(upbeat music) >> Hey everyone. Welcome back to Las Vegas. The Cube is live. I can't say that enough. We are alive at AWS re:Invent 2021. Lisa Martin with Dave Nicholson. Hey Dave. >> Hey Lisa. >> Having a good day so far. >> So far, so good. >> We have an alumni back with us. We have about a hundred segments on the cube at AWS remit. We've got one of our original alumni back with us. Zaki Bajwa joins us the global head of partner solution engineers at Stripe. Zaki welcome back. >> Thank you, Lisa, thank you, Dave. Pleasure to be here. >> Lisa: Isn't it great to be back in person? >> Love it. Love it. Can't do a whiteboard virtually, you can, it's not the same. >> It's not the same and all those conversations I'm sure that you've had with partners and with customers the last couple of days that you just can't replicate that over zoom. >> Zaki: Exactly. >> So just for anyone who doesn't understand, AWS has a massive ecosystem of partners. So we'll get to talk about Stripe and AWS, but for anyone that doesn't know what Stripe is, give us the lowdown. You guys started 10 years ago. Talk to us about Stripe, the business strategy, what it's like today. >> Yeah, sure. So you guys know Stripe started 10 years ago by two brothers, John and Patrick Collison. And they've really focused on the developer and helping the developers accelerate digital commerce. Why? Cause the status quo at the time was one where a developer needed to, you know, build banking relationships with issuing banks, merchant banks, card networks, payment networks, tax liabilities, data compliance, and all of these manual processes that they had to deal with. So what Stripe aspires to do is build a complete commerce platform. Leveraging our integrated suite of products that is really allowing us to build what we call the global payments and treasury network. So if you think about the global payment and treasury network or what we call the G P T N it's meant to not only help abstract all of that complexity from a global payment infrastructure point of view, but also help move money in a simple and borderless and a programmable way just like we do in the internet. So that's the core essence of Stripe is to build this global payment treasury network to allow for money movement to happen in a simple and borderless manner. >> Simple and borderless two key things there. How has the business strategy evolved in the last 10 years and specifically in the last 20, 22 months? >> Yeah. Great question. So as you can imagine with COVID, you know, David you can order a cup of coffee or a brand new car, and that whole direct to consumer model has accelerated in COVID right. We've accelerated ourselves going to upwards of 6,000 employees. We've been able to answer or manage upwards of 170 billion API requests in the last 12 months alone. Right we deliver upwards of five nines from a availability performance point of view. That means 13 seconds of downtime or less a month. And we're doing this originally starting off for the developer David as you talked about allowing developers to deliver, you know, what I call process payments, accept payments and reconcile payments. But the evolution that you're talking about Lisa has really led to three key areas of focus that our users are requesting from us. And Stripe's first operating principle is really that user first mentality similar to the Amazons where we listen to our users and they're really asking for three key areas of focus. Number one is all around modernizing their digital commerce. So this is big enterprises coming to us and saying, whether I'm a uni lever or a Ford, how do you help me with a direct to consumer a e-commerce type platform? Number one. Secondly, is companies like Deliveroo and Lyft creating what we call marketplaces. Also think about Twitter and clubhouse, more solopreneurs entrepreneurs kind of marketplaces. Third is all around SaaS business models. So think about slack and Atlassian. That are customer vivers and accelerating the journey with us around digitizing digital commerce. So that's the first area of evolution. The second area is all around what we call embedded FinTech. So we know just like Amazon helped accelerate infrastructure as a service, platform as a service and function as a service. We're helping accelerate FinTech as a service. So we believe every company in every industry aspires to add more and more FinTech capabilities in their core services that they offer to their customers. So think about a Shopify or a Lyft they're adding more FinTech capabilities, leveraging Stripe APIs that they offer to their consumers. Likewise, when you think about a Monzo bank or a and 26, what we call Neo banks. They're creating more banking as a service component so a second area of evolution is all around FinTech as a service or embedded FinTech. And the third area of focus again, listen to our users is all around users are saying. Hey, Stripe, you have our financial data. How do you help us more with business operations and automating and optimizing our business operations? So this is revenue management, revenue reconciliation, financial reporting, all of the business processes, you and I know, code to cash, order to cash, pay to procure. Help us automate, optimize, and not just optimize, but help us create net new business models. So these are the three key areas of evolution that we've seen modernizing digital commerce, embedded FinTech, and then certainly last but not least business operations and automating that. >> And your target audience is the developers. Or are you having conversations now that are more, I mean, this is like transformative to industries and disruptive. Are you having conversations higher up in the chain? >> Great, great question. And this is the parallel with Amazon, just like Amazon started with developers, AWS. And then what up to the C-suite, if you will, we're seeing the same exact thing. Obviously our DNA is developer first making it intuitive, natural easy for developers to build on Stripe. But we're seeing more and more C-suite leaders come to us and saying, help us evolve our business model, help us modernize and digitize net new business models to get new revenue streams. So those parallel work streams are both developer mindset and C-suite led is certainly a big evolution for us. And we're looking to learn from our Amazon friends as to the success that they've had there. >> Do you have any examples of projects that developers have proposed that were at first glance, completely outlandish? Something that, you know, is there any sort of corner of the chart use case where Stripe didn't think of it, some developer came up with the idea, maybe it can't be done yet. If you have an example of that, that would be very interesting. >> Yeah, I'll give you two examples. So as I said, we're definitely a user first entity. That's our operating principle. We always think about the user. So let me go to developers and say, what are you struggling with? What are you thinking about? What are the next set of things you need from us? And a simple comment around tax started to come up and do you know in the U S there's 11,000 tax jurisdictions that you and you're selling something online have to abide to these different jurisdictions. So one of the things that we then evolved into is created a Stripe tax product, which initially users or developers were really struggling with and working on. So we created a Stripe tax product. We've done an acquisition called tax jar that helps us accelerate that journey for tax. The other one is this notion of low code that we see in the marketplace right now, where developers saying. Hey, give me more embeddables on top of the primitives that you've created on top of the APIs. So we went leveraging what our customers have already done, created things like a checkout capability, which is a simple redirect highly customized for conversion, which you can just integrate to one API. You have a full checkout capability. You can embed that into your platform, which didn't exist before and needed you to really integrate into different APIs. So all of these capabilities are what developers have really focused on and built that we've done leverage and Excel on. >> Yeah, I think between Lisa and myself, we've paid taxes in about 7,000 of those >> Lisa: Yeah, probably. >> Not 11,000 jurisdictions, but all the various sales taxes and everything else. So we're sort of familiar with it. >> I think so, so here we are, you know, on the floor at re-invent. Great, as we said to be back in person, the 10th annual, but with, as each year goes by AWS has a ecosystem of partners gets bigger and bigger. The flywheel gets, I don't know, I think faster and faster, the number of announcements that came out yesterday and today talk to us about some of the common traits that Stripe and AWS share. >> Yeah. So I've mentioned a few of them. One is certainly the user first mentality where we're listening to users. That tax example is a perfect one of how do we decide new features, new capability based on user first, Amazon does that better than anyone else. Second is that developer mindset focus on the developer. Those will be the core persona we target give you an example, Lyft, we all know Lyft. They wanted to create instant payouts for their drivers. So their developers came to us and say, our developers don't want to get paid. I'm sorry. Our drivers don't want to get paid in a week or two weeks. So we work with their developers who create a instant payout mechanism. Now in six months, over 40% of their drivers are using Stripe instant payout powered by Stripe. And that's a developer first mindset again, back to AWS. And then the third is really around the go to market. And the market opportunity is very similar. You talked about the developer persona and the C-suite very similar to Amazon. But also we're not just catering to enterprise and strategic big customers. We are just so much focused on startups, SMB, mid-market, digital native, just like Amazon is. And I would say the last parallel, which is probably the most important one is innovation. I come from enterprise software where we looked at monthly, quarterly, biannual, annual release cycles. Well, as Stripe, all of that goes out the door just like Amazon. We may have a hundred to a thousand APIs in motion at any time in alpha beta production. And just like Amazon we're iterating and releasing new innovations consistently. So I would say that's probably the most important one that we have with Amazon. >> So a lot of synergies there like deep integrated trusted partner synergies it sounds like. >> Agreed, definitely and then we're seeing this. I was going more as we are going more up market. We're seeing a demand for end to end solutions that require integrations with a CRM vendor for customer 360 with our accounting vendor for pivotal procure order to cash, billing accounting with a e-commerce company like Adobe Magento to do better econ. So more end to end solutions with these tech partners, we're working with our GSI to help deliver those end to end solutions. And certainly, but not least the dev agencies who are still sort of our core constituents that help us keep relevant with those developers. >> You mentioned this at the outset, but some things bear repeating. Can you go into a little more detail on the difference between me wanting to start up a business and take credit cards as payment 10 years ago? Let's say versus today, how much of the friction have you removed from that system? >> It is literally an hour to two hour process versus weeks and months before. >> But what are those steps? Like who would I, you mentioned this, again you mentioned this already, but the go through that, go through that again who would I have to reach out to, to make this happen? And we were talking, you know, relationships with banks, et cetera, et cetera. >> Yeah. So it starts at initiating and registering that company. So imagine you going and having to register a company today, you can do that with a Stripe Atlas product in a matter of hours, get your EIN number, get your tax jurisdictions on your registration as a Delaware entity within the U S you can be anywhere at globally and go do that within a matter of one hour. That's number one, you start there. From there, then it's a matter of embedding payment embeddables within your e-commerce platform, marketplace platform, et cetera. As you've heard us talk about seven lines of code to get payments going, you can quickly onboard accept payments, process payments, reconcile payments all within an hour. And that's just the start. But now you get into more complex use cases around marketplaces and multi-party connection. Multi-party payouts, different commission rates, different subscription models. Think about a flat tier model, a metered tier model, all of these different things that we've abstracted and allow you to just use one to three different integrations to help accelerate and use that in your digital commerce platform. So all of these different workflows have is what we've automated through our APIs. >> Dave: That's unbelievable. >> Yeah. >> It really is. >> It is unbelievable, the amount of automation and innovation that's gone on in such a short time period. What are some of the things as we kind of wrap up here that we can look forward to from stripe from a roadmap perspective, technology wise, partner wise? >> Yes. I mean, we have a slew of data you can imagine billions of billions of transactional data. And you guys know what we do with data is we're looking at fraud prevention. We're looking at, we have a product called radar that looks at fraud, we're doing acceptance, adaptive acceptance to do more AIML learned data and authorization. We're also looking at how do we feed a lot of this financial data into the right mechanisms to allow you to then create new business models on top of this, whether it's cross sell upsell to new user business capture. As well as you know, one of the things I did not talk about, which coming from a farming background is this notion of Stripe climate. Where we have upwards of 2000 companies across 37 countries that are leveraging our Stripe climate product to give back to tech advanced companies that are helping in carbon offset. And super exciting times there from an ESG environmental social governance point of view. So all of those combined is what excites us about the future at Stripe. >> Wow. The future seems unlimited. Lots going on. >> Super excited. Zaki, thank you so much for joining Dave and me talking about what's going on with Stripe. All the innovation that's going on. The synergies with AWS and what's coming down the pipe. We appreciate your insights and your time. >> Thank you, Lisa, thank you, David. Appreciated All right. For Dave Nicholson, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the Cube. The global leader in live tech coverage. (lighthearted piano music)

>>Earlier this week, Oracle announced the new X nine M generation of exit data platforms for its cloud at customer and legacy on prem deployments. And the company made some enhancements to its zero data loss, recovery appliance. CLRA something we've covered quite often since its announcement. We had a video exclusive with one Louisa who was the executive vice president of mission critical database technologies. At Oracle. We did that on the day of the announcement who got his take on it. And I asked Oracle, Hey, can we get some subject matter experts, some technical gurus to dig deeper and get more details on the architecture because we want to better understand some of the performance claims that Oracle is making. And with me today is Susan. Who's the vice president of product management for exit data database machine. Bob tome is the vice president of product management for exit data cloud at customer. And Tim chin is the senior director of product management for DRA folks. Welcome to this power panel and welcome to the cube. >>Thank you, Dave. >>Can we start with you? Um, Juan and I, we talked about the X nine M a that Oracle just launched a couple of days ago. Maybe you could give us a recap, some of the, what do we need to know? The, especially I'm interested in the big numbers once more so we can just understand the claims you're making around this announcement. We can dig into that. >>Absolutely. They've very excited to do that. In a nutshell, we have the world's fastest database machine for both LTP and analytics, and we made that even faster, not just simply faster, but for all LPP we made it 70% faster and we took the oil PPV ops all the way up to 27.6 million read IOPS and mind you, this is being measured at the sequel layer for analytics. We did pretty much the same thing, an 87% increase in analytics. And we broke through that one terabyte per second barrier, absolutely phenomenal stuff. Now, while all those numbers by themselves are fascinating, here's something that's even more fascinating in my mind, 80% of the product development work for extra data, X nine M was done during COVID, which means all of us were remote. And what that meant was extreme levels of teamwork between the development teams, manufacturing teams, procurement teams, software teams, the works. I mean, everybody coming together as one to deliver this product, I think it's kudos to everybody who touched this product in one way or the other extremely proud of it. >>Thank you for making that point. And I'm laughing because it's like you the same bolt of a mission-critical OLT T O LTP performance. You had the world record, and now you're saying, adding on top of that. Um, but, okay. But, so there are customers that still, you know, build the builder and they're trying to build their own exit data. What they do is they buy their own servers and storage and networking components. And I do that when I talk to them, they'll say, look, they want to maintain their independence. They don't want to get locked in Oracle, or maybe they believe it's cheaper. You know, maybe they're sort of focused on the, the, the CapEx the CFO has him in the headlock, or they might, sometimes they talk about, they want a platform that can support, you know, horizontal, uh, apps, maybe not Oracle stuff, or, or maybe they're just trying to preserve their job. I don't know, but why shouldn't these customers roll their own and why can't they get similar results just using standard off the shelf technologies? >>Great question. It's going to require a little involved answer, but let's just look at the statistics to begin with. Oracle's exit data was first productized in Delaware to the market in 2008. And at that point in time itself, we had industry leadership across a number of metrics. Today, we are at the 11th generation of exit data, and we are way far ahead than the competition, like 50 X, faster hundred X faster, right? I mean, we are talking orders of magnitude faster. How did we achieve this? And I think the answer to your question is going to lie in what are we doing at the engineering level to make these magical numbers come to, uh, for right first, it starts with the hardware. Oracle has its own hardware server design team, where we are embedding in capabilities towards increasing performance, reliability, security, and scalability down at the hardware level, the database, which is a user level process talks to the hardware directly. >>The only reason we can do this is because we own the source code for pretty much everything in between, starting with the database, going into the operating system, the hypervisor. And as I, as I just mentioned the hardware, and then we also worked with the former elements on this entire thing, the key to making extra data, the best Oracle database machine lies in that engineering, where we take the operating system, make it fit like tongue and groove into, uh, a bit with the opera, with the hardware, and then do the same with the database. And because we have got this deep insight into what are the workloads that are, that are running at any given point in time on the compute side of extra data, we can then do micromanagement at the software layers of how traffic flows are flowing through the entire system and do things like, you know, prioritize all PP transactions on a very specific, uh, you know, queue on the RDMA. >>We'll converse Ethan at be able to do smart scan, use the compute elements in the storage tier to be able to offload SQL processing. They call them the longer I used formats of data, extend them into flash, just a whole bunch of things that we've been doing over the last 12 years, because we have this deep engineering, you can try to cobble a system together, which sort of looks like an extra data. It's got a network and it's got storage, tiering compute here, but you're not going to be able to achieve anything close to what we are doing. The biggest deal in my mind, apart from the performance and the high availability is the security, because we are testing the stack top to bottom. When you're trying to build your own best of breed kind of stuff. You're not going to be able to do that because it depended on the server that had to do something and HP to do something else or Dell to do something else and a Brocade switch to do something it's not possible. We can do this, we've done it. We've proven it. We've delivered it for over a decade. End of story. For as far as I'm concerned, >>I mean, you know, at this fine, remember when Oracle purchased Sohn and I know a big part of that purchase was to get Java, but I remember saying at the time it was a brilliant acquisition. I was looking at it from a financial standpoint. I think you paid seven and a half billion for it. And it automatically, when you're, when Safra was able to get back to sort of pre acquisition margins, you got the Oracle uplift in terms of revenue multiples. So then that standpoint, it was a no brainer, but the other thing is back in the Unix days, it was like HP. Oracle was the standard. And, and in terms of all the benchmarks and performance, but even then, I'm sure you work closely with HP, but it was like to get the stuff to work together, you know, make sure that it was going to be able to recover according to your standards, but you couldn't actually do that deep engineering that you just described now earlier, Subin you, you, you, you stated that the X sign now in M you get, oh, LTP IO, IOP reads at 27 million IOPS. Uh, you got 19 microseconds latency, so pretty impressive stuff, impressive numbers. And you kind of just went there. Um, but how are you measuring these numbers versus other performance claims from your competitors? What what's, you know, are you, are you stacking the deck? Can you give you share with us there? >>Sure. So Shada incidents, we are mentioning it at the sequel layer. This is not some kind of an ion meter or a micro benchmark. That's looking at just a flash subsystem or just a persistent memory subsystem. This is measured at the compute, not doing an entire set of transactions. And how many times can you finish that? Right? So that's how it's being measured. Now. Most people cannot measure it like that because of the disparity and the number of vendors that are involved in that particular solution, right? You've got servers from vendor a and storage from vendor B, the storage network from vendor C, the operating system from vendor D. How do you tune all of these things on your own? You cannot write. I mean, there's only certain bells and whistles and knobs that are available for you to tune, but so that's how we are measuring the 19 microseconds is at the sequel layer. >>What that means is this a real world customer running a real world. Workload is guaranteed to get that kind of a latency. None of the other suppliers can make that claim. This is the real world capability. Now let's take a look at that 19 microseconds we boast and we say, Hey, we had an order of magnitude two orders of magnitude faster than everybody else. When it comes down to latency. And one things that this is we'll do our magic while it is magical. The magic is really grounded in deep engineering and deep physics and science. The way we implement this is we, first of all, put the persistent memory tier in the storage. And that way it's shared across all of the database instances that are running on the compute tier. Then we have this ultra fast hundred gigabit ethernet RDMA over converged ethernet fabric. >>With this, what we have been able to do is at the hardware level between two network interface guides that are resident on that fabric, we create paths that enable high priority low-latency communication between any two end points on that fabric. And then given the fact that we implemented persistent memory in the storage tier, what that means is with that persistent memory, sitting on the memory bus of the processor in the storage tier, we can perform it remote direct memory access operation from the compute tier to memory address spaces in the persistent memory of the storage tier, without the involvement of the operating system on either end, no context, switches, knowing processing latencies and all of that. So it's hardware to hardware, communication with security built in, which is immutable, right? So all of this is built into the hardware itself. So there's no software involved. You perform a read, the data comes back 19 microseconds, boom. End of story. >>Yeah. So that's key to my next topic, which is security because if you're not getting the OSTP involved and that's, you know, very oftentimes if I can get access to the OSTP, I get privileged. Like I can really take advantage of that as a hacker. But so, but, but before I go there, like Oracle talks about, it's got a huge percentage of the Gayety 7% of the fortune 100 companies run their mission, critical workloads on exit data. But so that's not only important to the companies, but they're serving consumer me, right. I'm going to my ATM or I'm swiping my credit card. And Juan mentioned that you use a layered security model. I just sort of inferred anyway, that, that having this stuff in hardware and not have to involve access to the OS actually contributes to better security. But can you describe this in a bit more detail? >>So yeah, what Brian was talking about was this layered security set differently. It is defense in depth, and that's been our mantra and philosophy for several years now. So what does that entail? As I mentioned earlier, we designed our own servers. We do this for performance. We also do it for security. We've got a number of features that are built into the hardware that make sure that we've got immutable areas of form where we, for instance, let me give you this example. If you take an article x86 server, just a standard x86 server, not even express in the form of an extra data system, even if you had super user privileges sitting on top of an operating system, you cannot modify the bias as a user, as a super user that has to be done through the system management network. So we put gates and protection modes, et cetera, right in the hardware itself. >>Now, of course the security of that hardware goes all the way back to the fact that we own the design. We've got a global supply chain, but we are making sure that our supply chain is protected monitored. And, uh, we also protect the last mile of the supply chain, which is we can detect if there's been any tampering of form where that's been, uh, that's occurred in the hardware while the hardware shipped from our factory to the customers, uh, docks. Right? So we, we know that something's been tampered with the moment it comes back up on the customer. So that's on the hardware. Let's take a look at the operating system, Oracle Linux, we own article the next, the entire source code. And what shipping on exit data is the unbreakable enterprise Connell, the carnal and the operating system itself have been reduced in terms of eliminating all unnecessary packages from that operating system bundle. >>When we deliver it in the form of the data, let's put some real numbers on that. A standard Oracle Linux or a standard Linux distribution has got about 5,000 plus packages. These things include like print servers, web servers, a whole bunch of stuff that you're not absolutely going to use at all on exit data. Why ship those? Because the moment you ship more stuff than you need, you are increasing the, uh, the target, uh, that attackers can get to. So on AXA data, there are only 701 packages. So compare this 5,413 packages on a standard Linux, 701 and exit data. So we reduced the attack surface another aspect on this, when we, we do our own STIG, uh, ASCAP benchmarking. If you take a standard Linux and you run that ASCAP benchmark, you'll get about a 30% pass score on exit data. It's 90 plus percent. >>So which means we are doing the heavy lifting of doing the security checks on the operating system before it even goes out to the factory. And then you layer on Oracle database, transparent data encryption. We've got all kinds of protection capabilities, data reduction, being able to do an authentication on a user ID basis, being able to log it, being able to track it, being able to determine who access the system when and log back. So it's basically defend at every single layer. And then of course the customer's responsibility. It doesn't just stop by getting this high secure, uh, environment. They have to do their own job of them securing their network perimeters, securing who has physical access to the system and everything else. So it's a giant responsibility. And as you mentioned, you know, you as a consumer going to an ATM machine and withdrawing money, you would do 200. You don't want to see 5,000 deducted from your account. And so all of this is made possible with exited and the amount of security focus that we have on the system >>And the bank doesn't want to see it the other way. So I'm geeking out here in the cube, but I got one more question for you. Juan talked about X nine M best system for database consolidation. So I, I kinda, you know, it was built to handle all LTP analytics, et cetera. So I want to push you a little bit on this because I can make an argument that, that this is kind of a Swiss army knife versus the best screwdriver or the best knife. How do you respond to that concern and how, how do you respond to the concern that you're putting too many eggs in one basket? Like, what do you tell people to fear you're consolidating workloads to save money, but you're also narrowing the blast radius. Isn't that a problem? >>Very good question there. So, yes. So this is an interesting problem, and it is a balancing act. As you correctly pointed out, you want to have the economies of scale that you get when you consolidate more and more databases, but at the same time, when something happens when hardware fails or there's an attack, you want to make sure that you have business continuity. So what we are doing on exit data, first of all, as I mentioned, we are designing our own hardware and a building in reliability into the system and at the hardware layer, that means having redundancy, redundancy for fans, power supplies. We even have the ability to isolate faulty cores on the processor. And we've got this a tremendous amount of sweeping that's going on by the system management stack, looking for problem areas and trying to contain them as much as possible within the hardware itself. >>Then you take it up to the software layer. We used our reliability to then build high availability. What that implies is, and that's fundamental to the exited architecture is this entire scale out model, our based system, you cannot go smaller than having two database nodes and three storage cells. Why is that? That's because you want to have high availability of your database instances. So if something happens to one server hardware, software, whatever you got another server that's ready to take on that load. And then with real application clusters, you can then switch over between these two, why three storage cells. We want to make sure that when you have got duplicate copies of data, because you at least want to have one additional copy of your data in case something happens to the disc that has got that only that one copy, right? So the reason we have got three is because then you can Stripe data across these three different servers and deliver high availability. >>Now you take that up to the rack level. A lot of things happen. Now, when you're really talking about the blast radius, you want to make sure that if something physically happens to this data center, that you have infrastructure that's available for it to function for business continuity, we maintain, which is why we have the maximum availability architecture. So with components like golden gate and active data guard, and other ways by which we can keep to this distant systems in sync is extremely critical for us to deliver these high availability paths that make, uh, the whole equation about how many eggs in one basket versus containing the containment of the blast radius. A lot easier to grapple with because business continuity is something which is paramount to us. I mean, Oracle, the enterprise is running on Xcel data. Our high value cloud customers are running on extra data. And I'm sure Bob's going to talk a lot more about the cloud piece of it. So I think we have all the tools in place to, to go after that optimization on how many eggs in one basket was his blast radius. It's a question of working through the solution and the criticalities of that particular instance. >>Okay, great. Thank you for that detailed soup. We're going to give you a break. You go take a breath, get a, get a drink of water. Maybe we'll come back to you. If we have time, let's go to Bob, Bob, Bob tome, X data cloud at customer X nine M earlier this week, Juan said kinda, kinda cocky. What we're bothering, comparing exit data against your cloud, a customer against outpost or Azure stack. Can you elaborate on, on why that is? >>Sure. Or you, you know, first of all, I want to say, I love, I love baby. We go south posts. You know why it affirms everything that we've been doing for the past four and a half years with clouded customer. It affirms that cloud is running that running cloud services in customers' data center is a large and important market, large and important enough that AWS felt that the need provide these, um, you know, these customers with an AWS option, even if it only supports a sliver of the functionality that they provide in the public cloud. And that's what they're doing. They're giving it a sliver and they're not exactly leading with the best they could offer. So for that reason, you know, that reason alone, there's really nothing to compare. And so we, we give them the benefit of the doubt and we actually are using their public cloud solutions. >>Another point most customers are looking to deploy to Oracle cloud, a customer they're looking for a per performance, scalable, secure, and highly available platform to deploy. What's offered their most critical databases. Most often they are Oracle databases does outposts for an Oracle database. No. Does outpost run a comparable database? Not really does outposts run Amazon's top OTP and analytics database services, the ones that are top in their cloud public cloud. No, that we couldn't find anything that runs outposts that's worth comparing against X data clouded customer, which is why the comparisons are against their public cloud products. And even with that still we're looking at numbers like 50 times a hundred times slower, right? So then there's the Azure stack. One of the key benefits to, um, you know, that customers love about the cloud that I think is really under, appreciated it under appreciated is really that it's a single vendor solution, right? You have a problem with cloud service could be I as pass SAS doesn't matter. And there's a single vendor responsible for fixing your issue as your stack is missing big here, because they're a multi-vendor cloud solution like AWS outposts. Also, they don't exactly offer the same services in the cloud that they offer on prem. And from what I hear, it can be a management nightmare requiring specialized administrators to keep that beast running. >>Okay. So, well, thanks for that. I'll I'll grant you that, first of all, granted that Oracle was the first with that same, same vision. I always tell people that, you know, if they say, well, we were first I'm like, well, actually, no, Oracle's first having said that, Bob and I hear you that, that right now, outpost is a one Datto version. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but neither did your cloud when you first launched your cloud. So let's, let's let it bake for a while and we'll come back in a couple of years and see how things compare. So if you're up for it. Yeah. >>Just remember that we're still in the oven too. Right. >>Okay. All right. Good. I love it. I love the, the chutzpah. One also talked about Deutsche bank. Um, and that, I, I mean, I saw that Deutsche bank announcement, how they're working with Oracle, they're modernizing their infrastructure around database. They're building other services around that and kind of building their own sort of version of a cloud for their customers. How does exit data cloud a customer fit in to that whole Deutsche bank deal? Is, is this solution unique to Deutsche bank? Do you see other organizations adopting clouded customer for similar reasons and use cases? >>Yeah, I'll start with that. First. I want to say that I don't think Georgia bank is unique. They want what all customers want. They want to be able to run their most important workloads. The ones today running their data center on exit eight as a non other high-end systems in a cloud environment where they can benefit from things like cloud economics, cloud operations, cloud automations, but they can't move to public cloud. They need to maintain the service levels, the performance, the scalability of the security and the availability that their business has. It has come to depend on most clouds can't provide that. Although actually Oracle's cloud can our public cloud Ken, because our public cloud does run exit data, but still even with that, they can't do it because as a bank, they're subject to lots of rules and regulations, they cannot move their 40 petabytes of data to a point outside the control of their data center. >>They have thousands of interconnected databases, right? And applications. It's like a rat's nest, right? And this is similar many large customers have this problem. How do you move that to the cloud? You can move it piecemeal. Uh, I'm going to move these apps and, you know, not move those apps. Um, but suddenly ended up with these things where some pieces are up here. Some pieces are down here. The thing just dies because of the long latency over a land connection, it just doesn't work. Right. So you can also shut it down. Let's shut it down on, on Friday and move everything all at once. Unfortunately, when you're looking at it, a state decides that most customers have, you're not going to be able to, you're going to be down for a month, right? Who can, who can tolerate that? So it's a big challenge and exited cloud a customer let's then move to the cloud without losing control of their data. >>And without unhappy having to untangle that thousands of interconnected databases. So, you know, that's why these customers are choosing X data, clouded customer. More importantly, it sets them up for the future with exited cloud at customer, they can run not just in their data center, but they could also run in public cloud, adjacent sites, giving them a path to moving some work out of the data center and ultimately into the public cloud. You know, as I said, they're not unique. Other banks are watching and some are acting and it's not just banks. Just last week. Telefonica telco in Spain announced their intent to migrate the bulk of their Oracle databases to excavate a cloud at customer. This will be the key cloud platform running. They're running in their data center to support both new services, as well as mission critical and operational systems. And one last important point exited cloud a customer can also run autonomous database. Even if customers aren't today ready to adopt this. A lot of them are interested in it. They see it as a key piece of the puzzle moving forward in the future and customers know that they can easily start to migrate to autonomous in the future as they're ready. And this of course is going to drive additional efficiencies and additional cost savings. >>So, Bob, I got a question for you because you know, Oracle's playing both sides, right? You've got a cloud, you know, you've got a true public cloud now. And, and obviously you have a huge on-premise state. When I talk to companies that don't own a cloud, uh, whether it's Dell or HPE, Cisco, et cetera, they have made, they make the point. And I agree with them by the way that the world is hybrid, not everything's going into the, to the cloud. However, I had a lot of respect for folks at Amazon as well. And they believed long-term, they'll say this, they've got them on record of saying this, that they believe long-term ultimately all workloads are going to be running in the cloud. Now, I guess it depends on how you define the cloud. The cloud is expanding and all that other stuff. But my question to you, because again, you kind of on both sides, here are our hybrid solutions like cloud at customer. Do you see them as a stepping stone to the cloud, or is cloud in your data center, sort of a continuous sort of permanent, you know, essential play >>That. That's a great question. As I recall, people debated this a few years back when we first introduced clouded customer. And at that point, some people I'm talking about even internal Oracle, right? Some people saw this as a stop gap measure to let people leverage cloud benefits until they're really ready for the public cloud. But I think over the past four and a half years, the changing the thinking has changed a little bit on this. And everyone kind of agrees that clouded customer may be a stepping stone for some customers, but others see that as the end game, right? Not every workload can run in the public cloud, not at least not given the, um, you know, today's regulations and the issues that are faced by many of these regulated industries. These industries move very, very slowly and customers are content to, and in many cases required to retain complete control of their data and they will be running under their control. They'll be running with that data under their control and the data center for the foreseeable future. >>Oh, I got another question for kind of just, if I could take a little tangent, cause the other thing I hear from the, on the, the, the on-prem don't own, the cloud folks is it's actually cheaper to run in on-prem, uh, because they're getting better at automation, et cetera. When you get the exact opposite from the cloud guys, they roll their eyes. Are you kidding me? It's way cheaper to run it in the cloud, which is more cost-effective is it one of those? It depends, Bob. >>Um, you know, the great thing about numbers is you can make, you can, you can kind of twist them to show anything that you want, right? That's a have spreadsheet. Can I, can, I can sell you on anything? Um, I think that there's, there's customers who look at it and they say, oh, on-premise sheet is cheaper. And there's customers who look at it and say, the cloud is cheaper. If you, um, you know, there's a lot of ways that you may incur savings in the cloud. A lot of it has to do with the cloud economics, the ability to pay for what you're using and only what you're using. If you were to kind of, you know, if you, if you size something for your peak workload and then, you know, on prem, you probably put a little bit of a buffer in it, right? >>If you size everything for that, you're gonna find that you're paying, you know, this much, right? All the time you're paying for peak workload all the time with the cloud, of course, we support scaling up, scaling down. We supply, we support you're paying for what you use and you can scale up and scale down. That's where the big savings is now. There's also additional savings associated with you. Don't have the cloud vendors like work. Well, we manage that infrastructure for you. You no longer have to worry about it. Um, we have a lot of automation, things that you use to either, you know, probably what used to happen is you used to have to spend hours and hours or years or whatever, scripting these things yourselves. We now have this automation to do it. We have, um, you eyes that make things ad hoc things, as simple as point and click and, uh, you know, that eliminates errors. And, and it's often difficult to put a cost on those things. And I think the more enlightened customers can put a cost on all of those. So the people that were saying it's cheaper to run on prem, uh, they, they either, you know, have a very stable workload that never changes and their environment never changes, um, or more likely. They just really haven't thought through the, all the hidden costs out there. >>All right, you got some new features. Thank you for that. By the way, you got some new features in, in cloud, a customer, a what are those? Do I have to upgrade to X nine M to, to get >>All right. So, you know, we're always introducing new features for clouded customer, but two significant things that we've rolled out recently are operator access control and elastic storage expansion. As we discussed, many organizations are using Axeda cloud a customer they're attracting the cloud economics, the operational benefits, but they're required by regulations to retain control and visibility of their data, as well as any infrastructure that sits inside their data center with operator access control, enabled cloud operations, staff members must request access to a customer system, a customer, it team grants, a designated person, specific access to a specific component for a specific period of time with specific privileges, they can then kind of view audit controls in real time. And if they see something they don't like, you know, Hey, what's this guy doing? It looks like he's, he's stealing my data or doing something I don't like, boom. >>They can kill that operators, access the session, the connections, everything right away. And this gives everyone, especially customers that need to, you know, regulate remote access to their infrastructure. It gives them the confidence that they need to use exit data cloud, uh, conduct, customer service. And, and the other thing that's new is, um, elastic storage expansion. Customers could out add additional service to their system either at initial deployment or after the fact. And this really provides two important benefits. The first is that they can right size their configuration if they need only the minimum compute capacity, but they don't need the maximum number of storage servers to get that capacity. They don't need to subscribe to kind of a fixed shape. We used to have fixed shapes, I guess, with hundreds of unnecessary database cores, just to get the storage capacity, they can select a smaller system. >>And then incrementally add on that storage. The second benefit is the, is kind of key for many customers. You are at a storage, guess what you can add more. And that way, when you're out of storage, that's really important. Now they'll get to your last part of that question. Do you need a deck, a new, uh, exit aquatic customer XIM system to get these features? No they're available for all gen two exited clouded customer systems. That's really one of the best things about cloud. The service you subscribed to today just keeps getting better and better. And unless there's some technical limitation that, you know, we, and it, which is rare, most new features are available even for the oldest cloud customer systems. >>Cool. And you can bring that in on from my, my last question for you, Bob is a, another one on security. Obviously, again, we talked to Susan about this. It's a big deal. How can customer data be secure if it's in the cloud, if somebody, other than the, their own vetted employees are managing the underlying infrastructure, is is that a concern you hear a lot and how do you handle that? >>You know, it's, it's only something because a lot of these customers, they have big, you know, security people and it's their job to be concerned about that kind of stuff. And security. However, is one of the biggest, but least appreciate appreciated benefits of cloud cloud vendors, such as Oracle hire the best and brightest security experts to ensure that their clouds are secure. Something that only the largest customers can afford to do. You're a small, small shop. You're not going to be able to, you know, hire some of this expertise. So you're better off being in the cloud. Customers who are running in the Oracle cloud can also use articles, data, safe tool, which we provide, which basically lets you inspect your databases, insurance. Sure that everything is locked down and secure and your data is secure. But your question is actually a little bit different. >>It was about potential internal threats to company's data. Given the cloud vendor, not the customer's employees have access to the infrastructure that sits beneath the databases and really the first and most important thing we do to protect customers' data is we encrypt that database by default. Actually Subin listed a whole laundry list of things, but that's the one thing I want to point out. We encrypt your database. It's, you know, it's, it's encrypted. Yes. It sits on our infrastructure. Yes. Our operations persons can actually see those data files sitting on the infrastructure, but guess what? They can't see the data. The data is encrypted. All they see as kind of a big encrypted blob. Um, so they can't access the data themselves. And you know, as you'd expect, we have very tight controls over operations access to the infrastructure. They need to securely log in using mechanisms by stuff to present, prevent unauthorized access. >>And then all access is logged and suspicious. Activities are investigated, but that still may not be enough for some customers, especially the ones I mentioned earlier, the regulated industries. And that's why we offer app operator access control. As I mentioned, that gives customers complete control over the access to the infrastructure. The, when the, what ops can do, how long can they do it? Customers can monitor in real time. And if they see something they don't like they stop it immediately. Lastly, I just want to mention Oracle's data ball feature. This prevents administrators from accessing data, protecting data from road operators, robot, world operations, whether they be from Oracle or from the customer's own it staff, this database option. A lot of ball is sorry. Database ball data vault is included when running a license included service on exited clouded customer. So basically to get it with the service. Got it. >>Hi Tom. Thank you so much. It's unbelievable, Bob. I mean, we've got a lot to unpack there, but uh, we're going to give you a break now and go to Tim, Tim chin, zero data loss, recovery appliance. We always love that name. The big guy we think named it, but nobody will tell us, but we've been talking about security. There's been a lot of news around ransomware attacks. Every industry around the globe, any knucklehead with, uh, with a high school diploma could become a ransomware attack or go in the dark web, get, get ransomware as a service stick, a, put a stick in and take a piece of the VIG and hopefully get arrested. Um, with, when you think about database, how do you deal with the ransomware challenge? >>Yeah, Dave, um, that's an extremely important and timely question. Um, we are hearing this from our customers. We just talk about ha and backup strategies and ransomware, um, has been coming up more and more. Um, and the unfortunate thing that these ransoms are actually paid, um, uh, in the hope of the re you know, the, uh, the ability to access the data again. So what that means it tells me is that today's recovery solutions and processes are not sufficient to get these systems back in a reliable and timely manner. Um, and so you have to pay the ransom, right, to get, uh, to get the, even a hope of getting the data back now for databases. This can have a huge impact because we're talking about transactional workloads. And so even a compromise of just a few minutes, a blip, um, can affect hundreds or even thousands of transactions. This can literally represent hundreds of lost orders, right? If you're a big manufacturing company or even like millions of dollars worth of, uh, financial transactions in a bank. Right. Um, and that's why protecting databases at a transaction level is especially critical, um, for ransomware. And that's a huge contrast to traditional backup approaches. Okay. >>So how do you approach that? What do you, what do you do specifically for ransomware protection for the database? >>Yeah, so we have the zero data loss recovery appliance, which we announced the X nine M generation. Um, it is really the only solution in the market, which offers that transaction level of protection, which allows all transactions to be recovered with zero RPO, zero again, and this is only possible because Oracle has very innovative and unique technology called real-time redo, which captures all the transactional changes from the databases by the appliance, and then stored as well by the appliance, moreover, the appliance validates all these backups and reading. So you want to make sure that you can recover them after you've sent them, right? So it's not just a file level integrity check on a file system. That's actual database level of validation that the Oracle blocks and the redo that I mentioned can be restored and recovered as a usable database, any kind of, um, malicious attack or modification of that backup data and transmit that, or if it's even stored on the appliance and it was compromised would be immediately detected and reported by that validation. >>So this allows administrators to take action. This is removing that system from the network. And so it's a huge leap in terms of what customers can get today. The last thing I just want to point out is we call our cyber vault deployment, right? Um, a lot of customers in the industry are creating what we call air gapped environments, where they have a separate location where their backup copies are stored physically network separated from the production systems. And so this prevents ransomware for possibly infiltrating that last good copy of backups. So you can deploy recovery appliance in a cyber vault and have it synchronized at random times when the network's available, uh, to, to keep it in sync. Right. Um, so that combined with our transaction level zero data loss validation, it's a nice package and really a game changer in protecting and recovering your databases from modern day cyber threats. >>Okay, great. Thank you for clarifying that air gap piece. Cause I, there was some confusion about that. Every data protection and backup company that I know as a ransomware solution, it's like the hottest topic going, you got newer players in, in, in recovery and backup like rubric Cohesity. They raised a ton of dough. Dell has got solutions, HPE just acquired Zerto to deal with this problem. And other things IBM has got stuff. Veem seems to be doing pretty well. Veritas got a range of, of recovery solutions. They're sort of all out there. What's your take on these and their strategy and how do you differentiate? >>Yeah, it's a pretty crowded market, like you said. Um, I think the first thing you really have to keep in mind and understand that these vendors, these new and up and coming, um, uh, uh, vendors start in the copy data management, we call CDN space and they're not traditional backup recovery designed are purpose built for the purpose of CDM products is to provide these fast point in time copies for test dev non-production use, and that's a viable problem and it needs a solution. So you create these one time copy and then you create snapshots. Um, after you apply these incremental changes to that copy, and then the snapshot can be quickly restored and presented as like it's a fully populated, uh, file. And this is all done through the underlying storage of block pointers. So all of this kind of sounds really cool and modern, right? It's like new and upcoming and lots of people in the market doing this. Well, it's really not that modern because we've, we know storage, snapshot technologies has been around for years. Right. Um, what these new vendors have been doing is essentially repackaging the old technology for backup and recovery use cases and having sort of an easier to use automation interface wrapped around it. >>Yeah. So you mentioned a copy data management, uh, last year, active FIO. Uh, they started that whole space from what I recall at one point there, they value more than a billion dollars. They were acquired by Google. Uh, and as I say, they kind of created that, that category. So fast forward a little bit, nine months a year, whatever it's been, do you see that Google active FIO offer in, in, in customer engagements? Is that something that you run into? >>We really don't. Um, yeah, it was really popular and known some years ago, but we really don't hear about it anymore. Um, after the acquisition, you look at all the collateral and the marketing, they are really a CDM and backup solution exclusively for Google cloud use cases. And they're not being positioned as for on premises or any other use cases outside of Google cloud. That's what, 90, 90 plus percent of your market there that isn't addressable now by Activia. So really we don't see them in any of our engagements at this time. >>I want to come back and push it a little bit, uh, on some of the tech that you said, it's kind of really not that modern. Uh, I mean it's, if they certainly position it as modern, a lot of the engineers who are building there's new sort of backup and recovery capabilities came from the hyperscalers, whether it's copy data management, you know, the bot mock quote, unquote modern backup recovery, it's kind of a data management, sort of this nice all in one solution seems pretty compelling. How does recovery clients specifically stack up? You know, a lot of people think it's a niche product for, for really high end use cases. Is that fair? How do you see a town? >>Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I think it's so important to just, you know, understand, again, the fundamental use of this technology is to create data copies for test W's right. Um, and that's really different than operational backup recovery in which you must have this ability to do full and point in time recoverability in any production outage or Dr. Situation. Um, and then more importantly, after you recover and your applications are back in business, that performance must continue to meet servers levels as before. And when you look at a CDM product, um, and you restore a snapshot and you say with that product and the application is brought up on that restored snapshot, what happens or your production application is now running on actual read rideable snapshots on backup storage. Remember they don't restore all the data back to the production, uh, level stores. They're restoring it as a snapshot okay. >>Onto their storage. And so you have a huge difference in performance. Now running these applications where they instantly recovered, if you will database. So to meet these true operational requirements, you have to fully restore the files to production storage period. And so recovery appliance was first and foremost designed to accomplish this. It's an operational recovery solution, right? We accomplish that. Like I mentioned, with this real-time transaction protection, we have incremental forever backup strategies. So that you're just taking just the changes every day. And you, you can create these virtual full backups that are quickly restored, fully restored, if you will, at 24 terabytes an hour. And we validate and document that performance very clearly in our website. And of course we provide that continuous recovery validation for all the backups that are stored on the system. So it's, um, it's a very nice, complete solution. >>It scales to meet your demands, hundreds of thousands of databases, you know, it's, um, you know, these CDM products might seem great and they work well for a few databases, but then you put a real enterprise load and these hundreds of databases, and we've seen a lot of times where it just buckles, you know, it can't handle that kind of load in that, uh, in that scale. Uh, and, and this is important because customers read their marketing and read the collateral like, Hey, instant recovery. Why wouldn't I want that? Well, it's, you know, nicer than it looks, you know, it always sounds better. Right. Um, and so we have to educate them and about exactly what that means for the database, especially backup recovery use cases. And they're not really handled well, um, with their products. >>I know I'm like way over. I had a lot of questions on this announcement and I was gonna, I was gonna let you go, Tim, but you just mentioned something that, that gave me one more question if I may. So you talked about, uh, supporting hundreds of thousands of databases. You petabytes, you have real world use cases that, that actually leverage the, the appliance in these types of environments. Where does it really shine? >>Yeah. Let me just give you just two real quick ones. You know, we have a company energy transfer, the major natural gas and pipeline operator in the U S so they are a big part of our country's critical infrastructure services. We know ransomware, and these kinds of threats are, you know, are very much viable. We saw the colonial pipeline incident that happened, right? And so the attack, right, critical services while energy transfer was running, lots of databases and their legacy backup environments just couldn't keep up with their enterprise needs. They had backups taking like, well, over a day, they had restores taking several hours. Um, and so they had problems and they couldn't meet their SLS. They moved to the recovery appliance and now they're seeing backwards complete with that incremental forever in just 15 minutes. So that's like a 48 times improvement in backup time. >>And they're also seeing restores completing in about 30 minutes, right. Versus several hours. So it's a, it's a huge difference for them. And they also get that nice recovery validation and monitoring by the system. They know the health of their enterprise at their fingertips. The second quick one is just a global financial services customer. Um, and they have like over 10,000 databases globally and they, they really couldn't find a solution other than throw more hardware kind of approach to, uh, to fix their backups. Well, this, uh, not that the failures and not as the issues. So they moved to recovery appliance and they saw their failed backup rates go down for Matta plea. They saw four times better backup and restore performance. Um, and they have also a very nice centralized way to monitor and manage the system. Uh, real-time view if you will, that data protection health for their entire environment. Uh, and they can show this to the executive management and auditing teams. This is great for compliance reporting. Um, and so they finally done that. They have north of 50 plus, um, recovery appliances a day across that on global enterprise. >>Love it. Thank you for that. Um, uh, guys, great power panel. We have a lot of Oracle customers in our community and the best way to, to help them is to, I get to ask you a bunch of questions and get the experts to answer. So I wonder if you could bring us home, maybe you could just sort of give us the, the top takeaways that you want to your customers to remember in our audience to remember from this announcement. >>Sure, sorry. Uh, I want to actually pick up from where Tim left off and talk about a real customer use case. This is hot off the press. One of the largest banks in the United States, they decided to, that they needed to update. So performance software update on 3000 of their database instances, which are spanning 68, exited a clusters, massive undertaking, correct. They finished the entire task in three hours, three hours to update 3000 databases and 68 exited a clusters. Talk about availability, try doing this on any other infrastructure, no way anyone's going to be able to achieve this. So that's on terms of the availability, right? We are engineering in all of the aspects of database management, performance, security availability, being able to provide redundancy at every single level is all part of the design philosophy and how we are engineering this product. And as far as we are concerned, the, the goal is for forever. >>We are just going to continue to go down this path of increasing performance, increasing the security aspect of the, uh, of the infrastructure, as well as our Oracle database and keep going on this. You know, this, while these have been great results that we've delivered with extra data X nine M the, the journey is on and to our customers. The biggest advantage that you're going to get from the kind of performance metrics that we are driving with extra data is consolidation consolidate more, move, more database instances onto the extended platform, gain the benefits from that consolidation, reduce your operational expenses, reduce your capital expenses. They use your management expenses, all of those, bring it down to accelerator. Your total cost of ownership is guaranteed to go down. Those are my key takeaways, Dave >>Guys, you've been really generous with your time. Uh Subin uh, uh, uh, Bob, Tim, I appreciate you taking my questions and we'll willingness to go toe to toe, really? Thanks for your time. >>You're welcome, David. Thank you. Thank you. >>And thank you for watching this video exclusive from the cube. This is Dave Volante, and we'll see you next time. Be well.

