>> Narrator: Live, from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering Dell Technologies World 2018. Brought to you by Dell EMC and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to theCUBE. Our first day of coverage at Dell Technologies World 2018. I'm Lisa Martin with Keith Townsend. We are joined by a customer of Dell EMC, Fernando Almeida, the head of Infrastucture at Grupo Boticário. Welcome to theCUBE, Fernando. >> Thank you, thank you for invite me. I appreciate it. >> So you've been, as we were talking before we went live, an EMC customer, you're using VMware. This is your first Dell Technologies World, and you picked a big one. 14,000 attendees, loud music. There's a rock band going on there. Just an orientation, for our viewers, of Grupo Boticário. The largest perfume and cosmetics franchise in the world. So it automatically just smelled better when you got onto our side. (Fernando laughs) You guys have a presence in 1750 countries, cities, excuse me, and producing 300 million products every year. With that size of an organization, to be competitive, to offer different shaded products and a superior customer experience, and you think, we've got to transform our business. Where do you start? >> First of all, thank you for inviting me here. I'll talk a little bit about Grupo Boticário. Is a Brazilian company. It's maybe, I think 20,000 employees around the Brazil. Present in 11 countries. I dunno exactly counted but we present in 11 countries. The Grupo Boticário has 4,700 stores around the world. Yes, big, really big. The company is the-- I think is-- We don't have another company. We take companies like us, you know, it's the big one, McDonalds or Avon, no. Boticário is the biggest. The retail company start in 1977. Grupo Boticário is holding, responsible for five brands now: quem disse, berenice?, The Beauty Box, Eudora, and now Vult is the new one. The Grupo Boticário started in 2010, one roading responsible for five brands. It's a great company, a big one. >> Keith: It is big. >> Yeah. >> So, talk to us about some of the challenges being that big, that dispersed. As IT infrascture lead, people look at you to make sure that operation team's going. So talk about some of the pressures as you guys are competing. You really don't, as you say, you don't have a peer. But you have to stay ahead. Talk about some of those pressures of competing on your team. >> The most important, to support this company, we need to stay aware with the technology and they all help us to stay aware with the IT Transformation. My 2018 challenge is change the products, put on IT technology, the most products that they'll have, or other providers. Now when I see-- Do you guys know, see or know something like Butchcar stores, for example. When I go to these stores, we have a lot of lanes to pay. And now, after IT Transformation, we don't have more cashiers, for example. It's like Apple, for example. >> So I can come there and buy a product using my mobile phone. >> Exactly, exactly. This project lead was VMware products, Dell products, EMC legacy products, now Dell technology. I think this is a big project in 2018. >> So let's talk about, you said over 4,000, I think maybe 4700 stores. >> Fernando: Yes, yes. >> So you have a lot of people expecting this seamless, easy experience. Not just the consumers, but also the sales associates in the retail stores. Talk to us about the deployment model. As you needed to evolve IT to support that and allow your company to be competitive, from a technology standpoint, did you look at going from traditional infrastructure to converged, hyper converged? Talk to us about the transformation of your IT infrastructure as an enabler, of your digital transformation. >> Yes, good questions. Before a digital transformation we had, we lost our sales. Because a lot of lanes. >> You had a lot of customers like me, yeah. If there's a long, I can spend two hours shopping, long line-- >> Long line. >> I'm out of there. >> Go to another, you know it's crazy. After meeting with Dell, with VMware, I saw the-- I can't remember the products that I use. Airwatch. >> Keith: Yes. >> Yes, and they show us and it's pretty good to use here. Take care of the big store, to put these products, and I see the difference between a store with a cashier and the store without cashier. The sales grow up like 15%. >> Wow! >> Yeah, yeah. >> That's a dramatic improvement from the business bottom line perspective. >> Because the performance, agility. 15%, just one store. It's amazing. >> That's an amazing story. So Airwatch. VMware, I have to give them more credit. When they bought Airwatch, I can express my head, one billion dollar business. >> Fernando: Airwatch. >> Yeah, one billion dollar business. So it's amazing watching the growth for Airwatch and hearing your story. Can you talk about, you know, Michael Dell talks about Dell Technologies on top of Dell Technologies are best. Let's talk about the back end. Are you guys using some of the products that we saw on stage this morning, VxRail et cetera? >> Yes, yes, yes. We started out using VxRail this year, 2018. In the past, 2017, we changed storage. For example, we had mechanical discs. I can't remember the exact model, but we change for All Flash storage. The performance is pretty good. It's amazing. We put the offline stores, VxRail, Airwatch, all Dell Technology products, you know. Because of this, now we have 20, 25% more performance. It's really good for us. I