>> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas, it's the CUBE covering HPE Discover 2017. Brought to you by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. >> Okay, welcome back everyone. We are live here in Las Vegas for SiliconANGLE Media's theCUBE's three-day exclusive coverage of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HPE Discover 2017. I'm John Furrier with my co-host, Dave Vellante. Our seven-years covering HPE, and we have our next guest whose been on the job for seven weeks, Parvesh Sethi, Senior Vice-President of HPE Pointnext Consulting. Industry veteran of cloud. You understand what's going on. Appreciate you coming in and sharing-- >> Thank you for having me. >> Your talking points with seven weeks on the job, but you're new to HPE, welcome to theCUBE. So fresh in to HPE, got a fresh eye. You've been around the industry for a while. What is the hybrid journey for HP? Because you were just in the Q&A with Meg and Antonio with the press and the analysts, and still people are trying to put it together. Like, with no cloud, how do you guys fit in this? So, hybrid cloud, simplifying hybrid IT. They're not saying simplifying hybrid cloud, simplifying hybrid IT, which implies cloud. >> Exactly, I think the approach that I would take is if you look at the role of the IT, it's really changing. I mean, you can consider IT to be the strategic sourcer now. It's no longer we built it, we own it, we run it, because now they're really managing a supply chain. So, you're looking at the private cloud, public cloud, and people having the highly-automated infrastructure, or software-defined infrastructure, and legacy b-spoke systems. The job of the IT is really getting very complex. When you heard Meg talked about making hybrid IT simple, so for Pointnext Consulting standpoint, it's really working with the clients about making that journey much more simpler, and making sure it's not just simple, but the speed is there. Also we'll ask that we are focused on the workloads to really moving the workload securely. Because, at the end of the day, the whole journey is really centered around the workload-side of the house. >> And your role is, am I correct, is tip-of-the-spear consultant? Is that right, and strategy consulting? >> That's correct. It includes the consulting and the professional service portfolio. >> So, help us understand, because when EDS went to CSE with the spin-merge, all of the sudden you're seeing Accenture, Deloitte, and others come out of the woodworks. And this is their wheelhouse, in strategic consulting, so where do you pick up, and how do you relate to those guys? >> Yeah, no, it's a great question. In fact, it's with the spinoffs, it's also given us a great opportunity to really work with number of the SIs, and so we're have a close work relationship with number of them, and the way I look at the strategic consulting, where we add value is really more around the technology consulting piece of it. And because that's where we feel that we can really add differentiation. And partnering with some of our SIs, that's where they can help us from the verticalization piece of it, the business process side of it, because that's not really our core strength. Our core strength is really around the technology consulting, and also being around, and dealing with, and doing 11,0000 plus engagements every year. From Pointnext perspective, that's lot of experience that we bring to the table partnering with the ecosystem, we truly bring some of these outcome-based solutions that we keep referring to. >> Dave's team at Wikibon has put out some pretty seminal research. I think it's very unique. I don't think any other research firm has actually documented this, even captured the numbers. But, they just did a report called The True Private Cloud Report, go to wikibon.com for the folks watching, but really what it illustrates is that IT is not declining, it's only increasing in its capabilities. So, yes, server shipments might be declining, but, at the end of the day, IT is changing and growing with cloud. But one of the points in that survey is the TAM is 260 billion plus in true private cloud. And that doesn't include hybrid. But, the other statistic besides the TAM is the fact that the labor costs are undifferentiated, and being automated away with cloud, which is a good opportunity. And then the shifting of those resources to differentiated apps or services is the focus. That's business transformation. That's what you guys are doing. Share with us your thoughts, and how you guys look at that. Obviously, you're only seven weeks in from an HP perspective but you been in the industry. How are you guys going to attack that trend, and ride that wave of shifting that to differentiated capabilities? >> Yeah, I think so one of the things you always hear about from a technology standpoint, lot of folks focus on just the technology piece of it. What we're finding is when we engage with the clients, it's really taking a look at, even before the technology, it's what is the strategic framework. Why do so many digital transformation projects stall, or fail? Because there's no interned alignment in terms of business, IT, and OT side of the house, so what you're seeing is from the consulting side of the house is kind of making sure that we bring these things together. And we have a methodology called Unified Transformational Framework, UTF, which has seven key domains, and one of the first things we do when we engage with