>>Hello, I'm CR howdy shell president at advisors, uh, excited to be participating in GreenLake day Han joined by valued long-term 15 year customer Srini Vanga he's vice president information technology at wr grace and company Srini. Thanks for joining me today, especially in light of the $570 million acquisition completed yesterday. Congratulations on that. And can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your organization, and a bit about the relationship you've had with advising? >>Sure. Uh, thank you, Sierra, let me start with grace. Grace is a $2 billion global specialty chemical manufacturing company. It's got two main business segments, catalyst technologies and materials technologies. Our FCC catalyst technologies help our petrochemical refining customers in producing, uh, mainly transportation fuel and petrochemical feedstock. So, and our materials technology business delivers silica based materials to our customers to improve their products and processes in, uh, segments like coatings, uh, consumer industrial and, uh, pharma businesses. Um, as a CRE, as you just mentioned, uh, we recently closed it in acquisition and acquired the fine chemicals business of, uh, Alvamar, which will increase our business share of a pharma business. So coming back to me, um, uh, regarding myself, I've been with the grays for 22 years. It's been a long time guys. So I I've been mainly in the SAP technology area and took over the role of the, uh, Weiss president and head of it for years back. Um, and I've been working with the advisors for almost 15 years now, and it's been an excellent strategic partnerships. >>Well, thank you. And we definitely appreciate the business and, uh, the relationship. So, uh, we'll, we'll move on to the next question. So what are, what are the most important factors for you to be successful in the business? Obviously, growth is going to be key with what you just, just accomplished with the acquisition, but, uh, one of the most important factors for you to be successful >>Since, uh, since grace is a specialty chemical manufacturing company, uh, it's very important for us to understand and, uh, sometimes even anticipate, uh, uh, exact customer requirements and then, uh, quickly create that a special material which helps improve our customer's products and processes. That's the most important thing for us. Um, the company depends on me and my team, uh, to provide value to our business and, uh, helping them make decisions quicker and in real time and, uh, adaptable, uh, to the ever changing market, the business niche this year. So that's the most important factor. >>Great. It is obviously playing a, a bigger role as, as you mean. Good. So what are some of the most, I don't like to use the word pain points, but I'll call them business challenges, you know, in your industry. >>Um, so building on my previous point, right? So chemical manufacturing is not new and it has a wall or the years and, and with numerous mergers and acquisitions along the way, uh, the systems and processes are not always, uh, harmonized are standardized. So keeping it moving together and in the same direction has, uh, has always been a challenge, right? And, and added to that COVID has affected most of the sector. And, uh, and our under our industry is no exception, especially in the refining sector. Uh, we need to be able to provide, uh, rapid customization to our customers, uh, which means our business, uh, which needs a flexible computing power, uh, to process and analyze huge amounts of these, the material properties data, and, and allow them to come up with products, uh, back to, we can go to market faster than our competitors. Yeah. >>Right. Got it. And obviously that's key, you touched on this briefly, but I'd really like to hear more about how your business has changed in the last year. You mentioned COVID so love to hear how things have changed and what you can share >>So specifically about COVID right. So about 50% of our employees have been working remotely since March of last year. Um, unless unlike other industries, uh, we cannot go a hundred percent remote, uh, because we have chemical plants to run and chemical labs to operate. So we'll always be at this 50%. So technology has enabled us to do that. We have done a lot of things remotely, which we never thought possible. Um, um, we did work two on factory visits for our pharma customers, our remote plant startup for our poly properly in, uh, uh, customers. Um, and also did virtual, um, annual customer conferences. Uh, in the end, some of this will go back to pre COVID days, but most of this is going to stay and stay here for good. >>Well, congratulations on that, because I think the whole working remote, I think we're all seeing the challenges, but obviously it looks like you've seized the challenge and it's going to be more of a business as usual going forward. Yeah. Well, congratulations. That's key obviously to the business also going forward and with that, with a hybrid model, I mean, many customers, the hybrid clouds with journey, will you share with us at wr grace and company journey for the hybrid cloud? >>Sure. So, yeah. Um, when I took over this role, uh, four years back, uh, I made a decision that I no longer want to be in this data center business. Uh, we need to focus on our core strength and core competencies as a chemical company. And, uh, I wanted it to be spending more time helping our, our business, uh, manufactured and sell our products safely and efficiently. So working with our strategic partner, uh, advisors and HPE, we moved ahead with, uh, with GreenLake, which just solved mainly my problem of this, uh, getting out of the data center business. Uh, we now have a private on-prem cloud solution that is elastic fully scalable and is, uh, based on the consumption model based model, right? So that's very similar to what these hyperscale cloud providers have. And I love it. This, the consumption based model is what, what is great about the GreenLake that I have signed up, um, with, with GreenLake, I can, uh, scale up quickly and I will, I can grow as my business needs grow. And, um, it makes, it makes this a perfect cloud solution for grace. >>That's great to hear it, especially since we are a big part of, and I'd have to agree, you know, with, with