Talk:Bill McDermott

Adding new information to the Bill McDermott article
Bill is the first American CEO of SAP in the Career section. WSJ covered this in an article:

In addition to being CEO of SAP, he is a leader in the industry due to his expertise and involvement in communities/industries of importance to SAP. He is on the board of Under Armour and ANSYS.

He is also a member of the Business Roundtable and European Roundtable of Industrialists. Bill’s memberships are mentioned currently in his German Wikipedia article so we’d like to reflect this in the English version as well.

In 2015, he won the Visionary Award for his commitment to fighting AIDS. The Visionary Award is listed as a major initiative on the We Are Family Foundation Wikipedia article. Previous winners include Tommy Hilfiger and Susan and David Rockefeller Jr.

He has also been active in The Children's Aid Society, which stresses the importance of education in overcoming poverty. Bill’s philanthropic efforts and civil service are mentioned currently in his German Wikipedia article so we’d like to reflect this in the English version as well.

Winners Dream
He published “Winners Dream: A Journey from Corner Store to Corner Office” with Joanne Gordon (Simon & Schuster) in October 2014. . It was on the USA Today Bestseller List, Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller List , and LA Times Bestseller List. It also won the Axiom Business Book Award for memoir/biography.


 * The German article's content on philanthropy is unreferenced and should be removed. I suspect it was added by a less ethical colleague of yours. The various industry positions McDermott holds come without third-party sources; Wikipedia content should not just be a summary of organizations' member lists. For the same reason I have removed the award; we'd need reliable third-party sources for something like that. That leaves us with his memoir and the "first American CEO". Rms125a@hotmail.com added the former, I the latter. Huon (talk) 16:59, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Adding new information to the Bill McDermott article
I would like to recommend the following:

1. Hall of Fame is a fact - it’s an honor his grandad received (A title) 2. This sentence, "Rising to become the company's youngest corporate officer and division president is also a fact

Early years[edit source]
Born and raised in Amityville on Long Island. he was one of four children to Kathleen and Bill McDermott and a grandson to a hall of fame basketball player Bobby McDermott. http://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/bobby-mcdermott/

 Xerox, Gartner and Siebel Systems[edit source]
Rising to become the company’s youngest corporate officer and division president McDermott worked for 17 years at Xerox. https://moneyinc.com/10-things-didnt-know-william-mcdermott/  McDermott become the President of Gartner, from 2000 to 2002. Later on, he served as Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Operations at Siebel Systems.R=

Adding a New Section on Acquisitions
Many major tech companies are pursuing a mergers & acquisitions strategy to win the software-as-a-service (SaaS) race. Competitors Oracle and SAP are no exception. In 2014, Bill McDermott showed that he was willing to be aggressive and pay a “high price” in the acquisition of Concur Technologies. Even at $8.3 billion, analysts at firms such as Nomura Research and Credit Suisse liked the move. Bill McDermott said that it was “the best business case I’ve ever put in front of the board.” Concur, he noted, will be critical to the company’s ability to offer networked software services online to its base of 263,000 customers.


 * I don't have access to the Wall Street Journal, but this summary does not seem appropriate to me:
 * The first few sentences are irrelevant to McDermott and do not even mention him. They're not supported by the given reference either.
 * The part about McDermott "being aggressive" is indeed based on the Forbes article, but the tone is unsuitable for an encyclopedia article. This is hyperbole.
 * The final paragraph is McDermott talking about McDermott (or more precisely, talking about something else entirely), and I rather don't think these are notable quotes that contribute to our readers' understanding of McDermott.
 * Writing something about the acquisition of Concur may be possible, but this would read as if McDermott were polishing his resume. Huon (talk) 01:12, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Updating achievements and notable awards
Since this article might benefit from additional sources and citations on Bill McDermott’s recent achievements, I’ve provided the below text. I appreciate your time and consideration!

In 2016, Glassdoor named him one of their top-rated CEOs in Germany, Canada and the U.S. . In addition, he was named Handlesblatt Manager of the Year in 2016. Harper70 (talk) 21:15, 30 January 2017 (UTC)Harper70


 * What is Glassdoor? It seems to me to be a user generated site where one is rated by their own employees. Not at all suitable for Wikipedia. We would need to see this published in reliable third party sources. For example, The Wall Street Journal publishes these ratings in a business article along with other iterations of his accomplishments. That would be a tiertiary source (reliable third-party). This is just insiders talking about each other: in addition to ranking the popular managers we have an exercise on "The 10 coolest offices in Germany?" Please understand why this cannot be used in its current context. Wishing you all the best,  Fylbecatulous talk 12:46, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Fylbecatulous, thanks for your prompt feedback. I definitely appreciate it! Bill McDermott was named as one of the CEOs that got high marks from his employees.

Please let me know if this citation works. In addition, please let me know if we can add the fact about his upbringing in Amityville. Thank you! Harper70 (talk) 16:00, 1 February 2017 (UTC)Harper70

Updating early years
Would it be possible to include the fact that he was raised in Amityville? This may help readers get a stronger sense of his early years. Thank you.

Bill grew up in Amityville, New York in a blue-collar neighborhood. Harper70 (talk) 21:15, 30 January 2017 (UTC)Harper70


 * I have added Amityville, but I do not think a context-free mention of "blue-collar neighbourhood" (which technically isn't supported by the reference anyway) would help. Huon (talk) 12:21, 23 February 2017 (UTC)