>> Voiceover: Live from Las Vegas, it's The Cube covering Oracle Modern Customer Experience, 2017. Brought to you by Oracle. (upbeat music) >> John: Okay, welcome back everyone. We are here live in the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, this is SiliconANGLE's The Cube, our flagship program. We go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise, I'm John Furrier, the co-founder of SiliconANGLE, joined with my co-host Peter Burris with SiliconANGLE's Wikibon.com, head of research. Our next guest is Aaron Schidler VP of Cloud Industry Product Development. A lot there. Cross-industry, horizontally scalable product development. Welcome to The Cube, thanks for joining us. >> Aaron: Thank you. >> So, I mean there's a lot going on at this show, modern CX is the hashtag, it also is the theme. It's not modern marketing, cloud experience show. It's an integrated message with one clear message: Customer experience. Everything's -- that's the end game of this platform. It's hard. Take a minute to just talk about, in context, to set the table -- What's happening? Why is all this the focus now? >> I think it's interesting, over the past, 10 years, we went from everyone having structured, on-premise applications, that took a year to two years to manage and upgrade. Then all of a sudden, all these great cloud innovations started coming into the picture, and the question was: How do we introduce them? So the business made buying decisions. They bought the great capabilities and now they're trying to figure out: How do we move more to the cloud? For the agility that we get, but more importantly: How do we start standardizing, creating a platform for taking these capabilities forward for our customers? >> John: We did an earlier segment today it felt like a history class, because we're all like historians talking about the old days. But if you think about the role of software over the years -- Shrink wrapped software, download it from the internet, SaaS, and now, going to the next level is a new, kind of modern version of SaaS, whether you call it infrastructure, service platforms, (mumbles), services and SaaS. But basically, it's in the cloud. All cloud all the time. On premise or in the public cloud, which you guys have. This requires more intelligence. This adaptive, machine-learning, AI, augmented intelligence thing is happening. This is making smarter customer experiences. (chuckling) What does that actually mean? Because this is your wheelhouse. >> Yeah. No, and smarter, it's a great question. It's probably the talk of the hallways throughout the course of the week. Is how do we make our applications smarter? And I think there are two parts to it. One is, you have to make it simpler. So we just talked about the platform and trying to identify what are those key processes. For me, from an industry perspective, it's what are the key processes in manufacturing? What are the key processes in pharmaceuticals? What are the key processes in automotive? And how do we deliver a solution there? But just doing the transactional stuff was yesterday's news. The question is really: How do we start to take data and information that we have along with some science and create a different experience? Create one that we take the learnings from old and apply them so that the next best offer that we make is one that's based on you and other people like you and the products that you've bought. So we're really looking at just baking in that intelligence along the way so that sales reps and service reps don't have to figure it out themselves. They leverage the power of the company and the data. >> It sounds easy but it's not. But I want to ask a specific question because one of the ethos of the cloud is horizontally scalable. And that's a nice way to think about data, and we've heard that throughout the show so far. But in the industries, in vertical industries, there's unique things, that require some specialism. >> Aaron: Yeah, that's right. So you have a kind of notion of, I need horizontally scalable, but also I got to have some specialty differentiation for the apps. So this is a key part of the platform that you guys are building. How do you talk to customers? Because in the old days it was full vertical stack. Here's your software. Retail industry, health, human services, whatever it is. How is that different now? >> We're leveraging the same horizontal capabilities so that we don't have to redefine it. I would argue that we've started from a smarter place based on our history at Oracle, we understand that companies want to work with customers, customers may work with partners, and customers may also be a contact that's part of a household. So as you start to build that horizontal set of capabilities for the platform, those things were taken into mind. But your points are spot on in that, at the end of the day, nobody cares whether you have a great horizontal platform, what they care about is, as an automotive manufacturer: Can by OEM's talk to the dealer's in a way that makes sense? Can we help pass leads that come in from customers to the manufacturer efficiently, to the right company to be able to support them? So it requires us to address, I call it three areas >> - excuse me -- six areas. The data model: How do we define data for the industry? The business policies and processes: How do you take those leads and get them to the right people and contacts to the industry requirement. The next piece is user experience. A branch banker has a completely different view than a person that's doing your financial wealth advising across the table, is different than me using my mobile application from my home to transact. Integrations are also important. Oracle comes with a little bit of requirement around: How do I complete end-to-end? Because we provide end-to-end capabilities. So if I'm a bank; How do I integrate my front-end applications, my CX apps, into my core banking platform applications? If I'm a communications