the words, getting out of the data center business, we're hearing it more and more as we, as we hear meet with more customers. So, and with that in a hybrid model, there are a lot of decisions to be made on what goes into public cloud. What should, what should remain on prem. And obviously this is a decision you had to make. This can be crucial when it comes down to business critical applications. How did you and your team approached this when you were looking at, at your SAP environment? >>Great question to CR, but for me, the answer is simple. Uh, as I told you previously, like I did not want to be in the business of data center. I also did not want to be in the business of developing custom applications. We retired most of our custom built applications in, uh, procurement sales, HR, and replaced them with the SAS providers like Ariba conquer Salesforce and success factors, which are all hosted in the cloud. Uh, these companies, uh, spend billions of dollars in R and D and come up with solutions that are state of the art in this, uh, in these processes that I talked to you about. Right? So, so unless I have a special need, which I don't in the finance procurement and HR, I don't need this custom built applications, which is the reason I went to these SAS based applications. All of which are hosted in the cloud. >>That leaves me with, uh, my mission critical application, which is SAP and there's peripherals, right. For business reasons. I wanted this on-prem. Um, so I chose the HPE GreenLake, uh, to host this on-prem in my own data center at, at our headquarters in Columbia, Maryland, but with the Dr. Capability in the cloud. Um, so that I don't have to have a colo facility, which I have right now from IDR. So I use both on-prem and cloud hybrid cloud for myself, uh, for, for grace. So I have very few custom built applications on prem. Um, and as these become more standardized, I certainly look at taking them to the cloud or even keeping them on prem. Um, so we wanted that inherent flexibility. So yeah, that's the reason we went to this model. >>That's great. Cause that leads in right into the next question I had for you many customers in this past year, they're all looking for the flexibility, right. And how important it is. Can you share with us the value you see from HPE GreenLake and, and how that provided flexibility for wr grace and company specifically to workloads that can easily scale up or down? >>The main thing that helped me make the decision for GreenLake is the GreenLake is sized with this 20% buffer that we can scale to in minutes, um, that would usually take a weeks or even months to deploy. We know how that power and the flexibility in mere minutes, uh, when not when our business comes to us with a new requirement, either for a new applications or new data analytics capability that needs computing power, I don't have to wait for two or three months to give them that capability. So I, it can be done right away with this 20% of flexibility. >>That's great. And agreed. So this is a newer question with, with the event of your, um, acquisition, how do you see that added flexibility when you're looking to integrate a new company, >>This, this is an exact, you, you hit it on the head, uh, CR that's true. If I were to, if I had to bring this on with this additional computing power, I would have had to place an order, wait for the codes, come back and do all that with this 30%, I can easily fit in a new acquisition. >>Well, that's great. And that, that, that really helps for the short and long run. I'm sure that helps the business. Yes. So last two questions really is. Can you talk about what really stood out for advisors with advice, et cetera, about advisors, you know, basically why advise X and what will you saw the benefit of working with us >>Advisor? you have a great team CR so, so I've been, I've been, I mean, I've been working with, I told you write for 15 years and, um, I've been working with the same account manager for most of these years and the team as well. Right? So, so the account manager and the team knows how I, and what I expect of the team, right. So I can call them 24, seven anytime day or night. And they, they always pick up my phone and assist me in that time of the need. That's the most important thing. That's the reason that I I've been working with adviser, extended advice, Excel always proposed good solutions to me, either with HP or with other vendors, I can always trust them. Um, we have developed a strong strategic relationship. And, um, more importantly, like I told you that there is this trust that is difficult to find, and, um, it has continued to endure. Um, and, um, I deal with a lot of it vendors and I can confidently say that advisors X is at the top of the list from the customer service perspectives here. >>Well, thank you. And listen, that means a lot. I know we've had some bumps, we, and I've been on the phone for some, some of the tougher times, but, you know, you get through those to the, to the good times like now, and, uh, really, really excited about what we're doing with GreenLake. So, and, and most importantly, appreciate that relationship. And I'm sure our on Akuna is going to love the fact that you mentioned the relationship. So thank you for that. You know, finally, you know, any, any parting words of wisdom, brother, customers, as they consider HPE GreenLake, >>Um, like a standard earlier, uh, you must ask yourself, do you really want to be in this data center business, uh, ask yourself what your core businesses and what your core competencies are and focus your business acumen to deliver those that value to your business. Um, I'm sure he will come to the same conclusion as we did, um, and take a good look at GreenLake fund itself, flexibility. Um, you be very pleased and happy with the value the solution provides to your business. >>I would have to agree and what we're seeing with the best of breed solutions you can bring forward with GreenLake. Uh, we're excited about it too. And look forward to doing more work with you and customers like wr grace and company. I just want to say thank you for the time as importantly, thank you for the business. Really do appreciate it and appreciate the, uh, the kind words. Thanks, and, uh, have a great day. >>Thank you. See ya.