure out where the data breach occurred and seal it up and prevent it from happening. And also in in some cases, companies have to pay ransoms, right, Ransoms to get out of a data breach.
00:09:15:20 - 00:09:46:15
Jay Badiani
So our security software again uses AI to monitor the entire threat landscape. The software is called Q radar and Q Radar has air inside, and it can do the work of many, many air analysts. So, you know, just almost impossible for a human or even a team of people to track the literally tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of threats that are coming into organizations in a day, into large organizations or into governments.
00:09:46:17 - 00:10:12:17
Jay Badiani
So curator software has AI to help organizations do that. Those are just two areas. In addition to, you know, we talked about revenue management, cost management, but sustainability and security as well, where where I can definitely help.
Alison Simpson
Those are two very important areas. And I like to call out that sustainability and profitability aren't separate. In fact, sustainability can positively impact profitability.
00:10:12:17 - 00:10:54:14
Alison Simpson
And when companies and individuals are under revenue pressure, remembering that and knowing that sustainability can actually be a driver or not a roadblock is super important. On the cybersecurity front, I've certainly seen an elevation of sophistication in the attacks. Are you seeing that? And you're also seeing the volume of a tax increase?
Jay Badiani
Yeah, yeah, there's no doubt. We do surveys chief information security officers every year and on top of that, our security software gathers this data and it tells us that the volume is I know exponential is an exaggeration, but it is massively increasing.
00:10:54:18 - 00:11:21:03
Jay Badiani
And the capabilities that cyber actors have are also increasing. They use A.I. as well. So, yeah, there's absolutely no doubt that you need to keep up with threats. You really need to use the latest technology to combat the latest threats, because you're exactly right with your question. The threats are increasing and the bad guys are getting more and more capabilities.
00:11:21:05 - 00:11:43:06
Alison Simpson
So now you are part of an organization, a very global business. So I'm very curious to hear what differences you see for B2B marketing and customers in Canada compared to the U.S. and other IBM markets.
Jay Badiani
IBM is in a really unique position because we have a while, we're a very large global organization. We're very large footprint in Canada.
00:11:43:08 - 00:12:02:07
Jay Badiani
So, you know, I don't know whether the there is a company like IBM because we do see that a lot of organizations that are in the business that we're in, in the technology business, they might be global and others have heard of them for sure, but they don't necessarily have the same footprint of people that we would have.
00:12:02:13 - 00:12:29:00
Jay Badiani
So IBM is a different organizations. We're not just a tech company. We're a consulting company around tech. And so when we do our marketing, you know, my group is very focused on specifically Canada. We're very specifically focused on what we call field marketing and field communications here. And so we're always looking at ways to have a unique client experience in Canada for our clients.
00:12:29:06 - 00:12:48:02
Jay Badiani
And that's sort of I feel like it's sort of unique. You know, we're not relying on lots of TV ads, for example, we're not relying on a lot of, you know, Internet marketing, for example. We do have this sort of really large concentration here of trying to be with clients in the field. And social media is a big part of that.
00:12:48:02 - 00:13:07:20
Jay Badiani
So when I say, you know, field marketing, field communications, social media is really a big part of that for us.
Alison Simpson
And Jay when you're talking to your global peers and your American peers about the business customers that you're working with in Canada, are you seeing any differences in who those customers are or what they're looking for compared to the other markets?
00:13:08:02 - 00:13:31:19
Jay Badiani
There's you know, Canada is interesting in that we have some very large banks in Canada where other countries might have more banks, but maybe not the same concentration. And so there's definitely a difference here where we spend a lot of time on, I'll call it financial services. And so not just banks, but insurance companies too, is a big concentration for us on financial services.
00:13:31:21 - 00:13:55:04
Jay Badiani
And as you know, Canada, a large federal government big vendor in the market on for technology as well as the ten provinces and the three territory. So we have a focus on government and our public sector. And you know, those are two major sectors for us. They would be important in any really developed economy. I think in Canada there's probably a bit more concentration on fast services and on government.
00:13:55:04 - 00:14:17:11
Jay Badiani
And then of course, you know, Canada, we're very successful in many other industries, but I think that you would see in other countries there might be a bit more around any fracturing or a bit more variety around some of the industries like tech or retailing that they would market to. So we definitely have those in Canada we all know who are grocery retailers are.
00:14:17:11 - 00:14:37:20
Jay Badiani
We know some of our vape shops are, but I think in other countries there's maybe a bit more local diversity of those though. You know, off the top, when I was talking about retail, I was talking about where do companies find more customers? And we actually did a survey that was just published last week on our earlier in the year on retail.
00:14:37:20 - 00:14:56:00
Jay Badiani
And we see that a lot of customers online aren't that happy with their bindery. They're actually, you know, our survey said less than 50% were satisfied with their online buyer journey, but 80% said they would be happy to have an air assistant guide them and so, you know what, we're and this was a global survey. This just was in Canada.
00:14:56:03 - 00:15:21:17
Jay Badiani
But I think that would apply here, right, where you go to certain websites and they're fabulous and you're getting awesome recommendations. And it's so easy to buy and you go to other ones and you're like, I can't find what I want. Or, you know, it's a little bit tricky finding that's a little bit tricky with, you know, all of the delivery information is a little tricky with, you know, getting stuff to your door, you know, not satisfied with getting help when you need help, getting help with returns, or do you need help with return.
00:15:21:19 - 00:15:56:09
Jay Badiani
And so we see there's a big opportunity there. And absolutely, we see, you know, retailers, regardless where they are looking for a guy to better serve their customers and, you know, in Canada and around the world.
Alison Simpson
So building on that, have you observed many regional differences in your Canadian marketing?
