>> live from Las Vegas. It's the queue covering del Technologies World twenty nineteen. Brought to you by Del Technologies and its ecosystem partners >> Hello and welcome to Day three Live coverage of the Cube here in Las Vegas Fridel Technologies World twenty nineteen I'm jut forward, David Lot They Davis del Technologies world. This is our tenth year If you count DMC World twenty ten first ever Cube event where we go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise. Now we're the number one and tech coverage. Howard Elias has been with us the entire way. Our next guest. Keep alumni Howard allies who is currently the President of Services and Digital for Del Technologies. Howard, great to see you. >> Great to see you, John. Dave. Always great to be back with you. Thank you. >> You've been with us throughout our entire cube jury. It's our tenth year has been great ride and one of the benefits of doing the queue besides learning a lot and having great conversations is as the industry of balls from true private private cloud to, you know, big day that meets technology, all the different iterations of the business. We're gonna have the conversation and look back and see who's right. You >> get to go back and see what we said and holds you >> accountable. Not that you guys said anything crazy, but you were unique because we've had many conversations and most notably during the acquisition of the M. C. You're on the team leading the effort with your partner in crime from the del side to make sure the acquisition goes smoothly. And, you know, a lot of people were saying, Oh my God, icebergs ahead. We're pretty positive. So history treats us fairly in the queue way. Tend to got it right. But you said some bold things. That was pretty much the guiding principle of the acquisition, and I just I just tweeted it out this morning. So you got it right. You said some things. Looking back two years later, almost two, three years later. >> Well, look, you know John first, I appreciate that. Appreciate the opportunity to be back with with you, and it's amazing. It's been ten years, but yeah, so, you know, over the last couple of years, I did help Kohli the integration, and we said, Look, first and foremost, we're going to do no harm the way customers transact with us byproducts. The way we service them, that's not going to change. But then, that's not enough, right? It's not just about doing no harm. It's how do we add value? Over time, we talked about aligning our teams in front of our customers. Then we talked about unifying the approach not just in the go to market, but in services and in technology and ultimately delivering Mohr integrated solutions. And we've accepted here down that a CZ you rightly say so thank you for pointing that out. And you know, this week was a great embodiment of that. Because not only are we listening, Tio, what our customers want we're delivering on it were actually delivering these integrated solutions the Del Technologies Cloud unified workspace for client, these air things that we've delivered over time, you know, we stitch it together, and now we're unifying it, integrating it, actually now even embedding services into it. So that's the journey we've been on. And we've been very pleased with the reception, >> and Michael to also was very bull. But the key on all the conversations we had on this was and we'LL get to the current situation now because that's important is that you guys saw the growth opportunities on the synergies we did, and we kind of had those conversations. So a line you align the team's unify and integrate you're the integration phase. Now we're starting to see some of the fruit come off the tree with business performance significant. Well, we appreciate >> that we're gaining market share across the board, and we had a hypothesis with, you know, coming together. We had a complementary product, portfolios, complimentary customer segments way. We're very thoughtful and how we organized our go to market, and we're seeing that we're seeing that and market share games. But more importantly, we're seeing the customer conversation saying Thank you for that. Now I want more. How do you deliver more value faster? So I think we're past the integration stays. Now we're into the accelerating the value stage. >> Howard, you've been through and seen a lot of acquisitions, large acquisitions. I mean, I think of the compact digital, you know, not a lot of not a lot of overlap. HP with compact, much more overlap maybe didn't go so as well. Or maybe a smoothly massive acquisition here. Why do you think it worked so well here? Because there was a failure. A fair amount of overlap, you know, definitely some shared values, but maybe some different cultures. You've been on both sides. It's just seems to be working quite well. You seem to be through that knothole of maybe some of that uncomfortable early days. Why do you think it works so well? What was kind of the secret sauce there? >> I think a couple of reasons. First, the hypothesis of coming together was all very customer centric. Customers wanted fewer more strategic partners. They ultimately from infrastructure, want Mohr integration. Mohr automation. They wanted a CZ. Pat said yesterday on states they wantto look upto absent data and somebody else worry about looking down and taking care of the infrastructure. So the hypothesis was very strong. Michael had a bold vision, but the boldness of actually execute on that vision as well, I would say