This blog is part of a series of posts exploring the different companies that have looked for or are currently looking for Customer Success Managers. Learn more about your potential employers, see if their values align with yours and whether you can see yourself working there. We’re going back into the data world with today’s post, looking into a company called Splunk. Funny name, but serious problem they solve: making use of streams of data to help businesses identify risks before it’s too late.
Splunk – From Visibility to Action, Fast and at Scale
When I went on their website and saw this little byline, I knew exactly what they did. This is also a sign of a company that understands not only its customers, but also its core value proposition. Its main headline is “unified security and observability”, which is what it does, but the benefits are really in the byline.
Wikipedia also explains what Splunk does pretty well. Essentially, they take the disparate streams of data (customer, software, sales, diagnostics, etc), organizes it, then allows it to be readily accessible in a web interface. From there, how it’s used internally is really up to the customer (as well as the customer success manager!).
The Services Themselves
Let’s have a look at some of the specific solutions and use cases that Splunk solves for.
I’m going to dive into Advanced Thread Detection, Cloud Migration and Incident Investigation & Forensics in this blog.
Before I start diving into each of these areas, can I just say I’m a fan of the way they lay out these pages. They start with the problem space, that each customer can relate to before talking about the solution which they can solve in their own specific way. You don’t have to be tech savvy to understand it and it makes the brand very approachable.
Anyway, for ATD, it’s about winning the data arms race. The biggest shame is that many companies have this data, sitting in their virtual repositories and collecting virtual dust. Meanwhile, hackers are running circles around them, laying traps and webs for them to fall into. ATD nullifies these tricks and shields them from the attacks.
Cloud Migration is a key aspect of modernizing IT departments that’s not going away any time soon. The biggest problem with doing this is doing it in a way that won’t break more things or introduce more complexities to untangle. The worst problem is that it might bring down customer-facing elements of the business. Splunk Cloud Migration lets companies use proven scaffolding to support the renovation of IT infrastructure so that it can be elevated to the cloud confidently.
Think of Incident Investigation as the emergency department of a hospital. A patient comes in, complaining of a pain. As the head doctor of ER, you perform some tests, but it’s still inconclusive overall. You put them in a curtained off area on the side. Now multiply this by 50 per hour and guess what: there’s still only one of you. You are your own worst bottleneck.
Let’s make it even worse. Let’s say there are 500 per hour. How can you possibly manage it? Thankfully in the IT world, Splunk has a solution to automatically triage, rank and allocate resources so only the worst situations get the highest level of attention.
Job Description Example
This is for a Customer Success Manager role in Sydney, Australia:
Let’s go through each of the dot points:
- As the CSM, you own the end-to-end customer experience and help them adopt and grow usage of the Splunk platform,
- You yourself become a Splunk Architect to elevate your subject matter expertise to new levels,
- Build customer success plans individualized for each customer, directing their actions towards key milestones.
- become the trusted consultant within the customer organisation,
- help them use Splunk better so they are experts in the field,
- stay up to date with all the updates in Splunk and provide insights to help customers use it more,
- support the professional services and education services departments in Splunk to help them achieve their goals,
- be the Splunk customer liaison to help the account and technical teams resolve their issues.
What They Care About
Now here’s something you don’t see everyday: Splunk has a dedicated website for their company benefits. It’s broken out to the main regions their employees work at: Americas, APAC and Europe. Instead of going through each of the benefits, I’d recommend you go into the area you’re based and see what’s on offer. Safe to say it’s pretty generous and they’re keen on retaining employees once they’re in the company.