Core Synopsis The pursuit team secured a marquee $2.7M ServiceNow implementation and integration deal with Dynatrace, a key strategic partner. The win was not based on existing board-level relationships, which competitors like Accenture and EY held, but on a tactical pincer movement of demonstrated technical depth and field-level sales alignment. By parading delivery experts who understood both Dynatrace and ServiceNow intimately, the team proved its unique capability to solve the complex integration problem that the market is "clamoring for." This win establishes a critical precedent, creating reusable integration artifacts (the ServiceCraft connector) and a powerful case study for joint go-to-market efforts. We are now positioned not just as an implementer, but as the essential integration partner bridging the two dominant platforms of observability and service management. Anatomy of the Win: Dynatrace Pursuit 1. The Strategic Opportunity The Customer Problem: Dynatrace, experiencing rapid growth, needed to migrate from its down-market service management tool (Fresh Service) to an enterprise-grade platform, ServiceNow. The Market Context: The migration was complicated and amplified by a new strategic partnership between Dynatrace and ServiceNow. This created a high-visibility project that would define the integration standard between the two platforms, attracting major competitors like Accenture, EY, and DXC. The Prize: Beyond the $2.7M project value, the real prize was developing the core integration logic and artifacts that could be taken to the broader market of all Dynatrace and ServiceNow customers. 2. The Competitive Differentiation The team faced formidable competition with deeper executive penetration. The win was achieved by outmaneuvering them on two fronts: Technical Supremacy: While competitors could offer more bodies and executive access, the pursuit team demonstrated superior, integrated expertise across both the Dynatrace and ServiceNow technology stacks. Bringing in delivery practitioners provided credible, granular proof that the team understood the client's specific technical challenges. Field-Level Alliance: The team leveraged its existing efforts driving business for Dynatrace. This created internal champions within the Dynatrace sales organization, who then advocated on the team's behalf, counterbalancing competitors' board-level influence. 3. The Project's Strategic Mandate This engagement is more than a standard implementation; it is a forcing function for the practice. Methodology Evolution: The client's demand for more releases in a shorter timeframe requires an evolution of the team's standard delivery methodology. AI Integration: The project includes a mandate to leverage and integrate the AI capabilities of both ServiceNow (ServiceNow AI) and Dynatrace (Davis AI) in concert, positioning the client as a market leader in AI-driven operations. Intellectual Property: The development of the integration between the platforms will generate valuable IP, solidifying the team's position as a specialized "Intelligent Ops" system integrator.
Ahead Knowledge Manager Claire hosted Principal Consultant Lead Lucy Wynn and Senior Client Solutions Engineer Jason Bixler to discuss how an infrastructure client relationship expanded into a multi-year enterprise data transformation. The discussion covered how early educational sessions uncovered critical data trust issues, how impending VMware Broadcom contract pressures accelerated decision-making, and how Ahead used client-weighted scorecards to guide platform selection and win the implementation contract. Ahead had a long history of selling infrastructure hardware and software to a major retail and exchange organization serving the military community. Ahead's largest services engagement with the client had been a data center migration several years prior. The account leadership team came from an EMC background, making data modernization a new sales motion for the CSE, Client Director, and Managing Director. The engagement started roughly two years prior through a "sharpen the axe" session with the enterprise architecture team manager, introducing data medallion architecture and data products. This session revealed severe data trust issues across the organization, where three different teams would produce three different answers for the same report. Once the client acknowledged their data trust issues, they established a broad vision to modernize their entire data ecosystem, implement enterprise data governance, enable AI and advanced analytics, and retire expensive legacy systems. Licensing pressure and migration philosophy: Four to five months after initial talks, Ahead conducted a financial consulting engagement around VMware hypervisors following Broadcom's acquisition of VMware and Pivotal Greenplum. Although hypervisors and Greenplum were tied into a single contract, Ahead and the client avoided a quick lift-and-shift migration to Oracle or another platform to prevent porting legacy problems to new infrastructure. Discovery and roadmap development: Ahead conducted an initial engagement to assess the current environment, evaluate governance maturity, and deliver a data strategy and modernization roadmap. The client then retained Ahead for discovery, platform selection, and legacy platform inventory. Scorecard methodology: Ahead gathered more than 50 must-have and nice-to-have requirements directly from business stakeholders and end-user analysts rather than traditional IT. Ahead evaluated five platforms across two distinct scorecards:Platform capabilities (scalability, governance, operational efficiency, analytics, and AI support) Migration effort required for the transformation Cloud transition: Although the client was 98% on-premises and hesitant about cloud adoption, the scorecard analysis proved that implementing the required capabilities individually on-premises would be far more complicated than adopting a SaaS-based data platform Lucy Wynn and Jason Bixler outlined key practices for account teams across Ahead: Focus on business outcomes: Technology decisions become straightforward when conversations start with the client's business problems and required outcomes rather than tool features. Collaborative positioning: Working directly alongside the client creates shared ownership and avoids appearing purely sales-driven. Long-term perspective: Account teams should view every initial engagement as a stepping stone toward a broader enterprise transformation. Cross-practice alignment: Delivering the combined strength of advisory, architecture, engineering, governance, planning, and change management leadership creates a client experience that competitors cannot easily match.