think this is a big change for us and a big project when I talk about IT Transformation. >> One of the things that we hear often, and especially since the acquisition of the EMC Federation a couple of years ago, is IT leaders want to have seamlessness, simplicity, agility. Those are all keywords everybody needs to have them. But they want to have one stop, a one-stop-shop like Dell Technologies considers themselves. To be able to make digital transformation real. So you were using EMC acquisition, VMware as well. With Dell Technologies, is that allowing you to have this one-stop-shop location and be able to facilitate the transformation to ultimately meet customer demands, that are improving revenue and sales? >> Before the old technology, we have EMC products of course. But now, we have-- When I look at my point of view, the customer point of view, it's better after the change, after the merge, because we have just one company and a lot of products. I just talk to one person to buy a lot of products. It's more easy, it's more closed up (in Portuguese), it's more commitment. I think the portfolio right now is much better than before the merge, EMC with Dell. Now I think is better, much better. >> So let's talk about some of those sales and architecture meetings that you're having with Dell Technologies directly. What's different about that? 'Cause EMC will always come in and say "Oh, we have VMware, we have RSA, we have Pivotal." Unfortunately, they didn't have a server group. They didn't have a desktop group. Much, much bigger organization. One of the fears, is that they would become like their competitors and you'd go talk to a Dell Technologies rep, and there's just too much technology and they wouldn't be able to solution. It doesn't sound like that's been your experience. >> Well, before the merge, we used just EMC storage, only. Because I think, this is my opinion, I think the better products that EMC have in the past, before the merge, is the storage. And now, when I see Dell Technologies have kept the storage, but we have hyper convergence, we have VMware, together with this company. It is one company. For customers, I think it's much better. Just talk to one person like say, a few minutes ago. But, I'd think, when I see my environment in Boticário, I have a lot of challenges in this year because I need to say more. I need to put technology on my stores, to say more. I need to offer, for my final customer, a great product in agility, performance. If we have this, we have more sales, we have more stores. >> One of the things too that I was reading about getting ready for this show, is we're going to hear a lot about digital transformation, IT transformation, data. The volume continues to grow and grow and grow. And we have new technologies, emerging technologies: artificial intelligence, machine learning, IOT. How are you going to be able to leverage all of this data that you have across all of these stores. Data about customers, buying habits and things like that. How are you envisioning, in the future, leveraging emerging technologies to be able to, like you said, increase the number of stores, increase sales, and ultimately delight your customers? >> It's a surprise. (Keith laughs) I can't talk about it. >> Lisa: (laughs) Oh! >> It's really a surprise but you know, we have a great challenge when I think artificial intelligence and the other products, hyper convergence, block chain for example, but, it's a secret. I can't talk. >> It is a tough challenge. We hear the buzz words. I think I agree that it is a competitive advantage that I can take the stuff, stitch it together, and come up with a solution that's acting competitive and helps you to outsell your competition. So, I can appreciate that. Just one quick question about speeds and fees. A global company, a lot of data as you sell a lot more data. Michael said as you grow, the data grows, that you enable better use of the data. It feeds upon itself. What are the building blocks of your data platform? What technologies specifically are you using within Dell's storage portfolio? >> We use Airwatch, like I said. We use all-flash platforms. We use a lot of products, man. >> You're also using some BI-- >> VxRail, Isilon 2. Now we use Isilon 4 to support the stores. Of course, the most important to support the stores is all-flash storages and Airwatch. >> To sum up, you've already made big improvements to sales, to the customer in-store experience, to performance internally, as you mentioned switching to All-Flash Array. So you're well on your way in this digital transformation. We won't ask you any more questions about the secret sauce of using emerging technologies, but we look forward to hearing, maybe next year, what you're doing there to delight your customers. And we want to thank you for stopping by theCUBE, Fernando. >> I appreciate it, thank you. >> And you've been watching theCUBE. We want to thank you, as well. We are live, day one of Dell Technologies World 2018. I'm Lisa Martin, with my co-host Keith Townsend. Stick around, we'll be right back after a short break.