second we have. Yeah, while the cultures, in terms of how things got done were a bit different, the values were frankly not just similar. They were identical. We may have talked about this before, but When we did the integration planning, we actually surveyed half the population of about Delanie emcee. The top five values in order were the same from both team members. Focus on customers Act with integrity. Collaborate When is a team results? Orientation? It was phenomenal. I would say. You know, third, it's just the moment in time. Uh, and it's really a continuation. You think about the ten year partnership that Dell and GMC had back in the two thousands that actually helped us get to know each other, how we worked and helped form those shared values. So and then, finally, approximate one hundred fifty thousand team members signed up to the mission. You know, the tech industry is starved for star for tech talent. On the fact of the matter would that we have approximately one hundred fifty thousand team members of prostate all technologies signed up to our vision, signed upto our strategy, executing every day on behalf of customers. It's just awesome to see >> So digital transformation, of course, is the big buzz word. So we're gonna put on you guys what do you do it for your own digital transformation? You know, proof of the pudding. What gives you the right to even talk about that? What do you doing? Internal? >> Yeah, you know, it's a great question. And to your point, we talked with customers all the time. In addition to looking after our services businesses worldwide, I also am responsible for Del Digital inside of Del Technologies. That's our organization. We purposely named Adele Digital because we are on our digital journey as well. And so we are transforming everything that we do the way we do. We actually call it the Del Digital Way. We've had a couple of nice breakouts. Our booth in the showcase has got Ted talk style conversations around this, and it's really embracing this notion of agile, balanced team's getting close to the business, actually, the business in the dojo, with our developers moving more to a product orientation versus a project orientation, and it's really focused on outcomes on T. You hear us talk about this all the time. Technology strategy is now business strategy, and whether it's in sales or marketing or services. Doug's doing great work and support assist using telemetry and artificial intelligence and machine learning recommendation engines in our dotcom. The on boarding within hours. Now with what we used to take weeks with our business customers in our premier portal, Wei are looking at every opportunity everything from the introduction of bots and our p a all the way through machine learning. Aye aye and true digital transformation. We are walking that talk. >> Really? You're going hard after our p A. That's what Do Yu result. We've >> actually been doing arpa for many, many years and for you know, especially when you have a complex system complex ecosystem As you're rewriting and developing either re platform, every factoring or cloud native, you still got to get work done. So I'll give you a great example. You know, in a online world of today, it's amazing to know that we still get millions of orders by email and facts. And instead of outsourcing that and having humans retyped the order, we just have robotics, read it automatically translated. And >> so the narrative in the media you hear a lot of coordination is going to kill jobs. But I've talked to several our customers and they've all said the opposite. We love this because it's replacing mundane tasks it allows us to do other things. What's your experience you are >> spot on? I'm a technology optimist, and I believe that a machine learning robotics will do the task that humans are either not good at or don't want to do or don't like to do and allow humans to be more human. Creative thinking, creative problem solving, human empathy, human compassion. That's what humans are good at. And we need more people focused on those things and not row test. >> One of the things that Michael Dell on key themes in The Kino Day one and Day two in some day. Three lot of societal impacts of I Love That's kind of touchy feely. But the reality is of Reese killing people. The skills gap is still a huge thing. Culture in the Enterprise is moving to a cloud operation was his favors your strategy of end to end consistent operational excellence as well as you know, data driven, you know, value of the AP player. Great straight, but we've been seeing in the queue with same thing for years. Horizontally, scaleable, vertically specialized in all industries. Yeah, with data center so good. Good strategy, gaps in culture and skills are coming up How are you guys doing services? You mean you've got a lot of people on them on the streets? A lot of people that need to learn more about a I dashboards taking the automation, flipping a new opportunity to create a value for people in the workplace. We >> have this conversation continuously inside of our teams and inside of our company. Look, we have a responsibility to make sure that we bring everybody along this journey. It starts by painting the vision being that technology optimist. Technology is a force for good on how do we apply the technology and the digitization and, you know, creating our digital future, bringing our team members along. So setting that vision, it is about culture behavior. Set the tone