>>mhm >>Hello welcome to this cube conversation here in Palo alto California and john for with the cube we had a great conversation around the rise of the cloud and the massive opportunities and challenges around analytics data ai suggestion. Air ceo of thought spot is here with me for conversation. Great to see you. Welcome back to the cube. How are you? >>Well john it is so good to be back. I wish that we could do one of those massive set up that you have and do this face to face but zoom is not bad. >>You guys are doing very well. We have been covering you guys been covering the progress um great technology enabled business. You're on the wave of this cloud analytics you're seeing, we've seen massive changes and structural changes for the better. It's a tailwind for anyone in the cloud data business. And you also on the backdrop of all that the Covid and now the covid is looking at coming out of covid with growth strategies. People are building modern or modernizing their infrastructure and data is not just a department, it's everywhere. You guys are in the middle of this. Take us through what's the update on thought spot. What are you guys doing? What do you see the market right now? Honestly, delta variants coming coming strong but we think will be out of this soon. Where where are >>we look I think it all starts with the users like you said the consumers are demanding more and more from the business they are interacting with. You're no longer happy with being served like uh I'm gonna put you all in a bucket and then Delaware services to you. Everyone's like look look at me, I have likes and dislikes that is probably going to be different from someone that you think are similar to me. So unless you get to know me and deliver bespoke services to me, I'm gonna go somewhere else who does that And the call that the way you do that is through the data that I'm giving to you. So the worst thing you can do is to take my data and still treat me like an average and numbers and what's happening with the cloud is that it is now possible and it wasn't okay. So I grew up in India where newspapers will always have stock market summary on like one full page full of takers and prices and the way it used to work is that you wake up in the morning you look at the newspaper, I don't know if you have had the same thing and then you call your broker is based on in place of that. Can you imagine doing that now? I mean the information is at your fingertips. Hurricane IDa either is actually going to enter in Louisiana somewhere. What good is it? Yesterday morning state on this morning state if I'm trying to make a decision on whether I should pack my stuff and move away or you know finding to from home depot supply chain manager. I shouldn't figure out what should I be doing for Louisiana in the next two days, this is all about the information that's available to you. If you plan to use it and deliver better services for your consumer cloud makes it possible. >>You know, it's interesting you mentioned that the old way things were it seems so slow, then you got the 15 minute quotes, then there's now a real time. Everything has to be real time. And clearly there's two major things happening at the same time which makes exciting the business model and the competitive advantages for leaders and business to use data is critical but also on the developer side where apps are being developed if you don't have the data access, the machine learning won't work well. So as machine learning becomes really courted driving ai this modern analytics cloud product that you guys announced brings to bear kind of two major lifts the developer app modernization as well as competitive advantage for the companies that need to deploy this. So you guys have announced this modern approach analytics cloud, so to speak. What are some of the challenges that companies are having? Because you gotta, if you hit both of those you're gonna right a lot of value. What are some of the challenges for people who want to do this modern cloud? >>I think the challenge is basically all inside in the company. If you ask companies why are they failing to modernize? They will point to what's inside, it's not outside the technology is there the stack is the vendors are there, It is sometimes lack of courage at the leadership level which is a huge problem. I'll give an example. Uh, we have recently announced what we call thoughts part everywhere, which is our way of looking at how to modernize and bring the data inside that you're looking forward to where you are because Lord knows we all have enough apps on our Octa or a single sign on. The last thing you need is one more how no matter how good it is, they don't want to log into yet under their tool, whether it's thought spot or not. But the insights that you are talking about needs to be there when you need. And the difference is uh, the fundamental approach of data analytics was built on embedded model. You know what we are proposing is what we call data apps. So the difference between data apps and the typical dashboard being embedded into your analytics model is sort of like think of it. Uh newspapers telephones and the gap in between. So there is newspapers radio that is walkie talkie and telephone. They're all different and newspapers get printed and it comes to you and you read in the morning, you can talk back to it, you can drag and drop, you can change it right walkie talkies on the other hand, you know, you could have one conversation then come back to that. Whereas phone, you can have true direction conversation? They're all different if you think of embedding it is sort of like the newspaper, the information that you can't talk back. So somebody resembling something that came out monday, you're going to a board meeting on Wednesday and you look at that and make decisions. That is not enough in the new world, you just can't do that. It's not about what a lot of tools can actually answer what the real magic the real value for customers are unlocked when you ask three subsequent questions and answer them and they will come down to when you hear what you have to know. So what? Right and then what if and then the last is what next Imagine you can answer those three questions every business person every time no matter how powerful the dashboard is, they will always have the next question. What? So what? Okay the business customers are turning so what is it good, is it bad? Is it normal or the next question is like now what what do I do with it two, the ability to take all these three questions so what and what a fun. Now what? That requires true interactivity, you know, start with an intent and with an action and that is what we are actually proposing with the data apps which is only possible if you're sitting on top of a snowflake or red shift kind of really powerful and massive cloud data warehouse where the data comes and moves with agility. >>So how has this cloud data model rewritten the rules of business? Because what you're bringing up is essentially now full interactivity really getting in, getting questions that are iterating and building on context to each other. But with all this massive cloud data, people are really excited by this. How is it changing business than the rules of business? >>Yeah. So think about, I mean topical things like there is a hurricane able to enter, hit the cost of the United States. It's a moving target. No one knows exactly where it is going to be. There is only 15 models from here. 10, 10 models from Europe that's going to predict which way it's going to take every millimeter change in that map is going to have significant consequences for lives and resources and money. Right. This is true for every business. What cloud does this? Uh you have your proprietary data for example, let's say you're a bank and you have proprietary data, you're launching a new product And the propriety data was 2025 extremely valuable. But what what's not proprietary but what is available to you? Which could make that data so much more relevant if you layer them on top census data, this was a census here. The census data is updated. Do you not want that vaccination leader? We clearly know that purchasing power parity will vary based on vaccinations and county by county. But is that enough? You need to have street by street is county data enough. If you're going to open startup, Mr Starbucks? No, you probably want to know much more granular data. You wanna know traffic. Is the traffic picking up business usually an office space where people are not coming to office or is it more of a shopping mall where people are still showing all of these data is out there for you? What cloud is making it possible? Unlike the old era where you know, your data is an SFP oracle or carry later in your data center, it's available for you with a matter of clicks. What thought sport modern analytics. Cloud is a simple thing. We are the front end to bring all of this data and make sense of it. You can sit on top of any cloud data and then interact with a complete sort of freedom without compromising on security, compliance or relevance. And what happens is the analysts, the people who are responsible for bringing the data and then making sure that it is secure and delivered. They are no longer doing incremental in chart updates and dashboard updates. What they're doing is solving business problems, business people there freely interacting and making bigger decisions. That actually adds value to their consumers. This is what your customers are looking for, your users are looking for and if you're not doing it, your competitor will do that. So this is why cloud is not a choice for you. It's not an option for you. It is the only way and if you fail to take that back the other way is taking the world out of a cliff. >>Yeah, that's I love it. But I want to get this uh topic of thoughts about anywhere, but I want to just close out on this whole idea of modern cloud scale analytics. What technology under the hood do you guys see that customers should pay attention to with thought spot and in general because the scale there. So is it just machine learning? We hear data lakes, you know, you know different configurations of that. Machine learning is always thrown around like a buzzword. What new technology capability should every executive by your customer look for when it comes to really doing analytics, modern in the cloud >>analytics has to be near real time, Which means what two things speed at scale, make sure it's complex, it can deal with complexity in data structure. Data complexity is a huge problem. Now imagine doing that at scale and then delivering with performance. That means you have to rethink Look Tableau grew out of excellent worksheets that is the market leader, it is a $40 billion dollar market with the largest company having only a billion dollars in revenue. This is a massive place where the problems need to be solved differently. So the underlying technology to me are like I said, these three things, number one cannot handle the cloud scale, you will have hundreds of billions of rows of data that you brought. But when you talk about social media sentiment of customers, analysis of traffic and weather patterns, all of these publicly available valuable data. We're talking trillions of rows of data. So that is scale. Now imagine complexity. So financial sector for example, there is health care where you know some data is visible, some data is not visible, some some is public assumption not or you have to take credit data and let it on top of your marketing data. So it becomes more complex. And the last is when you answer ask a question, can you deliver with absolute confidence that you're giving the right answer With extremely high performance and to do that you have to rebuild the entire staff. You cannot take your, you know, stack that was built in 1990s and so now we can do search So search that is built for these three things with the machine learning and ai essentially helping at every step of the way so that you're not throwing all this inside directly to a human, throw it to a i engine and the ai engine curates what is relevant to you, showing it to you. And then based on your interaction with that inside, I improve my own logic so that the next interaction, the next situation is going to be significantly better. My point is you cannot take a triple a map and then try to act like this google maps. One is built presuming and zoom out and learn from you. The other one is built to give you rich information but doesn't talk back. So the staff has to be fundamentally rebuilt for the club. That's what he's doing. >>I love I love to buy direction. I love the interactivity. This topic of thought spot everywhere, which you mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, you mentioned data apps which by the way I love that concept. I want to do a drill down on that. Uh I saw data marketplace is coming somewhat working but I think it's going to get it better. I love that idea of an app um, and using as developers but you also mentioned embedded analytics. You made a comment about that. So I gotta ask you what's the difference between data apps and embedded analytics? >>Embedded analytics means that uh you know the dashboards that you love but the one that doesn't talk back to you is going to be available inside the app that you built for your other So if a supply chain app that was built by let's say accenture inside that you haven't had your dashboard without logging into tablet. Great. But what you do, what's the big deal? It is the same thing. My point is like I said every time a business user sees a chart. The questions are going to come up. The next 10 question is where the values on earth for example on Yelp imagine if you will piece about I'm hungry. I want to find a restaurant and it says go to this burrito place. It doesn't work like that. It's not good enough. The reason why yell towards is because I start with an intent. I'm hungry. Okay show me all restaurants. Okay I haven't had about it for a while. Let me see the photos. Let me read the reviews. Let me see if my friends have eaten, let me see some menu. Can I walk there? I do all of this but just what underneath it. There is a rich set of data that probably helped have their own secret source and reviews and then you have google map powering some of them. But I don't care all of that is coming together to deliver a seamless experience that satisfies my hunger. Which will be very different from if you use the same map at the same place you might go to an italian place. I go to bed right. That is the power of a data app in business people are still sitting with this. I am hungry. I gotta eat burrito. That's not how it should be in the new world. A business user should have the freedom to add exactly what the customers require looking for and solve that problem without delay. That means every application should be power and enriched with the data where you can interact and customized. That is not something that enterprise customers are actually used to and to do that you need like I said a I and search powering like the google map underneath it, but you need an app like a yelp like app, that's what we deliver. So for example, uh just last week we delivered a service now app on snowflake. You know, it just changes the game. You are thinking about customer cases. You're a large company, you have support coming from Philippines and India some places the quality is good. Some places bad dashboards are not good enough saying that okay, 17% of our customers are unhappy but we are good. That's not the world we live in. That is the tyranny of >>average, >>17% were unhappy. You got to solve for them. >>You mentioned snowflake and they had their earnings. David and I were commenting about how some of the analysts got it all wrong. And you bring up a really good point that kind of highlights the real trend. Not so much how many new customers they got. But there do what customers are doing more. Right? So, so what's happening is that you're starting to see with data apps, it does imply Softwares in there because it's it's application. So the software wrapping around data. This is interesting because people that are using the snowflakes of the world and thought spot your software and your platform, they're doing more with data. So it's not so much. I use snowflake, I use snowflake now I'm going to do more with it. That's the scale kicking. So this is an opportunity to look at that more equation. How do you talk >>with >>when you see that? Because that's the real thing is like, okay, that's I bought software as a service. But what's the more that's happening? What do you see >>that is such an important point? Even I haven't thought about it that john but you're absolutely right. That is sometimes people think of snowflake is taking care of it and no. Yeah, yes, Sarah later used to store once and zeros and they're moving it into club. That is not the point. Like I said, marketplace as an example when you are opening it up for for example, bringing the entire world's data with one click accessible to you securely. That is something you couldn't do on number two. You can have like 100 suppliers and all of a sudden you can now take a single copy of data and then make it available to all of them without actually creating multiple copies and control it differently. That's not something without cloudy, potentially could do. So things like that are fundamentally different. It is much more than like one plus one equals two. It is one plus one is 33. Like our view is that when you are re platform ng like that, you have to think from customer first. What does the customer do? The customer care that you meant from Entre into cloud or event from Teradata snowflake. No, they will care if their lives are better. Are they able to get better services are able to get it faster. That's what it is. So to me it is very simple. The destiny of an insight or data information is action, right? Imagine you're driving a car and if your car updates the gas tank every monday morning, imagine how you know, stressful your life will be for the whole week. I have to wait until next monday wanting to figure out what, whether I have enough gas or not, that's not the new world, that information is there, you need to have it real time and act on it. If you go through the Tesla you realize now that you know, I'm never worried about mileage because it is going to take me to the supercharger because it knows what I need to get to, it knows how long it is going to be, how bad the traffic is. It is synthesizing all of that to give me peace of mind. >>So this is a great >>conversation. That's a >>great question. It's a great conversation because it's really kind of brings in kind of what's happening, you see successful companies that are working with cloud scale and data like you're talking about, it's you get in there, you get the data, the data apps and all of a sudden you hit it, you hit the value equation and it's like almost like discovering oil all of a sudden you have a gusher and then people just see massive increase in value. It's not like the outcome, it's kind of there, you've got to kind of get in there and this is the scale piece and you see people having strategies to do that, they say okay we're gonna get in there, we're going to use the data to iterate but also watch the data learn where's that value, This is that more trend and and there's a successful of the developing. So I have to ask you when you, when you talk about people and culture, um that's not the way it used to be, used to be like okay I'm buying an outcome. I deployed some software mechanisms and at the end of the day there's some value there. Maybe I write it off maybe I, you know, overtime charges and some accounting thing. All changed the culture and the people in charge now are transforming the management techniques. What do you see as a successful mindset for a customer as they managed through these new paradigms and new new success formulas. >>I see a fork in leadership when it comes to courage. There are people with the spine and there are people without the spine and the ones with the spine are absolutely killing it. They are unafraid. They are not saying, look, I'm just going to stick with the incumbents that I've known for the last 20 years. Look, I used to drive a Toyota forever because I love the Toyota. And then you know after Nutanix IPO went to Lexus still Toyota because it's reliable. I don't, I'm not a huge card person. It works. But guess what? I knew they were missing Patrick and I care about the environment. I don't want to keep pushing hydrocarbons out there. It's not politics. I just don't like burning stuff into the earth atmosphere. So when Tesla came out, it's not like I love the quality I don't personally like alone mask, you know after that Thailand fiasco of cave rescue and all of that. But I can clearly see that Toyota is not going to catch up to Tesla in the next 10 years. And guess what? My loyalty is much more to doing the right thing for my family and to the world. And I switched this is what business leaders need to know. They can't simply say, well, tabloid as search to. They're not as good as thought sports. We'll just stick with them because they have done with us. That's what weak leaders do and customers suffer for that. What I see like the last two weeks ago when I was in new york. I met with them. A business leader for one of the largest banks in the world with 25,000 people reporting to him. The person walks into the room wearing shorts and t shirts uh, and was so full of energy and so full of excitement. I thought I'm going to learn from him and he was asking questions about how we do our business in bed and learning from me. I was humbled, I was flawed and I realized that's what a modern business leader looks like. Even if it is one of the largest and oldest banks in the world, that's the kind of people are making big difference and it doesn't matter how all the companies, how old their data is they have mainframes or not. I hear this excuses all the type of er, mainframes, we can't move, we have COBOL going on. And guess what? You keep talking about that and hear leaders like him are going to transform those companies And next thing you know, there are some of the most modern companies in the world. >>Well certainly they, we know that they don't have any innovation strategy or any kind of R and D or anything going on that could be caught flat footed in the companies that didn't have that going on, didn't have the spine or the, the, the vision to, to at least try the cloud before Covid when Covid hit, those companies are really either going out of business or they're hurting the people who were in the cloud really move their teams into the cloud quicker to take advantage of uh, the environment that they had to. So this became a skill issue. So, so this is a big deal. This is a big deal. And having the right skills are people skilled, it will be a, I both be running everything for them. What is your take on that? >>This is an important question. You can't just say you got to do more things or new things and not take care of all things. You know, there's only 89, 10 hours so you can work in their uh, analysts in the Atlantic species constantly if your analysts are sitting there and making incremental dashboards and reports change every day and then backlog is growing for 56 days and the users are unhappy because you're not getting answers and then you ask them to go to new things. It's just not going to be enough and you can hire your way out of it. You have to make sure that if you say that I have 20 100 x product already, I don't want 21st guess what? Sometimes to be five products, you need to probably go to 21 you got to do new things to actually take away the gunk off the old and in that context, the re skilling starts with unburdening, unburdening of menial task, unburned routine task. There is nothing more frustrating than making reports and dashboards that people don't even use And 90% of the time analysts, they're amazing experiences completely wasted when they're making incremental change to tabloid reports. I kind of believe thought spot and self service on top of cloud data takes away all of that without compromising security and then you invest the experienced people. Business experience is so critical. So don't just go and hire university students and say, okay, they'll go come and quote everything the experience that they have in knowing what the business is about and what it matters to their users, that domain experience and then uplevel them res kill them and then bring fresh energy to challenge that and then make sure there is a culture that allows that to happen. These three things. That's why I said leadership is not just about hiring event of firing another, it's about cultivating a culture and living that value by saying, look if I am wrong, call me, call me out in public because I want to show you how I deal with conflict. So this is I love this thing because when I see these large companies where they're making these massive changes so fast, it inspires you to say you know what if they can do it, anyone can do it. But then I also see if the top leadership is not aligned to that. They are just trying to retire without the stock tanking too much and let me just get through two more years. The entire company suffers. >>So that's great to chat with you got great energy, love your business, love the energy, love the focus. Um it's a new wave you're on. It's a big wave um and it's it's relevant, it's cool and relevant and it's the modern way and people have to have a spine to be successful if not for the faint of heart, but the rewards are there if you get this right. This is what I I love about this new environment. Um so I gotta ask you just to kind of close it out. How would you plug the company for the folks watching that might want to engage with you guys. What's the elevator pitch? What's the positioning? How would you describe thought spot in a bumper sticker or in a positioning statement. Take a minute to talk about that. >>Remember martin Anderson said that software is eating the world, I think it is now time to update that data is eating everything including software. If you don't have a way to turn data into bespoke action for your customers. Guess what? Your customers are gonna go somewhere where they that's happening right? You may not be in the data business but the data company is going to take your business. Thought spot is very simple. We want to be the friend tent for all cloud data when it comes to structured because that's where business value numbers is world satisfaction and dissatisfaction for reduces allying it is important to move data to action and thought Spot is the pioneer in doing that through search and I >>I really think you guys want something very powerful. Looking forward to chatting with you at the upcoming eight of a startup showcase. I think data is a developer mindset. It's an app, it's part of everything. It will. Everyone's a data company, everyone is a media company. Data is everything you guys are on something really big and people got a program it with it, make experiences whether it's simple scripts, point and click. That is a new kind of developer out there. You guys are tapping into it. Great stuff. Thank >>you for coming on. Thank you john it's good to talk to you. >>Okay. It's a cube conversation here in Palo alto California were remote. We're virtual. That's the cube virtual. I'm sean for your host. Thanks for watching. Mhm. Mhm

>> From theCUBE Studios in Palo Alto and Boston, bringing you data-driven insights from theCUBE and ETR. This is Breaking Analysis with Dave Vellante. >> UiPath has had a long, strange trip to IPO. How so you ask? Well, the company was started in 2005. But it's culture, is akin to a frenetic startup. The firm shunned conventions and instead of focusing on a narrow geographic area to prove its product market fit before it started to grow, it aggressively launched international operations prior to reaching unicorn status. Well prior, when it had very little revenue, around a million dollars. Today, more than 60% of UiPath business is outside of the United States. Despite its headquarters being in New York city. There's more, according to recent SEC filings, UiPath total revenue grew 81% last year. But it's free cash flow, is actually positive, modestly. Wait, there's more. The company raised $750 million in a Series F in early February, at a whopping $35 billion valuation. Yet, the implied back of napkin valuation, based on the number of shares outstanding after the offering multiplied by the proposed maximum offering price per share yields evaluation of just under 26 billion. (Dave chuckling) And there's even more to this crazy story. Hello everyone, and welcome to this week's Wikibon CUBE Insights, Powered by ETR. In this Breaking Analysis we'll share our learnings, from sifting through hundreds of pages (paper rustling) of UiPath's red herring. So you didn't have to, we'll share our thoughts on its market, its competitive position and its outlook. Let's start with a question. Mark Roberge, is a venture capitalist. He's a managing director at Stage 2 Capital and he's also a teacher, a professor at the B-School in Harvard. One of his favorite questions that he asks his students and others, is what's the best way to grow a company? And he uses this chart to answer that question. On the vertical axis is customer retention and the horizontal axis is growth to growth rate and you can see he's got modest and awesome and so forth. Now, so I want to let you look at it for a second. What's the best path to growth? Of course you want to be in that green circle. Awesome retention of more than 90% and awesome growth but what's the best way to get there? Should you blitz scale and go for the double double, triple, triple blow it out and grow your go to market team on the horizontal axis or should be more careful and focus on nailing retention and then, and only then go for growth? What do you think? What do you think most VCs would say? What would you say? When you want to maybe run the table, capture the flag before your competitors could get there or would you want to take a more conservative approach? What would Daniel Dines say the CEO of UiPath? Again, I'll let you think about that for a second. Let's talk about UiPath. What did they do? Well, I shared at the top that the company shunned conventions and expanded internationally, very rapidly. Well before it hit escape velocity and they grew like crazy and it got out of control and he had to reign it in, plug some holes, but the growth didn't stop, go. So very clearly based on it's performance and reading through the S1, the company has great retention. It uses a metric called gross retention rate which is at 96 or 97%, very high. Says customers are sticking with it. So maybe that's the right formula go for growth and grow like crazy. Let chaos reign, then reign in the chaos as Andy Grove would say. Go fast horizontally, and you can go vertically. Let me tell you what I think Mark Roberge would say, he told me you can do that. But churn is the silent killer of SaaS companies and perhaps the better path is to nail product market fit. And then your retention metrics, before you go into hyperbolic growth mode. There's all science behind this, which may be antithetical to the way many investors want to roll the dice and go for super growth, like go fast or die. Well, it worked for UiPath you might say, right. Well, no. And this is where the story gets even more interesting and long and strange for UiPath. As we shared earlier, UiPath was founded in 2005 out of Bucharest Romania. The company actually started as a software outsourcing startup. It called the company, DeskOver and it built automation libraries and SDKs for companies like Microsoft, IBM and Google and others. It also built automation scripts and developed importantly computer vision technology which became part of its secret sauce. In December 2015, DeskOver changed its name to UiPath and became a Delaware Corp and moved its headquarters to New York City a couple of years later. So our belief is that UiPath actually took the preferred path of Mark Roberge, five ticks North, then five more East. They slow-cooked for the better part of 10 years trying to figure out what market to serve. And they spent that decade figuring out their product market fit. And then they threw gas in the fire. Pretty crazy. All right, let's take a peak (chuckling) at the takeaways from the UiPath S1 the numbers are impressive. 580 million ARR with 65% growth. That asterisk is there because like you, we thought ARR stood for annual recurring revenue. It really stands for annualized renewal run rate. annualized renewal run rate is a metric that is one of UiPath's internal KPIs and are likely communicate that publicly over time. We'll explain that further in a moment. UiPath has a very solid customer base. Nearly 8,000, I've interviewed many of them. They're extremely happy. They have very high retention. They get great penetration into the fortune 500, around 63% of the fortune 500 has UiPath. Most of UiPath business around 70% comes from existing customers. I always say you're going to get more money out of existing customers than new customers but everybody's trying to go out and get new customers. But UiPath I think is taking a really interesting approach. It's their land and expand and they didn't invent that term but I'll come back to that. It kind of reminds me of the early days of Tableau. Actually I think Tableau is an interesting example. Like UiPath, Tableau started out as pretty much a point tool and it had, but it had very passionate customers. It was solving problems. It was simplifying things. And it would have bid into a company and grow and grow. Now the market fundamentals for UiPath are very good. Automation is super hot right now. And the pandemic has created an automation mandate to date and I'll share some data there as well. UiPath is a leader. I'm going to show you the Gartner Magic Quadrant for RPA. That's kind of a good little snapshot. UiPath pegs it's TAM at 60 billion dollars based on some bottoms up calculations and some data from Bain. Pre-pandemic, we pegged it at over 30 billion and we felt that was conservative. Post-pandemic, we think the TAM is definitely higher because of that automation mandate, it's been accelerated. Now, according to the S1, UiPath is going to raise around 1.2 billion. And as we said, if that's an implied valuation that is lower than the Series F, so we suspect the Series F investors have some kind of ratchet in there. UiPath needed the cash from its Series F investors. So it took in 750 million in February and its balance sheet in the S1 shows about 474 million in cash and equivalent. So as I say, it needed that cash. UiPath has had significant expense reductions that we'll show you in some detail. And it's brought in some fresh talent to provide some adult supervision around 70% of its executive leadership team and outside directors came to the company after 2019 and the company's S1, it disclosed that it's independent accounting firm identified last year what it called the "material weakness in our internal controls over financial report relating to revenue recognition for the fiscal year ending 2018, caused by a lack of oversight and technical competence within the finance department". Now the company outlined the steps it took to remediate the problem, including hiring new talent. However, we said that last year, we felt UiPath wasn't quite ready to go public. So it really had to get its act together. It was not as we said at the time, the well-oiled machine, that we said was Snowflake under Mike Scarpelli's firm operating guidance. The guy's the operational guru, but we suspect the company wants to take advantage of this mock market. It's a good time to go public. It needs the cash to bolster its balance sheet. And the public offering is going to give it cache in a stronger competitive posture relative to its main new competitor, autumn newbie competitor Automation Anywhere and the big whales like Microsoft and others that aspire and are watching what UiPath is doing and saying, hey we want a piece of that action. Now, one other note, UiPath's CEO Daniel Dines owns 100% of the class B shares of the company and has a 35 to one voting power. So he controls the company, subject of course to his fiduciary responsibilities but if UiPath, let's say it gets in trouble financially, he has more latitude to do secondary offerings. And at the same time, it's insulated from activist shareholders taking over his company. So lots of detail in the S1 and we just wanted to give you some of those highlights. Here are the pretty graphs. If whoever wrote this F1 was a genius. It's just beautiful. As we said, ARR, annualized renewal run rate all it does is it annualizes the invoice amount from subscriptions in the maintenance portion of the revenue. In other words, the parts that are recurring revenue, it excludes revenue from support and perpetual license. Like one-time licenses and services is just kind of the UiPath's and maybe that's some sort of legacy there. It's future is that recurring revenue. So it's pretty similar to what we think of as ARR, but it's not exact. Lots of customers with a growing number of six and seven figure accounts and a dollar-based net retention of 145%. This figure represents the rate of net expansion of the UiPath ARR, from existing listing customers over a 12 month period. Translation. This says UiPath's existing customers are spending more with the company, land and expand and we'll share some data from ETR on that. And as you can see, the growth of 86% CAGR over the past nine quarters, very impressive. Let's talk about some of the fundamentals of UiPath's business. Here's some data from the Brookings Institute and the OECD that shows productivity statistics for the US. The smaller charts in the right are for Germany and Japan. And I've shared some similar data before the US showed in the middle there. Showed productivity improvements with the personal productivity boom in the mid to late 90s. And it spilled into the early 2000s. But since then you can see it's dropped off quite significantly. Germany and Japan are also under pressure as are most developed countries. China's labor productivity might show declines but it's level, is at level significantly higher than these countries, April 16th headline of the Wall Street Journal says that China's GDP grew 18% this quarter. So, we've talked about the snapback in post-COVID and the post-isolation economy, but these are kind of one time bounces. But anyway, the point is we're reaching the limits of what humans can do alone to solve some of the world's most pressing challenges. And automation is one key to shifting labor away from these more mundane tasks toward more productive and more important activities that can deliver lasting benefits. This according to UiPath, is its stated purpose to accelerate human achievement, big. And the market is ready to be automated, for the most part. Now the post-isolation economy is increasingly going to focus on automation to drive toward activity as we've discussed extensively, I got to share the RPA Magic Quadrant where nearly everyone's a winner, many people are of course happy. Many companies are happy, just to get into the Magic Quadrant. You can't just, you have to have certain criteria. So that's good. That's what I mean by everybody wins. We've reported extensively on UiPath and Automation Anywhere. Yeah, we think we might shuffle the deck a little bit on this picture. Maybe creating more separation between UiPath and Automation Anywhere and the rest. And from our advantage point, UiPath's IPO is going to either force Automation Anywhere to respond. And I don't know what its numbers are. I don't know if it's ready. I suspect it's not, we'd see that already but I bet you it's trying to get there. Or if they don't, UiPath is going to extend its lead even further, that would be our prediction. Now personally, I would have Pegasystems higher on the vertical. Of course they're not an IPO, RPA specialist, so I kind of get what Gartner is doing there but I think they're executing well. And I'd probably, in a broader context I'd probably maybe drop blue prism down a little bit, even though last year was a pretty good year for the company. And I would definitely have Microsoft looming larger up in the upper left as a challenger more than a visionary in my opinion, but look, Gartner does good work and its analysts are very deep into this stuff, deeper than I am. So I don't want to discount that. It's just how I see it. Let's bring in the ETR data and show some of the backup here. This is a candlestick chart that shows the components of net score, which is spending momentum, however, ETR goes out every quarter. Says you're spending more, you're spending less. They subtract the lesses from the mores and that's net score. It's more complicated than that, but that's that blue line that you see in the top and yes it's trending downward but it's still highly elevated. We'll talk about that. The market share is in the yellow line at the bottom there. That green represents the percentage of customers that are spending more and the reds are spending less or replacing. That gray is flat. And again, even though UiPath's net score is declining, it's that 61%, that's a very elevated score. Anything over 40% in our view is impressive. So it's, UiPath's been holding in the 60s and 70s percents over the past several years. That's very good. Now that yellow line market share, yes it dips a bit, but again it's nuanced. And this is because Microsoft is so pervasive in the data stat. It's got so many mentions that it tends to somewhat overwhelm and skew these curves. So let's break down net score a little bit. Here's another way to look at this data. This is a wheel chart we show this often it shows the components of net score and what's happening here is that bright red is defection. So look at it, it's very small that wouldn't be churn. It's tiny. Remember that it's churn is the killer for software companies. And so that forest green is existing customers spending more at 49%, that's big. That lime green is new customers. So again, it's from the S1, 70% of UiPath's revenue comes from existing customers. And this really kind of underscores that. Now here's more evidence in the ETR data in terms of land and expand. This is a snapshot from the January survey and it lines up UiPath next to its competitors. And it cuts the data just on those companies that are increasing spending. It's so that forest green that we saw earlier. So what we saw in Q1 was the pace of new customer acquisition for UiPath was decelerating from previous highs. But UiPath, it shows here is outpacing its competition in terms of increasing spend from existing customers. So we think that's really important. UiPath gets very high scores in terms of customer satisfaction. There's, I've talked to many in theCUBE. There's places on the web where we have customer ratings. And so you want to check that out, but it'll confirm that the churn is low, satisfaction is high. Yeah, they get dinged sometimes on pricing. They get dinged sometimes, lately on service cause they're growing so fast. So, maybe they've taken the eye off the ball in a couple of counts, but generally speaking clients are leaning in, they're investing heavily. They're creating centers of excellence around RPA and automation, and UiPath is very focused on that. Again, land and expand. Now here's further evidence that UiPath has a strong account presence, even in accounts where its competitors are presence. In the 149 shared accounts from the Q1 survey where UiPath, Automation Anywhere and Microsoft have a presence, UiPath's net score or spending velocity is not only highly elevated, it's relative momentum, is accelerating compared to last year. So there's some really good news in the numbers but some other things stood out in the S1 that are concerning or at least worth paying attention to. So we want to talk about that. Here is the income statement and look at the growth. The company was doing like 1 million dollars in 2015 like I said before. And when it started to expand internationally it surpassed 600 million last year. It's insane growth. And look at the gross profit. Gross margin is almost 90% because revenue grew so rapidly. And last year, its cost went down in some areas like its services, less travel was part of that. Now jump down to the net loss line. And normally you would expect a company growing at this rate to show a loss. The street wants growth and UiPath is losing money, but it's net loss went from 519 million, half a billion down to only 92 million. And that's because the operating expenses went way down. Now, again, typically a company growing at this rate would show corresponding increases in sales and marketing expense, R&D and even G&A but all three declined in the past 12 months. Now reading the notes, there was definitely some meaningful savings from no travel and canceled events. UiPath has great events around the world. In fact theCUBE, Knock Wood is going to be at its event in October, in Las Vegas at the Bellagio . So we're stoked for that. But, to drop expenses that precipitously with such high growth, is kind of strange. Go look at Snowflake's income statement. They're in hyper-growth as well. We like to compare it to Snowflake is a very well-run company and it's in hyper-growth mode, but it's sales and marketing and R&D and G&A expense lines. They're all growing along with that revenue. Now, perhaps they're growing at a slower rate. Perhaps the percent of revenue is declining as it should as they achieve operating leverage but they're not shrinking in absolute dollar terms as shown in the UiPath S1. So either UiPath has applied some magic automation mojo to it's business (chuckling). Like magic beans or magic grits with my cousin Vinny. Maybe it has found the Holy grail of operating leverage. It's a company that's all about automation or the company was running way too hot on the expense side and had a cut and clean up its income statement for the IPO and conserve some cash. Our guess is the latter but maybe there's a combination there. We'll give him the benefit of the doubt. And just to add a bit more to this long, strange trip. When have you seen an explosive growth company just about to go public, show positive cashflow? Maybe it's happened, but it's rare in the tech and software business these days. Again, go look at companies like Snowflake. They're not showing positive cashflow, not yet anyway. They're growing and trying to run the table. So you have to ask why is UiPath operating this way? And we think it's because they were so hot and burning cash that they had to reel things in a little bit and get ready to IPO. It's going to be really interesting to see how this stock reacts when it does IPO. So here's some things that we want you to pay attention to. We have to ask. Is this IPO, is it window dressing? Or did UiPath again uncover some new productivity and operating leverage model. I doubt there's anything radically new here. This company doesn't want to miss the window. So I think it said, okay, let's do this. Let's get ready for IPO. We got to cut expenses. It had a lot of good advisors. It surrounded itself with a new board. Extended that board, new management, and really want to take advantage of this because it needs the cash. In addition, it really does want to maintain its lead. It's got Automation Anywhere competing with it. It's got Microsoft looming large. And so it wants to continue to lead. It's made some really interesting acquisitions. It's got very strong vision as you saw in the Gartner Magic Quadrant and obviously it's executing well but it's really had to tighten things up. So we think it's used the IPO as a fortune forcing function to really get its house in order. Now, will the automation mandate sustain? We think it will. The forced match to digital worked, it was effective. It wasn't pleasant, but even in a downturn we think it will confer advantage to automation players and particularly companies like UiPath that have simplified automation in a big way and have done a great job of putting in training, great freemium model and has a culture that is really committed to the future of humankind. It sounds ambitious and crazy but talk to these people, you'll see it's true. Pricing, UiPath had to dramatically expand or did dramatically expand its portfolio and had to reprice everything. And I'm not so worried about that. I think it'll figure that pricing out for that portfolio expansion. My bigger concern is for SaaS companies in general. I don't like SaaS pricing that has been popularized by Workday and ServiceNow, and Salesforce and DocuSign and all these companies that essentially lock you in for a year or two and basically charge you upfront. It's really is a one-way street. You can't dial down. You can only dial up. It's not true Cloud pricing. You look at companies like Stripe and Datadog and Snowflake. It is true Cloud pricing. It's consumption pricing. I think the traditional SaaS pricing model is flawed. It's very unfairly weighted toward the vendors and I think it's going to change. Now, the reason we put cloud on the chart is because we think Cloud pricing is the right way to price. Let people dial up and dial down, let them cancel anytime and compete on the basis of your product excellence. And yeah, give them a price concession if they do lock in. But the starting point we think should be that flexibility, pay by the drink. Cancel anytime. I mentioned some companies that are doing that as well. If you look at the modern SaaS startups and the forward-thinking VCs they're really pushing their startups to this model. So we think over time that the term lock-in model is going to give way to true consumption-based pricing and at the clients option, allow them to lock-in for a better price, way better model. And UiPath's Cloud revenue today is minimal but over time, we think it's going to continue to grow that cloud. And we think it will force a rethink in pricing and in revenue recognition. So watch for that. How is the street going to react to Daniel Dines having basically full control of the company? Generally, we feel that that solid execution if UiPath can execute is going to outweigh those concerns. In fact, I'm very confident that it will. We'll see, I kind of like what the CEO says has enough mojo to say (chuckling) you know what, I'm not going to let what happened to for instance, EMC happen to me. You saw Michael Dell do that. You saw just this week they're spinning out VMware, he's maintaining his control. VMware Dell shareholders get get 40.44 shares for every Dell share they're holding. And who's the biggest shareholder? Michael Dell. So he's, you got two companies, one chairman. He's controlling the table. Michael Dell beat the great Icahn. Who beats Carl Icahn? Well, Michael Dell beats Carl Icahn. So Daniel Dines has looked at that and says, you know what? I'm not just going to give up my company. And the reason I like that with an if, is that we think will allow the company to focus more on the long-term. The if is, it's got to execute otherwise it's so much pressure and look, the bottom line is that UiPath has really favorable market momentum and fundamentals. But it is signing up for the 90 day short clock. The fact that the CEO has control again means they can look more long term and invest accordingly. Oftentimes that's easier said than done. It does come down to execution. So it is going to be fun to watch (chuckling). That's it for now, thanks to the community for your comments and insights and really always appreciate your feedback. Remember, I publish each week on Wikibon.com and siliconangle.com and these episodes are all available as podcasts. All you got to do is search for the Breaking Analysis podcast. You can always connect with me on Twitter @dvellante or email me at david.vellante@siliconangle.com or comment on my LinkedIn posts. And we'll see you in clubhouse. Follow me and get notified when we start a room, which we've been doing with John Furrier and Sarbjeet Johal and others. And we love to riff on these topics and don't forget, please check out etr.plus for all the survey action. This is Dave Vellante, for theCUBE Insights Powered by ETR. Be well everybody. And we'll see you next time. (gentle upbeat music)

