When you don’t know the answer, someone in this network does

[RoxanneZ]

Platform ownership looks very different than it did a few years ago. The role has moved from managing technology to driving business transformation, and most Platform Owners made that shift without a map. That was the starting point for the fireside chat at our EMEA Customer Success reception in London, where Christine Aymard, GVP of EMEA Customer Excellence Group, hosted two of your peers, Aly Skidmore and Richard Davies. It was also the evening we opened the next chapter of the EMEA Platform Owner community.

The conversation was honest about AI. It’s tempting to hope it will solve what the platform can’t, but AI magnifies what’s already there. A well-built CMDB is what enables the platform, and turning on platform capabilities takes time and effort. When leadership asks AI to resolve issues rather than just route them, the real challenge usually sits in the processes and data underneath. AI won’t magically solve all your problems. It will make the ones you have easier to see.

The harder part of the job is often the people. Platform Owners context switch constantly between technology, governance, stakeholders, and proving ROI, and the people across the table are rarely thinking about the tech. They’re thinking about business goals. Aly called it the cheesy phrase: “you meet them where they are.” Richard described walking into the room as the facilitator and negotiator, which means the work is as much about listening and translating as it is about configuring. Both of them came back to the same advice -- lean in to your team.

That advice extends well beyond your own team. Lean in to your ecosystem, your Impact Squad, your customer success team, and the peers who do this work alongside you. Treat it as an opportunity, not an obligation.

Aly put the reason into words. At one point in her career she realized that if you don’t have the answers, it doesn’t matter. As a Platform Owner you often won’t have the answer before you walk into a room, and you may not have one when you walk out, but you will have an idea. That’s what makes this community so valuable: when you don’t know the answer, someone in this network is bound to know. Aly said if she’d had a community like this 20 years ago, it would have been absolutely amazing.

“Platform Owner is a lonely role but it’s not lonely anymore because we are here to help each other.”

That’s what we hoped this community would be, and the evening showed it already is. Thank you, Aly and Richard, for your candor and for the advice you gave your peers. Thank you, Christine, for hosting this awesome group. And thank you to everyone in the room who made it feel like a community from the first hour.

Keep the conversation going

If you’re a Platform Owner, engage with the Platform Owner Community. Watch out and register for future events like this one. Bring the question you’re stuck on, share what’s working for you, and lean on the people here who have been where you are.