(upbeat music) >> Hey everyone. Welcome to theCUBE's coverage of Women In Tech, International Women's Day 2022. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. I have two guests from AWS here with me. Carolina Pina joins us, the head of Enterprise Enablement for LATAM and Laura Alvarez Modernel is here as well, Public Sector Programs Manager at AWS. Ladies, it's great to have you on theCUBE. >> Nice to meet you. >> Thank you for having us. >> Carolina, let's start with you. Talk to me a little bit about your role, what it is that you're doing there. >> So my role in AWS is to actually create mechanisms of massive training to try to close the talent gap that we have in the region. And when I mentioned talent gap, I'm talking about obviously digital and cloud-computing skills. So that's, that's, in a nutshell what my role entails. >> Lisa: Got it. How long have you been in that role? Just curious. >> So I've been at AWS a little bit over, over two years. I was actually in the public sector team when I joined, leading the education vertical for Latin American Canada. And I recently joined the commercial sector now leading these massive training efforts for the region for LATAM. >> And Laura, you're in public sector. Talk to me a little bit about your role. >> Yes, I'm in public sector. I'm also based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. So yeah, I'm from Latin America, and I lead educational and community impact programs in the Southern cone of Latin America. I also lead diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and I'm part of the Women at Amazon global board. That's our affinity group to make sure we make efforts towards building a more equal world. And on a personal note I'm really passionate about the topic of gender equality because I truly think it affects us all as women and as Latins. So that's something that I'm always interested in collaborating with. >> Lisa: Excellent. Carolina back to you. If we think about from an enablement perspective how is AWS partnering with its customers and its partners to train and employ women particularly in technology? >> Oh, sure. Lisa, so it's not a surprise. We, like I mentioned, you know we have a big cloud skills, talent gap in the region. In fact, you know, 69% of companies have reported talent shortages and difficulty hiring. So, and this represents a 15 year high. So, many of these companies are actually, you know, our own commercial customers. So they approach us saying, you know, asking for for support training and developing their talent. So like I mentioned, in my role I create massive training efforts and initiatives. So we always take into consideration women, minorities, underrepresented community, and not just for the current talent, meaning like the people that are currently employed, but also to ensure that we are proactively implementing initiatives to develop a talent of younger you know, a younger generation and a talent. So we can, you know, to inspire them and, and ensure that they, that we're seeing them represented in companies like AWS, you know and our customers, and in our partners. And obviously we, when we sit down with customers to craft these massive trainings you know, leveraging their ecosystems and communities, we actually try to use all our AWS training and certification portfolio which includes, you know, in live in class with live in structures, in classroom trainings. We also have our AWS Skill Builder platform which is the platform that allows us to, you know to reach a broader audience because it has, you know over 500 free and on-demand classes. And we also have a lot of different other programs that touches in different audiences. You know, we have AWS re/Start for underrepresented, and underemployed minorities. We also have AWS Academy, which is the program that we have for higher education institutions. And we have AWS, you know, Educate which also touches, you know, cloud beginners. So in every single of these programs, we ensure that we are encompassing and really speaking to women and developing training and developing women. >> Lisa: That's a great focus there. Laura, talk to me about upskilling. I know AWS is very much about promoting from within. What are some of the things that it's doing to help women in Latin America develop those tech skills and upskill from where, maybe where they are now? >> Well, Lisa, I think that is super interesting because there's definitely a skills gap problem, right? We have all heard about. And what's funny is also that we have this huge opportunity in Latin America to train people and to help further develop the countries. And we have the companies that need the talent. So why is there still a gap, right? And I think that's because there's no magic solution to solving this problem. No, like epic Hollywood movie scene that it's going to show how we close the gap. And it takes stepping out of our comfort zone. And as Carolina mentioned, collaborating. So, we at AWS have a commitment to help 29 million people globally to grow their technical skills with free cloud-computing skills training by 2025. I know that sounds a lot through educational programs but we do have as Carolina mentioned, a Skill Builder you can go into the website for free, enter, choose your path, get trained. We have Academy that we implement with universities. Re/Start that is a program that's already available in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Costa Rica. So there are a lot of opportunities, but you also mentioned something else that I would like to dive a bit deeper that is Latin American women. And yesterday we had the opportunity to record a panel about intersectionality with three amazing Latin women. And what we have to learn from that is that these are two minorities that intersect, right. We're talking about females that are minority. Latinas are