>>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome to cube three 60 fives coverage of the Accenture executive summit. Part of AWS reinvent. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. Today we are joined by a cube alum Karthik NurAin. He is Accenture senior managing director and lead Accenture cloud. First, welcome back to the show Karthik. >>Thank you. Thanks for having me here. >>Always a pleasure. So I want to talk to you. You are an industry veteran, you've been in Silicon Valley for decades. Um, I want to hear from your perspective what the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been, what are you hearing from clients? What are they struggling with? What are their challenges that they're facing day to day? >>I think, um, COVID-19 is being a eye-opener from, you know, various facets, you know, um, first and foremost, it's a, it's a head, um, situation that everybody's facing, which is not just, uh, highest economic bearings to it. It has enterprise, um, an organization with bedding to it. And most importantly, it's very personal to people, um, because they themselves and their friends, family near and dear ones are going to this challenge, uh, from various different dimension. But putting that aside, when you come to it from an organization enterprise standpoint, it has changed everything well, the behavior of organizations coming together, working in their campuses, working with each other as friends, family, and, uh, um, near and dear colleagues, all of them are operating differently. So that's what big change to get things done in a completely different way, from how they used to get things done. >>Number two, a lot of things that were planned for normal scenarios, like their global supply chain, how they interact with their client customers, how they coordinate with their partners on how that employees contribute to the success of an organization at all changed. And there are no data models that give them a hint of something like this for them to be prepared for this. So we are seeing organizations, um, that have adapted to this reasonably okay, and are, you know, launching to innovate faster in this. And there are organizations that have started with struggling, but are continuing to struggle. And the gap, uh, between the leaders and legs are widening. So this is creating opportunities in a different way for the leaders, um, with a lot of pivot their business, but it's also creating significant challenge for the lag guides, uh, as we defined in our future systems research that we did a year ago, uh, and those organizations are struggling further. So the gap is actually whitening. >>So you've just talked about the widening gap. I've talked about the tremendous uncertainty that so many companies, even the ones who have adapted reasonably well, uh, in this, in this time, talk a little bit about Accenture cloud first and why, why now? >>I think it's a great question. Um, we believe that for many of our clients COVID-19 has turned, uh, cloud from an experimentation aspiration to an origin mandate. What I mean by that is everybody has been doing something on the other end cloud. There's no company that says we don't believe in cloud. Uh, our, we don't want to do cloud. It was how much they did in cloud. And they were experimenting. They were doing the new things in cloud. Um, but they were operating a lot of their core business outside the cloud or not in the cloud. Those organizations have struggled to operate in this new normal, in a remote fashion as with us, uh, that ability to pivot to all the changes the pandemic has brought to them. But on the other hand, the organizations that had a solid foundation in cloud were able to collect faster and not actually gone into the stage of innovating faster and driving a new behavior in the market, new behavior within their organization. >>So we are seeing that spend to make is actually fast-forwarded something that we always believed was going to happen. This, uh, uh, moving to cloud over the next decade is fast, forwarded it to, uh, happen in the next three to five years. And it's created this moment where it's a once in an era, really replatforming of businesses in the cloud that we are going to see. And we see this moment as a cloud first moment where organizations will use cloud as the, the canvas and the foundation with which they're going to reimagine their business after they were born in the cloud. Uh, and this requires a whole new strategy. Uh, and as Accenture, we are getting a lot in cloud, but we thought that this is the moment where we bring all of that capabilities together because we need a strategy for addressing, moving to cloud are embracing cloud in a holistic fashion. And that's what Accenture cloud first brings together a holistic strategy, a team that's 70,000 plus people that's coming together with rich cloud skills, but investing to tie in all the various capabilities of cloud to Delaware, that holistic strategy to our clients. So I want you to >>Delve into a little bit more about what this strategy actually entails. I mean, it's clearly about embracing change and being willing to experiment and, and having capabilities to innovate. Can you tell us a little bit more about what this strategy entails? >>Yeah. The reason why we say that there's a need for the strategy is, like I said, COVID is not new. There's almost every customer client is doing something with the cloud, but all of them have taken different approaches to cloud and different boundaries to cloud. Some organizations say, I just need to consolidate my multiple data centers to a small data center footprint and move the nest to cloud. Certain other organizations say that well, I'm going to move certain workloads to cloud. Certain other organizations said, well, I'm going to build this Greenfield application or workload in cloud. Certain other said, um, I'm going to use the power of AI ML in the cloud to analyze my data and drive insights. But a cloud first strategy is all of this tied with the corporate strategy of the organization with an industry specific cloud journey to say, if in this current industry, if I were to be reborn in the cloud, would I do it in the exact same passion that I did in the past, which means that the products and services that they offer need to be the matching, how they interact with that customers and partners need to be revisited, how they bird and operate their IP systems need to be the, imagine how they unearthed the data from all the systems under which they attract need to be liberated so that you could drive insights of cloud. >>First strategy. Hans is a corporate wide strategy, and it's a C-suite responsibility. It doesn't take the ownership away from the CIO or CIO, but the CIO is, and CDI was felt that it was just their problem and they were to solve it. And everyone as being a customer, now, the center of gravity is elevated to it becoming a C-suite agenda on everybody's agenda, where probably the CDI is the instrument to execute that that's a holistic cloud-first strategy >>And it, and it's a strategy, but the way you're describing it, it sounds like it's also a mindset and an approach, as you were saying, this idea of being reborn in the cloud. So now how do I think about things? How do I communicate? How do I collaborate? How do I get done? What I need to get done. Talk a little bit about how this has changed, the way you support your clients and how Accenture cloud first is changing your approach to cloud services. >>Wonderful. Um, you know, I did not color one very important aspect in my previous question, but that's exactly what you just asked me now, which is to do all of this. I talked about all of the vehicles, uh, an organization or an enterprise is going to go to, but the good part is they have one constant. And what is that? That is their employees, uh, because you do, the employees are able to embrace this change. If they are able to, uh, change them, says, pivot them says retool and train themselves to be able to operate in this new cloud. First one, the ability to reimagine every function of the business would be happening at speed. And cloud first approach is to do all of this at speed, because innovation is deadly proposed there, do the rate of probability on experimentation. You need to experiment a lot for any kind of experimentation. >>There's a probability of success. Organizations need to have an ability and a mechanism for them to be able to innovate faster for which they need to experiment a lot. The more the experiment and the lower cost at which they experiment is going to help them experiment a lot and experiment demic speed, fail fast, succeed more. And hence, they're going to be able to operate this at speed. So the cloud-first mindset is all about speed. I'm helping the clients fast track that innovation journey, and this is going to happen. Like I said, across the enterprise and every function across every department, I'm the agent of this change is going to be the employee's weapon, race, this change through new skills and new grueling and new mindset that they need to adapt to. >>So Karthik what you're describing it, it sounds so exciting. And yet for a pandemic wary workforce, that's been working remotely that may be dealing with uncertainty if for their kid's school and for so many other aspects of their life, it sounds hard. So how are you helping your clients, employees get onboard with this? And because the change management is, is often the hardest part. >>Yeah, I think it's, again, a great question. A bottle has only so much capacity. Something got to come off for something else to go in. That's what you're saying is absolutely right. And that is again, the power of cloud. The reason why cloud is such a fundamental breakthrough technology and capability for us to succeed in this era, because it helps in various forms. What we talked so far is the power of innovation that could create, but cloud can also simplify the life of the employees in an enterprise. There are several activities and tasks that people do in managing their complex infrastructure, complex ID landscape. They used to do certain jobs and activities in a very difficult, uh, underground about with cloud has simplified. And democratised a lot of these activities. So that things which had to be done in the past, like managing the complexity of the infrastructure, keeping them up all the time, managing the, um, the obsolescence of the capabilities and technologies and infrastructure, all of that could be offloaded to the cloud. >>So that the time that is available for all of these employees can be used to further innovate. Every organization is good to spend almost the same amount of money, but rather than spending activities, by looking at the rear view mirror on keeping the lights on, they're going to spend more money, more time, more energy, and spend their skills on things that are going to add value to their organization. Because you, every innovation that an enterprise can give to their end customer need not come from that enterprise. The word of platform economy is about democratising innovation. And the power of cloud is to get all of these capabilities from outside the four walls of the enterprise, >>It will add value to the organization, but I would imagine also add value to that employee's life because that employee, the employee will be more engaged in his or her job and therefore bring more excitement and energy into her, his or her day-to-day activities too. >>Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is, this is a normal evolution we would have seen everybody would have seen in their lives, that they keep moving up the value chain of what activities that, uh, gets performed buying by those individuals. And there's this, um, you know, no more true than how the United States, uh, as an economy has operated where, um, this is the power of a powerhouse of innovation, where the work that's done inside the country keeps moving up to that. You change. And, um, us leverages the global economy for a lot of things that is required to power the United States and that global economic, uh, phenomenon is very proof for an enterprise as well. There are things that an enterprise needs to do them soon. There are things an employee needs to do themselves. Um, but there are things that they could leverage from the external innovation and the power of innovation that is coming from technologies like cloud. >>So at Accenture, you have long, long, deep Stan, sorry, you have deep and long standing relationships with many cloud service providers, including AWS. How does the Accenture cloud first strategy, how does it affect your relationships with those providers? >>Yeah, we have great relationships with cloud providers like AWS. And in fact, in the cloud world, it was one of the first, um, capability that we started about years ago, uh, when we started developing these capabilities. But five years ago, we hit a very important milestone where the two organizations came together and said that we are forging a pharma partnership with joint investments to build this partnership. And we named that as a Accenture, AWS business group ABG, uh, where we co-invest and brought skills together and develop solutions. And we will continue to do that. And through that investment, we've also made several acquisitions that you would have seen in the recent times, like, uh, an invoice and gecko that we made acquisitions in in Europe. But now we're taking this to the next level. What we are saying is two cloud first and the $3 billion investment that we are bringing in, uh, through cloud first, we are going to make specific investment to create unique joint solution and landing zones foundation, um, cloud packs with which clients can accelerate their innovation or their journey to cloud first. >>And one great example is what we are doing with Takeda, uh, billable, pharmaceutical giant, um, between we've signed a five-year partnership. And it was out in the media just a month ago or so, where we are, the two organizations are coming together. We have created a partnership as a power of three partnership where the three organizations are jointly hoarding hats and taking responsibility for the innovation and the leadership position that Decatur wants to get to with this. We are going to simplify their operating model and organization by providing it flexibility. We're going to provide a lot more insights. Tequila has a 230 year old organization. Imagine the amount of trapped data and intelligence that is there. How about bringing all of that together with the power of AWS and Accenture and Takeda to drive more customer insights, um, come up with breakthrough, uh, R and D uh, accelerate clinical trials and improve the patient experience using AI ML and edge technologies. So all of these things that we will do through this partnership with joint investment from Accenture cloud first, as well as partner like AWS, so that Takeda can realize their gain. And, uh, they're seeing you actually made a statement that five years from now, every ticket an employee will have an AI assistant. That's going to make that beginner employee move up the value chain on how they contribute and add value to the future of tequila with the AI assistant, making them even more equipped and smarter than what they could be otherwise. >>So, one last question to close this out here. What is your future vision for, for Accenture cloud first? What are we going to be talking about at next year's Accenture executive summit? Yeah, the future >>Is going to be, um, evolving, but the part that is exciting to me, and this is, uh, uh, a fundamental belief that we are entering a new era of industrial revolution from industry first, second, and third industry. The third happened probably 20 years ago with the advent of Silicon and computers and all of that stuff that happened here in the Silicon Valley. I think the fourth industrial revolution is going to be in the cross section of, uh, physical, digital and biological boundaries. And there's a great article, um, in what economic forum that, that people, uh, your audience can Google and read about it. Uh, but the reason why this is very, very important is we are seeing a disturbing phenomenon that over the last 10 years, they are seeing a Blackwing of the, um, labor productivity and innovation, which has dropped to about 2.1%. When you see that kind of phenomenon over that longer period of time, there has to be breakthrough innovation that needs to happen to come out of this barrier and get to the next base camp, as I would call it to further this productivity, um, lack that we are seeing, and that is going to happen in the intersection of the physical, digital and biological boundaries. >>And I think cloud is going to be the connective tissue between all of these three, to be able to provide that where it's the edge, especially is going to come closer to the human lives. It's going to come from cloud pick totally in your mind, you can think about cloud as central, either in a private cloud, in a data center or in a public cloud, you know, everywhere. But when you think about edge, it's going to be far reaching and coming close to where we live and maybe work and very, um, get entertained and so on and so forth. And there's going to be, uh, intervention in a positive way in the field of medicine, in the field of entertainment, in the field of, um, manufacturing in the field of, um, uh, you know, mobility. When I say mobility, human mobility, people, transportation, and so on and so forth with all of this stuff, cloud is going to be the connective tissue and the vision of cloud first is going to be, uh, you know, blowing through this big change that is going to happen. And the evolution that is going to happen where, you know, the human grace of mankind, um, our person kind of being very gender neutral in today's world. Um, go first needs to be that beacon of, uh, creating the next generation vision for enterprises to take advantage of that kind of an exciting future. And that's why it, Accenture. We say, let there be change as our, as a purpose. >>I genuinely believe that cloud first is going to be in the forefront of that change agenda, both for Accenture as well as for the rest of the world. Excellent. Let there be change, indeed. Thank you so much for joining us Karthik. A pleasure I'm Rebecca night's stay tuned for more of Q3 60 fives coverage of the Accenture executive summit >>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS >>Welcome everyone to the Q virtual and our coverage of the Accenture executive summit, which is part of AWS reinvent 2020. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. Today, we are talking about the green, the cloud and joining me is Kishor Dirk. He is Accenture senior managing director cloud first global services lead. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Kishor nice to meet you. So I want to start by asking you what it is that we mean when we say green cloud, we know that sustainability is a business imperative. So many organizations around the world are committing to responsible innovation, lowering carbon emissions, but what's this, what is it? What does it mean when they talk about cloud from a sustainability perspective? I think it's about responsible innovation being cloud is a cloud first approach that has profits and benefit the clients by helping reduce carbon emissions. >>Think about it this way. You have a large number of data centers. Each of these data centers are increasing by 14% every year. And this double digit growth. What you're seeing is these data centers and the consumption is nearly coolant to the kind of them should have a country like Spain. So the magnitude of the problem that is out there and how do we pursue a green approach. If you look at this, our Accenture analysis, in terms of the migration to public cloud, we've seen that we can reduce that by 59 million tons of CO2 per year with just the 5.9% reduction in total ID emissions and equates this to 22 million cars off the road. And the magnitude of reduction can go a long way in meeting climate change commitments, particularly for data sensitive. >>Wow, that's incredible. What the numbers that you're putting forward are, are absolutely mind blowing. So how does it work? Is it a simple cloud migration? So, you know, when companies begin their cloud journey and then they confront, uh, with them a lot of questions, the decision to make, uh, this particular, uh, element sustainable in the solution and benefits they drive and they have to make wise choices, and then they will be unprecedented level of innovation leading to both a greener planet, as well as, uh, a greener balance sheet, I would say, uh, so effectively it's all about ambition data, the ambition, greater the reduction in carbon emissions. So from a cloud migration perspective, we look at it as a, as a simple solution with approaches and sustainability benefits, uh, that vary based on things it's about selecting the right cloud provider, a very carbon thoughtful provider and the first step towards a sustainable cloud journey. >>And here we're looking at cloud operators, obviously they have different corporate commitments towards sustainability, and that determines how they plan, how they build, uh, their, uh, uh, the data centers, how they are consumed and assumptions that operate there and how they, or they retire their data centers. Then, uh, the next element that you want to do is how do you build it ambition, you know, for some of the companies, uh, and average on-prem, uh, drives about 65% energy reduction and the carbon emissions and reduction number was 84%, which is kind of good, I would say. But then if you could go up to 98% by configuring applications to the cloud, that is significant benefit for, uh, for the board. And obviously it's a, a greener cloud that we're talking about. And then the question is, how far can you go? And, uh, you know, the, obviously the companies have to unlock greater financial societal environmental benefits, and Accenture has this cloud based circular operations and sustainable products and services that we bring into play. So it's a, it's a very thoughtful, broader approach that w bringing in, in terms of, uh, just a simple concept of cloud migration, >>We know that in the COVID era, shifting to the cloud has really become a business imperative. How is Accenture working with its clients at a time when all of this movement has been accelerated? How do you partner and what is your approach in terms of helping them with their migration? >>Yeah, I mean, let, let me talk a little bit about the pandemic and the crisis that is there today. And if you really look at that in terms of how we partnered with a lot of our clients in terms of the cloud first approach, I'll give you a couple of examples. We worked with rolls Royce, McLaren, DHL, and others, as part of the ventilator challenge consortium, again, to, uh, coordinate production of medical ventilator surgically needed for the UK health service. Many of these farms I've taken similar initiatives in, in terms of, uh, you know, from a few manufacturers hand sanitizers and to hand sanitizers, and again, leading passionate labels, making PPE, and again, at the UN general assembly, we launched the end-to-end integration guide that helps company essentially to have a sustainable development goals. And that's how we have parking at a very large scale. >>Uh, and, and if you really look at how we work with our clients and what is Accenture's role there, uh, you know, from, in terms of our clients, you know, there are multiple steps that we look at. One is about, uh, planning, building, deploying, and managing an optimal green cloud solution. And Accenture has this concept of, uh, helping clients with a platform to kind of achieve that goal. And here we are having, we are having a platform or a mine app, which has a module called BGR advisor. And this is a capability that helps you provide optimal green cloud, uh, you know, a business case, and obviously a blueprint for each of our clients and right from the start in terms of how do we complete cloud migration recommendation to an improved solution, accurate accuracy to obviously bringing in the end to end perspective, uh, you know, with this green card advisor capability, we're helping our clients capture what we call as a carbon footprint for existing data centers and provide, uh, I would say the current cloud CO2 emission score that, you know, obviously helps them, uh, with carbon credits that can further that green agenda. >>So essentially this is about recommending a green index score, reducing carbon footprint for migration migrating for green cloud. And if we look at how Accenture itself is practicing what we preach, 95% of our applications are in the cloud. And this migration has helped us, uh, to lead to about $14.5 million in benefit. And in the third year and another 3 million analytics costs that are saved through right-sizing a service consumption. So it's a very broad umbrella and a footprint in terms of how we engage societaly with the UN or our clients. And what is it that we exactly bring to our clients in solving a specific problem? >>Accenture isn't is walking the walk, as you say yes. >>So that's that instead of it, we practice what we preach, and that is something that we take it to heart. We want to have a responsible business and we want to practice it. And we want to advise our clients around that >>You are your own use case. And so they can, they know they can take your advice. So talk a little bit about, um, the global, the cooperation that's needed. We know that conquering this pandemic is going to take a coordinated global effort and talk a little bit about the great reset initiative. First of all, what is that? Why don't we, why don't we start there and then we can delve into it a little bit more. >>Okay. So before we get to how we are cooperating, the great reset, uh, initiative is about improving the state of the world. And it's about a group of global stakeholders cooperating to simultaneously manage the direct consequences of their COVID-19 crisis. Uh, and in spirit of this cooperation that we're seeing during COVID-19, uh, which will obviously either to post pandemic, to tackle the world's pressing issues. As I say, uh, we are increasing companies to realize a combined potential of technology and sustainable impact to use enterprise solutions, to address with urgency and scale, and, um, obviously, uh, multiple challenges that are facing our world. One of the ways that you're increasing, uh, companies to reach their readiness cloud with Accenture's cloud core strategy is to build a solid foundation that is resilient and will be able to faster to the current, as well as future times. Now, when you think of cloud as the foundation, uh, that drives the digital transformation, it's about scale speed, streamlining your operations, and obviously reducing costs. >>And as these businesses seize the construct of cloud first, they must remain obviously responsible and trusted. Now think about this, right, as part of our analysis, uh, that profitability can co-exist with responsible and sustainable practices. Let's say that all the data centers, uh, migrated from on-prem to cloud based, we estimate that would reduce carbon emissions globally by 60 million tons per year. Uh, and think about it this way, right? Easier metric would be taking out 22 million cars off the road. Um, the other examples that you've seen, right, in terms of the NHS work that they're doing, uh, in, in UK to build, uh, uh, you know, uh, Microsoft teams in based integration. And, uh, the platform rolled out for 1.2 million in interest users, uh, and got 16,000 users that we were able to secure, uh, instant messages, obviously complete audio video calls and host virtual meetings across India. So, uh, this, this work that we did with NHS is something that we have are collaborating with a lot of tools and powering businesses. >>Well, you're vividly describing the business case for sustainability. What do you see as the future of cloud when thinking about it from this lens of sustainability, and also going back to what you were talking about in terms of how you are helping your, your fostering cooperation within these organizations. >>Yeah, that's a very good question. So if you look at today, right, businesses are obviously environmentally aware and they are expanding efforts to decrease power consumption, carbon emissions, and they want to run a sustainable operational efficiency across all elements of their business. And this is an increasing trend, and there is that option of energy efficient infrastructure in the global market. And this trend is the cloud first thinking. And with the right cloud migration that we've been discussing is about unlocking new opportunity, like clean energy foundations enable enabled by cloud based geographic analysis, material, waste reductions, and better data insights. And this is something that, uh, uh, we'll we'll drive, uh, with obviously faster analytics platform that is out there. Now, the sustainability is actually the future of business, which is companies that are historically different, the financial security or agility benefits to cloud. Now sustainability becomes an imperative for them. And I would on expedience Accenture's experience with cloud migrations, we have seen 30 to 40% total cost of ownership savings. And it's driving a greater workload, flexibility, better service, your obligation, and obviously more energy efficient, uh, public clouds that cost we'll see that, that drive a lot of these enterprise own data centers. So in our view, what we are seeing is that this, this, uh, sustainable cloud position helps, uh, helps companies to, uh, drive a lot of the goals in addition to their financial and other goods. >>So what should organizations who are, who are watching this interview and saying, Hey, I need to know more, what, what do you recommend to them? And what, where should they go to get more information on Greenplum? >>No, if you you're, if you are a business leader and you're thinking about which cloud provider is good, or how, how should applications be modernized to meet our day-to-day needs, which cloud driven innovations should be priorities. Uh, you know, that's why Accenture, uh, formed up the cloud first organization and essentially to provide the full stack of cloud services to help our clients become a cloud first business. Um, you know, it's all about excavation, uh, the digital transformation innovating faster, creating differentiated, uh, and sustainable value for our clients. And we're powering it up at 70,000 cloud professionals, $3 billion investment, and, uh, bringing together and services for our clients in terms of cloud solutions. And obviously the ecosystem partnership that we have that we are seeing today, uh, and the assets that help our clients realize their goals. Um, and again, to do reach out to us, uh, we can help them determine obviously, an optimal, sustainable cloud for solution that meets the business needs and being unprecedented levels of innovation. Our experience will be our advantage. And now more than ever, Rebecca, >>Just closing us out here. Do you have any advice for these companies who are navigating a great deal of uncertainty? We, what, what do you think the next 12 to 24 months? What do you think that should be on the minds of CEOs as they go through? >>So, as CEO's are thinking about rapidly leveraging cloud, migrating to cloud, uh, one of the elements that we want them to be thoughtful about is can they do that, uh, with unprecedent level of innovation, but also build a greener planet and a greener balance sheet, if we can achieve this balance and kind of, uh, have a, have a world which is greener, I think the world will win. And we all along with Accenture clients will win. That's what I would say, uh, >>Optimistic outlook. And I will take it. Thank you so much. Kishor for coming on the show >>That was >>Accenture's Kishor Dirk, I'm Rebecca Knight stay tuned for more of the cube virtuals coverage of the Accenture executive summit >>Around the globe. >>It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome everyone to the cube virtual and our coverage of the Accenture executive summit. Part of AWS reinvent 2020. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. Today, we are talking about the power of three. And what happens when you bring together the scientific know-how of a global bias biopharmaceutical powerhouse in Takeda, a leading cloud services provider in AWS, and Accenture's ability to innovate, execute, and deliver innovation. Joining me to talk about these things. We have Aaron, sorry, Arjun, baby. He is the senior managing director and chairman of Accenture's diamond leadership council. Welcome Arjun Karl hick. He is the chief digital and information officer at Takeda. >>What is your bigger, thank you, Rebecca >>And Brian bowhead, global director, and head of the Accenture AWS business group at Amazon web services. Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you. So, as I said, we're talking today about this relationship between, uh, your three organizations. Carl, I want to talk with you. I know you're at the beginning of your cloud journey. What was the compelling reason? What, what, why, why move to the cloud and why now? >>Yeah, no, thank you for the question. So, you know, as a biopharmaceutical leader, we're committed to bringing better health and a brighter future to our patients. We're doing that by translating science into some really innovative and life transporting therapies, but throughout, you know, we believe that there's a responsible use of technology, of data and of innovation. And those three ingredients are really key to helping us deliver on that promise. And so, you know, while I think, uh, I'll call it, this cloud journey is already always been a part of our strategy. Um, and we've made some pretty steady progress over the last years with a number of I'll call it diverse approaches to the digital and AI. We just weren't seeing the impact at scale that we wanted to see. Um, and I think that, you know, there's a, there's a need ultimately to, you know, accelerate and, uh, broaden that shift. >>And, you know, we were commenting on this earlier, but there's, you know, it's been highlighted by a number of factors. One of those has been certainly a number of the large acquisitions we've made Shire, uh, being the most pressing example, uh, but also the global pandemic, both of those highlight the need for us to move faster, um, at the speed of cloud, ultimately. Uh, and so we started thinking outside of the box because it was taking us too long and we decided to leverage this strategic partner model. Uh, and it's giving us a chance to think about our challenges very differently. We call this the power of three, uh, and ultimately our focus is singularly on our patients. I mean, they're waiting for us. We need to get there faster. It can take years. And so I think that there is a focus on innovation, um, at a rapid speed, so we can move ultimately from treating conditions to keeping people healthy. >>So as you are embarking on this journey, what are some of the insights you want to share about, about what you're seeing so far? >>Yeah, no, it's a great question. So, I mean, look, maybe right before I highlight some of the key insights, uh, I would say that, you know, with cloud now as the, as the launchpad for innovation, you know, our vision all along has been that in less than 10 years, we want every single to kid, uh, associate we're employed to be empowered by an AI assistant. And I think that, you know, that's going to help us make faster, better decisions. That'll help us, uh, fundamentally deliver transformative therapies and better experiences to, to that ecosystem, to our patients, to physicians, to payers, et cetera, much faster than we previously thought possible. Um, and I think that technologies like cloud and edge computing together with a very powerful I'll call it data fabric is going to help us to create this, this real-time, uh, I'll call it the digital ecosystem. >>The data has to flow ultimately seamlessly between our patients and providers or partners or researchers, et cetera. Uh, and so we've been thinking about this, uh, I'll call it legal, hold up, sort of this pyramid, um, that helps us describe our vision. Uh, and a lot of it has to do with ultimately modernizing the foundation, modernizing and rearchitecting, the platforms that drive the company, uh, heightening our focus on data, which means that there's an accelerated shift towards enterprise data platforms and digital products. And then ultimately, uh, uh, P you know, really an engine for innovation sitting at the very top. Um, and so I think with that, you know, there's a few different, uh, I'll call it insights that, you know, are quickly kind of come zooming into focus. I would say one is this need to collaborate very differently. Um, you know, not only internally, but you know, how do we define ultimately, and build a connected digital ecosystem with the right partners and technologies externally? >>I think the second, uh, component that maybe people don't think as much about, but, you know, I find critically important is for us to find ways of really transforming our culture. We have to unlock talent and shift the culture certainly as a large biopharmaceutical very differently. And then lastly, you've touched on it already, which is, you know, innovation at the speed of cloud. How do we re-imagine that, you know, how do ideas go from getting tested and months to kind of getting tested in days? You know, how do we collaborate very differently? Uh, and so I think those are three, uh, perhaps of the larger I'll call it, uh, insights that, you know, the three of us are spending a lot of time thinking about right now. >>So Arjun, I want to bring you into this conversation a little bit. Let's, let's delve into those a bit. Talk first about the collaboration, uh, that Carl was referencing there. How, how have you seen that it is enabling, uh, colleagues and teams to communicate differently and interact in new and different ways? Uh, both internally and externally, as Carl said, >>No, th thank you for that. And, um, I've got to give call a lot of credit, because as we started to think about this journey, it was clear, it was a bold ambition. It was, uh, something that, you know, we had all to do differently. And so the, the concept of the power of three that Carl has constructed has become a label for us as a way to think about what are we going to do to collectively drive this journey forward. And to me, the unique ways of collaboration means three things. The first one is that, um, what is expected is that the three parties are going to come together and it's more than just the sum of our resources. And by that, I mean that we have to bring all of ourselves, all of our collective capabilities, as an example, Amazon has amazing supply chain capabilities. >>They're one of the best at supply chain. So in addition to resources, when we have supply chain innovations, uh, that's something that they're bringing in addition to just, uh, talent and assets, similarly for Accenture, right? We do a lot, uh, in the talent space. So how do we bring our thinking as to how we apply best practices for talent to this partnership? So, um, as we think about this, so that's, that's the first one, the second one is about shared success very early on in this partnership, we started to build some foundations and actually develop seven principles that all of us would look at as the basis for this success shared success model. And we continue to hold that sort of in the forefront, as we think about this collaboration. And maybe the third thing I would say is this one team mindset. So whether it's the three of our CEOs that get together every couple of months to think about, uh, this partnership, or it is the governance model that Carl has put together, which has all three parties in the governance and every level of leadership, we always think about this as a collective group, so that we can keep that front and center. >>And what I think ultimately has enabled us to do is it allowed us to move at speed, be more flexible. And ultimately all we're looking at the target the same way, the North side, the same way. >>Brian, what about you? What have you observed and what are you thinking about in terms of how this is helping teams collaborate differently? >>Yeah, absolutely. And RJ made some, some great points there. And I think if you really think about what he's talking about, it's that, that diversity of talent, diversity of skill and viewpoint and even culture, right? And so we see that in the power of three. And then I think if we drill down into what we see at Takeda, and frankly, Takeda was, was really, I think, pretty visionary and on their way here, right. And taking this kind of cross-functional approach and applying it to how they operate day to day. So moving from a more functional view of the world to more of a product oriented view of the world, right? So when you think about we're going to be organized around a product or a service or a capability that we're going to provide to our customers or our patients or donors in this case, it implies a different structure, although altogether, and a different way of thinking, right? >>Because now you've got technical people and business experts and marketing experts, all working together in this is sort of cross collaboration. And what's great about that is it's really the only way to succeed with cloud, right? Because the old ways of thinking where you've got application people and infrastructure, people in business, people is suboptimal, right? Because we can all access this tool was, and these capabilities and the best way to do that, isn't across kind of a cross collaborative way. And so this is product oriented mindset. It's a keto was already on. I think it's allowed us to move faster in those areas. >>Carl, I want to go back to this idea of unlocking talent and culture. And this is something that both Brian and Arjun have talked about too. People are, are an essential part of their, at the heart of your organization. How will their experience of work change and how are you helping re-imagine and reinforce a strong organizational culture, particularly at this time when so many people are working remotely. >>Yeah. It's a great question. And it's something that, you know, I think we all have to think a lot about, I mean, I think, um, you know, driving this, this call it, this, this digital and data kind of capability building, uh, takes a lot of, a lot of thinking. So, I mean, there's a few different elements in terms of how we're tackling this one is we're recognizing, and it's not just for the technology organization or for those actors that, that we're innovating with, but it's really across all of the Cato where we're working through ways of raising what I'll call the overall digital leaders literacy of the organization, you know, what are the, you know, what are the skills that are needed almost at a baseline level, even for a global bio-pharmaceutical company and how do we deploy, I'll call it those learning resources very broadly. >>And then secondly, I think that, you know, we're, we're very clear that there's a number of areas where there are very specialized skills that are needed. Uh, my organization is one of those. And so, you know, we're fostering ways in which, you know, we're very kind of quickly kind of creating, uh, avenues excitement for, for associates in that space. So one example specifically, as we use, you know, during these very much sort of remote, uh, sort of days, we, we use what we call global it days, and we set a day aside every single month and this last Friday, um, you know, we, we create during that time, it's time for personal development. Um, and we provide active seminars and training on things like, you know, robotic process automation, data analytics cloud, uh, in this last month we've been doing this for months and months now, but in his last month, more than 50% of my organization participated, and there's this huge positive shift, both in terms of access and excitement about really harnessing those new skills and being able to apply them. >>Uh, and so I think that that's, you know, one, one element that, uh, can be considered. And then thirdly, um, of course, every organization to work on, how do you prioritize talent, acquisition and management and competencies that you can't rescale? I mean, there are just some new capabilities that we don't have. And so there's a large focus that I have with our executive team and our CEO and thinking through those critical roles that we need to activate in order to kind of, to, to build on this, uh, this business led cloud transformation. And lastly, probably the hardest one, but the one that I'm most jazzed about is really this focus on changing the mindsets and behaviors. Um, and I think there, you know, this is where the power of three is, is really, uh, kind of coming together nicely. I mean, we're working on things like, you know, how do we create this patient obsessed curiosity, um, and really kind of unlock innovation with a real, kind of a growth mindset. >>Uh, and the level of curiosity that's needed, not to just continue to do the same things, but to really challenge the status quo. So that's one big area of focus we're having the agility to act just faster. I mean, to worry less, I guess I would say about kind of the standard chain of command, but how do you make more speedy, more courageous decisions? And this is places where we can emulate the way that a partner like AWS works, or how do we collaborate across the number of boundaries, you know, and I think, uh, Arjun spoke eloquently to a number of partnerships that we can build. So we can break down some of these barriers and use these networks, um, whether it's within our own internal ecosystem or externally to help, to create value faster. So a lot of energy around ways of working and we'll have to check back in, but I mean, we're early in on this mindset and behavioral shift, um, but a lot of good early momentum. >>Carl you've given me a good segue to talk to Brian about innovation, because you said a lot of the things that I was the customer obsession and this idea of innovating much more quickly. Obviously now the world has its eyes on drug development, and we've all learned a lot about it, uh, in the past few months and accelerating drug development is all, uh, is of great interest to all of us. Brian, how does a transformation like this help a company's, uh, ability to become more agile and more innovative and at a quicker speed to, >>Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think some of the things that Carl talked about just now are critical to that, right? I think where sometimes folks fall short is they think, you know, we're going to roll out the technology and the technology is going to be the silver bullet where we're, in fact it is the culture. It is, is the talent. And it's the focus on that. That's going to be, you know, the determinant of success. And I will say, you know, in this power of three arrangement and Carl talked a little bit about the pyramid, um, talent and culture and that change, and the kind of thinking about that has been a first-class citizen since the very beginning, right. That absolutely is critical for, for being there. Um, and, and so that's been, that's been key. And so we think about innovation at Amazon and AWS, and Carl mentioned some of the things that, you know, partner like AWS can bring to the table is we talk a lot about builders, right? >>So kind of obsessive about builders. Um, and, and we meet what we mean by that is we at Amazon, we hire for builders, we cultivate builders and we like to talk to our customers about it as well. And it also implies a different mindset, right? When you're a builder, you have that, that curiosity, you have that ownership, you have that stake in whatever I'm creating, I'm going to be a co-owner of this product or this service, right. Getting back to that kind of product oriented mindset. And it's not just the technical people or the it people who are builders. It is also the business people as, as Carl talked about. Right. So when we start thinking about, um, innovation again, where we see folks kind of get into a little bit of a innovation pilot paralysis, is that you can focus on the technology, but if you're not focusing on the talent and the culture and the processes and the mechanisms, you're going to be putting out technology, but you're not going to have an organization that's ready to take it and scale it and accelerate it. >>Right. And so that's, that's been absolutely critical. So just a couple of things we've been doing with, with Takeda and Decatur has really been leading the way is, think about a mechanism and a process. And it's really been working backward from the customer, right? In this case, again, the patient and the donor. And that was an easy one because the key value of Decatur is to be a patient focused bio-pharmaceutical right. So that was embedded in their DNA. So that working back from that, that patient, that donor was a key part of that process. And that's really deep in our DNA as well. And Accenture's, and so we were able to bring that together. The other one is, is, is getting used to experimenting and even perhaps failing, right. And being able to iterate and fail fast and experiment and understanding that, you know, some decisions, what we call it at Amazon or two-way doors, meaning you can go through that door, not like what you see and turn around and go back. And cloud really helps there because the costs of experimenting and the cost of failure is so much lower than it's ever been. You can do it much faster and the implications are so much less. So just a couple of things that we've been really driving, uh, with the cadence around innovation, that's been really critical. Carl, where are you already seeing signs of success? >>Yeah, no, it's a great question. And so we chose, you know, uh, with our focus on innovation to try to unleash maybe the power of data digital in, uh, in focusing on what I call sort of a Maven. And so we chose our, our, our plasma derived therapy business, um, and you know, the plasma-derived therapy business unit, it develops critical life-saving therapies for patients with rare and complex diseases. Um, but what we're doing is by bringing kind of our energy together, we're focusing on creating, I'll call it state of the art digitally connected donation centers. And we're really modernizing, you know, the, the, the donor experience right now, we're trying to, uh, improve also I'll call it the overall plasma collection process. And so we've, uh, selected a number of alcohol at a very high speed pilots that we're working through right now, specifically in this, in this area. And we're seeing >>Really great results already. Um, and so that's, that's one specific area of focus are Jen, I want you to close this out here. Any ideas, any best practices advice you would have for other pharmaceutical companies that are, that are at the early stage of their cloud journey? Yes. Sorry. Arjun. >>Yeah, no, I was breaking up a bit. No, I think they, um, the key is what what's sort of been great for me to see is that when people think about cloud, you know, you always think about infrastructure technology. The reality is that the cloud is really the true enabler for innovation and innovating at scale. And, and if you think about that, right, in all the components that you need, uh, ultimately that's where the value is for the company, right? Because yes, you're going to get some cost synergies and that's great, but the true value is in how do we transform the organization in the case of the Qaeda and the life sciences clients, right. We're trying to take a 14 year process of research and development that takes billions of dollars and compress that right. Tremendous amounts of innovation opportunity. You think about the commercial aspect, lots of innovation can come there. The plasma derived therapy is a great example of how we're going to really innovate to change the trajectory of that business. So I think innovation is at the heart of what most organizations need to do. And the formula, the cocktail that Takeda has constructed with this Fuji program really has all the ingredients, um, that are required for that success. >>Great. Well, thank you so much. Arjun, Brian and Carl was really an enlightening conversation. >>Thank you. Yeah, it's been fun. Thanks Rebecca. >>And thank you for tuning into the cube. Virtual is coverage of the Accenture executive summit >>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome everyone to the cubes coverage of Accenture executive summit here at AWS reinvent. I'm your host Rebecca Knight for this segment? We have two guests. First. We have Helen Davis. She is the senior director of cloud platform services, assistant director for it and digital for the West Midlands police. