Pretzel Logic – Social and Collaborative Business

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Pretzel Logic covers my thoughts on performance acceleration in the enterprise via social software, the software vendor landscape and on occasion, a healthy rant or two about unrelated stuff that’s on my mind.

Contact Information:

Twitter: sameerpatel | Linked In: Profile | Skype: sameerapatel | Email: Sameer | Posterous: My Food Blog | Google Plus: Sameer

Here’s a little about me

Currently, I am the GM and Global VP for Social Software Solutions at SAP AG. Here’s why I joined.

I’ve spent over a decade leading teams and managing engagements for large customer helping them define and execute sustainable programs that drive employee process performance, business partner network optimization,  sales and marketing operational effectiveness and customer acquisition. And I’ve worked with the vendor community on product and market strategy.

Customers I’ve had the privilege to work with include well known organizations such as BitTorrent, Ingres, Sun Microsystems, KPMG, McKessonHBOC, WR Wrigley Jr. Co., CA, Nike, Oracle,  The Sabre Group, Grupo Televisa (Mx), Intel, and Varian.

Organizations  that I have led were responsible for strategy and execution planning enabled by social and collaborative approaches and technology, user needs assessments (voice of customer, partner and management), UI and rapid prototyping, operational feasibility, technology evaluation and sourcing, development and vendor management, strategic alliances and overall client services management and delivery.

I’ve been fortunate to be referenced and quoted in leading publications on how to accelerate business performance via social and collaborative concepts and on enterprise social software trends. Publications include  The New York Times, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, CNBC, CIO.com, ZDNet, Social Media Today, GigaOM, ReadWriteWeb and other news outlets. More here.

I’ve keynoted and spoken at events such as the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, The Social Business Forum, Milan, IBM Connect/Lotusphere, SIIA, WebCom Toronto, KMWorld, The Future of Talent, Defrag, GigaOm Net:Work, GigaOm Mobile Enterprise Summit, amongst others. More here.

I got my Bachelors in Corporate Finance, Securities and Economics from Babson College in Wellesley, MA and a Masters degree in Management Information Systems (MIS) from Boston University’s School of Management(Masters thesis in Knowledge Management), in Boston MA and a certified Associate in Risk Management Designation (ARM) by the AICPCU. My work experience comes being a partner at the Sovos Group – a consulting and execution planning firm working with leading organizations to accelerate employee, customer and partner performance via the strategic use of social and collaborative approaches and technology. Prior to that, from working as Managing Director of Span, Director, Strategy and Business Development at LiquidThinking and Practice Lead in the West Coast Tech Strategy Consulting Group at marchFIRST ( a merger between USWeb, The Mitchell Madison Group &  CKS).

I entered the working world before college in the foreign exchange business, working for a financial services firm in their offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Mumbai, Dubai and Sydney. In my fitter days, I was a nationally ranked Squash player and a state record holder as a Swimmer in India.

I live in Palo Alto, California with my wonderful wife and son. And I love to cook.

Affiliations:

I  serve on the Enterprise 2.0 Advisory Board and co-chair the Enterprise 2.0 Strategy and Execution Tracks that covers key business transformation areas such as collaboration, marketing and social CRM.

I also serve on the Advisory Board of the International Forum on Social Business – A European business summit, held in Milan.

I  have a keen interest in transparency in how our votes are counted and serve as an advisor to the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation.

I am  a member of the Enterprise Irregulars – “a diverse group of practitioners, consultants, investors, journalists, analysts and full time bloggers who share a common passion -  enterprise technology and its application to business in the 21st century”.

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Samples initiatives I’ve been fortunate to lead or be a part of:

• Organizational transformation strategy via social computing constructs and technologies to improve performance across employee, partner, customer and supplier relationships for a F500 Hi Tech Organization
• Go to market for cloud computing and customer communities for a top 3 global professional services firm
• Multiple technology sourcing engagements in the areas of collaboration, social software, community and identity platforms, customer service solutions, intranets and extranets, and retail and commerce systems.
• Line of Business transformation  via social computing constructs and technologies to improve performance in the areas of Customer Relationships, Sales Acceleration, Innovation and Lead Generation for a F500 manufacturer
• Multiple community platform strategy, justification and execution planning engagements for channel, pre-sales engineers, direct sales, marketing and employee portals, intranets and extranets.
• Business Intelligence for a 2000 strong direct salesforce for a Fortune 500 high-tech company.
• Field Marketing Community and Collaboration for a leading high-tech company.
• Unified Customer and Partner Interaction for an entertainment and media start-up with $350 million in funding.
• Marketing collateral management and global fulfillment technology sourcing for a Fortune 500 hi-tech company.
• Global marketing spend forecasting and executive reporting for a Fortune 500 hi-tech company.
• ROI sales applications for a global sales force of a leading hi-tech company.
• Sales and marketing business intelligence for Channel Sales for a Fortune 500 high-tech company.
• Employee collaboration and communication for a Fortune 500 health care company.
• Enterprise knowledge management for a Fortune 500 consumer products company.

Photo Credit: Tom Raftery