The Next Chapter Begins

Every once in a while you meet a person, or a group of people who have an idea or an approach that just causes a subconscious head-nod. As you watch and observe, they carry themselves with confidence, approach work and life with energy and passion.  Problems are analyzed, dissected, solutions designed and then the real work begins. This is DRI: a team, group of people a family really, with a big heart, big ideas, more importantly, the ability and know-how to execute.

I could introduce the cast of characters, professionals, humans, friends and peers. That, however, would be self-serving and will happen organically over time. Members of the team cut their teeth in the open source ecosystem, but there is more (much more) to it than that. The shared passion is problem solving, affection for technology and innovation; creative ways to solve the hard problems. Providing value at each stage, to every client, every day is critical. The focus moves beyond what needs to be done and why, to how to execute the vision. It is about goals, objectives, experience, strategy and our customer’s, customers.

What Part Will I Play

I will be building and leading the US team. I will do my best not to break what is already working. I am not here to change anything; I am here to show the US market what we can do. The work was started in Portugal and we realized this is only the beginning. DRI is now a Global organization; DRI Global. I am part of a team, we live, learn, share and collaborate. The countries served now number 5 and it will grow beyond, carefully, measured, with caution and a deliberate approach. We are small, execute with precision and make decisions quickly.

To put a label on what we do is important, but I do so with caution.  It will include solutions labeled CEM, CRM, SFA and CMS. Further, it would be great to simply add prefixes like Social, Mobile and a suffix or two like Platform and Intelligence. Sorry that it feels like buzzword bingo; something I am trying very hard to avoid. What if the approach was bottom up; design and build a platform that solved for the specific goals and objectives required by a business? What if the focus was helping businesses to understand what jobs their customers want to do with their products and how technology can help?

We are not going to build everything from scratch, quite the opposite really. We will build on top of solid products, supported by great companies like SugarCRM, IBM, Acquia, Knime and Talend, just to name a few. In the world where outcome driven innovation is the powerful model moving forward, it is the space between the applications that is the hard part. The space between engineering and support, the space between sales and marketing or the space between the organization and the customer, these are the challenges. You may know this space by other names; social CRM, collaboration, workflow, integration or business process.

I am looking forward to this chapter with excitement – feel free to give me a call, send me a note or reach out on your favorite social network to see how we can help! Yes, we are hiring. (If you made it this far, here is the press release)

Mitch Lieberman – Managing Partner DRI US

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