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Helen, and we also have Matthew lb. He is Accenture health and public service associate director and West Midlands police account lead. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Matthew, thank you for joining us. So we are going to be talking about delivering data-driven insights to the West Midlands police force. Helen, I want to start with >>You. Can you tell us a little bit about the West Midlands police force? How big is the force and also what were some of the challenges that you were grappling with prior to this initiative? >>Yeah, certainly. So Westerners police is the second largest police force in the UK, outside of the metropolitan police in London. Um, we have an excessive, um, 11,000 people work at Westman ins police serving communities, um, through, across the Midlands region. So geographically, we're quite a big area as well, as well as, um, being population, um, density, having that as a, at a high level. Um, so the reason we sort of embarked on the data-driven insights platform and it, which was a huge change for us was for a number of reasons. Um, namely we had a lot of disparate data, um, which was spread across a range of legacy systems that were many, many years old, um, with some duplication of what was being captured and no single view for offices or, um, support staff. Um, some of the access was limited. You have to be in a, in an actual police building on a desktop computer to access it. Um, other information could only reach the offices on the front line, through a telephone call back to one of our enabling services where they would do a manual checkup, um, look at the information, then call the offices back, um, and tell them what they needed to know. So it was a very long laborious, um, process and not very efficient. Um, and we certainly weren't exploiting the data that we had in a very productive way. >>So it sounds like as you're describing, and I'm old clunky system that needed a technological, uh, reimagination. So what was the main motivation for, for doing, for making this shift? >>It was really, um, about making us more efficient and more effective in how we do how we do business. So, um, you know, certainly as a, as an it leader and some of my operational colleagues, we recognize the benefits, um, that data analytics could bring in, uh, in a policing environment, not something that was, um, really done in the UK at the time. You know, we have a lot of data, so we're very data rich and the information that we have, but we needed to turn it into information that was actionable. So that's where we started looking for, um, technology partners and suppliers to help us and sort of help us really with what's the art of the possible, you know, this hasn't been done before. So what could we do in this space? That's appropriate, >>Helen. I love that idea. What is the art of the possible, can you tell us a little bit about why you chose AWS? >>I think really, you know, as with all things and when we're procuring a partner in the public sector that, you know, there are many rules and regulations quite rightly as you would expect that to be because we're spending public money. So we have to be very, very careful and, um, it's, it's a long process and we have to be open to public scrutiny. So, um, we sort of look to everything, everything that was available as part of that process, but we recognize the benefits that Clyde would provide in this space because, you know, we're like moving to a cloud environment. We would literally be replacing something that was legacy with something that was a bit more modern. Um, that's not what we wanted to do. Our ambition was far greater than that. So I think, um, in terms of AWS, really, it was around scalability, interoperability, you know, just us things like the disaster recovery service, the fact that we can scale up and down quickly, we call it dialing up and dialing back. Um, you know, it's it's page go. So it just sort of ticked all the boxes for us. And then we went through the full procurement process, fortunately, um, it came out on top for us. So we were, we were able to move forward, but it just sort of had everything that we were looking for in that space. >>Matthew, I want to bring you into the conversation a little bit here. How are you working with a wet with the West Midlands police, sorry. And helping them implement this cloud-first >>Yeah, so I guess, um, by January the West Midlands police started, um, favorite five years ago now. So, um, we set up a partnership with the fools. I wanted to operate in a way that was very different to a traditional supplier relationship. Um, secretary that the data difference insights program is, is one of many that we've been working with last on, um, over the last five years, um, as having said already, um, cloud gave a number of, uh, advantages certainly from a big data perspective and things that, that enabled us today. Um, I'm from an Accenture perspective that allowed us to bring in a number of the different teams that we have say, cloud teams, security teams, um, and drafted from an insurance perspective, as well as the more traditional services that people would associate with the country. >>I mean, so much of this is about embracing comprehensive change to experiment and innovate and try different things. Matthew, how, how do you help, uh, an entity like West Midlands police think differently when they are, there are these ways of doing things that people are used to, how do you help them think about what is the art of the possible, as Helen said, >>There's a few things to that enable those being critical is trying to co-create solutions together. Yeah. There's no point just turning up with, um, what we think is the right answer, try and say, um, collectively work three, um, the issues that the fullest is seeing and the outcomes they're looking to achieve rather than simply focusing on a long list of requirements, I think was critical and then being really open to working together to create the right solution. Um, rather than just, you know, trying to pick something off the shelf that maybe doesn't fit the forces requirements in the way that it should too, >>Right. It's not always a one size fits all. >>Obviously, you know, today what we believe is critical is making sure that we're creating something that met the forces needs, um, in terms of the outcomes they're looking to achieve the financial envelopes that were available, um, and how we can deliver those in a, uh, iterative agile way, um, rather than spending years and years, um, working towards an outcome, um, that is gonna update before you even get that. >>So Helen, how, how are things different? What kinds of business functions and processes have been re-imagined in, in light of this change and this shift >>It's, it's actually unrecognizable now, um, in certain areas of the business as it was before. So to give you a little bit of, of context, when we, um, started working with essentially an AWS on the data driven insights program, it was very much around providing, um, what was called locally, a wizzy tool for our intelligence analyst to interrogate data, look at data, you know, decide whether they could do anything predictive with it. And it was very much sort of a back office function to sort of tidy things up for us and make us a bit better in that, in that area or a lot better in that area. And it was rolled out to a number of offices, a small number on the front line. Um, and really it was, um, in line with a mobility strategy that we, hardware officers were getting new smartphones for the first time, um, to do sort of a lot of things on, on, um, policing apps and things like that to again, to avoid them, having to keep driving back to police stations, et cetera. >>And the pilot was so successful. Every officer now has access to this data, um, on their mobile devices. So it literally went from a handful of people in an office somewhere using it to do sort of clever whizzbang things to, um, every officer in the force, being able to access that level of data at their fingertips. Literally. So what they were touched we've done before is if they needed to check and address or check details of an individual, um, just as one example, they would either have to, in many cases, go back to a police station to look it up themselves on a desktop computer. Well, they would have to make a call back to a centralized function and speak to an operator, relay the questions, either, wait for the answer or wait for a call back with the answer when those people are doing the data interrogation manually. >>So the biggest change for us is the self-service nature of the data we now have available. So officers can do it themselves on their phone, wherever they might be. So the efficiency savings from that point of view are immense. And I think just parallel to that is the quality of our, because we had a lot of data, but just because you've got a lot of data and a lot of information doesn't mean it's big data and it's valuable necessarily. Um, so again, it was having the single source of truth as we, as we call it. So you know that when you are completing those safe searches and getting the responses back, that it is the most accurate information we hold. And also you're getting it back within minutes, as opposed to, you know, half an hour, an hour or a drive back to a station. So it's making officers more efficient and it's also making them safer. The more efficient they are, the more time they have to spend out with the public doing what they, you know, we all should be doing, >>Seen that kind of return on investment, because what you were just describing with all the steps that we needed to be taken in prior to this, to verify an address say, and those are precious seconds when someone's life is on the line in, in sort of in the course of everyday police work. >>Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It's difficult to put a price on it. It's difficult to quantify. Um, but all the, you know, the minutes here and that certainly add up to a significant amount of efficiency savings, and we've certainly been able to demonstrate the officers are spending less time up police stations as a result or more time out on the front frontline also they're safer because they can get information about what may or may not be and address what may or may not have occurred in an area before very, very quickly without having to wait. >>Thank you. I want to hear your observations of working so closely with this West Midlands police. Have you noticed anything about changes in its culture and its operating model in how police officers interact with one another? Have you seen any changes since this technology change? >>What's unique about the Western new misplaces, the buy-in from the top down, the chief and his exact team and Helen as the leader from an IOT perspective, um, the entire force is bought in. So what is a significant change program? Uh, I'm not trickles three. Um, everyone in the organization, um, change is difficult. Um, and there's a lot of time effort. That's been put into both the technical delivery and the business change and adoption aspects around each of the projects. Um, but you can see the step change that is making in each aspect to the organization, uh, and where that's putting West Midlands police as a leader in, um, technology I'm policing in the UK. And I think globally, >>And this is a question for both of you because Matthew, as you said, change is difficult and there is always a certain intransigence in workplaces about this is just the way we've always done things and we're used to this and don't try us to get us. Don't try to get us to do anything new here. It works. How do you get the buy-in that you need to do this kind of digital transformation? >>I think it, it would be wrong to say it was easy. Um, um, we also have to bear in mind that this was one program in a five-year program. So there was a lot of change going on, um, both internally for some of our back office functions, as well as front Tai, uh, frontline offices. So with DDI in particular, I think the stat change occurred when people could see what it could do for them. You know, we had lots of workshops and seminars where we all talk about, you know, big data and it's going to be great and it's data analytics and it's transformational, you know, and quite rightly people that are very busy doing a day job that not necessarily technologists in the main and, you know, are particularly interested quite rightly so in what we are not dealing with the cloud, you know? >>And it was like, yeah, okay. It's one more thing. And then when they started to see on that, on their phones and what teams could do, that's when it started to sell itself. And I think that's when we started to see, you know, to see the stat change, you know, and, and if we, if we have any issues now it's literally, you know, our help desks in meltdown. Cause everyone's like, well, we call it manage without this anymore. And I think that speaks for itself. So it doesn't happen overnight. It's sort of incremental changes and then that's a step change in attitude. And when they see it working and they see the benefits, they want to use it more. And that's how it's become fundamental to all policing by itself, really, without much selling >>You, Helen just made a compelling case for how to get buy in. Have you discovered any other best practices when you are trying to get everyone on board for this kind of thing? >>We've um, we've used a lot of the traditional techniques, things around comms and engagement. We've also used things like, um, the 30 day challenge and nudge theory around how can we gradually encourage people to use things? Um, I think there's a point where all of this around, how do we just keep it simple and keep it user centric from an end user perspective? I think DDI is a great example of where the, the technology is incredibly complex. The solution itself is, um, you know, extremely large and, um, has been very difficult to, um, get delivered. But at the heart of it is a very simple front end for the user to encourage it and take that complexity away from them. Uh, I think that's been critical through the whole piece of DDR. >>One final word from Helen. I want to hear, where do you go from here? What is the longterm vision? I know that this has made productivity, um, productivity savings equivalent to 154 full-time officers. Uh, what's next, >>I think really it's around, um, exploiting what we've got. Um, I use the phrase quite a lot, dialing it up, which drives my technical architects crazy. But so, because it's apparently not that simple, but, um, you know, we've, we've been through significant change in the last five years and we are still continuing to batch all of those changes into everyday, um, operational policing. But what we need to see is we need to exploit and build on the investments that we've made in terms of data and claims specifically, the next step really is about expanding our pool of data and our functions. Um, so that, you know, we keep getting better and better at this. And the more we do, the more data we have, the more refined we can be, the more precise we are with all of our actions. Um, you know, we're always being expected to, again, look after the public purse and do more for less. >>And I think this is certainly an and our cloud journey and, and cloud first by design, which is where we are now, um, is helping us to be future-proofed. So for us, it's very much an investment. And I see now that we have good at embedded in operational policing for me, this is the start of our journey, not the end. So it's really exciting to see where we can go from here. Exciting times. Indeed. Thank you so much. Lily, Helen and Matthew for joining us. I really appreciate it. Thank you. And you are watching the cube stay tuned for more of the cubes coverage of the AWS reinvent Accenture executive summit. I'm Rebecca Knight from around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome to the cube virtual coverage of the executive summit at AWS reinvent 2020 virtual. This is the cube virtual. We can't be there in person like we are every year we have to be remote. This executive summit is with special programming supported by Accenture where the cube virtual I'm your host John for a year, we had a great panel here called uncloud first digital transformation from some experts, Stuart driver, the director of it and infrastructure and operates at lion Australia, Douglas Regan, managing director, client account lead at lion for Accenture as a deep Islam associate director application development lead for Centure gentlemen, thanks for coming on the cube virtual that's a mouthful, all that digital, but the bottom line it's cloud transformation. This is a journey that you guys have been on together for over 10 years to be really a digital company. Now, some things have happened in the past year that kind of brings all this together. This is about the next generation organization. So I want to ask Stuart you first, if you can talk about this transformation at lion has undertaken some of the challenges and opportunities and how this year in particular has brought it together because you know, COVID has been the accelerant of digital transformation. Well, if you're 10 years in, I'm sure you're there. You're in the, uh, on that wave right now. Take a minute to explain this transformation journey. >>Yeah, sure. So a number of years back, we, we looked at kind of our infrastructure in our landscape trying to figure out where we >>Wanted to go next. And we were very analog based and stuck in the old it groove of, you know, Capitol reef rash, um, struggling to transform, struggling to get to a digital platform and we needed to change it up so that we could become very different business to the one that we were back then obviously cloud is an accelerant to that. And we had a number of initiatives that needed a platform to build on. And a cloud infrastructure was the way that we started to do that. So we went through a number of transformation programs that we didn't want to do that in the old world. We wanted to do it in a new world. So for us, it was partnering up with a dried organizations that can take you on the journey and, uh, you know, start to deliver bit by bit incremental progress, uh, to get to the, uh, I guess the promise land. >>Um, we're not, not all the way there, but to where we're on the way along. And then when you get to some of the challenges like we've had this year, um, it makes all of the hard work worthwhile because you can actually change pretty quickly, um, provide capacity and, uh, and increase your environments and, you know, do the things that you need to do in a much more dynamic way than we would have been able to previously where we might've been waiting for the hardware vendors, et cetera, to deliver capacity. So for us this year, it's been a pretty strong year from an it perspective and delivering for the business needs >>Before I hit the Douglas. I want to just real quick, a redirect to you and say, you know, if all the people said, Oh yeah, you got to jump on cloud, get in early, you know, a lot of naysayers like, well, wait till to mature a little bit, really, if you got in early and you, you know, paying your dues, if you will taking that medicine with the cloud, you're really kind of peaking at the right time. Is that true? Is that one of the benefits that comes out of this getting in the cloud? Yeah, >>John, this has been an unprecedented year, right. And, um, you know, Australia, we had to live through Bush fires and then we had covert and, and then we actually had to deliver a, um, a project on very nice transformational project, completely remote. And then we also had had some, some cyber challenges, which is public as well. And I don't think if we weren't moved into and enabled through the cloud, we would have been able to achieve that this year. It would have been much different and would have been very difficult to do the backing. We're able to work and partner with Amazon through this year, which is unprecedented and actually come out the other end and we've delivered a brand new digital capability across the entire business. Um, in many, you know, wouldn't have been impossible if we could, I guess, stayed in the old world. The fact that we were moved into the new Naval by the new allowed us to work in this unprecedented year. >>Just quilt. What's your personal view on this? Because I've been saying on the Cuban reporting necessity is the mother of all invention and the word agility has been kicked around as kind of a cliche, Oh, it'd be agile. You know, we're going to get the city, you get a minute on specifically, but from your perspective, uh, Douglas, what does that mean to you? Because there is benefits there for being agile. And >>I mean, I think as Stuart mentioned, right, in a lot of these things we try to do and, you know, typically, you know, hardware and, uh, the last >>To be told and, and, and always on the critical path to be done, we really didn't have that in this case, what we were doing with our projects in our deployments, right. We were able to move quickly able to make decisions in line with the business and really get things going. Right. So you see a lot of times in a traditional world, you have these inhibitors, you have these critical path, it takes weeks and months to get things done as opposed to hours and days, and, and truly allowed us to, we had to, you know, VJ things, move things. And, you know, we were able to do that in this environment with AWS to support and the fact that they can kind of turn things off and on as quickly as we needed. >>Yeah. Cloud-scale is great for speed. So DECA, Gardez get your thoughts on this cloud first mission, you know, it, you know, the dev ops world, they saw this early, that jumping in there, they saw the, the, the agility. Now the theme this year is modern applications with the COVID pandemic pressure, there's real business pressure to make that happen. How did you guys learn to get there fast? And what specifically did you guys do at Accenture and how did it all come together? Can you take us inside kind of how it played out? >>Right. So, yeah, we started off with, as we do in most cases with a much more bigger group, and we worked with lions functional experts and, uh, the lost knowledge that allowed the infrastructure had. Um, we then applied our journey to cloud strategy, which basically revolves around the seminars and, and, uh, you know, the deep three steps from our perspective, uh, assessing the current and bottom and setting up the new cloud environment. And as we go modernizing and, and migrating these applications to the cloud now, you know, one of the key things that, uh, you know, we learned along this journey was that, you know, you can have the best plans, but bottom line that we were dealing with, we often than not have to make changes, uh, what a lot of agility and also work with a lot of collaboration with the, uh, lion team, as well as, uh, uh, AWS. I think the key thing for me was being able to really bring it all together. It's not just, uh, you know, we want to hear it's all of us working together to make this happen. >>What were some of the learnings real quick journey there? >>So I think perspective, the key learnings were that, you know, uh, you know, work, when you look back at, uh, the, the infrastructure that was that we were trying to migrate over to the cloud. A lot of the documentation, et cetera, was not, uh, available. We were having to, uh, figure out a lot of things on the fly. Now that really required us to have, uh, uh, people with deep expertise who could go into those environments and, and work out, uh, you know, the best ways to, to migrate the workloads to the cloud. Uh, I think, you know, the, the biggest thing for me was making sure all the had on that real SMEs across the board globally, that we could leverage across the various technologies, uh, uh, and, and, and, you know, that would really work in our collaborative and agile environment with line. >>Let's do what I got to ask you. How did you address your approach to the cloud and what was your experience? >>Yeah, for me, it's around getting the foundations right. To start with and then building on them. Um, so, you know, you've got to have your, your, your process and you've got to have your, your kind of your infrastructure there and your blueprints ready. Um, AWS do a great job of that, right. Getting the foundations right. And then building upon it, and then, you know, partnering with Accenture allows you to do that very successfully. Um, I think, um, you know, the one thing that was probably surprising to us when we started down this journey and kind of after we got a long way down the track and looking backwards is actually how much you can just turn off. Right? So a lot of stuff that you, uh, you get electric with a legacy in your environment, and when you start to work through it with the types of people that civic just mentioned, you know, the technical expertise working with the business, um, you can really rationalize your environment and, uh, you know, cloud is a good opportunity to do that, to drive that legacy out. >>Um, so you know, a few things there, the other thing is, um, you've got to try and figure out the benefits that you're going to get out of moving here. So there's no point in just taking something that is not delivering a huge amount of value in the traditional world, moving it into the cloud, and guess what is going to deliver the same limited amount of value. So you've got to transform it, and you've got to make sure that you build it for the future and understand exactly what you're trying to gain out of it. So again, you need a strong collaboration. You need a good partners to work with, and you need good engagement from the business as well, because the kind of, uh, you know, digital transformation, cloud transformation, isn't really an it project, I guess, fundamentally it is at the core, but it's a business project that you've got to get the whole business aligned on. You've got to make sure that your investment streams are appropriate and that's, uh, you're able to understand the benefits and the value that say, you're going to drive back towards the business. >>Let's do it. If you don't mind me asking, what was some of the obstacles you encountered or learnings, um, that might different from the expectation we all been there, Hey, you know, we're going to change the world. Here's the sales pitch, here's the outcome. And then obviously things happen, you know, you learn legacy, okay. Let's put some containerization around that cloud native, um, all that rational. You're talking about what are, and you're going to have obstacles. That's how you learn. That's how perfection has developed. How, what obstacles did you come up with and how are they different from your expectations going in? >>Yeah, they're probably no different from other people that have gone down the same journey. If I'm totally honest, the, you know, 70 or 80% of what you do is relatively easy of the known quantity. It's relatively modern architectures and infrastructures, and you can upgrade, migrate, move them into the cloud, whatever it is, rehost, replatform, rearchitect, whatever it is you want to do, it's the other stuff, right? It's the stuff that always gets left behind. And that's the challenge. It's, it's getting that last bit over the line and making sure that you haven't been invested in the future while still carrying all of your legacy costs and complexity within your environment. So, um, to be quite honest, that's probably taken longer and has been more of a challenge than we thought it would be. Um, the other piece I touched on earlier on in terms of what was surprising was actually how much of, uh, your environment is actually not needed anymore. >>When you start to put a critical eye across it and understand, um, uh, ask the tough questions and start to understand exactly what, what it is you're trying to achieve. So if you ask a part of a business, do they still need this application or this service a hundred percent of the time, they will say yes until you start to lay out to them, okay, now I'm going to cost you this to migrate it or this, to run it in the future. And, you know, here's your ongoing costs and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And then, uh, for a significant amount of those answers, you get a different response when you start to layer on the true value of it. So you start to flush out those hidden costs within the business, and you start to make some critical decisions as a company based on, uh, based on that. So that was a little tougher than we first thought and probably broader than we thought there was more of that than we anticipated, um, which actually results in a much cleaner environment, post post migration, >>You know, the old expression, if it moves automated, you know, it's kind of a joke on government, how they want to tax everything, you know, you want to automate, that's a key thing in cloud, and you've got to discover those opportunities to create value Stuart and Siddique. Mainly if you can weigh in on this love to know the percentage of total cloud that you have now, versus when you started, because as you start to uncover whether it's by design for purpose, or you discover opportunity to innovate, like you guys have, I'm sure it kind of, you took on some territory inside Lyon, what percentage of cloud now versus start? >>Yeah. And at the start it was minimal, right. You know, close to zero, right. Single and single digits. Right. It was mainly SAS environments that we had, uh, sitting in clouds when we, uh, when we started, um, Doug mentioned earlier on a really significant transformation project, um, that we've undertaken and recently gone live on a multi-year one. Um, you know, that's all stood up on AWS and is a significant portion of our environment, um, in terms of what we can move to cloud. Uh, we're probably at about 80 or 90% now. And the balance bit is, um, legacy infrastructure that is just going to retire as we go through the cycle rather than migrate to the cloud. Um, so we are significantly cloud-based and, uh, you know, we're reaping the benefits of it in a year, like 2020, and makes you glad that you did all of the hard yards in the previous years when you started that business challenges thrown out as, >>So do you any common reaction still the cloud percentage penetration? >>Sorry, I didn't, I didn't guys don't, but I, I was going to say it was, I think it's like the 80 20 rule, right? We, we, we worked really hard in the, you know, I think 2018, 19 to get any person off, uh, after getting onto the cloud and, or the last year is the 20% that we have been migrating. And Stuart said like a non-athlete that is also, that's going to be the diet. And I think our next big step is going to be obviously, you know, the icing on the cake, which is to decommission all these apps as well. Right. So, you know, to get the real benefits out of, uh, the whole conservation program from a, uh, from a >>Douglas and Stewart, can you guys talk about the decision around the cloud because you guys have had success with AWS, why AWS how's that decision made? Can you guys give some insight into some of those thoughts? >>I can, I can start, start off. I think back when the decision was made and it was, Oh, it was a while back, um, you know, there's some clear advantages of moving relay, Ws, a lot of alignment with some of the significant projects and, uh, the trend, that particular one big transformation project that we've alluded to as well. Um, you know, we needed some, um, some very robust and, um, just future proof and, um, proven technology. And AWS gave that to us. We needed a lot of those blueprints to help us move down the path. We didn't want to reinvent everything. So, um, you know, having a lot of that legwork done for us and an AWS gives you that, right. And particularly when you partner up with, uh, with a company like Accenture as well, you get combinations of the technology and the skills and the knowledge to, to move you forward in that direction. >>So, um, you know, for us, it was a, uh, uh, it was a decision based on, you know, best of breed, um, you know, looking forward and, and trying to predict the future needs and, and, and kind of the environmental that we might need. Um, and, you know, partnering up with organizations that can take you on the journey. Yeah. And just to build on it. So obviously, you know, lion's like an NWS, but, you know, we knew it was a very good choice given that, um, uh, the skills and the capability that we had, as well as the assets and tools we had to get the most out of, um, out of AWS. And obviously our, our CEO globally is just spending, you know, announcement about a huge investment that we're making in cloud. Um, but you know, we've, we've worked very well. AWS, we've done some joint workshops and joint investments, um, some joint POC. So yeah, w we have a very good working relationship, AWS, and I think, um, one incident to reflect upon whether it's cyber it's and again, where we actually jointly, you know, dove in with, um, with Amazon and some of their security experts and our experts. And we're able to actually work through that with mine quite successful. So, um, you know, really good behaviors as an organization, but also really good capabilities. >>Yeah. As you guys, you're essential cloud outcomes, research shown, it's the cycle of innovation with the cloud. That's creating a lot of benefits, knowing what you guys know now, looking back certainly COVID is impacted a lot of people kind of going through the same process, knowing what you guys know now, would you advocate people to jump on this transformation journey? If so, how, and what tweaks they make, which changes, what would you advise? >>Uh, I might take that one to start with. Um, I hate to think where we would have been when, uh, COVID kicked off here in Australia and, you know, we were all sent home, literally were at work on the Friday, and then over the weekend. And then Monday, we were told not to come back into the office and all of a sudden, um, our capacity in terms of remote access and I quadrupled, or more four, five X, what we had on the Friday we needed on the Monday. And we were able to stand that up during the day Monday into Tuesday, because we were cloud-based and, uh, you know, we just spun up your instances and, uh, you know, sort of our licensing, et cetera. And we had all of our people working remotely, um, within, uh, you know, effectively one business day. Um, I know peers of mine in other organizations and industries that are relying on kind of a traditional wise and getting hardware, et cetera, that were weeks and months before they could get there the right hardware to be able to deliver to their user base. >>So, um, you know, one example where you're able to scale and, uh, um, get, uh, get value out of this platform beyond probably what was anticipated at the time you talk about, um, you know, less the, in all of these kinds of things. And you can also think of a few scenarios, but real world ones where you're getting your business back up and running in that period of time is, is just phenomenal. There's other stuff, right? There's these programs that we've rolled out, you do your sizing, um, and in the traditional world, you would just go out and buy more servers than you need. And, you know, probably never realize the full value of those, you know, the capability of those servers over the life cycle of them. Whereas, you know, in a cloud world, you put in what you think is right. And if it's not right, you pump it up a little bit when, when all of your metrics and so on, tell you that you need to bump it up. And conversely you scale it down at the same rate. So for us, with the types of challenges and programs and, uh, uh, and just business need, that's come at as this year, uh, we wouldn't have been able to do it without a strong cloud base, uh, to, uh, to move forward. >>You know, Douglas, one of the things I talked to, a lot of people on the right side of history who have been on the right wave with cloud, with the pandemic, and they're happy, they're like, and they're humble. Like, well, we're just lucky, you know, luck is preparation meets opportunity. And this is really about you guys getting in early and being prepared and readiness. This is kind of important as people realize, then you gotta be ready. I mean, it's not just, you don't get lucky by being in the right place, the right time. And there were a lot of companies were on the wrong side of history here who might get washed away. This is a super important, I think, >>To echo and kind of building on what Stewart said. I think that the reason that we've had success and I guess the momentum is we didn't just do it in isolation within it and technology. It was actually linked to broader business changes, you know, creating basically a digital platform for the entire business, moving the business, where are they going to be able to come back stronger after COVID, when they're actually set up for growth, um, and actually allows, you know, a line to achievements growth objectives, and also its ambitions as far as what it wants to do, uh, with growth in whatever they make, do with acquiring other companies and moving into different markets and launching new products. So we've actually done it in a way that is, you know, real and direct business benefit, uh, that actually enables line to grow >>General. I really appreciate you coming. I have one final question. If you can wrap up here, uh, Stuart and Douglas, you don't mind weighing in what's the priorities for the future. What's next for lion in a century >>Christmas holidays, I'll start Christmas holidays. I spent a good year and then a, and then a reset, obviously, right? So, um, you know, it's, it's figuring out, uh, transform what we've already transformed, if that makes sense. So God, a huge proportion of our services sitting in the cloud. Um, but we know we're not done even with the stuff that is in there. We need to take those next steps. We need more and more automation and orchestration. We need to, um, our environment is more future proof. We need to be able to work with the business and understand what's coming at them so that we can, um, you know, build that into, into our environment. So again, it's really transformation on top of transformation is the way that I'll describe it. And it's really an open book, right? Once you get it in and you've got the capabilities and the evolving tool sets that AWS continue to bring to the market based, um, you know, working with the partners to, to figure out how we unlock that value, um, you know, drive our costs down efficiency, uh, all of those kind of, you know, standard metrics. >>Um, but you know, we're looking for the next things to transform and showed value back out to our customer base, um, that, uh, that we continue to, you know, sell our products to and work with and understand how we can better meet their needs. Yeah, I think just to echo that, I think it's really leveraging this and then did you capability they have and getting the most out of that investment. And then I think it's also moving to, uh, and adopting more new ways of working as far as, you know, the speed of the business, um, is getting up to speed in the market is changing. So being able to launch and do things quickly and also, um, competitive and efficient operating costs, uh, now that they're in the cloud, right? So I think it's really leveraging the most out of the platform and then, you know, being efficient in launching things. So putting them with >>Siddique, any word from you on your priorities by you see this year in folding, >>There's got to say like e-learning squares, right, for me around, you know, just journey. This is a journey to the cloud, right? >>And, uh, you know, as well dug into sort of Saturday, it's getting all, you know, different parts of the organization along the journey business to it, to your, uh, product lenders, et cetera. Right. And it takes time. It is tough, but, uh, uh, you know, you got to get started on it. And, you know, once we, once we finish off, uh, it's the realization of the benefits now that, you know, looking forward, I think for, from Alliance perspective, it is, uh, you know, once we migrate all the workloads to the cloud, it is leveraging, uh, all stack drive. And as I think Stewart said earlier, uh, with, uh, you know, the latest and greatest stuff that AWS it's basically working to see how we can really, uh, achieve more better operational excellence, uh, from a, uh, from a cloud perspective. >>Well, Stewart, thanks for coming on with a and sharing your environment and what's going on and your journey you're on the right wave. Did the work you're in, it's all coming together with faster, congratulations for your success, and, uh, really appreciate Douglas with Steve for coming on as well from essential. Thank you for coming on. Thanks, John. Okay. Just the cubes coverage of executive summit at AWS reinvent. This is where all the thought leaders share their best practices, their journeys, and of course, special programming with Accenture and the cube. I'm Sean ferry, your host, thanks for watching from around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome everyone to the cube virtuals coverage of the Accenture executive summit. Part of AWS reinvent 2020. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. We are talking today about reinventing the energy data platform. We have two guests joining us. First. We have Johan Krebbers. He is the GM digital emerging technologies and VP of it. Innovation at shell. