In case you haven’t read it yet, I recommend Andrew Mason’s good-bye memo to the Groupon staff . Not only is it an example of fresh and transparent enterprise communication of which we will need more in the future, it also ends with a memorable insight. Mason writes: “Have the courage to start with the customer. My biggest regrets are the moments that I let a lack of data override my intuition on what’s best for our customers.” 

Never before were customers so much at the heart of our businesses. While we have been talking about customer-centric approaches in product development, sales or communication for many years, with Social Media and Cloud technologies we are looking at a completely new story. Until now, companies were just trying to imagine or research what customers might want (and data was often the basis for conclusion), today customers share their opinions and wishes directly. Before, only experts would put their creativity into innovations, today customers chime in into a joint brainstorm.

Moreover, while before companies would advertise their goods and services in the media, today customers are happily – and unhappily – spreading the word. According to new research by the German ICT association Bitkom that was published at CeBIT (which had “shareconomy” as a theme this year) 83 percent of German Internet users share content online. “Experiences with products and services” ranging among the top three types of content shared. But most strikingly, 13 percent of German internet users have already participated in crowd-sourcing projects aimed at innovating products or services of a company. Another 25 percent say they can imagine participating in this kind of activity in the future. This is the so-called reluctant and skeptical Germany!

Understandably, many companies have mixed feelings when thinking about discussing their innovation projects in public. However, this thought is only scary as long as we think in the old categories of products and services. In the shareconomy relationships are the true assets of a company. Or as Simon Sinek puts it in his great TED talk: People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. If the reason for a product or service is the fact that you listened to your customers, your goal should be to ensure that your customers keep talking to you.

When we are talking about shareconomy, we are not talking about a new economical system but about a new culture. A culture in which it is not possessions that define our worth and wealth but the way we make USE of goods and services. A culture where what is not used is literally of no use and high usage increases the value of something instead of decreasing it. Take social media tools: many are not for sale as such. What you buy is a license to use them. If you don’t use it, there is nothing you have to take care of. If you do use it, you benefit from sharing the tool with many others as you get better service, faster innovation and better conditions. You profit from the relationships that are formed around the product.

In the shareconomy people share goods and services just like they share their opinions. But just like sharing opinions needs protection of identities and secure environments, the shareconomy needs a certain level of security and reliability. Sharing is often associated with Open Source software, which is still eyed with suspicion by many CIOs. But it is way better than its image and already widely used in enterprise environments. Rafael Laguna has nicely depicted some myths of Open Source in this article.

In my opinion, the shareconomy needs two things: the right mindset and the right infrastructure. Our goal at Fujitsu is to provide both for our customers. So please, keep talking to us. We appreciate it and we are listening!

Yours sincerely,

Andre Kiehne

“We were looking for a partner to help us take it to the next level. We found that partner in Fujitsu. Fujitsu Cloud has helped us create a flexible infrastructure on which to build our business. It allows us to change our IT quickly and make our people more productive.”
Rebecca Brockett, CIO Grocon Group

As a leading IaaS provider Fujitsu is supporting Grocon, one of the largest construction companies in Australia, and helping them to successfully implement a vision for the future. Our Cloud solutions and practical approach have opened new opportunities for Grocon as we have helped them to set up a flexible and scaling infrastructure.

Why not take a look and see what Cloud Computing can offer for you. This video shows how the Fujitsu Cloud has helped Grocon to cut costs and increase the number of innovations. See how our employees provide a personal touch and listen carefully to the needs of our customer, taking each detail into consideration.

Whether you are interested in server or distributed virtualization, a private or virtual private cloud, a hybrid model to complement your existing data center infrastructure or selective Managed Services, you can rely on our experienced specialists for professional advice. Our experts start by looking closely at your existing business and application services along with your infrastructure and mapping that to your business goals and IT vision. They will then advise you on the combination of products, solutions and services that best fits your individual strategy.

Details about the Fujitsu Cloud Consulting approach can be seen here. Fujitsu has one of the most powerful strongest Cloud portfolios in the IT branch and also has the corresponding experience gathered from over 2,000 successfully implemented Cloud projects worldwide.

Read more about the Fujitsu Cloud and the benefits you can obtain for your company.

During the last days you have heard a lot of new workplace systems like STYLISTIC M702 or the new LIFEBOOK E line.

Today we would like to highlight another part of our broad portfolio: Wolfgang Kulla, Product Marketing Manager, presented us  the high end mainframe series BS2000 and especially the Business Server SQ210. This systems offers “State of the art” – High Availability (HA) and with the new feature LiveMigration (LM) the SQ210 is the first server world-wide supporting live migration of a Mainframe operating system and application with zero down-time.

With the combination of Business Servers SQ210 running OSD/XC V9.0 customers can benefit from new, easy to implement and operate features such as High Availability (HA). The Server supports hot spare and online replacement of important components and supervision of redundant SQ servers and/or two ETERNUS DX disk systems. Simple and quick switching of guest systems with its applications is another feature that is supported.

On top the new feature Live Migration (LM) supports in the current business manual adaption of the load at resources of two servers. This enables customers to run uninterrupted maintenance and updates for hardware and firmware through manual switching and return.

Find out more about the latest data center techniques at our CeBIT booth in hall 2 or at any time on our web pages.

Walking on the CeBIT fairground and through the halls we found our LIFEBOOKs not only on our own stands but also at the booths of many other exhibitors, sometimes in the exhibition and very often also as standard working equipment for the staff.

For example, right in the middle of the fairground in front of hall 5 you can find the Intel vPro truck fully

equipped with the latest notebooks and desktop PCs from Fujitsu:

-          LIFEBOOK U772

-          STYLISTIC Q702

-          LIFEBOOK T902

-          ESPRIMO X913

All of these come with the latest Core i5 or i7 processors and the innovative vPro technology, a processor supported remote control that even works if the system is shut down or hardware parts need a service.

And if you walk into the always crowded Games Convention Hall 23 you’ll also find our LIFEBOOKs in the Intel Business Center and in the “Blogger Area”.

So have a look around and tell us where you found our LIFEBOOKs, ESPRIMOs or other Fujitsu products @CeBIT 2013

The new cluster server PRIMERGY CX420 works out-of-the-box to provide increased ICT system uptime levels. Affordably priced, simple to operate, perfect for SMBs  - our PRIMERGY CX420 introduces simplified clustering technology designed to help extend system uptime and ensure business continuity in the event of an ICT system failure.

Companies of all sizes in all market segments increasingly rely on ICT to run their business. This increases the impact of any unplanned system failure, such as a server crash. Non-planned server downtime for a company taking orders online could have disastrous consequences in terms of lost and delayed orders.

Sophisticated failover technology promising greater uptime – and therefore better business continuity – has so far simply been too expensive. It is too complicated for small and mid-size businesses. Fujitsu now has the solution – with the new PRMERGY CX420 dual-node cluster server designed to deliver the highest levels of system availability (HA). Easy to run, just like an everyday industry-standard server, the new PRIMERGY CX420 provides added assurance thanks to its built-in system failover which ensures that any technology glitches only have minimum impact on day-to-day business.