Michael Keegan
Executive director, Fujitsu
Career so far From the mid-1980s to 90s I was a senior executive at NatWest, before moving on to chief executive roles with various private equity and value capital financed ventures. I joined Fujitsu in 2006 as sales and marketing director for our Government Business Division. In 2010 I became executive director of our product organisation which encompasses responsibility for our channel business among its remit, so probably an unusual route into today’s channel.
If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be? Lead guitarist for The Damned who I grew up with through my teens, and as you can tell from the photo never got out of my system.
What will next year’s most overhyped industry buzzword be? I’m going to say big data as although data needs are growing rapidly, we are already in a position to analyse and process requirements right now.
Has 2012 been a good, bad or ugly year? Good – our investment in our channel business has continued to deliver great market share growth, more partners than ever and I’ve made it into this list for the first time!
What would you have as your last meal? Pie, chips and gravy courtesy of the Liverpudlian Mrs Keegan.
What keeps you awake at night? Thanks to the results we are achieving in our channel business at present, I’m pleased to say should I be woken it isn’t work related.
What piece of technology could you not be without? Having just bought a new Porsche 911 Cabriolet, I’ll have to say my Road Angel which keeps me on the straight and narrow!
Have any of your predictions come true this year? That our investment in the channel would pay off, by providing solutions that our partners value. Although I did have some help with this as we surveyed partners back in January asking them what they expected to see from us.
What is the best partner/customer trip you have ever been on? The Fujitsu Forum in Munich in November is a site to behold. We have more than 15,000 customers from the channel and end user alike descend on Munich from all over the world to see the full range of products and solutions that we offer. The fact it’s in Munich also means we get to enjoy ourselves in the evenings.
What do you see as the channel’s biggest challenge in 2013? For the market, I think uncertainty will be the biggest challenge, whether it’s the current economic climate or how to deliver new business models such as cloud services. For reseller partners I would ask them to challenge the “normal way” of doing things and look for alternatives that deliver value to them and their customers.