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Johan you're welcome. And next we have Liz Dennett. She is the lead solution architect for O S D U on AWS. Thank you so much, Liz, maybe here. So I want to start our conversation by talking about OSD. You like so many great innovations. It started with a problem. Johann, what was the problem you were trying to solve at shell? We go back a couple of years, we started summer 2017, where we had a meeting with the guys from exploration in shell, and the main problem they had, of course, they got lots of lots of data, but are unable to find the right data. They need to work from all over the place and told him >>To, and we'll probably try to solve is how that person working exploration could find their proper date, not just a day, but also the date you really needed that we did probably talked about is summer 2017. And we said, okay, the only way ABC is moving forward is to start pulling that data into a single data platform. And that, that was at the time that we called it as the, you, the subsurface data universe in there was about the shell name was so in, in January, 2018, we started a project with Amazon to start grating a co fricking that building, that Stu environment, that the, the universe, so that single data level to put all your exploration and Wells data into that single environment that was intent. And every cent, um, already in March of that same year, we said, well, from Michele point of view, we will be far better off if we could make this an industry solution and not just a shelf solution, because Shelby, Shelby, if you can make an industry solution, but people are developing applications for it. >>It also is far better than for shell to say we haven't shell special solution because we don't make money out of how we start a day that we can make money out of it. We have access to the data, we can explore the data. So storing the data we should do as efficiently possibly can. So we monitor, we reach out to about eight or nine other last, uh, or I guess operators like the economics, like the tutorials, like the shepherds of this world and say, Hey, we inshallah doing this. Do you want to join this effort? And to our surprise, they all said, yes. And then in September, 2018, we had our kickoff meeting with your open group where we said, we said, okay, if you want to work together and lots of other companies, we also need to look at, okay, how, how we organize that. >>Or if you started working with lots of large companies, you need to have some legal framework around some framework around it. So that's why we went to the open group and say, okay, let's, let's form the old forum as we call it at the time. So it's September, 2080, where I did a Galleria in Houston, but the kickoff meeting for the OT four with about 10 members at the time. So that's just over two years ago, we started an exercise for me called ODU. They kicked it off. Uh, and so that's really them will be coming from and how we've got there. Also >>The origin story. Um, what, so what digging a little deeper there? What were some of the things you were trying to achieve with the OSU? >>Well, a couple of things we've tried to achieve with you, um, first is really separating data from applications for what is, what is the biggest problem we have in the subsurface space that the data and applications are all interlinked or tied together. And if, if you have them and a new company coming along and say, I have this new application and he's access to the data that is not possible because the data often interlinked with the application. So the first thing we did is really breaking the link between the application, the data as those levels, the first thing we did, secondly, put all the data to a single data platform, take the silos out what was happening in the sub-service space. They got all the data in what we call silos in small little islands out there. So what we're trying to do is first break the link to great, great. >>They put the data single day, the bathroom, and the third part, put a standard layer on top of that, it's an API layer on top to equate a platform. So we could create an ecosystem out of companies to start a valving Schoff application on top of dev data platform across you might have a data platform, but you're only successful if have a rich ecosystem of people start developing applications on top of that. And then you can export the data like small companies, last company, university, you name it, we're getting after create an ecosystem out here. So the three things were first break the link between application data, just break it and put data at the center and also make sure that data, this data structure would not be managed by one company, but it would only be met. It would be managed the data structures by the ODI forum. Secondly, then put a, the data, a single data platform certainly then has an API layer on top and then create an ecosystem. Really go for people, say, please start developing applications, because now you had access to the data. I've got the data no longer linked to somebody whose application was all freely available, but an API layer that was, that was all September, 2018, more or less. >>And hear a little bit. Can you talk a little bit about some of the imperatives from the AWS standpoint in terms of what you were trying to achieve with this? Yeah, absolutely. And this whole thing is Johann said started with a challenge that was really brought out at shell. The challenges that geoscientists spend up to 70% of their time looking for data. I'm a geologist I've spent more than 70% of my time trying to find data in these silos. And from there, instead of just figuring out how we could address that one problem, we worked together to really understand the root cause of these challenges and working backwards from that use case OSU and OSU on AWS has really enabled customers to create solutions that span, not just this in particular problem, but can really scale to be inclusive of the entire energy value chain and deliver value from these use cases to the energy industry and beyond. Thank you, Lee, uh, Johann. So talk a little bit about Accenture's cloud first approach and how it has, uh, helped shell work faster and better with speed. >>Well, of course, access a cloud first approach only works together. It's been an Amazon environment, AWS environment. So we're really looking at, uh, at, at Accenture and others altogether helping shell in this space. Now the combination of the two is what we're really looking at, uh, where access of course can be recent knowledge student to that environment operates support knowledge, do an environment. And of course, Amazon will be doing that to today's environment that underpinning their services, et cetera. So, uh, we would expect a combination, a lot of goods when we started rolling out and put in production, the old you are three and bug because we are anus. Then when the release feed comes to the market in Q1, next year of ODU have already started going to Audi production inside shell. But as the first release, which is ready for prime time production across an enterprise will be released just before Christmas, last year when he's still in may of this year. But really three is the first release we want to use for full scale production deployment inside shell, and also the operators around the world. And there is one Amazon, sorry, at that one. Um, extensive can play a role in the ongoing, in the, in deployment building up, but also support environment. >>So one of the other things that we talk a lot about here on the cube is sustainability. And this is a big imperative at so many organizations around the world in particular energy companies. How does this move to OSD you, uh, help organizations become, how is this a greener solution for companies? >>Well, first we make it's a greatest solution because you start making a much more efficient use of your resources, which is already an important one. The second thing we're doing is also, we started ODU in framers, in the oil and gas space in the expert development space. We've grown, uh, OTU in our strategy of growth. I was, you know, also do an alternative energy sociology. We'll all start supporting next year. Things like solar farms, wind farms, uh, the, the dermatomal environment hydration. So it becomes an and an open energy data platform, not just what I want to get into sleep. That's what new industry, any type of energy industry. So our focus is to create, bring the data of all those various energy data sources to get me to a single data platform you can to use AI and other technologies on top of that, to exploit the data, to meet again into a single data platform. >>Liz, I want to ask you about security because security is, is, is such a big concern when it comes to data. How secure is the data on OSD? You, um, actually, can I talk, can I do a follow up on this sustainability talking? Oh, absolutely. By all means. I mean, I want to interject though security is absolutely our top priority. I don't mean to move away from that, but with sustainability, in addition to the benefits of the OSU data platform, when a company moves from on-prem to the cloud, they're also able to leverage the benefits of scale. Now, AWS is committed to running our business in the most environmentally friendly way possible. And our scale allows us to achieve higher resource utilization and energy efficiency than a typical data center. >>Now, a recent study by four 51 research found that AWS is infrastructure is 3.6 times more energy efficient than the median of surveyed enterprise data centers. Two thirds of that advantage is due to higher, um, server utilization and a more energy efficient server population. But when you factor in the carbon intensity of consumed electricity and renewable energy purchases for 51 found that AWS performs the same task with an 88% lower carbon footprint. Now that's just another way that AWS and OSU are working to support our customers is they seek to better understand their workflows and make their legacy businesses less carbon intensive. >>That's that's incorrect. Those are those statistics are incredible. Do you want to talk a little bit now about security? Absolutely. And security will always be AWS is top priority. In fact, AWS has been architected to be the most flexible and secure cloud computing environment available today. Our core infrastructure is built to satisfy. There are the security requirements for the military, local banks and other high sensitivity organizations. And in fact, AWS uses the same secure hardware and software to build and operate each of our regions. So that customers benefit from the only commercial cloud that's hat hits service offerings and associated supply chain vetted and deemed secure enough for top secret workloads. That's backed by a deep set of cloud security tools with more than 200 security compliance and governmental service and key features as well as an ecosystem of partners like Accenture, that can really help our customers to make sure that their environments for their data meet and or exceed their security requirements. Johann, I want you to talk a little bit about how OSD you can be used today. Does it only handle subsurface data? >>Uh, today it's Honda's subserves or Wells data, we go to add to that production around the middle of next year. That means that the whole upstate business. So we've got goes from exploration all the way to production. You've made it together into a single data platform. So production will be added around Q3 of next year. Then a principal. We have a difficult, the elder data that single environment, and we want to extend them to other data sources or energy sources like solar farms, wind farms, uh, hydrogen, hydro, et cetera. So we're going to add a whore, a whole list of audit day energy source to them and be all the data together into a single data club. So we move from a falling guest data platform to an aniseed data platform. That's really what our objective is because the whole industry, if you look it over, look at our companies are all moving in. That same two acts of quantity of course, are very strong in oil and gas, but also increased the, got into the other energy sources like, like solar, like wind, like th like highly attended, et cetera. So we would be moving exactly. But that same method that, that, that the whole OSU can't really support at home. And as a spectrum of energy sources, >>Of course, and Liz and Johan. I want you to close us out here by just giving us a look into your crystal balls and talking about the five and 10 year plan for OSD. You we'll start with you, Liz. What do you, what do you see as the future holding for this platform? Um, honestly, the incredibly cool thing about working at AWS is you never know where the innovation and the journey is going to take you. I personally am looking forward to work with our customers, wherever their OSU journeys, take them, whether it's enabling new energy solutions or continuing to expand, to support use cases throughout the energy value chain and beyond, but really looking forward to continuing to partner as we innovate to slay tomorrow's challenges, Johann first, nobody can look at any more nowadays, especially 10 years own objective is really in the next five years, you will become the key backbone for energy companies for storing your data. You are efficient intelligence and optimize the whole supply energy supply chain in this world down here, you'll uncovers Liz Dennett. Thank you so much for coming on the cube virtual I'm Rebecca Knight stay tuned for more of our coverage of the Accenture executive summit >>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome everyone to the cubes coverage of the Accenture executive summit. Part of AWS reinvent. I'm your host Rebecca Knight today we're welcoming back to Kubila. We have Kishor Dirk. He is the Accenture senior managing director cloud first global services lead. Welcome back to the show Kishore. Thank you very much. Nice to meet again. And, uh, Tristan moral horse set. He is the managing director, Accenture cloud first North America growth. Welcome back to you to trust and great to be back in grapes here again, Rebecca. Exactly. Even in this virtual format, it is good to see your faces. Um, today we're going to be talking about my nav and green cloud advisor capability. Kishor I want to start with you. So my nav is a platform that is really celebrating its first year in existence. Uh, November, 2019 is when Accenture introduced it. Uh, but it's, it has new relevance in light of this global pandemic that we are all enduring and suffering through. Tell us a little bit about the lineup platform, what it is that cloud platform to help our clients navigate the complexity of cloud and cloud decisions to make it faster. And obviously, you know, we have in the cloud, uh, you know, with >>The increased relevance and all the, especially over the last few months with the impact of COVID crisis and exhibition of digital transformation, you know, we are seeing the transformation or the acceleration to cloud much faster. This platform that you're talking about has enabled and 40 clients globally across different industries. You identify the right cloud solution, navigate the complexity, provide a cloud specific solution simulate for our clients to meet the strategy business needs, and the clients are loving it. >>I want to go to you now trust and tell us a little bit about how mine nav works and how it helps companies make good cloud choice. >>Yeah, so Rebecca, we we've talked about cloud is, is more than just infrastructure and that's what mine app tries to solve for it. It really looks at a variety of variables, including infrastructure operating model and fundamentally what client's business outcomes, um, uh, our clients are, are looking for and, and identifies the optimal solution for what they need. And we assign this to accelerate and we mentioned the pandemic. One of the big focus now is to accelerate. And so we worked through a three-step process. The first is scanning and assessing our client's infrastructure, their data landscape, their application. Second, we use our automated artificial intelligence engine to interact with. We have a wide variety and library of a collective plot expertise. And we look to recommend what is the enterprise architecture and solution. And then third, before we aligned with our clients, we look to simulate and test this scaled up model. And the simulation gives our clients a way to see what cloud is going to look like, feel like and how it's going to transform their business before they go there. >>Tell us a little bit about that in real life. Now as a company, so many of people are working remotely having to collaborate, uh, not in real life. How is that helping them right now? >>So, um, the, the pandemic has put a tremendous strain on systems, uh, because of the demand on those systems. And so we talk about resiliency. We also now need to collaborate across data across people. Um, I think all of us are calling from a variety of different places where our last year we were all at the VA cube itself. Um, and, and cloud technologies such as teams, zoom that we're we're leveraging now has fundamentally accelerated and clients are looking to onboard this for their capabilities. They're trying to accelerate their journey. They realize that now the cloud is what is going to become important for them to differentiate. Once we come out of the pandemic and the ability to collaborate with their employees, their partners, and their clients through these systems is becoming a true business differentiator for our clients. >>Keisha, I want to talk with you now about my navs multiple capabilities, um, and helping clients design and navigate their cloud journeys. Tell us a little bit about the green cloud advisor capability and its significance, particularly as so many companies are thinking more deeply and thoughtfully about sustainability. >>Yes. So since the launch of my lab, we continue to enhance, uh, capabilities for our clients. One of the significant, uh, capabilities that we have enabled is the being taught advisor today. You know, Rebecca, a lot of the businesses are more environmentally aware and are expanding efforts to decrease power consumption, uh, and obviously carbon emissions and, uh, and run a sustainable operations across every aspect of the enterprise. Uh, as a result, you're seeing an increasing trend in adoption of energy, efficient infrastructure in the global market. And one of the things that we did a lot of research we found out is that there's an ability to influence our client's carbon footprint through a better cloud solution. And that's what the internet brings to us, uh, in, in terms of a lot of the client connotation that you're seeing in Europe, North America and others, lot of our clients are accelerating to a green cloud strategy to unlock beta financial, societal and environmental benefit, uh, through obviously cloud-based circular, operational, sustainable products and services. That is something that we are enhancing my now, and we are having active client discussions at this point of time. >>So Tristan, tell us a little bit about how this capability helps clients make greener decisions. >>Yeah. Um, well, let's start about the investments from the cloud providers in renewable and sustainable energy. Um, they have most of the hyperscalers today, um, have been investing significantly on data centers that are run on renewable energy, some incredibly creative constructs on the how to do that. And sustainability is there for a key, um, key item of importance for the hyperscalers and also for our clients who now are looking for sustainable energy. And it turns out this marriage is now possible. I can, we marry the, the green capabilities of the comm providers with a sustainability agenda of our clients. And so what we look into the way the mine EF works is it looks at industry benchmarks and evaluates our current clients, um, capabilities and carpet footprint leveraging their existing data centers. We then look to model from an end-to-end perspective, how the, their journey to the cloud leveraging sustainable and, um, and data centers with renewable energy. We look at how their solution will look like and, and quantify carbon tax credits, um, improve a green index score and provide quantifiable, um, green cloud capabilities and measurable outcomes to our clients, shareholders, stakeholders, clients, and customers. Um, and our green plot advisers sustainability solutions already been implemented at three clients. And in many cases in two cases has helped them reduce the carbon footprint by up to 400% through migration from their existing data center to green cloud. Very, very, >>That is remarkable. Now tell us a little bit about the kinds of clients. Is this, is this more interesting to clients in Europe? Would you say that it's catching on in the United States? Where, what is the breakdown that you're seeing right now? >>Sustainability is becoming such a global agenda and we're seeing our clients, um, uh, tie this and put this at board level, um, uh, agenda and requirements across the globe. Um, Europe has specific constraints around data sovereignty, right, where they need their data in country, but from a green, a sustainability agenda, we see clients across all our markets, North America, Europe, and our growth markets adopt this. And we have seen case studies and all three months. >>Keisha, I want to bring you back into the conversation. Talk a little bit about how MindUP ties into Accenture's cloud first strategy, your Accenture's CEO, Julie Sweet has talked about post COVID leadership requiring every business to become a cloud first business. Tell us a little bit about how this ethos is in Accenture and how you're sort of looking outward with it too. >>So Rebecca mine is the launch pad, uh, to a cloud first transformation for our clients. Uh, Accenture, see your jewelry suite, uh, you know, shared the Accenture cloud first and our substantial investment demonstrate our commitment and is delivering greater value for our clients when they need it the most. And with the digital transformation requiring cloud at scale, you know, we're seeing that in the post COVID leadership, it requires that every business should become a cloud business. And my nap helps them get there by evaluating the cloud landscape, navigating the complexity, modeling architecting and simulating an optimal cloud solution for our clients. And as Justin was sharing a greener cloud. >>So Tristan, talk a little bit more about some of the real life use cases in terms of what are we, what are clients seeing? What are the results that they're having? >>Yes. Thank you, Rebecca. I would say two key things right around my neck. The first is the iterative process. Clients don't want to wait, um, until they get started, they want to get started and see what their journey is going to look like. And the second is fundamental acceleration, dependent make, as we talked about, has accelerated the need to move to cloud very quickly. And my nav is there to do that. So how do we do that? First is generating the business cases. Clients need to know in many cases that they have a business case by business case, we talk about the financial benefits, as well as the business outcomes, the green, green clot impact sustainability impacts with minus. We can build initial recommendations using a basic understanding of their environment and benchmarks in weeks versus months with indicative value savings in the millions of dollars arranges. >>So for example, very recently, we worked with a global oil and gas company, and in only two weeks, we're able to provide an indicative savings for $27 million over five years. This enabled the client to get started, knowing that there is a business case benefit and then iterate on it. And this iteration is, I would say the second point that is particularly important with my nav that we've seen in bank, the clients, which is, um, any journey starts with an understanding of what is the application landscape and what are we trying to do with those, these initial assessments that used to take six to eight weeks are now taking anywhere from two to four weeks. So we're seeing a 40 to 50% reduction in the initial assessment, which gets clients started in their journey. And then finally we've had discussions with all of the hyperscalers to help partner with Accenture and leverage mine after prepared their detailed business case module as they're going to clients. And as they're accelerating the client's journey, so real results, real acceleration. And is there a journey? Do I have a business case and furthermore accelerating the journey once we are by giving the ability to work in iterative approach. >>I mean, it sounds as though that the company that clients and and employees are sort of saying, this is an amazing time savings look at what I can do here in, in so much in a condensed amount of time, but in terms of getting everyone on board, one of the things we talked about last time we met, uh, Tristan was just how much, uh, how one of the obstacles is getting people to sign on and the new technologies and new platforms. Those are often the obstacles and struggles that companies face. Have you found that at all? Or what is sort of the feedback that you're getting from employers? >>Sorry. Yes. We clearly, there are always obstacles to a cloud journey. If there were an obstacles, all our clients would be, uh, already fully in the cloud. What man I gives the ability is to navigate through those, to start quickly. And then as we identify obstacles, we can simulate what things are going to look like. We can continue with certain parts of the journey while we deal with that obstacle. And it's a fundamental accelerator. Whereas in the past one, obstacle would prevent a class from starting. We can now start to address the obstacles one at a time while continuing and accelerating the contrary. That is the fundamental difference. >>Kishor I want to give you the final word here. Tell us a little bit about what is next for Accenture might have and what we'll be discussing next year at the Accenture executive summit >>Sort of echo, we are continuously evolving with our client needs and reinventing, reinventing for the future. For mine, as I've been taught advisor, our plan is to help our clients reduce carbon footprint and again, migrate to a green cloud. Uh, and additionally, we're looking at, you know, two capabilities, uh, which include sovereign cloud advisor, uh, with clients, especially in, in Europe and others are under pressure to meet, uh, stringent data norms that Kristen was talking about. And the sovereign cloud advisor health organization to create an architecture cloud architecture that complies with the green. Uh, I would say the data sovereignty norms that is out there. The other element is around data to cloud. We are seeing massive migration, uh, for, uh, for a lot of the data to cloud. And there's a lot of migration hurdles that come within that. Uh, we have expanded mine app to support assessment capabilities, uh, for, uh, assessing applications, infrastructure, but also covering the entire state, including data and the code level to determine the right cloud solution. So we are, we are pushing the boundaries on what mine app can do with mine. Have you created the ability to take the guesswork out of cloud navigate the complexity? We are roaring risks costs, and we are, you know, achieving client's static business objectives while building a sustainable alerts with being cloud >>Any platform that can take some of the guesswork out of the future. I'm I'm onboard with. Thank you so much, Tristin and Kishore. This has been a great conversation. >>Thank you. >>Stay tuned for more of the cubes coverage of the Accenture executive summit. I'm Rebecca Knight from around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Hey, welcome back to the cubes coverage of 80 us reinvent 2020 virtual centric executive summit. The two great guests here to break down the analysis of the relationship with cloud and essential Brian bowhead director ahead of a century 80. It was business group at Amazon web services. And Andy T a B G the M is essentially Amazon business group lead managing director at Accenture. Uh, I'm sure you're super busy and dealing with all the action, Brian. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on. So thank you. You guys essentially has been in the spotlight this week and all through the conference around this whole digital transformation, essentially as business group is celebrating its fifth anniversary. What's new, obviously the emphasis of next gen post COVID generation, highly digital transformation, a lot happening. You got your five-year anniversary, what's new. >>Yeah, it, you know, so if you look back, it's exciting. Um, you know, so it was five years ago. Uh, it was actually October where we, where we launched the Accenture AWS business group. And if we think back five years, I think we're still at the point where a lot of customers were making that transition from, you know, should I move to cloud to how do I move to cloud? Right? And so that was one of the reasons why we launched the business group. And since, since then, certainly we've seen that transition, right? Our conversations today are very much around how do I move to cloud, help me move, help me figure out the business case and then pull together all the different pieces so I can move more quickly, uh, you know, with less risk and really achieve my business outcomes. And I would say, you know, one of the things too, that's, that's really changed over the five years. >>And what we're seeing now is when we started, right, we were focused on migration data and IOT as the big three pillars that we launched with. And those are still incredibly important to us, but just the breadth of capability and frankly, the, the, the breadth of need that we're seeing from customers. And obviously as AWS has matured over the years and launched our new capabilities, we're Eva with Accenture and in the business group, we've broadened our capabilities and deepened our capabilities over the, over the last five years as well. For instance, this year with, with COVID, especially, it's really forced our customers to think differently about their own customers or their citizens, and how do they service those citizens? So we've seen a huge acceleration around customer engagement, right? And we powered that with Accenture customer engagement platform powered by ADA, Amazon connect. And so that's been a really big trend this year. And then, you know, that broadens our capability from just a technical discussion to one where we're now really reaching out and, and, um, and helping transform and modernize that customer and citizen experience as well, which has been exciting to see. >>Yeah, Andy, I want to get your thoughts here. We've been reporting and covering essentially for years. It's not like it's new to you guys. I mean, five years is a great anniversary. You know, check is good relationship, but you guys have been doing the work you've been on the trend line. And then this hits and Andy said on his keynote and I thought he said it beautifully. And he even said it to me in my one-on-one interview with them was it's on full display right now, the whole digital transformation, everything about it is on full display and you're either were prepared for it or you kind of word, and you can see who's there. You guys have been prepared. This is not new. So give us the update from your perspective, how you're taking advantage of this, of this massive shift, highly accelerated digital transformation. >>Well, I think, I think you can be prepared, but you've also got to be prepared to always sort of, I think what we're seeing in, in, um, in, in, in, in recent times and particularly 20 w what is it I think today there are, um, full sense of the enterprise workloads, the cloud, um, you know, that leaves 96 percentile now for him. Um, and I, over the next four to >>Five years, um, we're going to see that sort of, uh, acceleration to the, to the cloud pick up, um, this year is, as Andy touched on, I think, uh, uh, on Tuesday in his, I think the pandemic is a forcing function, uh, for companies to, to really pause and think about everything from, from, you know, how they, um, manage that technology to infrastructure, to just to carotenoids where the data sets to what insights and intelligence that getting from that data. And then eventually even to, to the talent, the talent they have in the organization and how they can be competitive, um, their culture, their culture of innovation, of invention and reinvention. And so I think, I think, you know, when you, when you think of companies out there faced with these challenges, it, it forces us, it forces AWS, it forces AEG to come together and think through how can we help create value for them? How can we help help them move from sort of just causing and rethinking to having real plans in an action and that taking them, uh, into, into implementation. And so that's, that's what we're working on. Um, I think over the next five years, we're looking to just continue to come together and help these, these companies get to the cloud and get the value from the cloud because it's beyond just getting to the cloud attached to them and living in the cloud and, and getting the value from it. >>It's interesting. Andy was saying, don't just put your toe in the water. You got to go beyond the toe in the water kind of approach. Um, I want to get to that large scale cause that's the big pickup this week that I kind of walked away with was it's large scale. Acceleration's not just toe in the water experimentation. Can you guys share, what's causing this large scale end to end enterprise transformation? And what are some of the success criteria have you seen for the folks who have done that? >>Yeah. And I'll, I'll, I'll start. And at the end you can buy a lawn. So, you know, it's interesting if I look back a year ago at re-invent and when I did the cube interview, then we were talking about how the ABG, we were starting to see this shift of customers. You know, we've been working with customers for years on a single of what I'll call a single-threaded programs, right. We can do a migration, we could do SAP, we can do a data program. And then even last year, we were really starting to see customers ask. The question is like, what kind of synergies and what kind of economies of scale do I get when I start bringing these different threads together, and also realizing that it's, you know, to innovate for the business and build new applications, new capabilities. Well, that then is going to inform what data you need to, to hydrate those applications, right? Which then informs your data strategy while a lot of that data is then also embedded in your underlying applications that sit on premises. So you should be thinking through how do you get those applications into the cloud? So you need to draw that line through all of those layers. And that was already starting last year. And so last year we launched the joint transformation program with AEG. And then, so we were ready when this year happened and then it was just an acceleration. So things have been happening faster than we anticipated, >>But we knew this was going to be happening. And luckily we've been in a really good position to help some of our customers really think through all those different layers of kind of pyramid as we've been calling it along with the talent and change pieces, which are also so important as you make this transformation to cloud >>Andy, what's the success factors. Andy Jassy came on stage during the partner day, a surprise fireside chat with Doug Hume and talking about this is really an opportunity for partners to, to change the business landscape with enablement from Amazon. You guys are in a pole position to do that in the marketplace. What's the success factors that you see, >>Um, really from three, three fronts, I'd say, um, w one is the people. Um, and, and I, I, again, I think Andy touched on sort of eight, uh, success factors, uh, early in the week. And for me, it's these three areas that it sort of boils down to these three areas. Um, one is the, the, the, the people, uh, from the leaders that it's really important to set those big, bold visions point the way. And then, and then, you know, set top down goals. How are we going to measure Z almost do get what you measure, um, to be, you know, beyond the leaders, to, to the right people in the right position across the company. We we're finding a key success factor for these end to end transformations is not just the leaders, but you haven't poached across the company, working in a, in a collaborative, shared, shared success model, um, and people who are not afraid to, to invent and fail. >>And so that takes me to perhaps the second point, which is the culture, um, it's important, uh, with finding for the right conditions to be set in the company that enabled, uh, people to move at pace, move at speed, be able to fail fast, um, keep things very, very simple and just keep iterating and that sort of culture of iteration and improvement versus seeking perfection is, is super important for, for success. And then the third part of maybe touch on is, is partners. Um, I think, you know, as we move forward over the next five years, we're going to see an increasing number of players in the ecosystem in the enterprise and state. Um, you're going to see more and more SAS providers. And so it's important for companies and our joint clients out there to pick partners like, um, like AWS or, or Accenture or others, but to pick partners who have all worked together and you have built solutions together, and that allows them to get speed to value quicker. It allows them to bring in pre-assembled solutions, um, and really just drive that transformation in a quicker, it sorts of manner. >>Yeah, that's a great point worth calling out, having that partnership model that's additive and has synergy in the cloud, because one of the things that came out of this this week, this year is reinvented, is there's new things going on in the public cloud, even though hybrid is an operating model, outpost and super relevant. There, there are benefits for being in the cloud and you've got partners API, for instance, and have microservices working together. This is all new, but I got, I got to ask that on that thread, Andy, where did you see your customers going? Because I think, you know, as you work backwards from the customers, you guys do, what's their needs, how do you see them? W you know, where's the puck going? Where can they skate where the puck's going, because you can almost look forward and say, okay, I've got to build modern apps. I got to do the digital transformation. Everything is a service. I get that, but what are they, what solutions are you building for them right now to get there? >>Yeah. And, and of course, with, with, you know, industries blurring and multiple companies, it's always hard to boil down to the exact situations, but you could probably look at it from a sort of a thematic lens. And what we're seeing is as the cloud transformation journey picks up, um, from us perspective, we've seen a material shift in the solutions and problems that we're trying to address with clients that they are asking for us, uh, to, to help, uh, address is no longer just the back office, where you're sort of looking at cost and efficiency and, um, uh, driving gains from that perspective. It's beyond that, it's now materially the top line. It's, how'd you get the driving to the, you know, speed to insights, how'd you get them decomposing, uh, their application set in order to derive those insights. Um, how'd you get them, um, to, to, um, uh, sort of adopt leading edge industry solutions that give them that jump start, uh, and that accelerant to winning the customers, winning the eyeballs. >>Um, and then, and then how'd, you help drive the customer experience. We're seeing a lot of push from clients, um, or ask for help on how do I optimize my customer experience in order to retain my eyeballs. And then how do I make sure I've got a soft self-learning ecosystem of play, um, where, uh, you know, it's not just a practical experience that I can sort of keep learning and iterating, um, how I treat my, my customers, um, and a lot of that, um, that still self-learning, that comes from, you know, putting in intelligence into your, into your systems, getting an AI and ML in there. And so, as a result of that work, we're seeing a lot of push and a lot of what we're doing, uh, is pouring investment into those areas. And then finally, maybe beyond the bottom line, and the top line is how do you harden that and protect that with, um, security and resilience? So I'll probably say those are the three areas. John, >>You know, the business model side, obviously the enablement is what Amazon has. Um, we see things like SAS factory coming on board and the partner network, obviously a century is a big, huge partner of you guys. Um, the business models there, you've got I, as, as doing great with chips, you have this data modeling this data opportunity to enable these modern apps. We heard about the partner strategy for me and D um, talking to me now about how can partners within even Accenture, w w what's the business model, um, side on your side that you're enabling this. Can you just share your thoughts on that? >>Yeah, yeah. And so it's, it's interesting. I think I'm going to build it and then build a little bit on some of the things that Andy really talked about there, right? And that we, if you think of that from the partnership, we are absolutely helping our customers with kind of that it modernization piece. And we're investing a lot and there's hard work that needs to get done there. And we're investing a lot as a partnership around the tools, the assets and the methodology. So in AWS and Accenture show up together as AEG, we are executing office single blueprint with a single set of assets, so we can move fast. So we're going to continue to do that with all the hybrid announcements from this past week, those get baked into that, that migration modernization theme, but the other really important piece here as we go up the stack, Andy mentioned it, right? >>The data piece, like so much of what we're talking about here is around data and insights. Right? I did a cube interview last week with, uh, Carl hick. Um, who's the CIO from Takeda. And if you hear Christophe Weber from Takeda talk, he talks about Takeda being a data company, data and insights company. So how do we, as a partnership, again, build the capabilities and the platforms like with Accenture's applied insights platform so that we can bootstrap and really accelerate our client's journey. And then finally, on the innovation on the business front, and Andy was touching on some of these, we are investing in industry solutions and accelerators, right? Because we know that at the end of the day, a lot of these are very similar. We're talking about ingesting data, using machine learning to provide insights and then taking action. So for instance, the cognitive insurance platform that we're working together on with Accenture, if they give out property and casualty claims and think about how do we enable touchless claims using machine learning and computer vision that can assess based on an image damage, and then be able to triage that and process it accordingly, right? >>Using all the latest machine learning capabilities from AWS with that deep, um, AI machine learning data science capability from Accenture, who knows all those algorithms that need to get built and build that library by doing that, we can really help these insurance companies accelerate their transformation around how they think about claims and how they can speed those claims on behalf of their policy holder. So that's an example of a, kind of like a bottom to top, uh, view of what we're doing in the partnership to address these new needs. >>That's awesome. Andy, I want to get back to your point about culture. You mentioned it twice now. Um, talent is a big part of the game here. Andy Jassy referenced Lambda. The next generation developers were using Lambda. He talked about CIO stories around, they didn't move fast enough. They lost three years. A new person came in and made it go faster. This is a new, this is a time for a certain kind of, um, uh, professional and individual, um, to, to be part of, um, this next generation. What's the talent strategy you guys have to attract and attain the best and retain the people. How do you do it? >>Um, you know, it's, it's, um, it's an interesting one. It's, it's, it's oftentimes a, it's, it's a significant point and often overlooked. Um, you know, people, people really matter and getting the right people, um, in not just in AWS or it, but then in our customers is super important. We often find that much of our discussions with, with our clients is centered around that. And it's really a key ingredient. As you touched on, you need people who are willing to embrace change, but also people who are willing to create new, um, to invent new, to reinvent, um, and to, to keep it very simple. Um, w we're we're we're seeing increasingly that you need people that have a sort of deep learning and a deep, uh, or deep desire to keep learning and to be very curious as, as they go along. Most of all, though, I find that, um, having people who are not willing or not afraid to fail is critical, absolutely critical. Um, and I think that that's, that's, uh, a necessary ingredient that we're seeing, um, our clients needing more off, um, because if you can't start and, and, and you can't iterate, um, you know, for fear of failure, you're in trouble. And, and I think Andy touched on that you, you know, where that CIO, that you referred to last three years, um, and so you really do need people who are willing to start not afraid to start, uh, and, uh, and not afraid to lead >>Was a gut check there. I just say, you guys have a great team over there. Everyone at the center I've interviewed strong, talented, and not afraid to lean in and, and into the trends. Um, I got to ask on that front cloud first was something that was a big strategic focus for Accenture. How does that fit into your business group? That's an Amazon focused, obviously they're cloud, and now hybrid everywhere, as I say, um, how does that all work it out? >>We're super excited about our cloud first initiative, and I think it fits it, um, really, uh, perfectly it's it's, it's what we needed. It's, it's, it's a, it's another accelerant. Um, if you think of count first, what we're doing is we're, we're putting together, um, uh, you know, capability set that will help enable him to and transformations as Brian touched on, you know, help companies move from just, you know, migrating to, to, to modernizing, to driving insights, to bringing in change, um, and, and, and helping on that, on that talent side. So that's sort of component number one is how does Accenture bring the best, uh, end to end transformation capabilities to our clients? Number two is perhaps, you know, how do we, um, uh, bring together pre-assembled as Brian touched on pre-assembled industry offerings to help as an accelerant, uh, for our, for our customers three years, as we touched on earlier is, is that sort of partnership with the ecosystem. >>We're going to see an increasing number of SAS providers in an estate, in the enterprise of snakes out there. And so, you know, panto wild cloud first, and our ABG strategy is to increase our touch points in our integrations and our solutions and our offerings with the ecosystem partners out there, the ISP partners out, then the SAS providers out there. And then number four is really about, you know, how do we, um, extend the definition of the cloud? I think oftentimes people thought of the cloud just as sort of on-prem and prem. Um, but, but as Andy touched on earlier this week, you know, you've, you've got this concept of hybrid cloud and that in itself, um, uh, is, is, is, you know, being redefined as well. You know, when you've got the intelligent edge and you've got various forms of the edge. Um, so that's the fourth part of, of, uh, of occupied for strategy. And for us was super excited because all of that is highly relevant for ABG, as we look to build those capabilities as industry solutions and others, and as when to enable our customers, but also how we, you know, as we, as we look to extend how we go to market, I'll join tele PS, uh, in, uh, in our respective skews and products. >>Well, what's clear now is that people now realize that if you contain that complexity, the upside is massive. And that's great opportunity for you guys. We got to get to the final question for you guys to weigh in on, as we wrap up next five years, Brian, Andy weigh in, how do you see that playing out? What do you see this exciting, um, for the partnership and the cloud first cloud, everywhere cloud opportunities share some perspective. >>Yeah, I, I think, you know, just kinda building on that cloud first, right? What cloud first, and we were super excited when cloud first was announced and you know, what it signals to the market and what we're seeing in our customers, which has cloud really permeates everything that we're doing now. Um, and so all aspects of the business will get infused with cloud in some ways, you know, it, it touches on, on all pieces. And I think what we're going to see is just a continued acceleration and getting much more efficient about pulling together the disparate, what had been disparate pieces of these transformations, and then using automation using machine learning to go faster. Right? And so, as we started thinking about the stack, right, well, we're going to get, I know we are, as a partnership is we're already investing there and getting better and more efficient every day as the migration pieces and the moving the assets to the cloud are just going to continue to get more automated, more efficient. And those will become the economic engines that allow us to fund the differentiated, innovative activities up the stack. So I'm excited to see us kind of invest to make those, those, um, those bets accelerated for customers so that we can free up capital and resources to invest where it's going to drive the most outcome for their end customers. And I think that's going to be a big focus and that's going to have the industry, um, you know, focus. It's going to be making sure that we can >>Consume the latest and greatest of AWS as capabilities and, you know, in the areas of machine learning and analytics, but then Andy's also touched on it bringing in ecosystem partners, right? I mean, one of the most exciting wins we had this year, and this year of COVID is looking at the universe, looking at Massachusetts, the COVID track and trace solution that we put in place is a partnership between Accenture, AWS, and Salesforce, right? So again, bringing together three really leading partners who can deliver value for our customers. I think we're going to see a lot more of that as customers look to partnerships like this, to help them figure out how to bring together the best of the ecosystem to drive solutions. So I think we're going to see more of that as well. >>All right, Andy final word, your take >>Thinks of innovation is, is picking up, um, dismiss things are just going faster and faster. I'm just super excited and looking forward to the next five years as, as you know, the technology invention, um, comes