the client, we bring them together, business side of it, the IT side of it, and we assess where they're at today in each one of those domains, and assess the gaps. We actually put together a strategic framework with them in terms of what is the desired state where they want to be, where they're at today, and how do we map out that cloud journey together with them. And, more importantly, what are the key outcomes they are really seeking. And so if they are looking at focusing on achieving certain cost-efficiency, or launching new services faster, or securing information network, or from an IOT perspective, what are the specific use cases, like for oil and gas, you may have heard some of the examples here with Tech Smart on refinery of the future. What are some of the outcomes they're looking for, and then kind of working backwards to make sure that we can take them on that journey roadmap, and accelerate that whole journey. It's the time to value equation. >> So it would seem like the hybrid IT message that you guys provide is the foundational infrastructure for a digital transformation. Okay, sounds good, now, let's peel that back a little bit. Because, if I'm an executive in a board, I'm saying, "Okay, great, how do we get started, "how do we pay for it?" You come in with your maturity model, here's where you guys are at. How much of that conversation is around the data? And data, data value, how to monetize data, how it contributes to whatever objective, raise revenue, cut costs, et cetera. How much of the conversation do you anticipate is going to be around that data? >> No, it actually is quite a bit of floor discussion on the data as well. So, I'll take it in steps of there's two main types that come up. One is really around the workloads as to enterprises have hundreds, thousands of applications running but not every application, not every workload needs to move to a public cloud or private cloud. Some of them may be more suited towards just a dedicated infrastructure that they already have. One of the first things we focusing on through the tool, we do an inventory, as well as through the interviews. Because one path doesn't give you all the information that you seek. Synthesizing the two really gives you the full picture. And, then on top of it, more and more data is getting generated at the edge, and so in terms of what do you do with the data, how can you help them drive a real-time action, and then what can you do to monetize on that data, just like the example with the M1GD team that's been showcased here, that's not just change the fan experience, it's also helping them taking the look at the data, the loyalty, and everything else, and then increasing opportunities to drive top-end growth from the revenues in the concession stand, or promotional material, your absolutely right, the focus is more about not just guarding the data, the data production, data consumption, it's how do you monetize on that piece of it. >> And does HPE focus more on the IT transformation, and your partners like the big SIs on the business transformation, or no, is it not that simple, it's not that clear? >> Yeah, I mean, it's hardly just kind of say, okay, those are in their silos because there's that intersection point that really drives additional transformation. That's one thing that I think we are uniquely positioned, because number of these solutions you see on the demo floor here who are jointly partnered up with our ecosystem, and that really drives that value up from the business outcome standpoint, it's not just what the technology is able to do, it's not just, yeah, if we're able to have a faster server, this then that, it's really more about what will that enable. In turn, what is the business outcome that's enabling. >> But I would imagine your partners are deep experts in some healthcare business process that HPE doesn't possess, then you guys, from a technology standpoint, can go much deeper than they can. My question is how much of the conversation from your partners has been, or do you expect it to be, "Hey, you know what, if you could do this, you know, "with the technology, you know, we can really "help this company, and win a large deal," for example, which is a semi-custom, you know, and it requires a deep technological expertise to marry with that business process. >> No, absolutely, in fact, I was with a partner earlier, and actually what you just called out was very similar discussion with him. From a healthcare perspective, one of the things we can do, and we have done, where the picture in archiving communication system, we can package what one of the other providers does along with computing and for storage, package that up, and where the configuration provisioning time is reduced dramatically when they show up on site, everything is preconfigured. But, then jointly with a partner who has more knowledge about the patient experience. Marrying the two, you can actually see not just how the healthcare provider and the patient are going to interact, but how also the information that's generated there, how can that be analyzed at a remote location through a specialist. So it's that whole value chain that you can do with a partner that you're just not able to do yourself. >> Am I correct that you run a PNL, right, this is not a free-beat. >> That's correct, no. >> Okay. >> Yes, so from that standpoint we do work with the ecosystem where there is some investment made on the solution of it, but then, obviously, you take a look