>> Announcer: Live from London, England, it's theCUBE, covering AWS Summit London 2019, brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Today, we're here at the AWS Summit live at the ExCel Center in London. I'm Susannah Streeter, and this is my cohost Dave Vellente, here today. Now, we've talked a lot about the benefits of Cloud and the opportunities, and also the challenges sometimes, for startups and other businesses. But, also, there has been massive growth of the use of Cloud services by public sector organizations. And our next two guests here on theCUBE today, really, this is your area of business isn't it? So, we have Johnny Hugill, who's from Public, but also Max Peterson, VP of Worldwide Public Sector, AWS. Thank you very much for coming on to talk to us. >> Thank you. >> Now it's really interesting, during the keynote speeches, I was really taken by one of the speeches from the Chief Digital Information Officer at the Ministry of Justice, Tom Read, and he says, "We don't innovate for professional advantage, we do it to take care of people." And, Johnny, this is what your business is about, isn't it? Trying to link up startups and public sector organizations, to ensure that more people are taken care of. >> Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right. I think what we've seen in sort of almost every other sector you can think of, is this big proliferation of startups, of new market entrant's of completely new companies, really kind of coming to dominate those markets. And we haven't quite seen as much of that as I would like to see in the public sector. So, what we're trying to do is help tech startups, help innovative new companies, to come in and ultimately to deliver better services for everyone. >> There is real concern, though, among traditional companies about this. For example, your local pharmacy concerned that a really big player is going to move in and take away what they do. How do you kind of bring them along and say, well actually, if you work with a startup, it could improve the way you do business and keep you in business. >> Totally. I think pharmacy is a really interesting example. Because, in the UK, we've seen a bunch of new digital-first pharmacies come in and completely transform how people can access their pharmacy. So, Echo is one example of a UK startup that, now, you can get door-to-door prescriptions, instead of having to go to your pharmacy, make appointments, you know, waste loads of time queuing. My view is that these organizations really have to kind of get up to speed with how things work in the wider digital economy. So, people have certain expectations for how services should be delivered, for how quickly they should be accessed, to be able to access things. I think government services are no different. That's pharmacies, that's schools, that's teaching, that's everything. >> We're here in London. How big is the UK in terms of the growth of your business? >> Max: Well, the UK has been a leader for a long time, so from the time that they undertook the government digital services business through the G Cloud, 11 iterations, with big ministries, like the UK MOJ that you heard, with big nonprofits, like Comic Relief, and everything in between, educational institutions, startups. We're very proud we've partnered with Public to help continue to encourage that kind of innovation in government technology. >> I think, when we last talked Max, you, John and I, I think we were in DC. >> I think it was. >> And you were helping us understand, look, this public sector is not just about DC. And you've got a number of activities. We interviewed several of theCUBE yesterday At AWS headquarters. One of the things we talked about was GDPR. We were having a conversation with a privacy expert earlier today. He said, you know, the big players really haven't, really weren't ready for GDPR. You made a point in DC last year, you said, day-one you guys were ready, end-to-end encryption, a number of other services. so, I wanted to circle back to you. >> Max: Sure. >> I said, okay, we gotta peel the onion. I gotta ask Max, put him on the spot. You guys really anticipated this, it's not like you were scrambling at the last minute. Is that fair to say, and I wonder, if, Johnny, if you could confirm or deny that. >> Well, I would tell you that at Amazon, we think security is job-zero. If we are not making sure that we are continuously raising the bar to improve customer security, security for small businesses, then we need to do a better job. A couple of examples: GDPR was a good one, where, two months before GDPR came into a lawful requirement, Amazon announced that we were GDPR compliant. So people could confidently build on top of Amazon. In the UK, early on in 2016, we delivered one of our advanced security services called AWS Shield, which gives everybody using the AWS Cloud in the UK and, in fact, around the world, automatic protection against DDoS. No additional cost. You get it by using the Cloud. Those are the types of security services that Amazon delivers, and probably one of the most important these days, when you're working with sensitive workloads, is encryption. On Amazon, it's check-the-box easy to implement encryption for your data on the fly or when it's at rest. >> So, I hear that a lot, about encryption, and how simple it is. You guys using encryption? Do you guys got it as part of your... >> So, we work with technology companies who want to work with government, so many of the companies we back are using encryption. As I'd say, some of the, sort of, particularly in policing and defense, and some of the more sensitive areas of the public sector, this stuff is really, really crucial. And you simply can't, kind of, get into government without being GDPR compliant, and without having all of the SAP security essentials. A lot of the companies we've backed, are using AWS Cloud, have gone on to win public sector business, so, in that sense, I'm sure everything's E-checked. >> Are there any special considerations, with regard to encryption, things like, out-of-scope requirements that I should think about as a customer, or is it really as simple as Max is saying, click a button and check a box and don't even worry about it, it's all taken care of. What's your advice to people on encryption, is it just encrypt everything? >> Yeah. >> Are there performance considerations or...? >> I mean, again, it totally depends on the scale of the contract, of the requirements that your kind of going off of. For big major contracts with Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defense, there are a number of different performance, kind of requirements, that you need to consider. But, in general, I think, yeah, it's pretty quite straightforward. >> Yes, kind of a no-brainer. >> I think the answer is encrypt everything, everywhere, all the time. And