Episode 3: Michal Lubas (Director, AI Consulting Services) and Dan Young (Associate Client Director) of the Navitus account team on AHEAD's differentiators and how we execute when the stakes are high.
Episode 2: Steve Baca (Senior Specialist Solutions Engineer) on how AHEAD out-positioned the competition to land a major Broadcom deal with Salt River Project.
The deal with Mass General Brigham (MGB) was won by rejecting the standard OEM "what's on the truck" sales motion and instead positioning Ahead as a vendor-agnostic strategic partner. MGB's board recognized their existing research computing was inadequate for their precision medicine goals, triggering a two-part RFP. Ahead bypassed the commoditized hardware bidding war by first winning the vendor selection RFP. The team achieved this by deeply understanding the client's true need: a versatile, shared computing infrastructure for over a thousand different scientific applications, not just a trendy "AI" platform. This consultative approach, which involved partnering with MGB's embedded life science consultant (BioTeam) and validating the multi-vendor design (NVIDIA/Dell) against specific researcher workloads, built the trust necessary to accelerate procurement and secure a full-stack engagement spanning hardware, professional services, and managed services.
Key Takeaways Partner of the Year Award: Rachel announced that AHEAD won the North American Dell Channel Partner of the Year, emphasizing its strategic value and encouraging everyone to promote this achievement with customers and on social media. Parties will be held at multiple sites to celebrate with customers and Dell leadership. Dell Tech World Highlights: Jonathan summarized major product updates, including advancements in private cloud, AI, and cyber resilience. Dell Automation Platform and Dell Private Cloud are central to Dell's modernization strategy, with Ahead playing a key role in shaping and deploying these solutions. Dell Automation Platform: Robert and Jonathan explained that AHEAD has heavily influenced the platform, focusing on automation, compliance, and lifecycle management. AHEAD's Foundry complements Dell’s platform by handling physical deployment and custom automation, especially for networking and storage gaps. Product Updates: New PowerStore Elite, Project Lightning, and PowerProtect One were discussed, with timelines for beta and shipping. Dell is investing in simplifying and enhancing its cyber resilience offerings, including integration of Haiku and CyberSense. Strategic Positioning: AHEAD is uniquely positioned as a leader with Dell, having early access and influence on new products, and is ready to support large infrastructure deals and custom deployments. Technical Gaps and Opportunities: Dell’s automation does not cover network and some storage automation, which AHEAD fills. Foundry industrializes deployment, while Dell Automation Platform industrializes operations. Customer Messaging: Dell is pushing private cloud in all accounts; AHEAD's role is to turn this into real client outcomes and ensure customers understand the value of custom integration and automation. Call to Action Promote Partner of the Year: All participants are encouraged to share the award news with customers and boost it on social media. Engage in Partner Parties: Be on the lookout for invitations to local Partner of the Year parties and thank customers and Dell leadership. Control the Conversation: Sellers and technical teams should proactively position AHEAD's value in Dell private cloud and automation projects, ensuring customers understand the importance of custom integration and lifecycle management. Leverage Heroes Events: Jonathan encouraged participation in AHEAD-led Heroes events for better content and engagement with Dell, using Dell’s branding and funding. Reach Out for Support: If
Key Takeaways Lead the initiative. Engage IT stakeholders first, then bring procurement in. Help co-author the RFP, define requirements, and participate in scoring so AHEAD is positioned as the customer’s strategic advisor. Create customer value beyond price. Consolidation can reduce a customer’s VAR count from 15+ to roughly 2–5, improve governance, shift control toward the customer, and align IT with procurement. Differentiate with proof, not generic capabilities. Competitors often sound alike; lead with documented deliverables, measurable savings, technical expertise, and specific examples of work completed for the customer. Engage early. AHEAD has the most leverage when involved during discovery and solution evaluation—not just when the customer needs a quote. For preferred pricing, engagement may need to begin at least six months before the purchase order. Structure the commercial model carefully. Favor service credits or an “innovation fund” over cash rebates, apply rebates to hardware and software rather than maintenance renewals, and challenge cost-plus models in favor of auditable percent-off-list pricing. Use tailored differentiators. Marketplace advisory, FinOps, Foundry, Hatch, warehousing, enterprise licensing, and deep technical score carding are more compelling when tied directly to the customer’s objectives and measurable outcomes. The model has produced significant expansion. Examples included winning all network business at Marathon, growing that account from approximately $200K to $5M in margin, and ranking first in eight of nine Cardinal Health evaluation categories. Enablement takeaway: The new proposal template should make it faster to convert account evidence into executive or comprehensive proposals; the required training was described as approximately 25 minutes. Call to Action Identify accounts with fragmented VAR relationships or white space. Lead the initiative yourself: engage IT stakeholders, then bring the strategy to procurement. Ask existing VARs for documented deliverables, designs, proposals, and savings evidence—not just quotes. Build a reusable body of proof showing AHEAD’s differentiated value and engage early enough to influence pricing and solution decisions.
How Top Data Leaders Translate Infrastructure into Business Impact