minority. And in tech, that is also something that is even bigger minority. So there are more difficulties there and we need to make sure that we are meeting that talent that is there that is in Latin America, that exists. We know for sure we have unicorns in Latin America that are even AWS customers like Mercado Libre, and we have to meet them with the opportunities. And that's why we created a program that came from identifying how this problem evolves in Latin America, that there is a lack of confidence in women also that they don't feel prepared or equipped. There is a cultural component why we don't choose tech careers. And we partner with universities, more than 12 universities in Latin America with the International American Development Bank as well to create tech skills that's a free five weeks program in order to get students and get female in Latin America, into the tech world. And we also have them with mentorship. So I think that is an opportunity to truly collaborate because we as AWS are not going to solve these by ourselves, right? We need everyone pitching in on that. >> Lisa: Right. It's absolutely a team effort. You mentioned something important in terms of helping women, and especially minorities get out of their comfort zone. Carolina, I'm curious when you're talking with women and getting them into the program and sharing with them all of the enablement programs that you have, how do you help them be confident to get out of that comfort zone? That's a hard thing to do. >> Yeah, no, for sure. For sure, Lisa, well, I, you know, a lot of times actually I use myself as an example because, you know, I studied engineering and industrial systems engineering many years ago. And you know, a lot of my career has been in in higher education and innovation and startups. And as I mentioned in the intro I've been at AWS for a little bit over two years. So I, my career has not been in cloud and I recently joined the cloud. So I actually had to go through our own trainings and get our own certifications. So I, that's, you know a lot of times I actually, I use my own example, so people understand that you don't have to come from tech, you don't have to come, you can actually be a non-tech person and, and also see the the benefits of the cloud. And you don't have to only, you know, learn cloud if you're in the IT department or in an IT team. So sometimes, I also emphasize that the cloud and the future is absolutely the cloud. In fact, the world economic foreign, you know teaches us that cloud-computing is that the technology that's going to be mostly adopted by 2025. So that's why we need to ensure that every single person, women and others are really knowledgeable in the cloud. So that's why, you know, technical and untechnical. But I, you know, I use myself as an example for them to say, you know, you can actually do it. And obviously also I collaborate with Laura and a lot of the women at Amazon Latin America Group to also you know, ensure that we're doing webinars and panels. So we show them ourselves as role model like, Laura is an incredible role model for our community. And so it's also to to show examples of what the possibilities are. And that's what we do. >> Lisa: I love that you're sharing >> And can I make a note there also? >> Please, yes. >> To add to that. I think it also requires the companies and the, and the private sector to get out of their comfort zone, right? Because we are not going to find solutions doing what we are already doing. We truly need to go and get near these persons with a new message. Their interest is there in these programs we have reached more than 3,000 women already in Latin America with tech skills. So it's not that women are not interested. It's like, how do we reach them with a message that resounds with them, right? Like how we can explain the power of technology to transform the world and to actually improve their communities. I think there's something there also that we need to think further of. >> It's so important. You know, we say often when we're talking about women in tech, that she needs to see what she can be or if she can't see it, she can't be it. So having those role models and those mentors and sponsors is absolutely critical for women to get, I call it getting comfortably uncomfortable out of that comfort zone and recognizing there's so many opportunities. Carolina, to your point, you know, these days every company is a tech company, a data company whether you're talking about a car dealer, a grocery market. So your point about, you know, and obviously the future being cloud there's so much opportunity that that opens up, for everybody really, but that's an important thing for people to recognize how they can be a part of that get out of their comfort zone and try something that they maybe hadn't considered before. >> Yes. And, actually, Lisa I would love to share an example. So we have a group, O Boticário, which is one of our customers one of the, the lead retails in Brazil. And they've been a customer of AWS since 2013 when they realized that, you know the urgency and the importance of embracing state of the art technology, to your point, like, you know this is a retail company that understands that needs to be, you know embrace digital transformation, especially because, you know they get very busy during mother's days and other holidays during the year. So they realized that they, instead of outsourcing their IT requirements to technology experts