Positioning Leader Spotlight
Meet Mandy Dhaliwal, CMO, Nutanix
As the new CMO at Nutanix, Mandy Dhaliwal was tasked with positioning and marketing the massive transformation of the company's business model.
Nutanix’s legacy was as hardware and had successfully shifted to include software. The big change came when it decided to pivot to a subscription-based model. However, there was a mismatch between the company's varied product capabilities and its perception in the market.
To address this, Mandy was chartered with aligning the company's strategic narrative to embrace where it came from, where it was going, and what it wanted to be. Get to know Mandy and how she approached it.
How did you get started in Silicon Valley?
I knew I wanted to be in B2B marketing since my very first college internship at the age of nineteen. Early on, I was able to observe senior sales and marketing executives build high quality customer relationships that helped them further their customers’ business agenda.
I was an H1B immigrant from Canada when I first arrived as a Marketing Manager in Silicon Valley. I faced steep learning curves and was often the only woman in the room.
I started moving my way up in different positions and was tapped to run Strategic Alliance marketing at a disaster recovery software company to build joint go to market motions with tech behemoths like Dell, Oracle, Microsoft, and EMC. I was forced to really dig deep and understand the value propositions of all these tech business partners. From understanding what drives revenue to the nuances of each ecosystem. I learned a lot, and it became a formative part of my career journey.
You’ve worked at some real powerhouses; how did you do it?
I had to step up, get the work done, ask hard questions, and be vulnerable. I'm a business major, so understanding this deep technology speak from folks that were very, very technically adept was a formidable challenge. And I'm grateful for the journey, but at the time, I was pretty fearless. And in hindsight, I don't know if I could do it again today.
What’s your secret to making positioning stick?
Positioning our company with clarity was a critical first step in aligning the organization to meet our growth aspirations.
As a candidate for the CMO role, I told the interviewing committee—which included members of the board—that the number one thing we needed to do to drive enterprise value for the company was nail the strategic narrative.
I've done this several times. And I can attest firsthand that to drive buy-in, you need the CEO at the table throughout the process. There's a different level of attention that comes across the organization when the CEO is sponsoring the positioning. Ultimately, it's going to be delivered in the form of a company narrative. And once you do that, it's perceived differently. Otherwise, it becomes ‘oh, here's another thing marketing has come up with.’
How do you know your positioning is working?
There are many tangible ways to know whether your positioning is working or not, but there’s also the intangible. As marketers we measure website visits, SEO, opens and clicks. There are also brand scores, impressions, and share of voice in terms of market resonance.
“Sometimes imitation is the best form of flattery.”
But for me, what I look for is the repetition back—if people are starting to repeat what we say, or when they incorporate it into their personal customer facing narrative. If I start to see the same words pop up in press mentions, in analyst language, or even if competitors start to pick up those words, I know it’s working. Sometimes imitation is the best form of flattery. So, in addition to the hardcore metrics, I look for the intangible in terms of that hearts and minds score, if you will.
How important was data to developing your new positioning?
“The data-driven nature of the ZOOM Marketing process captured my attention.”
5 Tips for a More Successful Brand Transformation
By Mandy Dhaliwal, featured in Forbes Magazine
1. Get internal teams on board upfront
2. Honor (and heed) the voice of the customer
3. Believe in your vision and help others see it
4. Be bold
5. Look to the future for real results
The data-driven nature of the ZOOM Marketing process captured my attention. I knew we had a variety of opinions in our business that needed to be addressed objectively. As you can imagine, there were many leaders of the portfolio that wanted to be heard and have their product in the pole position of the company narrative. The goal was to listen to internal teams, customers, and prospects and develop an outcome that would resonate across all these constituencies.
What impressed me most about the ZOOM Marketing team was their willingness to partner with us and adapt to our needs. The market dynamics were unfolding in real time, and the ZOOM team was willing to adjust timelines to address these changes. The upshot was successfully driving the right outcome for Nutanix and delivering a body of work that we as a leadership believed in. ZOOM Marketing truly set Nutanix up for success.