at does the solution make sense, is there a market for it, can you do the repeatability aspect of it, and, if the answer is yes, then certainly both starts get much more happily engaged. >> Parvesh, talk about the dynamic in digital transformation, specifically, around as companies really transform from being analog to digital. That basically makes them cloud service providers. >> Right. >> So if you have a sass-ification, that's kind of a shift, this is the shift in IT we're talking about, yeah, keeping the lights on, running servers in the data center, old way, classic enterprise. Portions of their operations now have to be shifted to this new way of doing IT to be a service provider, yet they're not service providers, but they're becoming one, or the end-user customer might buy from a partner that's becoming a service provider, either building their own cloud. Is that how you guys see it at Pointnext, and how are you nurturing this, or working with this mega-trend that's the cloud is enabling? >> Couple of things happens. I was with a client very recently, and they've been actually doing number of use cases, fifty plus use cases in the labs, and on the whole use cases around digital transformation. Each use case theoretically can generate millions of savings for them. By the same token, they haven't been able to take it out of the lab and mainstream it, so this goes back into the alignment piece of it, and then also the cultural and the organizational aspect always gets overlooked. Because if the focus is just on the solution piece of it, or digitalization of the workflow, and you have not the trends from the workforce in terms of how they should evolve, how the skillsets should evolve, and if certain roles are getting combined, how should they be dealing with that piece of it. We are talk about DevOps or OpsDev. It's really the whole notion around how they should be working differently than before. If that aspect of it hasn't been put a lot of focus on, most of these transformations literally stall or fail. >> You mean on the cultural piece of it. >> On the cultural piece of it, absolutely. This is another area that we put lot of focus on, and, in fact, one of the offers we rolled out, the management of change, is actually getting lot of traction just because of that reason. >> You know, one of the challenges that the companies that I talk to have is actually funding the digital transformation. The incentive to do it is well, if we don't do it, we're going to get uber-ized, okay. So people get that, but, at the same, then the CFO's are, "Okay, that's fine, "but how are we going to make money at this, "how are we going to actually pay for this?" And, really, for organizations that can show that type of path to profitability, if I may, it seems like it gets more traction, and has staying power. I wonder if you could comment on that. >> Well said. In fact, a number of the engagements we start off with, that discussion always comes up that we don't have any extra funds to go do this thing, but we have to do this thing in order to stay relevant. >> John: What do we do. >> Yeah, so one of the things we focus on is safe-to-invest initiatives. For example, you heard the example of ALDO Group, one of the large global retailers. The federate structure, and then moving towards where it can be had they can move towards a centralized as well as a global centers architecture that can help them drive more speed, cut down the provisioning time, cut down on the operating cost. When you have initiatives like that, the enterprises can then take those savings and then show the CFO that this is how we can apply those savings into these key initiatives that can continue to make us more relevant, and also transform the end-user experience, or their end-customer experience. So, I think as you do this on prioritized use cases, that gives you more credibility in the organization to go do lot more and much faster. >> So, final question for you. Observations, new to HPE, now, Pointnext, New to HPE Discover here, as an employee, what's your observation about HPE Discover, their position in the marketplace, vis-a-vis, the industry scope and trends that are out there? >> First of all, I think coming out here, this is my first Discover so I see a lot of excitement here, and I think up to the point that you made earlier, Dave, with the spun-offs, I think that has really opened up a lot of the doors where a lot of the partners say, "Look, this is something we can do more together of." So, every meeting that I've been with a customer since we're partners, they see us kind of where we're the top stack, who are not biased towards that, right, because this is not where we play, but we play more for roll out the solution aggregation, plus also bring lot that experience to really guide them on their journey. One of the things I constantly hear is if you can help us accelerate time to value, and you can help us drive the acceleration, because a lot of these initiatives stalling, help us on that journey, there's tremendous opportunity for both sides. So that's what we see lot of excitement here. Parvesh Sethi, Senior Vice-President, Pointnext, welcome to theCUBE, thanks for your commentary and insight. >> Thank you for having me. >> Appreciate it, good luck with your journey. This theCUBE bringing you all the digital transformation and conversations here at HPE Discover 2017. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante. We'll be right back. (upbeat music)