WOTC Keynote: Jennifer Anaya 'Women Are Connectors, Collaborators, And Community Builders'

"If you think about all of the technologies we represent as as service, its about people connecting with people and its about systems connecting with systems," said Jennifer Anaya, VP of Marketing North America at Ingram Micro. During the 2017 Women of the Channel West Conference, she addressed the crowd with insight into the current "connection economy" in the world of tech. "Whats different about this new economy is that its not really only about a business outcome, but the currency is about customer experience," said Anaya. She explained the importance of realizing that we're all customers, and that customer experience is very personal. "No one company can really represent what the total customer experience will mean to the end user, so we have to think differently about who we partner with in order to find the best outcomes." Anaya revealed a jarring statistic when she told the crowd that, according to IDC research, more non-IT companies bought IT start-ups than IT companies did in the last two years. "We have to think about what we can be doing to think differently about connection. We might even have to actually connect with competitors," said Anaya. In this new "connection economy" she said that really, there are no competitors. Especially for women. "As women, we have a distinct advantage in this economy because we are connectors, we are collaborators, we are community builders. So, we don't think competition. We ask ourselves what we can do together to make things better." So, how should companies focus on partnering in this new economy? Anaya said to zero-in on three key things. First, think about how a partner will help enhance what you already do. Second, how can the partner help extend what your company is doing to get you into new places? "How can you, together, create something that is more than what you could have done on your own?" she said. And finally, Anaya mentioned that enabling each other as partners to create a "differentiation" in customer experience will be crucial not only to growth in 2017 and beyond, but success overall.