from the top. But we also have a responsibility and retraining and re skilling and bringing you know, team members. New opportunities, new ways to learn our education services team, for example. You see it here, the certifications, the accreditations. We do the hands on labs that we do. It's all about allowing opportunities for people to up skill, learn new skills, learn new opportunities that are available, and customers need this higher value. Helping support? What >> about the transformation that's been impacting the workflow on work streams of your services group with customers as they are? Maybe not as far ahead as you guys are on the transformation. Maybe they're They're cloud native in one area kind of legacy in the other. How was the impact of delivering services? One. Constructing them services, formulating the right products and service mix to delivering the value. How is technology change that you mentioned Rp? What if some of the highlights in your mind >> Well, it's It's a journey and you know it. Mileage varies here, right? Depends on what you're trying to accomplish, but we never do wrong by focusing on what's right for the customers. So what our customers looking for? What are their business outcomes they're looking for? Uh, here's a great example in the unified workspace. You know, we've been doing PC has a service for a while even before PC has a service. We're delivering outcomes, delivering Peces, doing some factory into get gration Cem image management, lifecycle management deployment services. But now what we've done is really taken not just the end and view, but we packaged it and integrated it into a single solution offering across the life cycles. So now, once we understand the the customer and users personas weaken factory, image the configuration, ship it to the team members deaths not just to a doctor the place but right to the team members desk have auto deployment auto support telemetry back and manage that life cycle, we package that up now. End to end this a new capability that customers are really looking for >> before I know. Do you have a question? I want to get your reaction to a quote I'm reading from an analyst. Bigtime firm New Solutions launched at Del. World Show that worked to align seven businesses for the last eighteen months is starting to pay off. We just talked about that. Cross Family Solutions minimizes time on configurations and maintenance, which opens up incremental, total addressable market and reduces complexity. Michael Dell yesterday said that there's a huge swath of market opportunity revenue wise in kind of these white space gap areas that were servicing, whether its image on PCs and you kind of mentioned peces of service analysts. E this is tam expansion, your common reaction. >> I couldn't say it better myself and look. The to integrate solutions we announced this week is a great example of that of the seams. It's workspace won its security from SecureWorks. It's the you know, del Endpoint management capabilities. It's the PC hardware itself. It's the services life cycle from Pro support Pro Deploy Pro Manage, all integrated in the end and easily Mohr consumable were even Do any are consulting business with our new pro consult advisory offer offer. But look at the Del Technologies Cloud del Technology infrastructure. With VM wear we'LL be adding PC after as a service. On top of that, this is exactly what customers >> So what's your marching orders to the team? Take that hill. Is it a new hills? The same hill? What's the marching orders down to the >> teaching orders is Get out and visit customers every single day. Make sure we understand how our technology and services are being utilized, consumed and impacted. And where do we add more value over time? >> So I wantto askyou for from a customer standpoint, we were talking about digital transformation earlier, and, you know the customer's always right is the bromide. You guys are very customer focused However, when it comes to digital, a lot of customers is somewhat complacent about obviously technology companies like yours embrace digital transformation. But I hear from a lot of companies. Well, we're doing really well. You know, I'm gonna be long gone, but before this really disrupts my industry, it's somewhat of a concern. Now, do you see that? And and how do you I mean, I think one of the reasons just so successful in your careers you take on hard problems and you don't freak out about it. You just have a nice even keel. What do you do when Because you reached you encounter that complex, Eddie, do you coach them through it? You just say okay. Customer's always right. But there's a concern that they'LL get disrupted in there. Your customer, they're spending money with you today. So how do you get through breakthrough? That complacence >> adds a great question and you know, one of the other marching orders I give tow my team is that things were going so well is time to change. And so this is what we have to take to our customers as well. And, uh, look, way have to be respectful about it. But we also have to be true telling, and so we will meet with our customers, hear them out and where they're doing well, well pointed up. But where they're not or where we've got different examples, we'LL just lead by example our own internal example, other customer examples in a very respectful way, but in a very direct way, especially at the senior levels where that's what they need to hear sometimes. >> So you have a question, because