out and continues to sort of set new standards from AWS. Um, and as we, as Accenture wringing, our industry capabilities, we marry the two. We, we go and help our customers super exciting time. >>Well, congratulations on the partnership. I want to say thank you to you guys, because I've reported a few times some stories around real successes around this COVID pandemic that you guys worked together on with Amazon that really changed people's lives. Uh, so congratulations on that too as well. I want to call that out. Thanks for coming >>Up. Thank you. Thanks for coming on. >>Okay. This is the cubes coverage, essentially. AWS partnership, part of a century executive summit at Atrius reinvent 2020 I'm John for your host. Thanks. >>You're watching from around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Hello, and welcome back to the cubes coverage of AWS reinvent 2020. This is special programming for the century executive summit, where all the thought leaders going to extract the signal from the nose to share with you their perspective of this year's reinvent conference, as it respects the customers' digital transformation. Brian Bohan is the director and head of a center. ADA was business group at Amazon web services. Brian, great to see you. And Chris Wegman is the, uh, center, uh, Amazon business group technology lead at Accenture. Um, guys, this is about technology vision, this, this conversation, um, Chris, I want to start with you because you, Andy Jackson's keynote, you heard about the strategy of digital transformation, how you gotta lean into it. You gotta have the guts to go for it, and you got to decompose. He went everywhere. So what, what did you hear? What was striking about the keynote? Because he covered a lot of topics. Yeah. You know, it >>Was Epic, uh, as always for Mandy, a lot of topics, a lot to cover in the three hours. Uh, there was a couple of things that stood out for me, first of all, hybrid, uh, the concept, the new concept of hybrid and how Andy talked about it, you know, uh, bringing the compute and the power to all parts of the enterprise, uh, whether it be at the edge or are in the big public cloud, uh, whether it be in an outpost or wherever it might be right with containerization now, uh, you know, being able to do, uh, Amazon containerization in my data center and that that's, that's awesome. I think that's gonna make a big difference, all that being underneath the Amazon, uh, console and billing and things like that, which is great. Uh, I'll also say the, the chips, right. And I know compute is always something that, you know, we always kind of take for granted, but I think again, this year, uh, Amazon and Andy really focused on what they're doing with the chips and PR and compute, and the compute is still at the heart of everything in cloud. And that continued advancement is, is making an impact and will make a continue to make a big impact. >>Yeah, I would agree. I think one of the things that really, I mean, the container thing was, I think really kind of a nuanced point when you got Deepak sing on the opening day with Andy Jassy and he's, he runs a container group over there, you know, small little team he's on the front and front stage. That really is the key to the hybrid. And I think this showcases this new layer and taking advantage of the graviton two chips that, which I thought was huge. Brian, this is really a key part of the platform change, not change, but the continuation of AWS higher level servers building blocks that provide more capabilities, heavy lifting as they say, but the new services that are coming on top really speaks to hybrid and speaks to the edge. >>It does. Yeah. And it, it, you know, I think like Andy talks about, and we talk about, I, you know, we really want to provide choice to our customers, uh, first and foremost, and you can see that and they re uh, services. We have, we can see it in the, the hybrid options that Chris talked about, being able to run your containers through ECS or EKS anywhere I just get to the customer's choice. And one of the things that I'm excited about as you talk about going up the stack and on the edge are things will certainly outpost. Um, right. So now I'll post those launched last year, but then with the new form factors, uh, and then you look at services like Panorama, right? Being able to take computer vision and embed machine learning and computer vision, and do that as a managed capability at the edge, um, for customers. >>And so we see this across a number of industries. And so what we're really thinking about is customers no longer have to make trade-offs and have to think about those, those choices that they can really deploy, uh, natively in the cloud. And then they can take those capabilities, train those models, and then deploy them where they need to, whether that's on premises or at the edge, you know, whether it be in a factory or retail environment. When we start, I think we're really well positioned when, um, you know, hopefully next year we started seeing the travel industry rebound, um, and the, the need, you know, more than ever really to, uh, to kind of rethink about how we kind of monitor and make those environments safe. Having this kind of capability at the edge is really going to help our customers as, as we come out of this year and hopefully rebound next year. >>Yeah. Chris, I want to go back to you for a second. It's hard to hard to pick your favorite innovation from the keynote, because, you know, just reminded me that Brian just reminded me of some things I forgot happened. It was like a buffet of innovation. Some keynotes have one or two, it was like 20, you got the industrial piece that was huge. Computer vision machine learning. That's just a game changer. The connect thing came out of nowhere, in my opinion, I mean, it's a call center technology. This is boring as hell. What are you gonna do with that? It turns out it's a game changer. It's not about the calls with the contact and that's discern intermediating, um, in the stack as well. So again, a feature that looks old is actually new and relevant. What's your, what was your favorite, um, innovation? >>Uh, it it's, it's, it's hard to say. I will say my personal favorite was the, the maca last. I, I just, I think that is a phenomenal, um, uh, just addition, right? And the fact that AWS is, has worked with Apple to integrate the Nitra chip into, into, uh, you know, the iMac and offer that out. Um, you know, a lot of people are doing development, uh, on for ILS and that stuff. And that there's just gonna be a huge benefit, uh, for the development teams. But, you know, I will say, I'll come back to connect you. You mentioned it. Um, you know, but you're right. It was a, it's a boring area, but it's an area that we've seen huge success with since, since connect was launched and the additional features and the Amazon continues to bring, you know, um, obviously with, with the pandemic and now that, you know, customer engagement through the phone, uh, through omni-channel has just been critical for companies, right. >>And to be able to have those agents at home, working from home versus being in the office, it was a huge, huge advantage for, for several customers that are using connect. You know, we, we did some great stuff with some different customers, but the continue technology, like you said, the, you know, the call translation and during a call to be able to pop up those key words and have a, have a supervisor, listen is awesome. And a lot of that was some of that was already being done, but we were stitching multiple services together. Now that's right out of the box. Um, and that Google's location is only going to make that go faster and make us to be able to innovate faster for that piece of the business. >>It's interesting, you know, not to get all nerdy and, and business school life, but you've got systems of records, systems of engagement. If you look at the call center and the connect thing, what got my attention was not only the model of disintermediating, that part of the engagement in the stack, but what actually cloud does to something that's a feature or something that could be an element, like say, call center, you old days of, you know, calling an 800 number, getting some support you got in chip, you have machine learning, you actually have stuff in the, in the stack that actually makes that different now. So you w you know, the thing that impressed me was Andy was saying, you could have machine learning, detect pauses, voice inflections. So now you have technology making that more relevant and better and different. So a lot going on, this is just one example of many things that are happening from a disruption innovation standpoint. W what do you guys, what do you guys think about that? And is that like getting it right? Can you share it? >>I think, I think, I think you are right. And I think what's implied there and what you're saying, and even in the, you know, the macro S example is the ability if we're talking about features, right. Which by themselves, you're saying, Oh, wow, what's, what's so unique about that, but because it's on AWS and now, because whether you're a developer working on, you know, w with Mac iOS and you have access to the 175 plus services, that you can then weave into your new applications, talk about the connect scenario. Now we're embedding that kind of inference and machine learning to do what you say, but then your data Lake is also most likely running in AWS, right? And then the other channels, whether they be mobile channels or web channels, or in store physical channels, that data can be captured in that same machine learning could be applied there to get that full picture across the spectrum. Right? So that's the, that's the power of bringing together on AWS to access to all those different capabilities of services, and then also the where the data is, and pulling all that together, that for that end to end view, okay, >>You guys give some examples of work you've done together. I know this stuff we've reported on. Um, in the last session we talked about some of the connect stuff, but that kind of encapsulates where this, where this is all going with respect to the tech. >>Yeah. I think one of the, you know, it was called out on Doug's partner summit was, you know, is there a, uh, an SAP data Lake accelerator, right? Almost every enterprise has SAP, right. And SAP getting data out of SAP has always been a challenge, right. Um, whether it be through, you know, data warehouses and AWS, sorry, SAP BW, you know, what we've focused on is, is getting that data when you're on have SAP on AWS getting that data into the data Lake, right. And getting it into, into a model that you can pull the value out of the customers can pull the value out, use those AI models. Um, so that was one thing we worked on in the last 12 months, super excited about seeing great success with customers. Um, you know, a lot of customers had ideas. They want to do this. They had different models. What we've done is, is made it very, uh, simplified, uh, framework that allows customers to do it very quickly, get the data out there and start getting value out of it and iterating on that data. Um, we saw customers are spending way too much time trying to stitch it all together and trying to get it to work technically. Uh, and we've now cut all that out and they can immediately start getting down to, to the data and taking advantage of those, those different, um, services are out there by AWS. >>Brian, you want to weigh in as things you see as relevant, um, builds that you guys done together that kind of tease out the future and connect the dots to what's coming. >>Uh, I, you know, I'm going to use a customer example. Uh, we worked with, um, and it just came out with, with Unilever around their blue air connected, smart air purifier. And what I think is interesting about that, I think it touches on some of the themes we're talking about, as well as some of the themes we talked about in the last session, which is we started that program before the pandemic. Um, and, but, you know, Unilever recognized that they needed to differentiate their product in the marketplace, move to more of a services oriented business, which we're seeing as a trend. We, uh, we enabled this capability. So now it's a smart air purifier that can be remote manage. And now in the pandemic head, they are in a really good position, obviously with a very relevant product and capability, um, to be used. And so that data then, as we were talking about is going to reside on the cloud. And so the learning that can now happen about usage and about, you know, filter changes, et cetera, can find its way back into future iterations of that valve, that product. And I think that's, that's keeping with, you know, uh, Chris was talking about where we might be systems of record, like in SAP, how do we bring those in and then start learning from that data so that we can get better on our future iterations? >>Hey, Chris, on the last segment we did on the business mission, um, session, Andy Taylor from your team, uh, talked about partnerships within a century and working with other folks. I want to take that now on the technical side, because one of the things that we heard from, um, Doug's, um, keynote and that during the partner day was integrations and data were two big themes. When you're in the cloud, technically the integrations are different. You're going to get unique things in the public cloud that you're just not going to get on premise access to other cloud native technologies and companies. How has that, how do you see the partnering of Accenture with people within your ecosystem and how the data and the integration play together? What's your vision? >>Yeah, I think there's two parts of it. You know, one there's from a commercial standpoint, right? So marketplace, you know, you, you heard Dave talk about that in the, in the partner summit, right? That marketplace is now bringing together this ecosystem, uh, in a very easy way to consume by the customers, uh, and by the users and bringing multiple partners together. And we're working with our ecosystem to put more products out in the marketplace that are integrated together, uh, already. Um, you know, I think one from a technical perspective though, you know, if you look at Salesforce, you know, we talked a little earlier about connect another good example, technically underneath the covers, how we've integrated connect and Salesforce, some of it being prebuilt by AWS and Salesforce, other things that we've added on top of it, um, I think are good examples. And I think as these ecosystems, these IFCs put their products out there and start exposing more and more API APIs, uh, on the Amazon platform, make opening it up, having those, those prebuilt network connections there between, you know, the different VPCs and the different areas within, within a customer's network. >>Um, and having them, having that all opened up and connected and having all that networking done underneath the covers. You know, it's one thing to call the API APIs. It's one thing to have access to those. And that's been a big focus of a lot of, you know, ISBNs and customers to build those API APIs and expose them, but having that network infrastructure and being able to stay within the cloud within AWS to make those connections, the past that data, we always talk about scale, right? It's one thing if I just need to pass like a, you know, a simple user ID back and forth, right? That's, that's fine. We're not talking massive data sets, whether it be seismic data or whatever it be passing those of those large, those large data sets between customers across the Amazon network is going to, is going to open up the world. >>Yeah. I see huge possibilities there and love to keep on this story. I think it's going to be important and something to keep track of. I'm sure you guys will be on top of it. You know, one of the things I want to, um, dig into with you guys now is Andy had kind of this philosophy philosophical thing in his keynote, talk about societal change and how tough the pandemic is. Everything's on full display. Um, and this kind of brings out kind of like where we are and the truth. You look at the truth, it's a virtual event. I mean, it's a website and you got some sessions out there with doing remote best weekend. Um, and you've got software and you've got technology and, you know, the concept of a mechanism it's software, it does something, it does a purpose. Essentially. You guys have a concept called living systems where growth strategy powered by technology. How do you take the concept of a, of a living organism or a system and replace the mechanism, staleness of computing and software. And this is kind of an interesting, because we're on the cusp of a, of a major inflection point post COVID. I get the digital transformation being slow that's yes, that's happening. There's other things going on in society. What do you guys think about this living systems concept? >>Yeah, so I, you know, I'll start, but, you know, I think the living system concept, um, you know, it started out very much thinking about how do you rapidly change the system, right? And, and because of cloud, because of, of dev ops, because of, you know, all these software technologies and processes that we've created, you know, that's where it started it, making it much easier to make it a much faster being able to change rapidly, but you're right. I think as you now bring in more technologies, the AI technology self-healing technologies, again, you're hurting Indian in his keynote, talk about, you know, the, the systems and services they're building to the tech problems and, and, and, and give, uh, resolve those problems. Right. Obviously automation is a big part of that living systems, you know, being able to bring that all together and to be able to react in real time to either what a customer, you know, asks, um, you know, either through the AI models that have been generated and turning those AI models around much faster, um, and being able to get all the information that came came in in the last 20 minutes, right. >>You know, society's moving fast and changing fast. And, you know, even in one part of the world, if, um, something, you know, in 10 minutes can change and being able to have systems to react to that, learn from that and be able to pass that on to the next country, especially in this world with COVID and, you know, things changing very quickly with quickly and, and, and, um, diagnosis and, and, um, medical response, all that so quickly to be able to react to that and have systems pass that information learned from that information is going to be critical. >>That's awesome. Brian, one of the things that comes up every year is, Oh, the cloud scalable this year. I think, you know, we've, we've talked on the cube before, uh, years ago, certainly with the censure and Amazon, I think it was like three or four years ago. Yeah. The clouds horizontally scalable, but vertically specialized at the application layer. But if you look at the data Lake stuff that you guys have been doing, where you have machine learning, the data's horizontally scalable, and then you got the specialization in the app changes that changes the whole vertical thing. Like you don't need to have a whole vertical solution or do you, so how has this year's um, cloud news impacted vertical industries because it used to be, Oh, the oil and gas financial services. They've got a team for that. We've got a stack for that. Not anymore. Is it going away? What's changing. Wow. >>I, you know, I think it's a really good question. And I don't think, I think what we're saying, and I was just on a call this morning talking about banking and capital markets. And I do think the, you know, the, the challenges are still pretty sector specific. Um, but what we do see is the, the kind of commonality, when we start looking at the, and we talked about it as the industry solutions that we're building as a partnership, most of them follow the pattern of ingesting data, analyzing that data, and then being able to, uh, provide insights and an actions. Right. So if you think about creating that yeah. That kind of common chassis of that ingest the data Lake and then the machine learning, can you talk about, you know, the announces around SageMaker and being able to manage these models, what changes then really are the very specific industries algorithms that you're, you're, you're writing right within that framework. And so we're doing a lot in connect is a good example of this too, where you look at it. Yeah. Customer service is a horizontal capability that we're building out, but then when you stop it into insurance or retail banking or utilities, there are nuances then that we then extend and build so that we meet the unique needs of those, those industries. And that's usually around those, those models. >>Yeah. And I think this year was the first reinvented. I saw real products coming out that actually solve that problem. And that was their last year SageMaker was kinda moving up the stack, but now you have apps embedding machine learning directly in, and users don't even know it's in there. I mean, Christmas is kind of where it's going. Right. I mean, >>Yeah. Announcements. Right. How many, how many announcements where machine learning is just embedded in? I mean, so, you know, code guru, uh, dev ops guru Panorama, we talked about, it's just, it's just there. >>Yeah. I mean, having that knowledge about the linguistics and the metadata, knowing the, the business logic, those are important specific use cases for the vertical and you can get to it faster. Right. Chris, how is this changing on the tech side, your perspective? Yeah. >>You know, I keep coming back to, you know, AWS and cloud makes it easier, right? None of this stuff, you know, all of this stuff can be done, uh, and has some of it has been, but you know, what Amazon continues to do is make it easier to consume by the developer, by the, by the customer and to actually embedded into applications much easier than it would be if I had to go set up the stack and build it all on that and, and, and, uh, embed it. Right. So it's, shortcutting that process. And again, as these products continue to mature, right. And some of the stuff is embedded, um, it makes that process so much faster. Uh, it makes it reduces the amount of work required by the developers, uh, the engineers to get there. So I I'm expecting, you're going to see more of this. >>Right. I think you're going to see more and more of these multi connected services by AWS that has a lot of the AIML, um, pre-configured data lakes, all that kind of stuff embedded in those services. So you don't have to do it yourself and continue to go up the stack. And we was talking about, Amazon's built for builders, right. But, you know, builders, you know, um, have been super specialized in, or we're becoming, you know, as engineers, we're being asked to be bigger and bigger and to be, you know, uh, be able to do more stuff. And I think, you know, these kinds of integrated services are gonna help us do that >>And certainly needed more. Now, when you have hybrid edge that are going to be operating with microservices on a cloud model, and with all those advantages that are going to come around the corner for being in the cloud, I mean, there's going to be, I think there's going to be a whole clarity around benefits in the cloud with all these capabilities and benefits cloud guru. Thanks my favorite this year, because it just points to why that could happen. I mean, that happens because of the cloud data. If you're on premise, you may not have a little cloud guru, you got to got to get more data. So, but they're all different edge certainly will come into your vision on the edge. Chris, how do you see that evolving for customers? Because that could be complex new stuff. How is it going to get easier? >>Yeah. It's super complex now, right? I mean, you gotta design for, you know, all the different, uh, edge 5g, uh, protocols are out there and, and, and solutions. Right. You know, Amazon's simplifying that again, to come back to simplification. Right. I can, I can build an app that, that works on any 5g network that's been integrated with AWS. Right. I don't have to set up all the different layers to get back to my cloud or back to my, my bigger data side. And I was kind of choking. I don't even know where to call the cloud anymore, big cloud, which is a central and I go down and then I've got a cloud at the edge. Right. So what do I call that? >>Exactly. So, you know, again, I think it is this next generation of technology with the edge comes, right. And we put more and more data at the edge. We're asking for more and more compute at the edge, right? Whether it be industrial or, you know, for personal use or consumer use, um, you know, that processing is gonna get more and more intense, uh, to be able to manage and under a single console, under a single platform and be able to move the code that I develop across that entire platform, whether I have to go all the way down to the, you know, to the very edge, uh, at the, at the 5g level, right? Or all the way into the bigger cloud and how that process, isn't there be able to do that. Seamlessly is going to be allow the speed of development that's needed. >>Well, you guys done a great job and no better time to be a techie or interested in technology or computer science or social science for that matter. This is a really perfect storm, a lot of problems to solve a lot of things, a lot of change happening, positive change opportunities, a lot of great stuff. Uh, final question guys, five years working together now on this partnership with AWS and Accenture, um, congratulations, you guys are in pole position for the next wave coming. Um, what's exciting. You guys, Chris, what's on your mind, Brian. What's, what's getting you guys pumped up >>Again. I come back to G you know, Andy mentioned it in his keynote, right? We're seeing customers move now, right. We're seeing, you know, five years ago we knew customers were going to get a new, this. We built a partnership to enable these enterprise customers to make that, that journey. Right. But now, you know, even more, we're seeing them move at such great speed. Right. Which is super excites me. Right. Because I can see, you know, being in this for a long time, now I can see the value on the other end. And I really, we've been wanting to push our customers as fast as they can through the journey. And now they're moving out of, they're getting, they're getting the religion, they're getting there. They see, they need to do it to change your business. So that's what excites me is just the excites me. >>It's just the speed at which we're, we're in a single movement. Yeah, yeah. I'd agree with, yeah, I'd agree with that. I mean, so, you know, obviously getting, getting customers to the cloud is super important work, and we're obviously doing that and helping accelerate that, it's it, it's what we've been talking about when we're there, all the possibilities that become available right. Through the common data capabilities, the access to the 175 some-odd AWS services. And I also think, and this is, this is kind of permeated through this week at re-invent is the opportunity, especially in those industries that do have an industrial aspect, a manufacturing aspect, or a really strong physical aspect of bringing together it and operational technology and the business with all these capabilities, then I think edge and pushing machine learning down to the edge and analytics at the edge is really going to help us do that. And so I'm super excited by all that possibility is I feel like we're just scratching the surface there, >>Great time to be building out. And you know, this is the time for re reconstruction. Re-invention big themes. So many storylines in the keynote, in the events. It's going to keep us busy here. It's looking at angle in the cube for the next year. Gentlemen, thank you for coming out. I really appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. All right. Great conversation. You're getting technical. We could've go on another 30 minutes. Lot to talk about a lot of storylines here at AWS. Reinvent 2020 at the Centure executive summit. I'm John furrier. Thanks for watching.

>>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome to cube three 60 fives coverage of the Accenture executive summit. Part of AWS reinvent. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. Today we are joined by a cube alum, Karthik, Lorraine. He is Accenture senior managing director and lead Accenture cloud. First, welcome back to the show Karthik. >>Thank you. Thanks for having me here. >>Always a pleasure. So I want to talk to you. You are an industry veteran, you've been in Silicon Valley for decades. Um, I want to hear from your perspective what the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been, what are you hearing from clients? What are they struggling with? What are their challenges that they're facing day to day? >>I think, um, COVID-19 is being a eye-opener from, you know, various facets, you know, um, first and foremost, it's a, it's a hell, um, situation that everybody's facing, which is not just, uh, highest economic bearings to it. It has enterprise, um, an organization with bedding to it. And most importantly, it's very personal to people, um, because they themselves and their friends, family near and dear ones are going through this challenge, uh, from various different dimension. But putting that aside, when you come to it from an organization enterprise standpoint, it has changed everything well, the behavior of organizations coming together, working in their campuses, working with each other as friends, family, and, uh, um, near and dear colleagues, all of them are operating differently. So that's what big change to get things done in a completely different way, from how they used to get things done. >>Number two, a lot of things that were planned for normal scenarios, like their global supply chain, how they interact with their client customers, how they go innovate with their partners on how that employees contribute to the success of an organization at all changed. And there are no data models that give them a hint of something like this for them to be prepared for this. So we are seeing organizations, um, that have adapted to this reasonably okay, and are, you know, launching to innovate faster in this. And there are organizations that have started with struggling, but are continuing to struggle. And the gap between the leaders and legs are widening. So this is creating opportunities in a different way for the leaders, um, with a lot of pivot their business, but it's also creating significant challenge for the lag guides, uh, as we defined in our future systems research that we did a year ago, uh, and those organizations are struggling further. So the gap is actually widening. >>So you just talked about the widening gap. I've talked about the tremendous uncertainty that so many companies, even the ones who have adapted reasonably well, uh, in this, in this time, talk a little bit about Accenture cloud first and why, why now? >>I think it's a great question. Um, we believe that for many of our clients COVID-19 has turned, uh, cloud from an experimentation aspiration to an origin mandate. What I mean by that is everybody has been doing something on the other end cloud. There's no company that says we don't believe in cloud are, we don't want to do cloud. It was how much they did in cloud. And they were experimenting. They were doing the new things in cloud, but they were operating a lot of their core business outside the cloud or not in the cloud. Those organizations have struggled to operate in this new normal, in a remote fashion, as well as, uh, their ability to pivot to all the changes the pandemic has brought to them. But on the other hand, the organizations that had a solid foundation in cloud were able to collect faster and not actually gone into the stage of innovating faster and driving a new behavior in the market, new behavior within their organization. >>So we are seeing that spend to make is actually fast-forwarded something that we always believed was going to happen. This, uh, uh, moving to cloud over the next decade is fast forward it to happen in the next three to five years. And it's created this moment where it's a once in an era, really replatforming of businesses in the cloud that we are going to see. And we see this moment as a cloud first moment where organizations will use cloud as the, the, the canvas and the foundation with which they're going to reimagine their business after they were born in the cloud. Uh, and this requires a whole new strategy. Uh, and as Accenture, we are getting a lot in cloud, but we thought that this is the moment where we bring all of that, gave him a piece together because we need a strategy for addressing, moving to cloud are embracing cloud in a holistic fashion. And that's what Accenture cloud first brings together a holistic strategy, a team that's 70,000 plus people that's coming together with rich cloud skills, but investing to tie in all the various capabilities of cloud to Delaware, that holistic strategy to our clients. So I want you to >>Delve into a little bit more about what this strategy actually entails. I mean, it's clearly about embracing change and being willing to experiment and having capabilities to innovate. Can you tell us a little bit more about what this strategy entails? >>Yeah. The reason why we say that as a need for strategy is like I said, cloud is not new. There's almost every customer client is doing something with the cloud, but all of them have taken different approaches to cloud and different boundaries to cloud. Some organizations say, I just need to consolidate my multiple data centers to a small data center footprint and move the nest to cloud. Certain other organizations say that well, I'm going to move certain workloads to cloud. Certain other organizations said, well, I'm going to build this Greenfield application or workload in cloud. Certain other said, um, I'm going to use the power of AI ML in the cloud to analyze my data and drive insights. But a cloud first strategy is all of this tied with the corporate strategy of the organization with an industry specific cloud journey to say, if in this current industry, if I were to be reborn in the cloud, would I do it in the exact same passion that I did in the past, which means that the products and services that they offer need to be the matching, how they interact with that customers and partners need to be revisited, how they bird and operate their IP systems need to be the, imagine how they unearthed the data from all of the systems under which they attract need to be liberated so that you could drive insights of cloud. >>First strategy hands is a corporate wide strategy, and it's a C-suite responsibility. It doesn't take the ownership away from the CIO or CIO, but the CIO is, and CDI was felt that it was just their problem and they were to solve it. And everyone as being a customer, now, the center of gravity is elevated to it becoming a C-suite agenda on everybody's agenda, where probably the CDI is the instrument to execute that that's a holistic cloud-first strategy >>And it, and it's a strategy, but the way you're describing it, it sounds like it's also a mindset and an approach, as you were saying, this idea of being reborn in the cloud. So now how do I think about things? How do I communicate? How do I collaborate? How do I get done? What I need to get done. Talk a little bit about how this has changed, the way you support your clients and how Accenture cloud first is changing your approach to cloud services. >>Wonderful. Um, you know, I did not color one very important aspect in my previous question, but that's exactly what you just asked me now, which is to do all of this. I talked about all of the variables, uh, an organization or an enterprise is going to go through, but the good part is they have one constant. And what is that? That is their employees, uh, because you do, the employees are able to embrace this change. If they are able to, uh, change them, says, pivot them says retool and train themselves to be able to operate in this new cloud. First one, the ability to reimagine every function of the business would be happening at speed. And cloud first approach is to do all of this at speed, because innovation is deadly proposed there, do the rate of probability on experimentation. You need to experiment a lot for any kind of experimentation. >>There's a probability of success. Organizations need to have an ability and a mechanism for them to be able to innovate faster for which they need to experiment a lot, the more the experiment and the lower cost at which they experiment is going to help them experiment a lot. And they experiment demic speed, fail fast, succeed more. And hence, they're going to be able to operate this at speed. So the cloud-first mindset is all about speed. I'm helping the clients fast track that innovation journey, and this is going to happen. Like I said, across the enterprise and every function across every department, I'm the agent of this change is going to be the employees or weapon, race, this change through new skills and new grueling and new mindset that they need to adapt to. >>So Karthik what you're describing it, it sounds so exciting. And yet for a pandemic wary workforce, that's been working remotely that may be dealing with uncertainty if for their kid's school and for so many other aspects of their life, it sounds hard. So how are you helping your clients, employees get onboard with this? And because the change management is, is often the hardest part. >>Yeah, I think it's, again, a great question. A bottle has only so much capacity. Something got to come off for something else to go in. That's what you're saying is absolutely right. And that is again, the power of cloud. The reason why cloud is such a fundamental breakthrough technology and capability for us to succeed in this era, because it helps in various forms. What we talked so far is the power of innovation that can create, but cloud can also simplify the life of the employees in an enterprise. There are several activities and tasks that people do in managing that complex infrastructure, complex ID landscape. They used to do certain jobs and activities in a very difficult underground about with cloud has simplified. And democratised a lot of these activities. So that things which had to be done in the past, like managing the complexity of the infrastructure, keeping them up all the time, managing the, um, the obsolescence of the capabilities and technologies and infrastructure, all of that could be offloaded to the cloud. >>So that the time that is available for all of these employees can be used to further innovate. Every organization is going to spend almost the same amount of money, but rather than spending activities, by looking at the rear view mirror on keeping the lights on, they're going to spend more money, more time, more energy, and spend their skills on things that are going to add value to their organization. Because you, every innovation that an enterprise can give to their end customer need not come from that enterprise. The word of platform economy is about democratising innovation. And the power of cloud is to get all of these capabilities from outside the four walls of the enterprise, >>It will add value to the organization, but I would imagine also add value to that employee's life because that employee, the employee will be more engaged in his or her job and therefore bring more excitement and energy into her, his or her day-to-day activities too. >>Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is, this is a normal evolution we would have seen everybody would have seen in their lives, that they keep moving up the value chain of what activities that, uh, gets performed buying by those individuals. And this is, um, you know, no more true than how the United States, uh, as an economy has operated where, um, this is the power of a powerhouse of innovation, where the work that's done inside the country keeps moving up to value chain. And, um, us leverage is the global economy for a lot of things that is required to power the United States and that global economic, uh, phenomenon is very proof for an enterprise as well. There are things that an enterprise needs to do them soon. There are things an employee needs to do themselves. Um, but there are things that they could leverage from the external innovation and the power of innovation that is coming from technologies like cloud. >>So at Accenture, you have long, long, deep Stan, sorry, you have deep and long-standing relationships with many cloud service providers, including AWS. How does the Accenture cloud first strategy, how does it affect your relationships with those providers? >>Yeah, we have great relationships with cloud providers like AWS. And in fact, in the cloud world, it was one of the first, um, capability that we started about years ago, uh, when we started developing these capabilities. But five years ago, we hit a very important milestone where the two organizations came together and said that we are forging a pharma partnership with joint investments to build this partnership. And we named that as a Accenture, AWS business group ABG, uh, where we co-invest and brought skills together and develop solutions. And we will continue to do that. And through that investment, we've also made several acquisitions that you would have seen in the recent times, like, uh, an invoice and gecko that we made acquisitions in in Europe. But now we're taking this to the next level. What we are saying is two cloud first and the $3 billion investment that we are bringing in, uh, through cloud-first. >>We are going to make specific investment to create unique joint solution and landing zones foundation, um, cloud packs with which clients can accelerate their innovation or their journey to cloud first. And one great example is what we are doing with Takeda, uh, billable, pharmaceutical giant, um, between we've signed a five-year partnership. And it was out in the media just a month ago or so, where we are, the two organizations are coming together. We have created a partnership as a power of three partnership, where the three organizations are jointly hoarding hats and taking responsibility for the innovation and the leadership position that Takeda wants to get to with this. We are going to simplify their operating model and organization by providing and flexibility. We're going to provide a lot more insights. Tequila has a 230 year old organization. Imagine the amount of trapped data and intelligence that is there. >>How about bringing all of that together with the power of AWS and Accenture and Takeda to drive more customer insights, um, come up with breakthrough R and D uh, accelerate clinical trials and improve the patient experience using AI ML and edge technologies. So all of these things that we will do through this partnership with joined investment from Accenture cloud first, as well as partner like AWS, so that Takeda can realize their gain. And, uh, their senior actually made a statement that five years from now, every ticket an employee will have an AI assistant. That's going to make that beginner employee move up the value chain on how they contribute and add value to the future of tequila with the AI assistant, making them even more equipped and smarter than what they could be otherwise. >>So, one last question to close this out here. What is your future vision for, for Accenture cloud first? What are we going to be talking about at next year's Accenture executive summit? Yeah, the future >>Is going to be, um, evolving, but the part that is exciting to me, and this is, uh, uh, a fundamental belief that we are entering a new era of industrial revolution from industry first, second, and third industry. The third happened probably 20 years ago with the advent of Silicon and computers and all of that stuff that happened here in the Silicon Valley. I think the fourth industrial revolution is going to be in the cross section of, uh, physical, digital and biological boundaries. And there's a great article, um, in one economic forum that people, uh, your audience can Google and read about it. Uh, but the reason why this is very, very important is we are seeing a disturbing phenomenon that over the last 10 years are seeing a Blackwing of the, um, labor productivity and innovation, which has dropped to about 2.1%. When you see that kind of phenomenon over that longer period of time, there has to be breakthrough innovation that needs to happen to come out of this barrier and get to the next, you know, base camp, as I would call it to further this productivity, um, lack that we are seeing, and that is going to happen in the intersection of the physical, digital and biological boundaries. >>And I think cloud is going to be the connective tissue between all of these three, to be able to provide that where it's the edge, especially is good to come closer to the human lives. It's going to come from cloud. Yeah. Pick totally in your mind, you can think about cloud as central, either in a private cloud, in a data center or in a public cloud, you know, everywhere. But when you think about edge, it's going to be far reaching and coming close to where we live and maybe work and very, um, get entertained and so on and so forth. And there's good to be, uh, intervention in a positive way in the field of medicine, in the field of entertainment, in the field of, um, manufacturing in the field of, um, you know, mobility. When I say mobility, human mobility, people, transportation, and so on and so forth with all of this stuff, cloud is going to be the connective tissue and the vision of cloud first is going to be, uh, you know, blowing through this big change that is going to happen. And the evolution that is going to happen where, you know, the human grace of mankind, um, our person kind of being very gender neutral in today's world. Um, go first needs to be that beacon of, uh, creating the next generation vision for enterprises to take advantage of that kind of an exciting future. And that's why it, Accenture, are we saying that there'll be change as our, as our purpose? >>I genuinely believe that cloud first is going to be in the forefront of that change agenda, both for Accenture as well as for the rest of the work. Excellent. Let there be change, indeed. Thank you so much for joining us Karthik. A pleasure I'm Rebecca nights stay tuned for more of Q3 60 fives coverage of the Accenture executive summit >>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS >>Welcome everyone to the Q virtual and our coverage of the Accenture executive summit, which is part of AWS reinvent 2020. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. Today, we are talking about the green cloud and joining me is Kishor Dirk. He is Accenture senior managing director cloud first global services lead. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Kishor nice to meet you. So I want to start by asking you what it is that we mean when we say green cloud, we know the sustainability is a business imperative. So many organizations around the world are committing to responsible innovation, lowering carbon emissions. But what is this? What is it? What does it mean when they talk about cloud from a sustainability perspective? I think it's about responsible innovation being cloud is a cloud first approach that has benefit the clients by helping reduce carbon emissions. Think about it this way. >>You have a large number of data centers. Each of these data centers are increasing by 14% every year. And this double digit growth. What you're seeing is these data centers and the consumption is nearly coolant to the kind of them should have a country like Spain. So the magnitude of the problem that is out there and how do we pursue a green approach. If you look at this, our Accenture analysis, in terms of the migration to public cloud, we've seen that we can reduce that by 59 million tons of CO2 per year with just the 5.9% reduction in total emissions and equates this to 22 million cars off the road. And the magnitude of reduction can go a long way in meeting climate change commitments, particularly for data sensitive. Wow, that's incredible. The numbers that you're putting forward are, are absolutely mind blowing. So how does it work? Is it a simple cloud migration? So, you know, when companies begin their cloud journey and then they confront, uh, with >>Them a lot of questions, the decision to make, uh, this particular, uh, element sustainable in the solution and benefits they drive and they have to make wise choices, and then they will gain unprecedented level of innovation leading to both a greener planet, as well as, uh, a greener balance sheet, I would say, uh, so effectively it's all about ambition, data ambition, greater the reduction in carbon emissions. So from a cloud migration perspective, we look at it as a, as a simple solution with approaches and sustainability benefits, uh, that vary based on things it's about selecting the right cloud provider, a very carbon thoughtful provider and the first step towards a sustainable cloud journey. And here we're looking at cloud operators know, obviously they have different corporate commitments towards sustainability, and that determines how they plan, how they build, uh, their, uh, uh, the data centers, how they are consumed and assumptions that operate there and how they, or they retire their data centers. >>Then, uh, the next element that you want to do is how do you build it ambition, you know, for some of the companies, uh, and average on-prem, uh, drives about 65% energy reduction and the carbon emission reduction number was 84%, which is kind of good, I would say. But then if you could go up to 98% by configuring applications to the cloud, that is significant benefit for, uh, for the board. And obviously it's a, a greener cloud that we're talking about. And then the question is, how far can you go? And, uh, you know, the, obviously the companies have to unlock greater financial societal environmental benefits, and Accenture has this cloud based circular operations and sustainable products and services that we bring into play. So it's a, it's a very thoughtful, broader approach that w bringing in, in terms of, uh, just a simple concept of cloud migration. >>So we know that in the COVID era, shifting to the cloud has really become a business imperative. How is Accenture working with its clients at a time when all of this movement has been accelerated? How do you partner and what is your approach in terms of helping them with their migrations? >>Yeah, I mean, let, let me talk a little bit about the pandemic and the crisis that is that today. And if you really look at that in terms of how we partnered with a lot of our clients in terms of the cloud first approach, I'll give you a couple of examples. We worked with rolls, Royce, MacLaren, DHL, and others, as part of the ventilator, a UK challenge consortium, again, to, uh, coordinate production of medical ventilator surgically needed for the UK health service. Many of these farms I've taken similar initiatives in, in terms of, uh, you know, from a few manufacturers hand sanitizers, and to answer it as us and again, leading passionate labels, making PPE, and again, at the UN general assembly, we launched the end-to-end integration guide that helps company is essentially to have a sustainable development goals. And that's how we are parking at a very large scale. >>Uh, and, and if you really look at how we work with our clients and what is Accenture's role there, uh, you know, from, in terms of our clients, you know, there are multiple steps that we look at. One is about planning, building, deploying, and managing an optimal green cloud solution. And Accenture has this concept of, uh, helping clients with a platform to kind of achieve that goal. And here we are having, we are having a platform or a mine app, which has a module called BGR advisor. And this is a capability that helps you provide optimal green cloud, uh, you know, a business case, and obviously a blueprint for each of our clients and right from the start in terms of how do we complete cloud migration recommendation to an improved solution, accurate accuracy to obviously bringing in the end to end perspective, uh, you know, with this green card advisor capability, we're helping our clients capture what we call as a carbon footprint for existing data centers and provide, uh, I would say the current cloud CO2 emission score that, you know, obviously helps them, uh, with carbon credits that can further that green agenda. >>So essentially this is about recommending a green index score, reducing carbon footprint for migration migrating for green cloud. And if we look at how Accenture itself is practicing what we preach, 95% of our applications are in the cloud. And this migration has helped us, uh, to lead to about $14.5 million in benefit. And in the third year and another 3 million analytics costs that are saved through right-sizing a service consumption. So it's a very broad umbrella and a footprint in terms of how we engage societaly with the UN or our clients. And what is it that we exactly bring to our clients in solving a specific problem? >>Accenture isn't is walking the walk, as you say, >>Instead of it, we practice what we preach, and that is something that we take it to heart. We want to have a responsible business and we want to practice it. And we want to advise our clients around that >>You are your own use case. And so they can, they know they can take your advice. So talk a little bit about, um, the global, the cooperation that's needed. We know that conquering this pandemic is going to take a coordinated global effort and talk a little bit about the great reset initiative. First of all, what is that? Why don't we, why don't we start there and then we can delve into it a little bit more. >>Okay. So before we get to how we are cooperating, the great reset, uh, initiative is about improving the state of the world. And it's about a group of global stakeholders cooperating to simultaneously manage the direct consequences of their COVID-19 crisis. Uh, and in spirit of this cooperation that we're seeing during COVID-19, uh, which will obviously either to post pandemic, to tackle the world's pressing issues. As I say, uh, we are increasing companies to realize a combined potential of technology and sustainable impact to use enterprise solutions, to address with urgency and scale, and, um, obviously, uh, multiple challenges that are facing our world. One of the ways that are increasing, uh, companies to reach their readiness cloud with Accenture's cloud strategy is to build a solid foundation that is resilient and will be able to faster to the current, as well as future times. Now, when you think of cloud as the foundation, uh, that drives the digital transformation, it's about scale speed, streamlining your operations, and obviously reducing costs. >>And as these businesses seize the construct of cloud first, they must remain obviously responsible and trusted. Now think about this, right, as part of our analysis, uh, that profitability can co-exist with responsible and sustainable practices. Let's say that all the data centers, uh, migrated from on-prem to cloud based, we estimate that would reduce carbon emissions globally by 60 million tons per year. Uh, and think about it this way, right? Easier metric would be taking out 22 million cars off the road. Um, the other examples that you've seen, right, in terms of the NHS work that they're doing, uh, in, in UK to build, uh, uh, you know, uh, Microsoft teams in based integration. And, uh, the platform rolled out for 1.2 million users, uh, and got 16,000 users that we were able to secure, uh, instant messages, obviously complete audio video calls and host virtual meetings across India. So, uh, this, this work that we did with NHS is, is something that we have, we are collaborating with a lot of tools and powering businesses. >>Well, you're vividly describing the business case for sustainability. What do you see as the future of cloud when thinking about it from this lens of sustainability, and also going back to what you were talking about in terms of how you are helping your, your fostering cooperation within these organizations. >>Yeah, that's a very good question. So if you look at today, right, businesses are obviously environmentally aware and they are expanding efforts to decrease power consumption, carbon emissions, and they want to run a sustainable operational efficiency across all elements of their business. And this is an increasing trend, and there is that option of energy efficient infrastructure in the global market. And this trend is the cloud first thinking. And with the right cloud migration that we've been discussing is about unlocking new opportunity, like clean energy foundations enable enabled by cloud based geographic analysis, material, waste reductions, and better data insights. And this is something that, uh, uh, will drive, uh, with obviously faster analytics platform that is out there. Now, the sustainability is actually the future of business, which is companies that are historically different, the financial security or agility benefits to cloud. Now sustainability becomes an imperative for them. And I would own experience Accenture's experience with cloud migrations. We have seen 30 to 40% total cost of ownership savings, and it's driving a greater workload, flexibility, better service, your obligation, and obviously more energy efficient, uh, public clouds that cost, uh, we'll see that, that drive a lot of these enterprise own data centers. So in our view, what we are seeing is that this, this, uh, sustainable cloud position helps, uh, helps companies to, uh, drive a lot of the goals in addition to their financial and other goods. >>So what should organizations who are, who are watching this interview and saying, Hey, I need to know more, what, what do you recommend to them? And what, where should they go to get more information on Greenplum? >>Yeah. If you wanna, if you are a business leader and you're thinking about which cloud provider is good, or how, how should applications be modernized to meet our day-to-day needs, which cloud driven innovations should be priorities. Uh, you know, that's why Accenture, uh, formed up the cloud first organization and essentially to provide the full stack of cloud services to help our clients become a cloud first business. Um, you know, it's all about excavation, uh, the digital transformation innovating faster, creating differentiated, uh, and sustainable value for our clients. And we are powering it up at 70,000 cloud professionals, $3 billion investment, and, uh, bringing together and services for our clients in terms of cloud solutions. And obviously the ecosystem partnership that we have that we are seeing today, uh, and, and the assets that help our clients realize their goals. Um, and again, to do reach out to us, uh, we can help them determine obviously, an optimal, sustainable cloud for solution that meets the business needs and being unprecedented levels of innovation. Our experience, uh, will be our advantage. And, uh, now more than ever Rebecca, >>Just closing us out here. Do you have any advice for these companies who are navigating a great deal of uncertainty? We, what, what do you think the next 12 to 24 months? What do you think that should be on the minds of CEOs as they go through? >>So, as CEO's are thinking about rapidly leveraging cloud, migrating to cloud, uh, one of the elements that we want them to be thoughtful about is can they do that, uh, with unprecedent level of innovation, but also build a greener planet and a greener balance sheet, if we can achieve this balance and kind of, uh, have a, have a world which is greener, I think the world will win. And we all along with Accenture clients will win. That's what I would say, uh, >>Optimistic outlook, and I will take it. Thank you so much. Kishor for coming on the show >>That was >>Accenture's Kishor Dirk, I'm Rebecca Knight stay tuned for more of the cube virtuals coverage of the Accenture executive summit >>Around the globe. >>It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome everyone to the cube virtual and our coverage of the Accenture executive summit. Part of AWS reinvent 2020. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. Today, we are talking about the power of three. And what happens when you bring together the scientific know-how of a global bias biopharmaceutical powerhouse in Takeda, a leading cloud services provider in AWS, and Accenture's ability to innovate, execute, and deliver innovation. Joining me to talk about these things. We have Aaron, sorry, Arjun, baby. He is the senior managing director and chairman of Accenture's diamond leadership council. Welcome Arjun, Karl hick. He is the chief digital and information officer at Takeda. What is your bigger, thank you, Rebecca and Brian bowhead, global director, and head of the Accenture AWS business group at Amazon web services. Thanks so much for coming up. So, as I said, we're talking today about this relationship between, uh, your three organizations. Carl, I want to talk with you. I know you're at the beginning of your cloud journey. What was the compelling reason? What w why, why move to the cloud and why now? >>Yeah, no, thank you for the question. So, you know, as a biopharmaceutical leader, we're committed to bringing better health and a brighter future to our patients. We're doing that by translating science into some really innovative and life transporting therapies, but throughout, you know, we believe that there's a responsible use of technology, of data and of innovation. And those three ingredients are really key to helping us deliver on that promise. And so, you know, while I think, uh, I'll call it, this cloud journey is already always been a part of our strategy. Um, and we've made some pretty steady progress over the last years with a number of I'll call it diverse approaches to the digital and AI. We just weren't seeing the impact at scale that we wanted to see. Um, and I think that, you know, there's a, there's a need ultimately to, you know, accelerate and, uh, broaden that shift. >>And, you know, we were commenting on this earlier, but there's, you know, it's been highlighted by a number of factors. One of those has been certainly a number of the large acquisitions we've made Shire, uh, being the most pressing example, uh, but also the global pandemic, both of those highlight the need for us to move faster, um, at the speed of cloud, ultimately. Uh, and so we started thinking outside of the box because it was taking us too long and we decided to leverage the strategic partner model. Uh, and it's giving us a chance to think about our challenges very differently. We call this the power of three, uh, and ultimately our focus is singularly on our patients. I mean, they're waiting for us. We need to get there faster. It can take years. And so I think that there is a focus on innovation, um, at a rapid speed, so we can move ultimately from treating conditions to keeping people healthy. >>So, as you are embarking on this journey, what are some of the insights you want to share about, about what you're seeing so far? >>Yeah, no, it's a great question. So, I mean, look, maybe right before I highlight some of the key insights, uh, I would say that, you know, with cloud now as the, as the launchpad for innovation, you know, our vision all along has been that in less than 10 years, we want every single to kid, uh, associate we're employed to be empowered by an AI assistant. And I think that, you know, that's going to help us make faster, better decisions. It'll help us, uh, fundamentally deliver transformative therapies and better experiences to, to that ecosystem, to our patients, to physicians, to payers, et cetera, much faster than we previously thought possible. Um, and I think that technologies like cloud and edge computing together with a very powerful I'll call it data fabric is going to help us to create this, this real-time, uh, I'll call it the digital ecosystem. >>The data has to flow ultimately seamlessly between our patients and providers or partners or researchers, et cetera. Uh, and so we've been thinking about this, uh, I'll call it, we call it sort of this pyramid, um, that helps us describe our vision. Uh, and a lot of it has to do with ultimately modernizing the foundation, modernizing and rearchitecting, the platforms that drive the company, uh, heightening our focus on data, which means that there's an accelerated shift towards, uh, enterprise data platforms and digital products. And then ultimately, uh, uh, P you know, really an engine for innovation sitting at the very top. Um, and so I think with that, you know, there's a few different, I'll call it insights that, you know, are quickly kind of come zooming into focus. I would say one is this need to collaborate very differently. Um, you know, not only internally, but you know, how do we define ultimately, and build a connected digital ecosystem with the right partners and technologies externally? >>I think the second component that maybe people don't think as much about, but, you know, I find critically important is for us to find ways of really transforming our culture. We have to unlock talent and shift the culture certainly as a large biopharmaceutical very differently. And then lastly, you've touched on it already, which is, you know, innovation at the speed of cloud. How do we re-imagine that, you know, how do ideas go from getting tested and months to kind of getting tested in days? You know, how do we collaborate very differently? Uh, and so I think those are three, uh, perhaps of the larger I'll call it, uh, insights that, you know, the three of us are spending a lot of time thinking about right now. >>So Arjun, I want to bring you into this conversation a little bit, let let's delve into those a bit. Talk first about the collaboration, uh, that Carl was referencing there. How, how have you seen that? It is enabling, uh, colleagues and teams to communicate differently and interact in new and different ways? Uh, both internally and externally, as Carl said, >>No, th thank you for that. And, um, I've got to give call a lot of credit, because as we started to think about this journey, it was clear, it was a bold ambition. It was, uh, something that, you know, we had all to do differently. And so the, the concept of the power of three that Carl has constructed has become a label for us as a way to think about what are we going to do to collectively drive this journey forward. And to me, the unique ways of collaboration means three things. The first one is that, um, what is expected is that the three parties are going to come together and it's more than just the sum of our resources. And by that, I mean that we have to bring all of ourselves, all of our collective capabilities, as an example, Amazon has amazing supply chain capabilities. >>They're one of the best at supply chain. So in addition to resources, when we have supply chain innovations, uh, that's something that they're bringing in addition to just, uh, talent and assets, similarly for Accenture, right? We do a lot, uh, in the talent space. So how do we bring our thinking as to how we apply best practices for talent to this partnership? So, um, as we think about this, so that's, that's the first one, the second one is about shared success very early on in this partnership, we started to build some foundations and actually develop seven principles that all of us would look at as the basis for this success shared success model. And we continue to hold that sort of in the forefront, as we think about this collaboration. And maybe the third thing I would say is this one team mindset. So whether it's the three of our CEOs that get together every couple of months to think about, uh, this partnership, or it is the governance model that Carl has put together, which has all three parties in the governance and every level of leadership. We always think about this as a collective group, so that we can keep that front and center. And what I think ultimately has enabled us to do is it allowed us to move at speed, be more flexible. And ultimately all we're looking at the target the same way, the North side, the same way. >>Brian, what about you? What have you observed? And are you thinking about in terms of how this is helping teams collaborate differently, >>Lillian and Arjun made some, some great points there. And I think if you really think about what he's talking about, it's that, that diversity of talent, diversity of scale and viewpoint and even culture, right? And so we see that in the power of three. And then I think if we drill down into what we see at Takeda, and frankly, Takeda was, was really, I think, pretty visionary and on their way here, right? And taking this kind of cross functional approach and applying it to how they operate day to day. So moving from a more functional view of the world to more of a product oriented view of the world, right? So when you think about we're going to be organized around a product or a service or a capability that we're going to provide to our customers or our patients or donors in this case, it implies a different structure, although altogether, and a different way of thinking, right? >>Because now you've got technical people and business experts and marketing experts, all working together in this is sort of cross collaboration. And what's great about that is it's really the only way to succeed with cloud, right? Because the old ways of thinking where you've got application people and infrastructure, people in business, people is suboptimal, right? Because we can all access this tool as these capabilities and the best way to do that. Isn't across kind of a cross-collaborative way. And so this is product oriented mindset. It's a keto was already on. I think it's allowed us to move faster in those areas. >>Carl, I want to go back to this idea of unlocking talent and culture. And this is something that both Brian and Arjun have talked about too. People are an essential part of their, at the heart of your organization. How will their experience of work change and how are you helping re-imagine and reinforce a strong organizational culture, particularly at this time when so many people are working remotely. >>Yeah. It's a great question. And it's something that, you know, I think we all have to think a lot about, I mean, I think, um, you know, driving this, this call it, this, this digital and data kind of capability building, uh, takes a lot of, a lot of thinking. So, I mean, there's a few different elements in terms of how we're tackling this one is we're recognizing, and it's not just for the technology organization or for those actors that, that we're innovating with, but it's really across all of the Cato where we're working through ways of raising what I'll call the overall digital leaders literacy of the organization, you know, what are the, you know, what are the skills that are needed almost at a baseline level, even for a global bio-pharmaceutical company and how do we deploy, I'll call it those learning resources very broadly. >>And then secondly, I think that, you know, we're, we're very clear that there's a number of areas where there are very specialized skills that are needed. Uh, my organization is one of those. And so, you know, we're fostering ways in which, you know, we're very kind of quickly kind of creating, uh, avenues excitement for, for associates in that space. So one example specifically, as we use, you know, during these very much sort of remote, uh, sort of days, we, we use what we call global it meet days, and we set a day aside every single month and this last Friday, um, you know, we, we create during that time, it's time for personal development. Um, and we provide active seminars and training on things like, you know, robotic process automation, data analytics cloud, uh, in this last month we've been doing this for months and months now, but in his last month, more than 50% of my organization participated, and there's this huge positive shift, both in terms of access and excitement about really harnessing those new skills and being able to apply them. >>Uh, and so I think that that's, you know, one, one element that, uh, can be considered. And then thirdly, um, of course, every organization to work on, how do you prioritize talent, acquisition and management and competencies that you can't rescale? I mean, there are just some new capabilities that we don't have. And so there's a large focus that I have with our executive team and our CEO and thinking through those critical roles that we need to activate in order to kind of, to, to build on this, uh, this business led cloud transformation. And lastly, probably the hardest one, but the one that I'm most jazzed about is really this focus on changing the mindsets and behaviors. Um, and I think there, you know, this is where the power of three is, is really, uh, kind of coming together nicely. I mean, we're working on things like, you know, how do we create this patient obsessed curiosity, um, and really kind of unlock innovation with a real, kind of a growth mindset. >>Uh, and the level of curiosity that's needed, not to just continue to do the same things, but to really challenge the status quo. So that's one big area of focus we're having the agility to act just faster. I mean, to worry less, I guess I would say about kind of the standard chain of command, but how do you make more speedy, more courageous decisions? And this is places where we can emulate the way that a partner like AWS works, or how do we collaborate across the number of boundaries, you know, and I think, uh, Arjun spoke eloquently to a number of partnerships that we can build. So we can break down some of these barriers and use these networks, um, whether it's within our own internal ecosystem or externally to help, to create value faster. So a lot of energy around ways of working and we'll have to check back in, but I mean, we're early in on this mindset and behavioral shift, um, but a lot of good early momentum. >>Carl you've given me a good segue to talk to Brian about innovation, because you said a lot of the things that I was the customer obsession and this idea of innovating much more quickly. Obviously now the world has its eyes on drug development, and we've all learned a lot about it, uh, in the past few months and accelerating drug development is all, uh, is of great interest to all of us. Brian, how does a transformation like this help a company's, uh, ability to become more agile and more innovative and add a quicker speed to, >>Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think some of the things that Carl talked about just now are critical to that, right? I think where sometimes folks fall short is they think, you know, we're going to roll out the technology and the technology is going to be the silver bullet where in fact it is the culture, it is, is the talent. And it's the focus on that. That's going to be, you know, the determinant of success. And I will say, you know, in this power of three arrangement and Carl talked a little bit about the pyramid, um, talent and culture and that change, and that kind of thinking about that has been a first-class citizen since the very beginning, right. That absolutely is critical for, for being there. Um, and, and so that's been, that's been key. And so we think about innovation at Amazon and AWS, and Carl mentioned some of the things that, you know, partner like AWS can bring to the table is we talk a lot about builders, right? >>So kind of obsessive about builders. Um, and, and we meet what we mean by that is we at Amazon, we hire for builders, we cultivate builders and we like to talk to our customers about it as well. And it also implies a different mindset, right? When you're a builder, you have that, that curiosity, you have that ownership, you have that stake and whatever I'm creating, I'm going to be a co-owner of this product or this service, right. Getting back to that kind of product oriented mindset. And it's not just the technical people or the it people who are builders. It is also the business people as, as Carl talked about. Right. So when we start thinking about, um, innovation again, where we see folks kind of get into a little bit of a innovation pilot paralysis, is that you can focus on the technology, but if you're not focusing on the talent and the culture and the processes and the mechanisms, you're going to be putting out technology, but you're not going to have an organization that's ready to take it and scale it and accelerate it. >>Right. And so that's, that's been absolutely critical. So just a couple of things we've been doing with, with Takeda and Decatur has really been leading the way is, think about a mechanism and a process. And it's really been working backward from the customer, right? In this case, again, the patient and the donor. And that was an easy one because the key value of Decatur is to be a patient focused bio-pharmaceutical right. So that was embedded in their DNA. So that working back from that, that patient, that donor was a key part of that process. And that's really deep in our DNA as well. And Accenture's, and so we were able to bring that together. The other one is, is, is getting used to experimenting and even perhaps failing, right. And being able to iterate and fail fast and experiment and understanding that, you know, some decisions, what we call it at Amazon are two two-way doors, meaning you can go through that door, not like what you see and turn around and go back. And cloud really helps there because the costs of experimenting and the cost of failure is so much lower than it's ever been. You can do it much faster and the implications are so much less. So just a couple of things that we've been really driving, uh, with the cadence around innovation, that's been really critical. Carl, where are you already seeing signs of success? >>Yeah, no, it's a great question. And so we chose, you know, uh, with our focus on innovation to try to unleash maybe the power of data digital in, uh, in focusing on what I call sort of a nave. And so we chose our, our, our plasma derived therapy business, um, and you know, the plasma-derived therapy business unit, it develops critical life-saving therapies for patients with rare and complex diseases. Um, but what we're doing is by bringing kind of our energy together, we're focusing on creating, I'll call it state of the art digitally connected donation centers. And we're really modernizing, you know, the, the, the donor experience right now, we're trying to, uh, improve also I'll call it the overall plasma collection process. And so we've, uh, selected a number of alcohol at a very high speed pilots that we're working through right now, specifically in this, in this area. And we're seeing >>Really great results already. Um, and so that's, that's one specific area of focus are Jen, I want you to close this out here. Any ideas, any best practices advice you would have for other pharmaceutical companies that are, that are at the early stage of their cloud journey? Sorry. Was that for me? Yes. Sorry. Origin. Yeah, no, I was breaking up a bit. No, I think they, um, the key is what's sort of been great for me to see is that when people think about cloud, you know, you always think about infrastructure technology. The reality is that the cloud is really the true enabler for innovation and innovating at scale. And, and if you think about that, right, and all the components that you need, ultimately, that's where the value is for the company, right? Because yes, you're going to get some cost synergies and that's great, but the true value is in how do we transform the organization in the case of the Qaeda and our life sciences clients, right. >>We're trying to take a 14 year process of research and development that takes billions of dollars and compress that right. Tremendous amounts of innovation opportunity. You think about the commercial aspect, lots of innovation can come there. The plasma derived therapy is a great example of how we're going to really innovate to change the trajectory of that business. So I think innovation is at the heart of what most organizations need to do. And the formula, the cocktail that the Qaeda has constructed with this footie program really has all the ingredients, um, that are required for that success. Great. Well, thank you so much. Arjun, Brian and Carl was really an enlightening conversation. Thank you. It's been a lot of, thank you. Yeah, it's been fun. Thanks Rebecca. And thank you for tuning into the cube. Virtual has coverage of the Accenture executive summit >>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome everyone to the cubes coverage of Accenture executive summit here at AWS reinvent. I'm your host Rebecca Knight for this segment? We have two guests. First. We have Helen Davis. She is the senior director of cloud platform services, assistant director for it and digital for the West Midlands police. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Helen, and we also have Matthew pound. He is Accenture health and public service associate director and West Midlands police account lead. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Matthew, thank you for having us. So we are going to be talking about delivering data-driven insights to the West Midlands police force. Helen, I want to start with >>You. Can you tell us a little bit about the West Midlands police force? How big is the force and also what were some of the challenges that you were grappling with prior to this initiative? >>Yeah, certainly. So Westerners police is the second largest police force in the UK, outside of the metropolitan police in London. Um, we have an excessive, um, 11,000 people work at Westman ins police serving communities, um, through, across the Midlands region. So geographically, we're quite a big area as well, as well as, um, being population, um, density, having that as a, at a high level. Um, so the reason we sort of embarked on the data-driven insights platform and it, which was a huge change for us was for a number of reasons. Um, namely we had a lot of disparate data, um, which was spread across a range of legacy systems that were many, many years old, um, with some duplication of what was being captured and no single view for offices or, um, support staff. Um, some of the access was limited. You have to be in a, in an actual police building on a desktop computer to access it. Um, other information could only reach the offices on the frontline through a telephone call back to one of our enabling services where they would do a manual checkup, um, look at the information, then call the offices back, um, and tell them what they needed to know. So it was a very long laborious, um, process and not very efficient. Um, and we certainly weren't exploiting the data that we had in a very productive way. >>So it sounds like as you're describing and an old clunky system that needed a technological, uh, reimagination, so what was the main motivation for, for doing, for making this shift? >>It was really, um, about making us more efficient and more effective in how we do how we do business. So, um, you know, certainly as a, as an it leader and sort of my operational colleagues, we recognize the benefits, um, that data and analytics could bring in, uh, in a policing environment, not something that was, um, really done in the UK at the time. You know, we have a lot of data, so we're very data rich and the information that we have, but we needed to turn it into information that was actionable. So that's where we started looking for, um, technology partners and suppliers to help us and sort of help us really with what's the art of the possible, you know, this hasn't been done before. So what could we do in this space that's appropriate for policing? >>I love that idea. What is the art of the possible, can you tell us a little bit about why you chose AWS? >>I think really, you know, as with all things and when we're procuring a partner in the public sector that, you know, there are many rules and regulations, uh, quite rightly as you would expect that to be because we're spending public money. So we have to be very, very careful and, um, it's, it's a long process and we have to be open to public scrutiny. So, um, we sort of look to everything, everything that was available as part of that process, but we recognize the benefits that Clyde would provide in this space because, you know, without moving to a cloud environment, we would literally be replacing something that was legacy with something that was a bit more modern. Um, that's not what we wanted to do. Our ambition was far greater than that. So I think, um, in terms of AWS, really, it was around the scalability, interoperability, you know, disaster things like the disaster recovery service, the fact that we can scale up and down quickly, we call it dialing up and dialing back. Um, you know, it's it's page go. So it just sort of ticked all the boxes for us. And then we went through the full procurement process, fortunately, um, it came out on top for us. So we were, we were able to move forward, but it just sort of had everything that we were looking for in that space. >>Matthew, I want to bring you into the conversation a little bit here. How are you working with a wet with the West Midlands police, sorry. And helping them implement this cloud-first journey? >>Yeah, so I guess, um, by January the West Midlands police started, um, favorite five years ago now. So, um, we set up a partnership with the force. I wanted to operate in a way that it was very different to a traditional supplier relationship. Um, secretary that the data difference insights program is, is one of many that we've been working with last nights on, um, over the last five years. Um, as having said already, um, cloud gave a number of, uh, advantages certainly from a big data perspective and the things that that enabled us today, um, I'm from an Accenture perspective that allowed us to bring in a number of the different themes that we have say, cloud teams, security teams, um, and drafted from an insurance perspective, as well as more traditional services that people would associate with the country. >>I mean, so much of this is about embracing comprehensive change to experiment and innovate and try different things. Matthew, how, how do you help, uh, an entity like West Midlands police think differently when they are, there are these ways of doing things that people are used to, how do you help them think about what is the art of the possible, as Helen said, >>There's a few things to that enable those being critical is trying to co-create solutions together. Yeah. There's no point just turning up with, um, what we think is the right answer, try and say, um, collectively work three, um, the issues that the fullest is seeing and the outcomes they're looking to achieve rather than simply focusing on a long list of requirements, I think was critical and then being really open to working together to create the right solution. Um, rather than just, you know, trying to pick something off the shelf that maybe doesn't fit the forces requirements in the way that it should too, >>Right. It's not always a one size fits all. >>Absolutely not. You know, what we believe is critical is making sure that we're creating something that met the forces needs, um, in terms of the outcomes they're looking to achieve the financial envelopes that were available, um, and how we can deliver those in a, uh, iterative agile way, um, rather than spending years and years, um, working towards an outcome, um, that is gonna update before you even get that. >>So Helen, how, how are things different? What kinds of business functions and processes have been re-imagined in, in light of this change and this shift >>It's, it's actually unrecognizable now, um, in certain areas of the business as it was before. So to give you a little bit of, of context, when we, um, started working with essentially in AWS on the data driven insights program, it was very much around providing, um, what was called locally, a wizzy tool for our intelligence analysts to interrogate data, look at data, you know, decide whether they could do anything predictive with it. And it was very much sort of a back office function to sort of tidy things up for us and make us a bit better in that, in that area or a lot better in that area. And it was rolled out to a number of offices, a small number on the front line. Um, I'm really, it was, um, in line with a mobility strategy that we, hardware officers were getting new smartphones for the first time, um, to do sort of a lot of things on, on, um, policing apps and things like that to again, to avoid them, having to keep driving back to police stations, et cetera. >>And the pilot was so successful. Every officer now has access to this data, um, on their mobile devices. So it literally went from a handful of people in an office somewhere using it to do sort of clever bang things to, um, every officer in the force, being able to access that level of data at their fingertips. Literally. So what they were touched with done before is if they needed to check and address or check details of an individual, um, just as one example, they would either have to, in many cases, go back to a police station to look it up themselves on a desktop computer. Well, they would have to make a call back to a centralized function and speak to an operator, relay the questions, either, wait for the answer or wait for a call back with the answer when those people are doing the data interrogation manually. >>So the biggest change for us is the self-service nature of the data we now have available. So officers can do it themselves on their phone, wherever they might be. So the efficiency savings from that point of view are immense. And I think just parallel to that is the quality of our, because we had a lot of data, but just because you've got a lot of data and a lot of information doesn't mean it's big data and it's valuable necessarily. Um, so again, it was having the single source of truth as we, as we call it. So you know that when you are completing those safe searches and getting the responses back, that it is the most accurate information we hold. And also you're getting it back within minutes, as opposed to, you know, half an hour, an hour or a drive back to a station. So it's making officers more efficient and it's also making them safer. The more efficient they are, the more time they have to spend out with the public doing what they, you know, we all should be doing >>That kind of return on investment because what you were just describing with all the steps that we needed to be taken in prior to this, to verify an address say, and those are precious seconds when someone's life is on the line in, in sort of in the course of everyday police work. >>Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It's difficult to put a price on it. It's difficult to quantify. Um, but all the, you know, the minutes here and there certainly add up to a significant amount of efficiency savings, and we've certainly been able to demonstrate the officers are spending less time up police stations as a result or more time out on the front line. Also they're safer because they can get information about what may or may not be and address what may or may not have occurred in an area before very, very quickly without having to wait. >>I do, I want to hear your observations of working so closely with this West Midlands police. Have you noticed anything about changes in its culture and its operating model in how police officers interact with one another? Have you seen any changes since this technology change? >>What's unique about the Western displaces, the buy-in from the top down, the chief and his exact team and Helen as the leader from an IOT perspective, um, the entire force is bought in. So what is a significant change program? Uh, I'm not trickles three. Um, everyone in the organization, um, change is difficult. Um, and there's a lot of time effort that's been put in to bake the technical delivery and the business change and adoption aspects around each of the projects. Um, but you can see the step change that is making in each aspect to the organization, uh, and where that's putting West Midlands police as a leader in, um, technology I'm policing in the UK. And I think globally, >>And this is a question for both of you because Matthew, as you said, change is difficult and there is always a certain intransigence in workplaces about this is just the way we've always done things and we're used to this and don't try us to get us. Don't try to get us to do anything new here. It works. How do you get the buy-in that you need to do this kind of digital transformation? >>I think it would be wrong to say it was easy. Um, um, we also have to bear in mind that this was one program in a five-year program. So there was a lot of change going on, um, both internally for some of our back office functions, as well as front tie, uh, frontline offices. So with DDI in particular, I think the stack change occurred when people could see what it could do for them. You know, we had lots of workshops and seminars where we all talk about, you know, big data and it's going to be great and it's data analytics and it's transformational, you know, and quite rightly people that are very busy doing a day job, but not necessarily technologists in the main and, you know, are particularly interested quite rightly so in what we are not dealing with the cloud, you know? And it was like, yeah, okay. >>It's one more thing. And then when they started to see on that, on their phones and what teams could do, that's when it started to sell itself. And I think that's when we started to see, you know, to see the stat change, you know, and, and if we, if we have any issues now it's literally, you know, our help desks in meltdown. Cause everyone's like, well, we call it manage without this anymore. And I think that speaks for itself. So it doesn't happen overnight. It's sort of incremental changes and then that's a step change in attitude. And when they see it working and they see the benefits, they want to use it more. And that's how it's become fundamental to all policing by itself, really, without much selling >>You, Helen just made a compelling case for how to get buy in. Have you discovered any other best practices when you are trying to get everyone on board for this kind of thing? >>We've um, we've used a lot of the traditional techniques, things around comms and engagement. We've also used things like, um, the 30 day challenge and nudge theory around how can we gradually encourage people to use things? Um, I think there's a point where all of this around, how do we just keep it simple and keep it user centric from an end user perspective? I think DDI is a great example of where the, the technology is incredibly complex. The solution itself is, um, you know, extremely large and, um, has been very difficult to, um, get delivered. But at the heart of it is a very simple front end for the user to encourage it and take that complexity away from them. Uh, I think that's been critical through the whole piece of DDR. >>One final word from Helen. I want to hear, where do you go from here? What is the longterm vision? I know that this has made productivity, um, productivity savings equivalent to 154 full-time officers. Uh, what's next, >>I think really it's around, um, exploiting what we've got. Um, I use the phrase quite a lot, dialing it up, which drives my technical architects crazy, but because it's apparently not that simple, but, um, you know, we've, we've been through significant change in the last five years and we are still continuing to batch all of those changes into everyday, um, operational policing. But what we need to see is we need to exploit and build on the investments that we've made in terms of data and claims specifically, the next step really is about expanding our pool of data and our functions. Um, so that, you know, we keep getting better and better at this. Um, the more we do, the more data we have, the more refined we can be, the more precise we are with all of our actions. Um, you know, we're always being expected to, again, look after the public purse and do more for less. And I think this is certainly an and our cloud journey and cloud first by design, which is where we are now, um, is helping us to be future-proofed. So for us, it's very much an investment. And I see now that we have good at embedded in operational policing for me, this is the start of our journey, not the end. So it's really exciting to see where we can go from here. >>Exciting times. Indeed. Thank you so much. Lily, Helen and Matthew for joining us. I really appreciate it. Thank you. And you are watching the cube stay tuned for more of the cubes coverage of the AWS reinvent Accenture executive summit. I'm Rebecca Knight from around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Hi, everyone. Welcome to the cube virtual coverage of the executive summit at AWS reinvent 2020 virtual. This is the cube virtual. We can't be there in person like we are every year we have to be remote. This executive summit is with special programming supported by Accenture where the cube virtual I'm your host John for a year, we had a great panel here called uncloud first digital transformation from some experts, Stuart driver, the director of it and infrastructure and operates at lion Australia, Douglas Regan, managing director, client account lead at lion for Accenture as a deep Islam associate director application development lead for Accenture gentlemen, thanks for coming on the cube virtual that's a mouthful, all that digital, but the bottom line it's cloud transformation. This is a journey that you guys have been on together for over 10 years to be really a digital company. Now, some things have happened in the past year that kind of brings all this together. This is about the next generation organization. So I want to ask Stuart you first, if you can talk about this transformation at lion has undertaken some of the challenges and opportunities and how this year in particular has brought it together because you know, COVID has been the accelerant of digital transformation. Well, if you're 10 years in, I'm sure you're there. You're in the, uh, on that wave right now. Take a minute to explain this transformation journey. >>Yeah, sure. So number of years back, we looked at kind of our infrastructure and our landscape trying to figure out where we >>Wanted to go next. And we were very analog based and stuck in the old it groove of, you know, Capitol reef rash, um, struggling to transform, struggling to get to a digital platform and we needed to change it up so that we could become very different business to the one that we were back then obviously cloud is an accelerant to that. And we had a number of initiatives that needed a platform to build on. And a cloud infrastructure was the way that we started to do that. So we went through a number of transformation programs that we didn't want to do that in the old world. We