From IMB Edge 2013 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Dave Vellante and his CUBE co-host Stu Miniman, talked with Alex Yost, VP & Business Line Executive at IBM.

Yost described clients of today as being interested in investing in their data centers, but most importantly, investing in their business. Customers today are pushing their IT departments to run businesses more efficiently and more effectively. That’s when they turn to IBM solutions. People are trying to get a more competitive advantage out of IT.

Investing in innovation

What has changed is the fact that the customers are recognizing the value of mobility, of workforce enablement and of Big Data. That cannot be done without the IT systems to make it happen. Getting those things online for your company, whether it is on-premise or off-premise, is a big priority for customers because every single industry out there is looking for ways to out-innovate their competition, and IT plays a huge role in that.

Those are some of the factors that are driving IT decisions these days, and Yost explained a bit how they are affecting IBM’s strategy. The money that IBM is spending on innovation is all around helping clients get most out of their IT span. Clients are looking for ways to optimize Big Data, and Flash technology and optimized systems play a big role in that. Clients know they need to adopt one application or another, they just don’t know how to do it.

Another major issue of IT today is the staff itself. The staff is overworked, and/or the staff is not yet an expert in doing that. IBM can provide them with reference architecture and systems and SAP HANA offerings, giving them the capability to become operational more quickly, so that their IT personel can devote their time in the company to innovation instead of doing maintenance work.

Alex York relayed a recent discussion with a client who admitted having a workforce where 70 percent of staff was eligible for retirement. How is their IT department going to innovate anything when their staff is ready to retire? And then there’s the issue of wasting human knowledge and skills by having a senior engineer replacing a hard drive. Senior engineers should be driving innovation, enabling mobility, social networking and business innovation. “Keeping the lights on” is not where technology needs to be driven in a company.

There is a small minority that intends to build all-new data centers. Most customers, however, look to take the data centers that they own and make them more productive. IBM can provide them with systems that offer them performance and capabilities, and can offer this performance fast. That’s where the innovation really matters with customers.

The combination between terrific hardware and the investment IBM is making in Flash, with the integration of tiered storage capability, will simplify management. A simple console will help manage multiple environments, allowing customers to do more with less time investment, thus making the staff more productive.