Inspirational Women Leaders Of Tech: Wendy McCoy of ECI On The Five Things You Need To Know In Order To Create A Very Successful Tech Company

An Interview With Penny Bauder

The most important thing is to know your market. Is your market growing or shrinking? If the customers you’re targeting are becoming fewer, you’ve got to pivot, which may mean offering your solution to a new market or finding a new area of growth as a company.

As a part of my series about “Lessons From Inspirational Women Leaders in Tech”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Wendy McCoy, ECI.

How ensure your company’s success in IT? Simple: find a growing market, know your customer’s pain points intimately and laser-target your solutions. Then, make your product indispensable, and build on that base.

A leading technology professional, Wendy McCoy has risen to the highest ranks in the field, establishing herself as a tech leader at a time when rapid cloud adoption is changing the rules of the game. As Vice President of Product Management Services for ECI, McCoy has more than 23 years of experience, including 10 years leading and managing service offerings at IBM. At ECI — a provider of managed services, technology solutions, and business transformation to the financial services sector — she leverages her technology expertise daily to align market needs and the products and services the company offers its customers.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

It really goes back to a computer science teacher that I had in high school. His name was Mr. Ed Rolenc. I can remember going to math classes, and I was pretty good student, but it wasn’t a subject I was really interested in per se. But during his class, he caught my interest by talking about math in a very different way. He was kind of an abstract thinker. For example, we all know that one plus one equals two, but he would challenge us with questions like “why does one plus one equal two?”

At the time, we were using IBM PC Juniors to write code using basic programming languages like Pascal. Although these sequences didn’t do anything particularly useful, the notion that you could use zeros and ones to create something on the screen was interesting to me. I don’t think I ever would have been successful in a career in tech if I hadn’t had those two years of computer programming in high school. It really did give me a great foundation.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company?

When the leadership team brought me into the organization, they felt there was a possibility to create our own software solution and bring it to market for the clients that we serve.

I did a lot of research. I talked to a lot of people and ran my process around it. And at the end of the day, I had to go to a board meeting — probably three months after I started — and tell them, based on the research: “We should not build this as a SaaS solution.” The market simply didn’t support that approach.

I’m not sure that everyone was necessarily happy with that answer, but when I took them through the material, specifically the impact of market segmentation, I saw them nodding: “Yeah, you know, you’re right.” They recognized that it was the right choice.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

IBM had a robust “BYOD” community that created a wealth of information for co-workers that could be used to ensure a ‘relatively’ effective experience no matter what kind of device you wanted to use. Empowered by this background, I was excited to join ECI and be able to continue using my own newly purchased laptop.

ECI’s remote desktop capabilities can support a range of different devices, but the process was definitely more challenging than I had anticipated, especially considering that I didn’t have the learned experience from other co-workers who had attempted the same thing to help me optimize operations. After about three weeks I acknowledged that using a company-issued laptop was simply going to be more effective for me.

It’s funny to me simply because I find the humor in acknowledging sometimes persistence doesn’t always pay off, and that if you are going to take the path less travelled by, it helps if it’s at least a path a few others have stumbled down before. Cutting a trail through the jungle might get you somewhere valuable, but it comes at a cost you must be willing to bear.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

I’ve been a part of several acquisitions. I started with a really small firm, got recruited into a somewhat larger firm, probably 200 to 300 people, which was then bought by another firm. That company grew to 2000 people, and it took some time for me to figure out to navigate a larger organization.

Then I found myself at IBM, which is 400,000 people strong. There are assumptions that people make, when they know that you work for a firm like IBM. They think there are unlimited resources, that money falls from trees and you get whatever you need to solve whatever problem you have. That isn’t the reality. You work in business units, and my business unit was faced with a number of challenges. We weren’t profitable, so they kept laying people off, which meant we were increasingly left to do more with less.

We had some great ideas too, but were often challenged to advance them because of the bureaucracy inherent at large companies. That was the hardest point for me — figuring out how to keep pressing forward and breaking down hurdles that felt sort of arbitrary.

I always believed in the overall mission and that helped. IBM was inspiring in the sense that they were deeply committed to solving difficult problems. They wanted to be essential to their customers and that was enough to keep me going through challenging periods.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There was a tiny company that I worked for, which doesn’t exist anymore, called NuView Systems, and the CEO of that company was a gentleman by the name of Shafiq Lokandwala. He really gave me my first opportunity in product management. I had never done that before, and he gave me a shot.