company; How do I tie into OSS and BSS systems? So integration becomes a key requirement. >> Two more left, come on! >> Aaron: I'm getting them. (laughing) Analytics, different measurements and metrics for each industry, as to how you're going to adapt and perform and then finally, we are talking about cloud, and cloud means that we're taking on some of the responsibility of making sure that regulatory and compliance requirements for the data centers that we support and manage are also supported. >> And also how they consume the software. >> Aaron: That's exactly right. >> And that's now moving to a subscription model. >> I think there's a seventh, which you may want to add, which is semantics. Especially as you start thinking about AI; What do things mean? It's more than just the measurements. I want to tie this back to the whole concept of CX though. >> Aaron: Yep. >> The historical orientation of vertical industry was, these businesses are common or similar because they have similar assets. Retail had a store, had a warehouse, had, you know, point of sale. Those types of things. Digital transformation reduces the specificity of those assets. >> Aaron: Yeah. >> Amazon's a retail company as much as Walmart is. They're competing >> Aaron: Yeah. >> But they have a very very different arrangement of assets. >> Does CX now become, or is the new vertical orientation now, not your arrangement of assets but the customers you serve? Where these customers have common characteristics and the companies that are in transportation serve customers in this moment, in this way. Companies that are in retail serve customers in this moment, in this way. And that's what's really driving so much of the CX. Is the vertical orientation moving from an asset focus to a customer focus, a need focus, a moment focus. What do you think? >> No, I think it certainly makes it easier. And in fact, you used the one word that's sort of binding all of them together, which is digital. And maybe the second word would be real-time. And so whether I'm talking to a SIC code of retail, meaning traditional retailer, or a bank that wants to have a better retail experience. All of those are about; Do you know me? Can you provide me a personalized journey through the process? And can you do it without necessarily engaging with people through the entire experience? Now, omni-channel is certainly important. But I can't tell you the last time I went into a branch bank location. All of my work's really been done on a digital channel. With that said, the processes are still unique. So when I talk about my cellular phone, and management of the cellular phone, the minutes make more sense to me than if I'm talking to my banking application and the dollars make sense to me. So the ingredients that I highlighted before in terms of an industry solution are still relevant. Some of the themes that you highlighted around digital transformation and real-time are definitely new to this new world that we're in around customer engagement. >> Which industries are you guys supporting? Because again, you know, industries have unique requirements. But you have a platform, so, conceptually, you should be able to spin up these industries pretty quickly. Which ones do you guys have supported? And what are coming? >> So I think there are two parts that I'd highlight. One is, it is easy to set up because we set the platform up in the beginning, knowing we wanted to deliver industry-specific capability. So I think that's a differentiator that Oracle's providing. But I think the second piece is, there are several industries that, in fact, customers can use our capabilities horizontally to support. We've got about 20 industries that customers are purchasing our products to use in. With that said, we've put specific investment into areas like communications, banking, consumer goods and retail, and there's some synergies there that you highlighted where consumer goods companies want to get to know their customers more directly. So lots of synergies there. We just announced and released a higher ed set of capabilities as well. And a roadmap for several others. So those are the key primary targets that we had with more to come this year. >> John: That's super, super awesome. What's unique -- share with the folks, take a minute to explain what's unique going on in your job, that they may not know about that you could share. Is it the data that you watch? As a product developer, you've got to look at, I mean you got to, to use cloud terms, "stand up" solutions fast. Your customers have to now do that. Whether it's an app, it should be agile, you know, three weeks, innovation's complete. That's kind of the cycle which we're seeing in cloud. Three week development, that's it. Not three years or three months, three week. >> Aaron: Yeah. >> I mean, imagine that. So imagine a three week development cycle. What does it take? What are the most important things that people should know about that you're working on and that make that happen? >> Yeah I think the, and I've met with a dozen customers already here this week, and I think the most common discussion is, we've got a lot of the capabilities, we need to define what our vision is. So while you've got some on-premise capabilities still, now you're augmenting it with things like data science and other ingredients. The question is, what's the vacation you're going on? What are the stops along the way that take you ten days to 30 days? And how do we start to create a vision that goes end-to-end from the time we engage with our customers for the first time to the time we engage with them for the hundredth time. So I would say most of that is really around helping customers strategically think about how these solutions are going to tie together, what business values and benefits they're going to be delivering, and how do we leverage the assets that they have today in order to do that? >> So is it the vision of Oracle to the customer, or the customer's vision of