I got I wantto sort of switch topics like >> one of us falls on the one problem statement I heard it was really announces a problem statement, but it was a theme throughout all the breakout sessions in the keynotes, and you guys are aware of it. So it's not a surprise to the Del senior people. You guys recognize that as things are going well on the acquisition and the integration tell technologies there's still a focus on still working better with customers taking away the friction of doing business with del technologies. It's a hard problem statement. You guys are working the problem. What's your view on that? Because we hear that from your customers and partners we'd love work with. Kelly's going to get easier. We >> still have more work to do. Actually, Karen Contos and I are partnered up our chief customer officer on easy doing business and look it it. We are a complex company. We have a lot of different business units. Technologies brands were working toe, bring them together, and Mohr integrate solutions like we saw this week. But we still can be complex, sometimes in front of our customers, and we're working on that. It's a balance because on the one hand, customers want Maura line coordinated, sometimes single hand to shake. We get that. But the balance is they also want access to the right subject matter experts at the right time. And we don't want Teo inhibit that either. Either way, so whether it's with our customers directly with our partners were on that journey, we will find the right balance here. We've got new commercial contract mechanisms in place now to unify our Cordelia, AMC as we're packaging Mohr VM were content more security content into the offer and be able to delivered is a package solution. In one quote one order one service dogs doing some great thing and in the back end of services connecting our service request systems are CR M systems, actually, even with VM wear and Cordelia emcee technicians co locating and support centers to solve the custom of customers problem in one call, not in three calls. We still have a ways to go, but we are making progress. >> So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and you and I, Howard have known each other for decades, and you've never wanted to talk about yourself. You always wanna talk about the team, your customers, your company. But I wanted to talk about your career a little bit because John Ferrier did an interview with John Chambers, and it was an amazing interview. We talked about when he was, you know, Wang and one one twenty eight. There is no entitlement, and you've seen a lot of the waves. You started out your career, your electrical engineer back when, you know that was like *** physics assembly language. It was sort of the early days of computer science, awesome, and then you had a number of different roles. You as I mentioned there was digital, there was compact. It was h p and then you'LL Forget RadioShack Radio second. Alright, That's right, Theo PC days on. And then you joined the emcee in two thousand three, which which marked the next era. We were coming out of the dot com boom, and You and Joe Tucci and a number of other executives built, you know, and the amazing next chapter of AMC powerhouse. And then now you're building the next new chapter with Del. You've really seen a lot of major industry shift you see have been on the wave. I wonder if you could reflect on that. Reflect on your career a little bit for our audience. >> I'm just amazed and blessed to be where I am. I couldn't be more pleased. Sometimes I wonder how even got here. But when I do reflect back, it is my love of the technology. It's my love of what technology Khun do for businesses, for customers, for consumers and, frankly, my love of the customer interaction. This is, you know, from that first time in the Radio Shack retail store and you know, the parent coming in and learning about this new TRS eighty and I've heard about this and what does this really mean and being able to help that person understand the use of the technology? How Teo, you make it happen for them, it has always given me great satisfaction. And so, you know, from those early days and I've worked with a lot of great people that I just, you know, listen and learn from over the time. But, you know, when I mentor, you know, people coming up in their career, I always say, Look, you know, it's not at work. If you get up every morning, you love what you do, you see the impact that you make you'LL like the people you're working with. You're making a little money and having some fun on DH. Those things have always been true for me. I have been so lucky and so blessed in life to be able to have that be the case >> and your operational to you understand, make operations work, solve problems, Day pointed out. It's been great for my first basic program I wrote was on a TRS eighty in high school. So thank you for getting those out here and then I've actually bought a Tandy, not an IBM with a ten Meg Hard drive. I bought my motive. Peces Unlimited. Some small company that was selling modems at the time. Michael, remember those date Howard? Great to have you on The key was the Distinguished Cube alumni. Great career and always we got We got it all documented. We have all the history. There you go, calling the shots. Howard Elias calling the future, predicting it and executing it Living is living the dream here in the Cube More keep coverage here, del technology world after >> this short break