they decided to actually start developing and bringing the talent, you know within itself, within, you know, technology in-house. So they decided to start training within. And that's when we, obviously we partnered with them to also create a very comprehensive training and certification plan that started with, you know a lot of the infrastructure and security teams but then it was actually then implemented in the rest of the company. So going back to the point like everybody really needs to know. And what we also love about O Boticário is they they really care about the diversion and inclusion aspect of this equation. And we actually collaborated with them as well through this program called Desenvolve with the Brazilian government. And Desenvolve means developing Portuguese and they this program really ensures that we are also closing that gender and that race gap and ensuring that they're actually, you know, developing talent in cloud for Brazil. So we, you know, obviously have been very successful with them and we will continue to do even more things with them particular for this topic. >> Lisa: I've always known how customer focused AWS is every time we get to go to re:Invent or some of the events but it's so nice to hear these the educational programs that you're doing with customers to help them improve DEI to help them enable their own women in their organizations to learn skills. I didn't realize that. I think that's fantastic very much a symbiotic part of AWS. If we think about the theme for this year's International Women's Day, Breaking The Bias I want to get both of your opinions and Laura we'll start with you, what that means to you, and where do you think we are in Latin America with breaking the bias? >> Well, I think breaking the bias is the first step to truly being who we are every day and being able to bring that to our work as well. I think we are in a learning curve of that. The companies are changing culturally, as Carolina mentioned we have customers that are aware of the importance of having women. And as we say at AWS not only because there is a good business reason because there is, because there are studies that show that we can increase the country's CPD, but also because it's important and it's the right thing to do. So in terms of breaking the bias I think we are learning and we have a long way to go. I talked a bit earlier about intersectionality and that is something that is also important to highlight, right? Because we are talking about females but we are also talking about another minorities. We're talking about underrepresented communities, Indigenous People, Latins. So when these overlap, we face even bigger challenges to get where we want to get, right? And to get to decision making places because technology is transforming the ways we take decisions, we live, and we need someone like us taking those decisions. So I think it's important at first to be aware and to see that you can get there and eventually to start the conversation going and to build the conversation, not to just leave it but to make sure we hear people and their input and what they're going through. >> Lisa: Yes. We definitely need to hear them. Carolina, what's your take on breaking the bias and where do you from your experience, where do you think we are with it? >> Yeah, no, I'm as passionate as Laura on this topic. And that's why we, you know we're collaborating in the Women at Amazon Latin America Chapter, because we're both very, I think breaking the bias starts with us and ourselves. And we are very proactive within AWS and externally. And I feel it's also, I mean, Lisa, what we've been doing is not only, obviously gathering you know, the troops and really making sure that, that we have very aggressive goals internally, but also bringing you know, bringing our male counterparts, and other, you know, other members of the other communities, because the change, we're not going to make it alone. Like the change where it is not women only talking to women is going to make the change. We actually need to make sure the male and other groups are represented. And the dialogue that they're that we're very conscious about that. And I feel like we're seeing more and more that the topic is becoming more of a priority not only within AWS and Amazon but we also see it because now that I meet with when I meet with customers around the region they really want to see how we can collaborate in these diversion and inclusion initiatives. So I think we are breaking the bias because now this topic is more top of mind. And then we are being more proactively addressing it and and training people and educating people. And I feel we're really in a pivoted point where the change that we've really been wanting to we will see in the next you know, few years which is very exciting. >> Lisa: Excellent, and we'll see that with the help of women like you guys. Thank you so much for joining me today, talking about what you're doing, how you're helping organizations across AWS's ecosystem, customers, partners, and helping, of course, folks from within you, right. It's a holistic effort, but we are on our way to breaking that bias and again, I thank you both for your insights. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Lisa, for the opportunity. >> My pleasure. For Carolina Pina and Laura Alvarez Modernel, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's coverage of Women in Tech, International Women's Day 2022. (upbeat music)