There was also a woman I worked for at IBM, Aarti Borkar, who instilled in me the need to always have the data to back up my position. For example, my earlier story about coming into the board meeting and saying, “Hey, yeah, we’re not going to build this thing.” If you’ve got data to back up your position, you can’t be discounted or ignored.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Vision without execution is hallucination.” You are going to have great ideas. You can have dreams for yourself. But unless you actually take steps to start working to achieve that vision, it’s just a mirage. It doesn’t matter. I find this quote so inspiring because it encourages me to push through whatever obstacles stand in my way. It’s a great reminder that you must do the hard work. You’ve got to do the day-to-day, make your lists, check things off, and do the heavy lifting to build whatever it is you think could be relevant, interesting, or innovative.

Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. We’d love to learn a bit about your company. What is the pain point that your company is helping to address?

ECI provides technology solutions to power and transform alternative investment firms around the globe. We’re providing reliable, secure cloud computing services and serve as a platform for innovation and growth within our vertical. The number of long-term clients we have reflects our success. In fact, the more clients I talk to, the more I’m finding firms that have been with ECI for upwards of two decades and sometimes more. These firms could certainly move to a different provider, if they wanted to, but they’re staying with us. That’s pretty powerful!

We’ve had to adapt to a rapidly changing technology landscape. The products and services we deliver today are significantly different than when we started, and we have brought our clients with us on that journey. We’ve transformed the offerings that we’re providing to the market, and we’ve helped customers transform too.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

At ECI, we consider our strong relationship and long-term dedication to clients to be major points of differentiation. As I mentioned earlier, a significant portion of our clients have partnered with us for several years, even decades, which really speaks to our dedication to ensuring business operations and IT solutions go “beyond lights on.”

In fact, we’ve seen a number of success stories from our partners as they leverage our expertise and solutions to drive growth and innovation in their targeted market segments. For example, many of our clients did not have systems and processes in place to support long-term remote work, so when the pandemic shut down offices, not only did we have to pivot our own organization, but we also needed to support all of our customers as they were doing the same. We have had several clients share stories about how our support allowed them to not only continue their daily operations during the pandemic, but also continue to grow. It’s very fulfilling to see our clients not only meet but surpass their growth goals and knowing that we played a significant role in their business performance.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

“Alternative” investment firms are private equity clients, investment management firms, hedge funds and family offices. The pandemic really impacted the way these firms operate. For the most part these people were in the office five days a week. There was little-to-no remote work happening in that space. They looked to us to help them figure out how they were going to be effective and secure, and be able to do everything that they needed to do.

One of the services that we provide as a managed services provider is the Microsoft 365 experience for our customers. There are a lot of collaboration capabilities built into Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and One Drive. With these services, we provide alternative investment firms with the operational support they need to be effective in a changed work environment.

Let’s zoom out a bit and talk in more broad terms. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in Tech? What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

While there are more conversations about women in technology, and more programs for women in technology than when I first entered the workplace, I’m not satisfied. We should never be satisfied.

When I was at IBM, I remember having a conversation with Diane Gerson, who was the CHRO at the time. We talked about the movie Hidden Figures, where women were really the first “computers.” They were the ones doing the math, right from the beginning. You would’ve thought, with that start, that women would have just owned technology. But at some point, we started using aptitude tests to figure out who would be most likely to succeed in some of these new kinds of positions. It was those tests that started to introduce bias into the system, and it still exists today.

I think we should always be looking for opportunities for change, even if they’re small, incremental changes. We should start with our education system, ensuring that girls aren’t given either explicit or implicit signals to avoid STEM courses. Most importantly, we really need women in tech to support each other. Mentorship is critical to the success of women.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women in tech that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts? What would you suggest to address this?

The network effect in general is pretty powerful. We’re all social creatures and men have been effective forming networks with their coworkers and leveraging those relationships — a lot of business being conducted on the golf course is a great example of this. But, when it disproportionately means that those in-network people get promoted or are tapped for new, exciting opportunities — that can perpetuate bias. It just gets built into the system.

There’s this notion that women are pitted against each other because only so many women are tapped for the C-suite. Throughout our lives, especially in our early careers, we are taught to feel a sense of competition with other women. We should be trying hard to combat that and fight that practice. Men do not suffer the same fate. They’re taught early to join forces, form clubs, and help each other. Women need to do the same.

What would you advise to another tech leader who initially went through years of successive growth, but has now reached a standstill. From your experience do you have any general advice about how to “restart their engines”?

In my experience, the best way to pull yourself out of the doldrums is to make some kind of significant change — find a way to take on something you’ve never done before. Stretching your capabilities is really a good way to recharge your batteries and get yourself excited about your work again.

Perhaps it’s time to find a new company to work for, because that’s a really great way to reset your expectations for yourself and create an opportunity to start fresh. That doesn’t mean we all should be abandoning the companies we’ve worked at for a long time. But sometimes that really is the best next step in a person’s career, particularly if you feel like you’re in too deep of a rut.

If that’s not in the cards, then a long vacation can be of help too — just pulling yourself out and refactoring your brain a little bit.