how it's going to use technology, and how it's going to be reflected back in Oracle? Or a combination of both? >> It's a little bit of both. We've had several customer advisory boards this week where we gather feedback from customers. But the reality is, if you have an advisory board with all automotive manufacturers where we had about 25 companies come together this week, they all have great ideas, but what's interesting is when you bring a retailer in to talk to them and have them highlight some of the things that they're doing that are working in their industry that are leading edge and may generate some new ideas. So I think a lot of the customers are looking really for Oracle to sum up all of the engagements that we have with these companies, come up with those key things that we think could transform their industry, and then deliver it as a simplified solution so that they can uptake it in ten to 30 days. >> So they're kind of pulling you in the direction of Oracle becoming a digital capabilities company. >> Aaron: Yeah, that's right. In terms of; How can you A. Help us with vision, and then B. Help us deliver the pieces that make sense for Oracle? We've got a rich set of partners as well. It's hard to leave them out, in terms of digital agencies, and/or implementation partners. We also have partners that have built and developed innovative capabilities for industry that we've integrated into these solutions. But I think in terms of the total vision, we have a unique perspective that an individual customer, or company, or industry might not have. >> My final question for you is, Everyone likes to know, what's the hallway conversion? And that's where you hear a lot of the commentary on, Oh great keynote. But I want to ask specifically around what customers are saying. You've been doing a lot on customer activities in the hallways and meetings. We're hearing some. What's your take on the hallway customer conversations? What are they talking about in the halls? >> Yeah, automation, I think, in terms of, and the AI portions of what we're discussing. How can we make the resources that we have smarter? Make them more intelligent about the learnings that we have as an overall company, and then be able to parlay that into the processes, not as a separate set of flows, but into the processes that we educate today. And it's interesting, you could highlight a buzz word bingo card with things like IoT, and AI -- >> And ML and VR and AR and machine learning, virtual reality, augmented reality... >> But the question isn't; Can you do those things? The question is: Can you do it in context to the customer experience to change the game? And that's really the fun part of this for me. >> John: I had a conversation with Robert Scoble who's a futurist and a friend, and he's really been talking about this Mixed Reality and he's talking about Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, but if you think about what you guys are doing here with modern CX is the mixed reality from the consumer perspective is, wherever they are. (laughing) I'm shopping. Or, I have a wearable, or maybe someday a headset or some sort of augmented experience. You've got to be ready for it. >> Aaron: Yeah. You're the guy who has to build the products and lay the architecture down. So what's the roadmap look like for you guys? Without giving away the secrets, you know, for a customer that's maybe watching; What's the arc for the product development team? What are the top priorities? >> I think there are two big things that I would highlight. One is simplification. I think all of the cloud choices that customers had for a long period of time gave them access to innovations that they hadn't had before. The question was the practicality and how can we start pulling those together, so Oracle really has a responsibility to simplify that set of discussions. And the second part is we've got to innovate, we've got to show people that there's a path to leverage all of those buzzword bingo items in your day to day job to deliver business value. So I think you'll see out of us, taking some of the themes that you're hearing about as individual conversations and start baking them into the DNA and fabric of the solutions. >> John: Oh well I've seen Amit Zavery, a Cube alumni who's been on multiple times, great executive, super smart, big fan of his work, trying to get developer oriented around cloud native, Siddhartha Agarwal, was also on The Cube in our offices. And there's movement within Oracle to be cloud native. Is there a developer plan, or is that just groping for relevance in the outside of Oracle world, is there a dot to be connected in the cloud native world where Oracle is now playing with public cloud? How do you talk to those customers? Because you don't see a lot of Oracle developers out there outside of Oracle. You've got a lot of Oracle developers, doing DBA's and systems work, how about that developer, app developer, how do you get them? Is there a plan? >> You know, I think it's the innovation and the discussion about innovation. There are probably people other than me that will highlight some of the details but you may have seen some press releases recently that talk about how we're introducing some innovation centers for us to recruit the types of people that you're highlighting, and change the perception, if you will, on some of the things that Oracle's done in the past to highlight some of the innovations that we're delivering now in cloud. >> John: I mean you've got a lot of platform value to potentially share. >> Aaron: That's right. >> To some app developers out there on iOS. So there is a plan? >> Aaron: Absolutely a plan. >> Okay Aaron, thanks so much for coming on The Cube. Really appreciate the insight. Vice President of Cross-Industry Product Development here at Oracle and Cloud's Customer Modern CX, hashtag modern CX. Its the Cube, I'm John Furrier with Peter Burris from Wikibon. We'll be right back with more after this short break.