Why I joined Rackspace Part I – the Company and its Values.

As one of the early Cloud adopters, and someone who has worked hard to promote what Cloud can bring to businesses, I was looking to join a vendor where I could leverage Cloud concepts to truly make a difference in the world. The more I looked, the more Rackspace seemed the right place to be.

The first thing that stood out to me was the company values. I was excited to see that the company places importance on the following values:

• Treating Rackers like family and friends
• Passion for all we do
• Commitment to Greatness
• Full Disclosure and Transparency
• Results First – substance over flash
• And, of course, Fanatical Support in all we do.

These formed a picture for me of an organisation that was striving to really make a difference. The word that stood out for me was the word “Greatness”. This is something that I personally believe in very strongly. Companies that are committed to Greatness are alive, vibrant and focused on growth.

Rackspace is best known for its Fanatical Support and I have to admit before I experienced it I thought it was just marketing hype. I was first exposed to it when Altium acquired a company and brought in a new head of IT who had experienced Rackspace’s Fanatical Support. His face was radiant as he described the fact that Rackspace knew about problems on his servers before he did. I was still pretty sceptical, but impressed with the positioning. I thought if a company can pull this off, it would make them really successful. I have always believed in providing phenomenal support, so I was impressed, but only in an intellectual way.

Then I joined the company. And what I found inside shocked me – here was a company that had inculcated the very idea of going above and beyond into the core of the company’s being. I went to the London office for my induction programme – five days of aligning new Rackers (Rackspace employees are called Rackers) to the fundamental principles that drive the business. There are over 1000 staff in the London office and I must have been approached half a dozen times by people asking me, “you seem lost – what can I do to help you?” This was no fake offer – each time this happened I was helped all the way to my objective, and the people always seemed eager to help.

Everything the company does drives this fanatical support. The company uses Net Promoter Score to measure the likelihood customers will refer others. But even the induction programme had us rookies being asked how likely we would be to recommend each of the presenters to our colleagues or friends. The presenters, we learned, were vying for a coveted internal trophy. I have never seen such engaging and creative presentations, all designed to prepare us to be able to be effective in the Rackspace culture.

The company’s mission is to be recognised as one of the world’s greatest service companies. And it shows.