that also means on premise, it also means on your devices, right? I mean it needs to be just the standard approach that people take to data protection these days. And, unfortunately, for many organizations internally, it's hard, and so that's why people are moving to Amazon so that they get that security built in. It actually is the number one reason why people are moving to AWS today. They want the built-in security and then, after that, they want speed and innovation. And there was a really interesting statistic today at the keynote. Did you hear that LSE, London School of Economics, just completed a study and they showed that 95% of all startups that happen today would not happen if they had to depend on legacy infrastructure, because it was hard and expensive, and that's, candidly, why being a startup in today's Cloud-based world, is a much better value proposition. You can focus on the problem rather than all of these important but complicated factors like encryption. >> The other thing there, the London School of Economics study showed is the productivity gains for those companies that use Cloud. Now, there haven't been obvious productivity gains as a result of technology across the board. We're starting to finally see the uptick. Remember back in the PC days, you could see productivity, you could see upticks everywhere except in productivity, and then all of a sudden it shot up. And we've been predicting, for a couple of years now, you're going to start to see it, Cloud being one of the reasons, other new technologies, and so that was another key finding of that study that I found intersting. >> Well, Sainsbury was up on the stage today again, and what they have now found, right, was they have found a 60% to 70% improvement in productivity. That was their number up on the stage. >> Interesting, you're talking about kind of legacy companies. We've got Ministry of Justice, in fact there was a bit of a battle wasn't there? Yeah, well we've been balanced since 1170. (laughter) >> That was hilarious wasn't it? >> Sainsbury's only 150 years old. >> MOJ got up and said, "Well, in this battle of historical significance, our mission started in 1178. (laugher) >> But it's interesting to talk about those, but really, your bread and butter, Johnny Hugill, is the startups, isn't it, trying to spot talent out there and think, who could I partner these guys up with. >> Yeah, totally right. A really important thing to any organization that is trying to innovate today can do is to market horizon scanning, really understand what is out there, what the art of the possible looks like, what the new technologies that are going to change the game look like, what these companies are actually really capable of, where their sweet spot of innovation is. >> Susannah: And they might not know that themselves. >> But it's a really difficult thing to know, especially if you think about what the kind of day-to-day job of government is, which is really running the country, right? It's pretty difficult to ask them, by the way guys, you also need to really understand what the prospects of AI startups are looking like across the country, or across the world. You need to understand who the kind of BotChain innovators are. It's a big challenge, and it's something that we are really trying to help them along the way. As you said, a lot of that is partnering with bigger companies, and kind of forming the right ecosystems of smaller companies, large companies that can help them scale, and kind of taking government on that journey along with them. >> Well, and the pace of change is another challenge. Six months in this business now is an eternity it seems like. I remember crypto was so hot a year ago, I mean I'm a fan of a lot of the underlying technologies. It was interesting to see how Amazon dealt with that. You asked a lot of questions, like what do you really need to do this, you guys came up with a couple of solutions there, but, keeping up with the pace of change is one of the, I would think, one of the key values that you provide. >> It's really a challenge, and I think now, in infant tech, 15% of the financial revenue in the UK has come from startups founded in the last five years, right? So a big legacy market as important as financial services, has just been completely turned on its head, by Revolut, by Monzo, by all these new guys. And in government we are going to see the same thing at some point. >> Dave: I'd observe that in financial services those are good examples, but the industry still hasn't been disrupted yet. Healthcare still hasn't been disrupted. They're both ripe for disruptions and it's happening. >> Max: Yeah, but I think if you look at those, that's part of what Johnny was saying. Some of these early industries, like finance, have maybe been the initial disrupters, but I do believe that there is a wave of opportunity and disruption coming in this whole gov-tech space. One of them recently was at Zuna. Zuna came in and acquired a contract with UK government that completely upended an old way of doing job search. They had a better mousetrap. And, fortunately, in this case, government recognized it and they used them. >> [Johnny} Yeah, I mean, I would say that was a really momentous thing. The most used website in the entire UK Government, which is the kind of find-a-job search site. As Zuna came along, replaced an incumbent supplier who'd been doing it for years, probably quite badly, came along with their new AI-driven platform, using AWS Cloud and are now just delivering a service that everyone prefers. >> Dave: I saw NHS has announced, what, a half-billion pound almost, transformation project, modernization. And when you peel the onion, you see a lot of startups. Behind the startups, you see a lot of Cloud going on because the Cloud attracts startups, startups are where the innovation is, and if you're going to modernize and spend a half-billion pounds, you better look to the innovation engine. >> Yeah, one of the things about the Cloud computing and one of the things about government policy that's critical, is that it actually encourages that kind of innovation. Because a lot of small companies are the source of new ideas, but, procurement sometimes gets in the way. One of the things that we think, in fact, has worked well is the UK G Cloud contract, where on the UK G Cloud, over 90% of the suppliers on the G Cloud contract are in fact small and medium enterprises, and where 45% of the sales since inception on G Cloud have actually gone to SMEs. >> So it's really transformative. >> yeah. >> Well thank you very much for talking to us about this really fascinating space. I really appreciate it Max Peterson and Johnny Hugill. Thank you for joining us on theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> Great talk. >> That's all from us for now from the Excel Center AWS Summit here in London.