David Kenny prioritized a combination of television and digital media for the Weather Company in 2014. He created a new narrative focused on science, stories, services, and safety. This refocused the company on its four S's. Kenny acquired Weather Underground and Weather Central, and reorganized into digital and television divisions. He hired new executives to drive a business culture shift toward science, digital speed, and innovation. Partnering with IBM allowed the Weather Company to integrate real-time analytics to improve performance, as both companies shared a focus on weather data. However, aligning cultures and scaling to IBM's size could pose hurdles that required maintaining Weather Company independence and processes.

1. Group 06
Kotikalapudi Vashini PGP12224
Pragnya Nayak PGP12197
Kajal Meena PGP12096
Salma Khatun PGP12218
Kotteda Amrutha PGP12103
Whither the
Weather:
Forecasting 2016

2. Introduction
About the Company and Roadmap
01

3. Introduction
The Weather Co (formerly known as The
Weather Channel) was:
● A popular television channel
● A website
○ Weather Underground
○ Weather.com
○ Weather Services International
(WSI)
● Due to changes in the television and
dish environment, planned to
digitally transform
● Started by bringing more in-depth
broadcasting like Sam Champion, the
hurricane hunters, etc.

4. The Four S’s
Science Stories
Services Safety

5. Created WeatherFX
2012
Verizon removed
Weather Co
Hiring
TV views decline
22%
2013 2014 2015
Timeline
Changed name
Brought cross
platform collabs
Dispute with
DirecTV
Plan to change
Improved weather
capabilities
Created Weather
Underground
Partnership, then
acquisition by IBM
WSI partnership with
TrafficLand

6. Questions
02

7. Where you would place bets for the company in January
2014? Would they commit heavily to television, digital, or
some combination thereof?
A combination of television and digital media
❖ It would attempt to refocus the corporation in the face of
developments in media, digital, and mobile technology
❖ Company would balance promoting new stream digital business
growth with managing difficult legacy television industry
realities
Kenny should create a new narrative for the company in the era of Big
Data, putting science at the center (great forecasts) and stressing
services, stories (the ability to communicate the data to users), and
safety(preparation for severe weather, including using social media)

8. Weather channel to weather co
Refocused on 4S: Science, Stories, Services and Safety
Acquisition: Weather underground and weather central
Reorganize the company into a digital and television division to the board
Hired new executives : Business culture shift toward science digital speed and
innovation
-Bryson Koehler (CIO and CTO from Exigen Capital)
-Chris Waters (From Bloomberg)
-Curt Hecht (Publicis Group’s Viviki)
-David Clark (Viacom)
Moved to new solutions like Cassandra, Riak, and MongoDB Inc
How David Kenny dealt with the issues in the case,
what he prioritized, and what his management strategy
looked like?

9. Weather Company Leadership Organization in October 2015

10. Change Wheel
1. Common Theme Shared Vision:
a. Soft power, more connection,
long marches
b. 4S , more tech
2. Symbols & Signals
a. Hard power , bold strokes, more
separation
b. Low rating, increase smartphone
i.. Change in business
environment
3. Governance and Accountability
Structure
a. Hard power , bold strokes, more
separation
b. New executives to drive vision
4. Education, Training, Action Tools
a. Soft power, more connection,
long marches
b. 25 member dedicated team for
IBM, annual meetings with top
100
5. Champions and Sponsors
a. Soft skills, more connection,
long marches
1. Quick Wins and Local Innovations
a. Hard power , bold strokes, more
separation
b. Traditional tools to New tools
like mongodb
2. Communications, Best Practice Exchange
a. Soft power, more connection,
long marches
b. Meeting every month
3. Policy, Procedures, System Alignment
a. Hard skills , bold strokes, more
separation
b. Importance to speed,
reorganization
4. Measures, Milestones, and Feedback
a. Soft power, more connection,
long marches
b. Growth in the new science based
technologies
5. Rewards and Recognition
a. Soft power, more connection,
long marches
b. High support from users during
crises and new tech innovation

11. 4S didn’t have a unifying effect. So
Reorganising the company was imperative
Television was not able to match the fast and
ambitious pase of Weather Co.(digital)
By partnering with IBM, they could integrate
real time insights to improve performance
Core values of both IBM and Weather Co were
same
How would you assess the
strategy to “get geekier” or
“map the atmosphere” and
what it meant for both the
television and digital
businesses at Weather
Company? Was reorganizing
the Weather company
necessary, and if so why?
What about the partnership
or the run-up to the
partnership suggested that
it could work?
Strategy: The strategy was to focus on
weather rather than television
“Get geekier” offered clarity of purpose
and direction

12. What is the future of Weather Company and its team
inside of IBM and how working as part of IBM might
impact its culture and ability to produce
cutting-edge innovation?
❖ Together they can integrate real time analytics
to improve operational efficiency.
❖ This increased the scale of Weather Co. to
different industries considering the established
relationships of IBM
❖ Before Weather Co. was just predicting and giving
out the insights, but with IBM they were
analysing and giving suggestions about the
customer consumption patterns
❖ Due to IBM’s large customer base, they will be
able to scale up their own B2B services through
WSI

13. What hurdles Weather company employees and
executives might encounter as part of IBM?
Will Weather Company be able to influence IBM
and its processes and if so, how they might
do so?
Hurdles:
❖ Aligning with the corporate culture of IBM
❖ Becoming able to scale up to support IBM’s large
customer base.
❖ Fitting the Weather Underground with IBM
❖ Changing with IBM
❖ The users were not positive about IBM
Yes, due to their database and also the knowledge of
the weather industry
Unlocks
significant cost
savings on cloud
hosting and
support
Accelerates
deployment of new
services with
Kubernetes
Expands
global reach with
access to a
larger number of
data centers in
local markets

14. In terms of the integration process what should Weather Company
ask for and how can it be designed to retain key Weather company
personnel and continue to get the best out of the team?
❖ The independence given while partnering must be continued.
The processes and procedures must not be inhibited.
❖ Continuation of shows and format of WeatherUnderground and
weather.com which targeted their niche audience.
❖ As they move from prediction to decision, Weather Co.
employees must not feel neglected in terms of value addition
and maintain their cultural alignment.

16. Thanks