Jay Badiani
You know, there's not that many differences, but one reason thing that, you know, cause us to look at our marketing strategies is the new law in Quebec and just making sure it's been an opportunity for us to take a step back and look at our campaigns that we run in Quebec.
00:15:56:11 - 00:16:16:02
Jay Badiani
And I think I don't know if other organizations are like us, but we do, you know, maybe there was a sense that we were taking campaigns and just sort of translating them into French, and this has caused us to just take a step back and beyond taking an English campaign and translating it to French, really try and understand is it right for the Quebec market.
00:16:16:04 - 00:16:38:19
Jay Badiani
So, you know, it's still it's still new law. It's still something that we're we're working through to make sure we're, you know, complying with French language laws. But also we want to make sure because that market can be different in certain aspects. Are we you know, or is everything contextually right for the Quebec market, not just having, you know, campaigns land there in French?
00:16:38:21 - 00:16:58:20
Alison Simpson
And then, Jay, earlier, you talked about air certainly playing a pivotal role in enabling IBM's business. You're creating a lot of great solutions for your clients to enable them to do more as well. And all of our listeners are certainly looking at general AI and new tools as a way to improve and get better at what they're doing.
00:16:58:22 - 00:17:41:03
Alison Simpson
Can you share an exemple or to of what you've seen organizations do beyond IBM to use AI to help achieve their goals?
Jay Badiani
I can talk about a few industry examples, but one overarching thing that I really would like to say is IBM's large language models. If you use them, you're indemnified from IP risks and I think that's something that companies see is really interesting because when you just go to, you know, an Internet app, you never really know where the information coming from that this AI is based upon and where are the answers coming from, and are you really using a model that's free of intellectual property risk?
00:17:41:03 - 00:18:04:14
Jay Badiani
And you've we've seen a lot of that in the news. So so that's one thing that we're we're really proud about, is we can indemnify customers that use our models because we know what the models were trained on. I talked a little bit about energy and you remarked about sustainability and profitability go hand in hand. And we absolutely this is a this is just still a big growth industry in the world around the economy.
00:18:04:14 - 00:18:28:15
Unknown
And what's going to how do we move from a carbon economy to a more sustainable economy? And there's absolutely more that will happen around putting the information that that sort of spread around the world in many different peoples, you know, that they have into a place where we can make the right decisions. One thing that IBM's done is worked with NASA geospatial models, and we've made these available as open source models.
00:18:28:19 - 00:19:07:23
Jay Badiani
So anyone is working with Watson and can work with our NASA geospatial models. And what that help people do is marry weather data with satellite data of parts of the world and really help them understand what's happening with the climate there, what can be done to improve the climate there, what changes are happening over time, whether it's industrialization, agriculture, deforestation, you know, is this just gigantic amounts of not just text data, but images and other kinds of geospatial data are being put together.
00:19:08:00 - 00:19:30:20
Jay Badiani
I by our customers and using our models. The last thing I'd say is, is security. It was a great, you know, question you had earlier where I was talking about security and it's never ending like that. That struggle is never ending. We're continually working with them around how can we keep up with the bad guys? How can we make sure that again, brands are protected?
00:19:30:22 - 00:19:53:06
Jay Badiani
You when you come into a store or you come into someone's website, you know your data is safe and that just goes across all industries, governments to we've seen we've seen where health care institutions have been taken down in Canada because of cybercrime. And we've seen, you know, other organizations around the world, you know, have major consequences because of cyber crime.
00:19:53:06 - 00:20:25:10
Jay Badiani
So this is it's a never ending one for everyone that we work with. But we know we know A.I. will help us if you don't have A.I. working for you, the bad guys do. And you know, we won't be able to keep up with them.
Alison Simpson
So Jay you've certainly given us lots to think about in your comment around the bad guys have access to Jenn-Air too, so it's so important for all of us to stay on top of and ahead of where the bad guys are so that we can continue to protect our brands and have the trusting relationships that we need with our customers and all our stakeholders.
00:20:25:12 - 00:20:46:01
Alison Simpson
So to close off our conversation, I'd love to benefit from the fact that you have this incredible, very robust marketing career and have you share one piece of advice for our listeners. What would you recommend marketers do to be successful and grow their careers in the months and years ahead?
Jay Badiani
First of all, Alison, such a great opportunity for me to speak to you today, so thank you very much for that opportunity.
00:20:46:03 - 00:21:14:11
Jay Badiani
I really enjoyed the conversation in terms of a piece of advice is nothing that we do is an individual effort. Everything is a is a team effort. And I really think it's important for people to collaborate with each other to know how one part of the organization fits into the work that they do and then how their outcomes affect what another part of the organization might do or even customers would see.
00:21:14:11 - 00:21:36:12
Jay Badiani
You know, there's marketing and then there's PR and external communications and it's all connected. So I think as much as people can see that the role they play isn't in isolation, it's all connected to something else. And eventually a customer will see that in the market or an employee or a government organization will see something from your company in the market.
00:21:36:12 - 00:21:56:19
Jay Badiani
Then it just helps you put into context just how important the work that we do is. And when we all collaborate as a team, the work will of course be better. So just just about team and collaboration and, you know, knowing how your organization works is so important.
Alison Simpson
I think that's great advice for all of us at all levels for sure.
00:21:56:21 - 00:22:23:09
Alison Simpson
I also want to thank you for the overall conversation. You have such a great experience and I really appreciate you making time in your busy schedule to join us today and share your wealth of experience around B2B marketing, Some of the regional and global differences you're seeing in Canada compared to elsewhere in the world. And the important focus that IBM has around Jenn-Air and some of the powerful tools and solutions that you're creating.
00:22:23:11 - 00:22:47:16
Jay Badiani
Thank you very much, Alison. I really enjoyed our conversation.
Alison Simpson
Enjoy the rest of your day.
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