At ITEXPO 2025, part of the #TECHSUPERSHOW, Darrin Nelson, IBM ecosystem leader for partner recruitment and activation in the Americas, delivered a keynote presentation titled "HyperGrow Your Business & AI Practice Powered by IBM (News - Alert)."
His presentation provided key strategies for business growth and AI implementation that focus on best practices from his own experience in building successful practices.
Nelson emphasized the importance of change agents in business growth. He noted that part-time efforts yield part-time results. He also stressed that organizations must commit to hiring dedicated personnel to drive new initiatives effectively.
Additionally, he pointed out the importance of a motivating incentive structure, training and enablement plans and a marketing demand generation pipeline to create long-term success. Businesses must invest in building this pipeline, as failing to do so could lead to disappointing outcomes.
Crucially, Nelson warned that top leadership commitment is non-negotiable. Investing in AI and business expansion often requires reallocating resources, and if leadership is not fully on board with these sacrifices, any growth initiatives will likely fail.
Nelson then talked how IBM is strategically investing in emerging technology hotspots, including AI, observability and FinOps, sustainability, secure zero-trust frameworks and workload and data transformation
Nelson pointed to a major inflection point in AI adoption, with 80% of businesses expected to implement GenAI within the next three years. The cloud market is also expanding quickly, with $700 billion in cloud spending, although 30% of that remains unconsumed. Meanwhile, data breaches are becoming increasingly costly, nearing $10.1 million per incident, and 76% of executive branches now consider sustainability central to their business strategies.
So, for businesses looking to leverage IBM’s technology, Nelson outlined four key engagement models:
- Sell: Become a reseller of IBM products and services.
- Build: Embed IBM technology into proprietary offerings (e.g., Adobe (News - Alert) embedding Watsonx).
- MSP (Managed Service Provider): Integrate IBM software into custom solutions.
- Service: Consult on and implement IBM technologies for clients.
This then led to the discussion of IBM’s AI portfolio and competitive edge. IBM’s AI portfolio, particularly Watsonx, is delivering strong outcomes by ensuring the right models are applied to the right problems. Nelson cautioned against blindly adopting massive AI models, as they can be inefficient and costly. Instead, businesses should focus on tailored AI solutions to drive efficiency.
Key AI benefits include:
- 40% improvement in process productivity
- 97% of customer inquiries handled by AI assistants
- 60% of software development content automatically generated by AI
Governance and security also remain central to IBM’s AI strategy. Nelson pointed out the importance of ethical and trustworthy AI. He also warned that without proper oversight, bad things can happen at a very fast pace.
Why IBM?
IBM distinguishes itself through trust, performance and cost-effectiveness. Its Granite models outperform many popular third-party and open-source models, particularly in areas of trust and transparency.
“We wanted to make AI more consumable and trustworthy,” Nelson said. “There are not many AI providers in the industry that will do that.”
Businesses looking to scale their AI practice should focus on strategic hiring, leadership commitment and proper model selection. With AI continuing to shake up industries, those who adopt IBM’s AI-powered solutions will gain a competitive edge.
Edited by
Greg Tavarez