In your specific industry what methods have you found to be most effective in order to find and attract the right customers? Can you share any stories or examples?

Customer experience is something that I’m passionate about. Every new product or service I deliver has an aspirational customer map that thoughtfully considers how the customers may want to learn about, try, and then hopefully buy an offering.

Capturing the early research on what potential clients are doing is key to providing that ideal customer experience. Put some thought into understanding the steps that potential customers are going go through to decide what they’re going to purchase.

Finding the right customers is also about saying “no.” Sometimes there is just a fundamental misalignment between what a customer needs and what we can provide. So, being clear on the commitment that you’re making, and gracefully suggesting that maybe we aren’t the right vendor for a client is better than trying and failing. Customers appreciate that honesty and openness. And oftentimes they’ll refer three more customers that are a good fit.

Based on your experience, can you share 3 or 4 strategies to give your customers the best possible user experience and customer service?

You’ve got to run with the methodology that allows you to put yourself in the shoes of a customer. I use things like “empathy maps.” These help me understand what my customer is thinking, feeling, doing, saying, and even who they’re interacting with. Then I perform user testing, ask for feedback, and then use the feedback to make improvements to our solutions.

You can’t ever stop trying to adopt the persona of your customer. That’s the key to delivering a good customer experience.

As you likely know, this HBR article demonstrates that studies have shown that retaining customers can be far more lucrative than finding new ones. Do you use any specific initiatives to limit customer attrition or customer churn? Can you share some of your advice from your experience about how to limit customer churn?

Focus on service. If you’re seeing turnover in your help desk and don’t have all of your processes really well documented, then it’s going to result in a mediocre user experience for that client who’s trying to figure out why their laptop isn’t working.

For example, whenever someone calls into ECI’s help desk for services, we receive specific feedback on that customer interaction. Then, we layer a Net Promoter Score, which is a metric that measures customer experience and predicts business growth, on top of that. We’re also creating some more exclusive groups for some of our customers that we call “executive advisory councils.” We’ve been able to hold a couple of those in person and will continue to do that. Additionally, we’ve recently launch a comprehensive Voice of the Client initiative, meant to unify and support how we gather and act on client feedback, as well as uncovering new ways to understand the evolve our client experience.

Here is the main question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful tech company? Please share a story or an example for each.

#1 — The most important thing is to know your market. Is your market growing or shrinking? If the customers you’re targeting are becoming fewer, you’ve got to pivot, which may mean offering your solution to a new market or finding a new area of growth as a company.

I’ll give you an example. My husband is also in technology and serves alternative investment firms. His company created a solution around a specific flavor of hedge fund called a fund-of-fund — a hedge fund comprised of other hedge funds. It was popular for a while, but over time, the market started to shrink as the fee structure no longer made sense for many investors. My husband’s company had to pivot and adjust its strategy.

#2 — Know your market’s pain points, especially problems no one else is solving. For instance, my husband’s fund-of-fund solution has now pivoted to family offices. Family offices are comprised of very wealthy families with multi-generational wealth. They have unique problems. So, my husband’s company has been able to take their fund-of-funds model and serve this fast-growing market. They have a model to help solve that market’s challenges.

#3 — Find a right product-market fit, ideally using sponsor clients or beta clients. If you’re building a solution for pilots, talk to pilots who are going to use your product and get them to give you feedback. Work with the people you’re actually going to be solving the pain for.

#4 — Create a delightful product. Understand who you’re building it for and what is going make them smile every time they experience your offering or use your product. Too many technology companies try to boil the ocean and deliver products that are broad. Instead, deliver a narrow slice of capability that in some shape or form delights your users. Once you get enough customers you can add in more and more capabilities over time.

#5 — Leverage the network effect to grow. If you have a SaaS solution, recognize that you’ve got all of these users and all of these clients that are now using your system or your platform or your product. And you have data on those customers that they will collectively find useful. Leverage that network to create a stickier and more valuable product.

Wonderful. We are nearly done. Here are the final “meaty” questions of our discussion. You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I feel strongly that we’re never really going to be able to resolve conflict around the world until we’ve figured out a way to create very low-cost carbon neutral energy. If we could accelerate cold fusion and make it a reality, I think we could change the world.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

The one person that I think I would take great pleasure in meeting would be Nancy Pelosi. I know she can be a little bit controversial, but she really does inspire me because she’s been able to accomplish so much as a strong, sharp, and fierce woman. She never stops fighting. She never looks tired. She never looks like she’s ready to give up.

She reminds me a lot of my own mother who grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. She was 4-foot-10, so she was tiny, but she was fierce. And every single day she made me feel that there was nothing that I couldn’t do as a woman.

Thank you so much for this. This was very inspirational, and we wish you only continued success!