wanted to do it in a new world. So for us, it was partnering up with a dried organizations that can take you on the journey and, uh, you know, start to deliver bit by bit incremental progress, uh, to get to the, uh, I guess the promise land. >>Um, we're not, not all the way there, but to where we're on the way along. And then when you get to some of the challenges like we've had this year, um, it makes all of the hard work worthwhile because you can actually change pretty quickly, um, provide capacity and, uh, and increase your environments and, you know, do the things that you need to do in a much more dynamic way than we would have been able to previously where we might've been waiting for the hardware vendors, et cetera, to deliver capacity. So for us this year, it's been a pretty strong year from an it perspective and delivering for the business needs >>Before I hit the Douglas. I want to just real quick, a redirect to you and say, you know, if all the people said, Oh yeah, you got to jump on cloud, get in early, you know, a lot of naysayers like, well, wait till to mature a little bit, really, if you got in early and you, you know, paying your dues, if you will taking that medicine with the cloud, you're really kind of peaking at the right time. Is that true? Is that one of the benefits that comes out of this getting in the cloud? Yeah, >>John, this has been an unprecedented year, right. And, um, you know, Australia, we had to live through Bush fires and then we had covert and, and then we actually had to deliver a, um, a project on very large transformational project, completely remote. And then we also had had some, some cyber challenges, which is public as well. And I don't think if we weren't moved into and enabled through the cloud, we would have been able to achieve that this year. It would have been much different, would have been very difficult to do the backing. We're able to work and partner with Amazon through this year, which is unprecedented and actually come out the other end. Then we've delivered a brand new digital capability across the entire business. Um, in many, you know, wouldn't have been impossible if we could, I guess, state in the old world, the fact that we were moved into the new Naval by the new allowed us to work in this unprecedented year. >>Just quick, what's your personal view on this? Because I've been saying on the Cuban reporting necessity is the mother of all invention and the word agility has been kicked around as kind of a cliche, Oh, it'd be agile. You know, we're going to get the city, you get a minute on specifically, but from your perspective, uh, Douglas, what does that mean to you? Because there is benefits there for being agile. And >>I mean, I think as Stuart mentioned, right, in a lot of these things we try to do and, you know, typically, you know, hardware and of the last >>To be told and, and, and always on the critical path to be done, we really didn't have that in this case, what we were doing with our projects in our deployments, right. We were able to move quickly able to make decisions in line with the business and really get things going. Right. So you see a lot of times in a traditional world, you have these inhibitors, you have these critical path, it takes weeks and months to get things done as opposed to hours and days, and truly allowed us to, we had to, you know, VJ things, move things. And, you know, we were able to do that in this environment with AWS support and the fact that we can kind of turn things off and on as quickly as we need it. >>Yeah. Cloud-scale is great for speed. So DECA, Gardez get your thoughts on this cloud first mission, you know, it, you know, the dev ops world, they saw this early that jumping in there, they saw the, the, the agility. Now the theme this year is modern applications with the COVID pandemic pressure, there's real business pressure to make that happen. How did you guys learn to get there fast? And what specifically did you guys do at Accenture and how did it all come together? Can you take us inside kind of how it played out? >>Oh, right. So yeah, we started off with, as we do in most cases with a much more bigger group, and we worked with lions functional experts and, uh, the lost knowledge that allowed the infrastructure being had. Um, we then applied our journey to cloud strategy, which basically revolves around the seminars and, and, uh, you know, the deep three steps from our perspective, uh, assessing the current environment, setting up the new cloud environment. And as we go modernizing and, and migrating these applications to the cloud now, you know, one of the key things that, uh, you know, we learned along this journey was that, you know, you can have the best plans, but bottom line that we were dealing with, we often than not have to make changes. Uh, what a lot of agility and also work with a lot of collaboration with the, uh, Lyon team, as well as, uh, uh, AWS. I think the key thing for me was being able to really bring it all together. It's not just, uh, you know, essentially mobilize it's all of us working together to make this happen. >>What were some of the learnings real quick journeys? >>So I think so the perspective of the key learnings that, you know, uh, you know, when you look back at, uh, the, the infrastructure that was that we were trying to migrate over to the cloud, a lot of the documentation, et cetera, was not available. We were having to, uh, figure out a lot of things on the fly. Now that really required us to have, uh, uh, people with deep expertise who could go into those environments and, and work out, uh, you know, the best ways to, to migrate the workloads to the cloud. Uh, I think, you know, the, the biggest thing for me was making sure all the had on that real SMEs across the board globally, that we could leverage across the various technologies, uh, uh, and, and, and, you know, that would really work in our collaborative and agile environment with line. >>Let's do what I got to ask you. How did you address your approach to the cloud and what was your experience? >>Yeah, for me, it's around getting the foundations right. To start with and then building on them. Um, so, you know, you've gotta have your, your, your process and you've got to have your, your kind of your infrastructure there and your blueprints ready. Um, AWS do a great job of that, right. Getting the foundations right. And then building upon it, and then, you know, partnering with Accenture allows you to do that very successfully. Um, I think, um, you know, the one thing that was probably surprising to us when we started down this journey and kind of after we got a long way down the track and looking backwards is actually how much you can just turn off. Right? So a lot of stuff that you, uh, you get left with a legacy in your environment, and when you start to work through it with the types of people that civic just mentioned, you know, the technical expertise working with the business, um, you can really rationalize your environment and, uh, you know, cloud is a good opportunity to do that, to drive that legacy out. >>Um, so you know, a few things there, the other thing is, um, you've got to try and figure out the benefits that you're going to get out of moving here. So there's no point just taking something that is not delivering a huge amount of value in the traditional world, moving it into the cloud, and guess what is going to deliver the same limited amount of value. So you've got to transform it, and you've got to make sure that you build it for the future and understand exactly what you're trying to gain out of it. So again, you need a strong collaboration. You need a good partners to work with, and you need good engagement from the business as well, because the kind of, uh, you know, digital transformation, cloud transformation, isn't really an it project, I guess, fundamentally it is at the core, but it's a business project that you've got to get the whole business aligned on. You've got to make sure that your investment streams are appropriate and that you're able to understand the benefits and the value that, so you're going to drive back towards the business. >>Let's do it. If you don't mind me asking, what was some of the obstacles you encountered or learnings, um, that might different from the expectation we all been there, Hey, you know, we're going to change the world. Here's the sales pitch, here's the outcome. And then obviously things happen, you know, you learn legacy, okay. Let's put some containerization around that cloud native, um, all that rational. You're talking about what are, and you're going to have obstacles. That's how you learn. That's how perfection has developed. How, what obstacles did you come up with and how are they different from your expectations going in? >>Yeah, they're probably no different from other people that have gone down the same journey. If I'm totally honest, the, you know, 70 or 80% of what you do is relatively easy of the known quantity. It's relatively modern architectures and infrastructures, and you can upgrade, migrate, move them into the cloud, whatever it is, rehost, replatform, rearchitect, whatever it is you want to do, it's the other stuff, right? It's the stuff that always gets left behind. And that's the challenge. It's, it's getting that last bit over the line and making sure that you haven't invested in the future while still carrying all of your legacy costs and complexity within your environment. So, um, to be quite honest, that's probably taken longer and has been more of a challenge than we thought it would be. Um, the other piece I touched on earlier on in terms of what was surprising was actually how much of, uh, your environment is actually not needed anymore. >>When you start to put a critical eye across it and understand, um, uh, ask the tough questions and start to understand exactly what, what it is you're trying to achieve. So if you ask a part of a business, do they still need this application or this service a hundred percent of the time, they will say yes until you start to lay out to them, okay, now I'm going to cost you this to migrate it or this, to run it in the future. And, you know, here's your ongoing costs and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And then, uh, for a significant amount of those answers, you get a different response when you start to layer on the true value of it. So you start to flush out those hidden costs within the business, and you start to make some critical decisions as a company based on, uh, based on that. So that was a little tougher than we first thought and probably broader than we thought there was more of that than we anticipated, um, which actually results in a much cleaner environment post and post migration. >>You know, the old expression, if it moves automated, you know, it's kind of a joke on government, how they want to tax everything, you know, you want to automate, that's a key thing in cloud, and you've got to discover those opportunities to create value Stuart and Sadiq. Mainly if you can weigh in on this love to know the percentage of total cloud that you have now, versus when you started, because as you start to uncover whether it's by design for purpose, or you discover opportunities to innovate, like you guys have, I'm sure it kind of, you took on some territory inside Lyon, what percentage of cloud now versus stark? >>Yeah. At the start, it was minimal, right. You know, close to zero, right. Single and single digits. Right. It was mainly SAS environments that we had, uh, sitting in clouds when we, uh, when we started, um, Doug mentioned earlier on a really significant transformation project, um, that we've undertaken and recently gone live on a multi-year one. Um, you know, that's all stood up on AWS and is a significant portion of our environment, um, in terms of what we can move to cloud. Uh, we're probably at about 80 or 90% now. And the balanced bit is, um, legacy infrastructure that is just gonna retire as we go through the cycle rather than migrate to the cloud. Um, so we are significantly cloud-based and, uh, you know, we're reaping the benefits of it. I know you like 20, 20, I'm actually glad that you did all the hard yards in the previous years when you started that business challenges thrown out as, >>So do you any common reaction to the cloud percentage penetration? >>I mean, guys don't, but I was going to say was, I think it's like the 80 20 rule, right? We, we, we worked really hard in the, you know, I think 2018, 19 to get any person off, uh, after getting a loan, the cloud and, or the last year is the 20% that we have been migrating. And Stuart said like, uh, not that is also, that's going to be a good diet. And I think our next big step is going to be obviously, you know, the icing on the tape, which is to decommission all these apps as well. Right. So, you know, to get the real benefits out of, uh, the whole conservation program from a, uh, from a >>Douglas and Stewart, can you guys talk about the decision around the cloud because you guys have had success with AWS, why AWS how's that decision made? Can you guys give some insight into some of those thoughts? >>I can stop, start off. I think back when the decision was made and it was, it was a while back, um, you know, there's some clear advantages of moving relay, Ws, a lot of alignment with some of the significant projects and, uh, the trend, that particular one big transformation project that we've alluded to as well. Um, you know, we needed some, uh, some very robust and, um, just future proof and, um, proven technology. And they Ws gave that to us. We needed a lot of those blueprints to help us move down the path. We didn't want to reinvent everything. So, um, you know, having a lot of that legwork done for us and AWS gives you that, right. And, and particularly when you partner up with, uh, with a company like Accenture as well, you get combinations of the technology and the skills and the knowledge to, to move you forward in that direction. >>So, um, you know, for us, it was a, uh, uh, it was a decision based on, you know, best of breed, um, you know, looking forward and, and trying to predict the future needs and, and, and kind of the environmental that we might need. Um, and, you know, partnering up with organizations that can then take you on the journey. Yeah. And just to build on it. So obviously, you know, lion's like an AWS, but, you know, we knew it was a very good choice given that, um, uh, the skills and the capability that we had, as well as the assets and tools we had to get the most out of, um, AWS and obviously our, our CEO globally, you know, announcement about a huge investment that we're making in cloud. Um, but you know, we've, we've worked very well DWS, we've done some joint workshops and joint investments, um, some joint POC. So yeah, w we have a very good working relationship, AWS, and I think, um, one incident to reflect upon whether it's cyber it's and again, where we actually jointly, you know, dove in with, um, with Amazon and some of their security experts and our experts. And we're able to actually work through that with mine quite successfully. So, um, you know, really good behaviors as an organization, but also really good capabilities. >>Yeah. As you guys, you're essential cloud outcomes, research shown, it's the cycle of innovation with the cloud. That's creating a lot of benefits, knowing what you guys know now, looking back certainly COVID is impacted a lot of people kind of going through the same process, knowing what you guys know now, would you advocate people to jump on this transformation journey? If so, how, and what tweaks they make, which changes, what would you advise? >>Uh, I might take that one to start with. Um, I hate to think where we would have been when, uh, COVID kicked off here in Australia and, you know, we were all sent home, literally were at work on the Friday, and then over the weekend. And then Monday, we were told not to come back into the office and all of a sudden, um, our capacity in terms of remote access and I quadrupled, or more four, five X, uh, what we had on the Friday we needed on the Monday. And we were able to stand that up during the day Monday and into Tuesday, because we were cloud-based. And, uh, you know, we just found up your instances and, uh, you know, sort of our licensing, et cetera. And we had all of our people working remotely, um, within, uh, you know, effectively one business day. >>Um, I know peers of mine in other organizations and industries that are relying on kind of a traditional wise and getting hardware, et cetera, that were weeks and months before they could get their, the right hardware to be able to deliver to their user base. So, um, you know, one example where you're able to scale and, uh, uh, get, uh, get value out of this platform beyond probably what was anticipated at the time you talk about, um, you know, less the, in all of these kinds of things. And you can also think of a few scenarios, but real world ones where you're getting your business back up and running in that period of time is, is just phenomenal. There's other stuff, right? There's these programs that we've rolled out, you do your sizing, um, and in the traditional world, you would just go out and buy more servers than you need. >>And, you know, probably never realize the full value of those, you know, the capability of those servers over the life cycle of them. Whereas you're in a cloud world, you put in what you think is right. And if it's not right, you pump it up a little bit when, when all of your metrics and so on, tell you that you need to bump it up. And conversely you scale it down at the same rate. So for us, with the types of challenges and programs and, uh, uh, and just business need, that's come at as this year, uh, we wouldn't have been able to do it without a strong cloud base, uh, to, uh, to move forward >>Know Douglas. One of the things that I talked to, a lot of people on the right side of history who have been on the right wave with cloud, with the pandemic, and they're happy, they're like, and they're humble. Like, well, we're just lucky, you know, luck is preparation meets opportunity. And this is really about you guys getting in early and being prepared and readiness. This is kind of important as people realize, then you gotta be ready. I mean, it's not just, you don't get lucky by being in the right place, the right time. And there were a lot of companies were on the wrong side of history here who might get washed away. This is a super important, I think, >>To echo and kind of build on what Stewart said. I think that the reason that we've had success and I guess the momentum is we, we didn't just do it in isolation within it and technology. It was actually linked to broader business changes, you know, creating basically a digital platform for the entire business, moving the business, where are they going to be able to come back stronger after COVID, when they're actually set up for growth, um, and actually allows, you know, lying to achievements growth objectives, and also its ambitions as far as what it wants to do, uh, with growth in whatever they make, do with acquiring other companies and moving into different markets and launching new products. So we've actually done it in a way that is, you know, real and direct business benefit, uh, that actually enables line to grow >>General. I really appreciate you coming. I have one final question. If you can wrap up here, uh, Stuart and Douglas, you don't mind weighing in what's the priorities for the future. What's next for lion in a century >>Christmas holidays, I'll start Christmas holidays been a big deal and then a, and then a reset, obviously, right? So, um, you know, it's, it's figuring out, uh, transform what we've already transformed, if that makes sense. So God, a huge proportion of our services sitting in the cloud. Um, but we know we're not done even with the stuff that is in there. We need to take those next steps. We need more and more automation and orchestration. We need to, um, our environment, there's more future growth. We need to be able to work with the business and understand what's coming at them so that we can, um, you know, build that into, into our environment. So again, it's really transformation on top of transformation is the way that I'll describe it. And it's really an open book, right? Once you get it in and you've got the capabilities and the evolving tool sets that, uh, AWS continue to bring to the market, um, you know, working with the partners to, to figure out how we unlock that value, um, you know, drive our costs down efficiency, uh, all of those kind of, you know, standard metrics. >>Um, but you know, we're looking for the next things to transform and show value back out to our customer base, um, that, uh, that we continue to, you know, sell our products to and work with and understand how we can better meet their needs. Yeah, I think just to echo that, I think it's really leveraging this and then did you capability they have and getting the most out of that investment. And then I think it's also moving to, uh, and adopting more new ways of working as far as, you know, the speed of the business, um, is getting up the speed of the market is changing. So being able to launch and do things quickly and also, um, competitive and efficient operating costs, uh, now that they're in the cloud, right? So I think it's really leveraging the most out of the platform and then, you know, being efficient in launching things. So putting them with the business, >>Any word from you on your priorities by you see this year in folding, >>There's got to say like e-learning squares, right, for me around, you know, just journey. This is a journey to the cloud, right. >>And, uh, you know, as well, the sort of Saturday, it's getting all, you know, different parts of the organization along the journey business to it, to your, uh, product lenders, et cetera. Right. And it takes time. It is tough, but, uh, uh, you know, you got to get started on it. And, you know, once we, once we finish off, uh, it's the realization of the benefits now that, you know, looking forward, I think for, from Alliance perspective, it is, uh, you know, once we migrate all the workloads to the cloud, it is leveraging, uh, all staff, right. And as I think students said earlier, uh, with, uh, you know, the latest and greatest stuff that AWS is basically working to see how we can really, uh, achieve more better operational excellence, uh, from a, uh, from a cloud perspective. >>Well, Stewart, thanks for coming on with a and sharing your environment and what's going on and your journey you're on the right wave. Did the work you're in, it's all coming together with faster, congratulations for your success, and, uh, really appreciate Douglas with Steve for coming on as well from Accenture. Thank you for coming on. Thanks, John. Okay. Just the cubes coverage of executive summit at AWS reinvent. This is where all the thought leaders share their best practices, their journeys, and of course, special programming with Accenture and the cube. I'm Sean ferry, your host, thanks for watching from around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome everyone to the cube virtuals coverage of the Accenture executive summit. Part of AWS reinvent 2020. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. We are talking today about reinventing the energy data platform. We have two guests joining us. First. We have Johan Krebbers. He is the GM digital emerging technologies and VP of it. Innovation at shell. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Johan you're welcome. And next we have Liz Dennett. She is the lead solution architect for O S D U on AWS. Thank you so much Liz to be here. So I want to start our conversation by talking about OSD. You like so many great innovations. It started with a problem Johan. What was the problem you were trying to solve at shell? >>Yeah, the ethical back a couple of years, we started shoving 2017 where we had a meeting with the deg, the gas exploration in shell, and the main problem they had. Of course, they got lots of lots of data, but are unable to find the right data. They need to work from all over the place. And totally >>Went to real, probably tried to solve is how that person working exploration could find their proper date, not just a day, but also the date you really needed that we did probably talked about his summer 2017. And we said, okay, they don't maybe see this moving forward is to start pulling that data into a single data platform. And that, that was at the time that we called it as the, you, the subsurface data universe in there was about the shell name was so in, in January, 2018, we started a project with Amazon to start grating a co fricking that building, that Stu environment that subserve the universe, so that single data level to put all your exploration and Wells data into that single environment that was intent. And every cent, um, already in March of that same year, we said, well, from Michelle point of view, we will be far better off if we could make this an industry solution and not just a shelf sluice, because Shelby, Shelby, if you can make an industry solution where people are developing applications for it, it also is far better than for shell to say we haven't shell special solution because we don't make money out of how we start a day that we can make money out of it. >>We have access to the data, we can explore the data. So storing the data we should do as efficiently possibly can. So we monitor, we reach out to about eight or nine other large, uh, or I guess operators like the economics, like the tutorials, like the chefs of this world and say, Hey, we inshallah doing this. Do you want to join this effort? And to our surprise, they all said, yes. And then in September, 2018, we had our kickoff meeting with your open group where we said, we said, okay, if you want to work together with lots of other companies, we also need to look at okay, how, how we organize that. Or if you started working with lots of large companies, you need to have some legal framework around some framework around it. So that's why we went to the open group and say, okay, let's, let's form the old forum as we call it at the time. So it's September, 2080, where I did a Galleria in Houston, but the kickoff meeting for the OT four with about 10 members at the time. So there's just over two years ago, we started an exercise for me called ODU, uh, kicked it off. Uh, and so that's really them will be coming from and how we've got there. Also >>The origin story. Um, what, so what digging a little deeper there? What were some of the things you were trying to achieve with the OSU? >>Well, a couple of things we've tried to achieve with you, um, first is really separating data from applications for what is, what is the biggest problem we have in the subsurface space that the data and applications are all interlinked tied together. And if, if you have them and a new company coming along and say, I have this new application and is access to the data that is not possible because the data often interlinked with the application. So the first thing we did is really breaking the link between the application, the data out as those levels, the first thing we did, secondly, put all the data to a single data platform, take the silos out what was happening in the sub-service space and know they got all the data in what we call silos in small little islands out there. So what we're trying to do is first break the link to great, great. >>They put the data single day, the bathroom, and the third part, put a standard layer on top of that, it's an API layer on top to create a platform. So we could create an ecosystem out of companies to start a valving shop application on top of dev data platform across you might have a data platform, but you're only successful. If you have a rich ecosystem of people start developing applications on top of that. And then you can export the data like small companies, last company, university, you name it, we're getting after create an ecosystem out there. So the three things were as was first break, the link between application data, just break it and put data at the center and also make sure that data, this data structure would not be managed by one company. It would only be met. It will be managed the data structures by the ODI forum. Secondly, then put a data, a single data platform certainly then has an API layer on top and then create an ecosystem. Really go for people, say, please start developing applications because now you have access to the data or the data no longer linked to somebody whose application was all freely available, but an API layer that was, that was all September, 2018, more or less >>To hear a little bit. Can you talk a little bit about some of the imperatives from the AWS standpoint in terms of what you were trying to achieve with this? Yeah, absolutely. And this whole thing is Johann said started with a challenge that was really brought out at shell. The challenges that geoscientists spend up to 70% of their time looking for data. I'm a geologist I've spent more than 70% of my time trying to find data in these silos. And from there, instead of just figuring out how we could address that one problem, we worked together to really understand the root cause of these challenges and working backwards from that use case OSU and OSU on AWS has really enabled customers to create solutions that span, not just this in particular problem, but can really scale to be inclusive of the entire energy value chain and deliver value from these use cases to the energy industry and beyond. >>Thank you, Lee, >>Uh, Johann. So talk a little bit about Accenture's cloud first approach and how it has, uh, helped shell work faster and better with it. >>Well, of course, access a cloud first approach only works together. It's been an Amazon environment, AWS environment. So we really look at, uh, at, at Accenture and others up together helping shell in this space. Now the combination of the two is where we're really looking at, uh, where access of course can be increased knowledge student to that environment operates support knowledge to do an environment. And of course, Amazon will be doing that to this environment that underpinning their services, et cetera. So, uh, we would expect a combination, a lot of goods when we started rolling out and put in production, the old you are three and four because we are anus. Then when release feed comes to the market in Q1 next year of ODU, when he started going to Audi production inside shell, but as the first release, which is ready for prime time production across an enterprise will be released just before Christmas, last year when he's still in may of this year. But really three is the first release we want to use for full scale production deployment inside shell, and also all the operators around the world. And there is one Amazon, sorry, at that one. Um, extensive can play a role in the ongoing, in the, in deployment building up, but also support environment. >>So one of the other things that we talk a lot about here on the cube is sustainability. And this is a big imperative at so many organizations around the world in particular energy companies. How does this move to OSD you, uh, help organizations become, how is this a greener solution for companies? >>Well, first he make it's a greatest solution because you start making a much more efficient use of your resources. is already an important one. The second thing we're doing is also, we started with ODU in framers, in the oil and gas space in the expert development space. We've grown, uh, OTU in our strategy, we've grown. I was, you know, also do an alternative energy sociology. We'll all start supporting next year. Things like solar farms, wind farms, uh, the, the dermatomal environment hydration. So it becomes an and, and an open energy data platform, not just what I want to get into steep that's for new industry, any type of energy industry. So our focus is to create, bring the data of all those various energy data sources to get me to a single data platform you can to use AI and other technology on top of that, to exploit the data, to beat again into a single data platform. >>Liz, I want to ask you about security because security is, is, is such a big concern when it comes to data. How secure is the data on OSD? You, um, actually, can I talk, can I do a follow up on this sustainability talking? Oh, absolutely. By all means. I mean, I want to interject though security is absolutely our top priority. I don't mean to move away from that, but with sustainability, in addition to the benefits of the OSU data platform, when a company moves from on-prem to the cloud, they're also able to leverage the benefits of scale. Now, AWS is committed to running our business in the most environmentally friendly way possible. And our scale allows us to achieve higher resource utilization and energy efficiency than a typical data center. Now, a recent study by four 51 research found that AWS is infrastructure is 3.6 times more energy efficient than the median of surveyed enterprise data centers. Two thirds of that advantage is due to higher, um, server utilization and a more energy efficient server population. But when you factor in the carbon intensity of consumed electricity and renewable energy purchases for 51 found that AWS performs the same task with an 88% lower carbon footprint. Now that's just another way that AWS and OSU are working to support our customers is they seek to better understand their workflows and make their legacy businesses less carbon intensive. >>That's that's incorrect. Those are those statistics are incredible. Do you want to talk a little bit now about security? Absolutely. Security will always be AWS is top priority. In fact, AWS has been architected to be the most flexible and secure cloud computing environment available today. Our core infrastructure is built to satisfy. There are the security requirements for the military global banks and other high sensitivity organizations. And in fact, AWS uses the same secure hardware and software to build an operate each of our regions. So that customers benefit from the only commercial cloud that's hat hits service offerings and associated supply chain vetted and deemed secure enough for top secret workloads. That's backed by a deep set of cloud security tools with more than 200 security compliance and governmental service and key features as well as an ecosystem of partners like Accenture, that can really help our customers to make sure that their environments for their data meet and or exceed their security requirements. Johann, I want you to talk a little bit about how OSD you can be used today. Does it only handle subsurface data? >>Uh, today it's Honda's subserves or Wells data. We got to add to that production around the middle of next year. That means that the whole upstate business. So we've got goes from exploration all the way to production. You've made it together into a single data platform. So production will be added around Q3 of next year. Then a principal. We have a difficult, the elder data that single environment, and we want to extend it then to other data sources or energy sources like solar farms, wind farms, uh, hydrogen, hydro, et cetera. So we're going to add a whore, a whole list of audit day energy source to them and be all the data together into a single data club. So we move from an all in guest data platform to an entity data platform. That's really what our objective is because the whole industry, if you look it over, look at our competition or moving in that same two acts of quantity of course, are very strong in oil and gas, but also increased the, got into other energy sources like, like solar, like wind, like th like highly attended, et cetera. So we would be moving exactly what it's saying, method that, that, that, that the whole OSU can't really support at home. And as a spectrum of energy sources, >>Of course, and Liz and Johan. I want you to close this out here by just giving us a look into your crystal balls and talking about the five and 10 year plan for OSD. We'll start with you, Liz, what do you, what do you see as the future holding for this platform? Um, honestly, the incredibly cool thing about working at AWS is you never know where the innovation and the journey is going to take you. I personally am looking forward to work with our customers, wherever their OSU journeys, take them, whether it's enabling new energy solutions or continuing to expand, to support use cases throughout the energy value chain and beyond, but really looking forward to continuing to partner as we innovate to slay tomorrow's challenges, Johann first, nobody can look at any more nowadays, especially 10 years, but our objective is really in the next five years, you will become the key backbone for energy companies for store your data intelligence and optimize the whole supply energy supply chain, uh, in this world Johan Krebbers Liz Dennett. Thank you so much for coming on the cube virtual. Thank you. I'm Rebecca Knight stay tuned for more of our coverage of the Accenture executive summit >>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome everyone to the cubes coverage of the Accenture executive summit. Part of AWS reinvent. I'm your host Rebecca Knight today we're welcoming back to Cuba alum. We have Kishor Dirk. He is the Accenture senior managing director cloud first global services lead. Welcome back to the show Kishore. Thank you very much. Nice to meet again. And, uh, Tristan moral horse set. He is the managing director, Accenture cloud first North American growth. Welcome back to you to Tristin. Great to be back in grapes here again, Rebecca. Exactly. Even in this virtual format, it is good to see your faces. Um, today we're going to be talking about my NAB and green cloud advisor capability. Kishor I want to start with you. So my NAB is a platform that is really celebrating its first year in existence. Uh, November, 2019 is when Accenture introduced it. Uh, but it's, it has new relevance in light of this global pandemic that we are all enduring and suffering through. Tell us a little bit about the lineup platform, what it is that cloud platform to help our clients navigate the complexity of cloud and cloud decisions and to make it faster. And obviously, you know, we have in the cloud, uh, you know, with >>The increased relevance and all the, especially over the last few months with the impact of COVID crisis and exhibition of digital transformation, you know, we are seeing the transformation of the exhibition to cloud much faster. This platform that you're talking about has enabled hardened 40 clients globally across different industries. You identify the right cloud solution, navigate the complexity, provide a cloud specific solution simulate for our clients to meet that strategy business needs. And the clients are loving it. >>I want to go to you now trust and tell us a little bit about how my nav works and how it helps companies make good cloud choice. >>Yeah, so Rebecca, we we've talked about cloud is, is more than just infrastructure and that's what mine app tries to solve for it. It really looks at a variety of variables, including infrastructure operating model and fundamentally what clients' business outcomes, um, uh, our clients are, are looking for and, and identifies the optimal solution for what they need. And we assign this to accelerate. And we mentioned that the pandemic, one of the big focus now is to accelerate. And so we worked through a three-step process. The first is scanning and assessing our client's infrastructure, their data landscape, their application. Second, we use our automated artificial intelligence engine to interact with. We have a wide variety and library of, uh, collective plot expertise. And we look to recommend what is the enterprise architecture and solution. And then third, before we live with our clients, we look to simulate and test this scaled up model. And the simulation gives our clients a way to see what cloud is going to look like, feel like and how it's going to transform their business before they go there. >>Tell us a little bit about that in real life. Now as a company, so many of people are working remotely having to collaborate, uh, not in real life. How is that helping them right now? >>So, um, the, the pandemic has put a tremendous strain on systems, uh, because of the demand on those systems. And so we talk about resiliency. We also now need to collaborate across data across people. Um, I think all of us are calling from a variety of different places where our last year we were all at the VA cube itself. Um, and, and cloud technologies such as teams, zoom that we're we're leveraging now has fundamentally accelerated and clients are looking to onboard this for their capabilities. They're trying to accelerate their journey. They realize that now the cloud is what is going to become important for them to differentiate. Once we come out of the pandemic and the ability to collaborate with their employees, their partners, and their clients through these systems is becoming a true business differentiator for our clients. >>Keisha, I want to talk with you now about my navs multiple capabilities, um, and helping clients design and navigate their cloud journeys. Tell us a little bit about the green cloud advisor capability and its significance, particularly as so many companies are thinking more deeply and thoughtfully about sustainability. >>Yes. So since the launch of my NAB, we continue to enhance capabilities for our clients. One of the significant, uh, capabilities that we have enabled is the being or advisor today. You know, Rebecca, a lot of the businesses are more environmentally aware and are expanding efforts to decrease power consumption, uh, and obviously carbon emissions and, uh, and run a sustainable operations across every aspect of the enterprise. Uh, as a result, you're seeing an increasing trend in adoption of energy, efficient infrastructure in the global market. And one of the things that we did, a lot of research we found out is that there's an ability to influence our client's carbon footprint through a better cloud solution. And that's what we internalize, uh, brings to us, uh, in, in terms of a lot of the client connotation that you're seeing in Europe, North America and others. Lot of our clients are accelerating to a green cloud strategy to unlock greater financial societal and environmental benefit, uh, through obviously cloud-based circular, operational, sustainable products and services. That is something that we are enhancing my now, and we are having active client discussions at this point of time. >>So Tristan, tell us a little bit about how this capability helps clients make greener decisions. >>Yeah. Um, well, let's start about the investments from the cloud providers in renewable and sustainable energy. Um, they have most of the hyperscalers today, um, have been investing significantly on data centers that are run on renewable energy, some incredibly creative constructs on the, how, how to do that. And sustainability is there for a key, um, key item of importance for the hyperscalers and also for our clients who now are looking for sustainable energy. And it turns out this marriage is now possible. I can, we marry the, the green capabilities of the cloud providers with a sustainability agenda of our clients. And so what we look into the way the mind works is it looks at industry benchmarks and evaluates our current clients, um, capabilities and carpet footprint leveraging their existing data centers. We then look to model from an end-to-end perspective, how the, their journey to the cloud leveraging sustainable and, um, and data centers with renewable energy. We look at how their solution will look like and, and quantify carbon tax credits, um, improve a green index score and provide quantifiable, um, green cloud capabilities and measurable outcomes to our clients, shareholders, stakeholders, clients, and customers. Um, and our green plot advisers sustainability solutions already been implemented at three clients. And in many cases in two cases has helped them reduce the carbon footprint by up to 400% through migration from their existing data center to green cloud. Very, very, >>That is remarkable. Now tell us a little bit about the kinds of clients. Is this, is this more interesting to clients in Europe? Would you say that it's catching on in the United States? Where, what is the breakdown that you're seeing right now? >>Sustainability is becoming such a global agenda and we're seeing our clients, um, uh, tie this and put this at board level, um, uh, agenda and requirements across the globe. Um, Europe has specific constraints around data sovereignty, right, where they need their data in country, but from a green, a sustainability agenda, we see clients across all our markets, North America, Europe in our growth markets adopt this. And we have seen case studies and all three months, >>Kesha. I want to bring you back into the conversation. Talk a little bit about how MindUP ties into Accenture's cloud first strategy, your Accenture's CEO, Julie Sweet, um, has talked about post COVID leadership, requiring every business to become a cloud first business. Tell us a little bit about how this ethos is in Accenture and how you're sort of looking outward with it too. >>So Rebecca mine is the launch pad, uh, to a cloud first transformation for our clients. Uh, Accenture, see your jewelry suite, uh, shared the Accenture cloud first and our substantial investment demonstrate our commitment and is delivering greater value for our clients when they need it the most. And with the digital transformation requiring cloud at scale, you know, we're seeing that in the post COVID leadership, it requires that every business should become a cloud business. And my nap helps them get there by evaluating the cloud landscape, navigating the complexity, modeling architecting and simulating an optimal cloud solution for our clients. And as Justin was sharing a greener cloud. >>So Tristan, talk a little bit more about some of the real life use cases in terms of what are we, what are clients seeing? What are the results that they're having? >>Yes. Thank you, Rebecca. I would say two key things right around my notes. The first is the iterative process. Clients don't want to wait, um, until they get started, they want to get started and see what their journey is going to look like. And the second is fundamental acceleration, dependent make, as we talked about, has accelerated the need to move to cloud very quickly. And my nav is there to do that. So how do we do that? First is generating the business cases. Clients need to know in many cases that they have a business case by business case, we talk about the financial benefits, as well as the business outcomes, the green, green clot impact sustainability impacts with minus. We can build initial recommendations using a basic understanding of their environment and benchmarks in weeks versus months with indicative value savings in the millions of dollars arranges. >>So for example, very recently, we worked with a global oil and gas company, and in only two weeks, we're able to provide an indicative savings where $27 million over five years, this enabled the client to get started, knowing that there is a business case benefit and then iterate on it. And this iteration is, I would say the second point that is particularly important with my nav that we've seen in bank of clients, which is, um, any journey starts with an understanding of what is the application landscape and what are we trying to do with those, these initial assessments that used to take six to eight weeks are now taking anywhere from two to four weeks. So we're seeing a 40 to 50% reduction in the initial assessment, which gets clients started in their journey. And then finally we've had discussions with all of the hyperscalers to help partner with Accenture and leverage mine after prepared their detailed business case module as they're going to clients. And as they're accelerating the client's journey, so real results, real acceleration. And is there a journey? Do I have a business case and furthermore accelerating the journey once we are by giving the ability to work in iterative approach. >>I mean, it sounds as though that the company that clients and and employees are sort of saying, this is an amazing time savings look at what I can do here in, in so much in a condensed amount of time, but in terms of getting everyone on board, one of the things we talked about last time we met, uh, Tristin was just how much, uh, how one of the obstacles is getting people to sign on and the new technologies and new platforms. Those are often the obstacles and struggles that companies face. Have you found that at all? Or what is sort of the feedback that you're getting? >>Yeah, sorry. Yes. We clearly, there are always obstacles to a cloud journey. If there were an obstacles, all our clients would be, uh, already fully in the cloud. What man I gives the ability is to navigate through those, to start quickly. And then as we identify obstacles, we can simulate what things are going to look like. We can continue with certain parts of the journey while we deal with that obstacle. And it's a fundamental accelerator. Whereas in the past one, obstacle would prevent a class from starting. We can now start to address the obstacles one at a time while continuing and accelerating the contrary. That is the fundamental difference. >>Kishor I want to give you the final word here. Tell us a little bit about what is next for Accenture might have and what we'll be discussing next year at the Accenture executive summit, >>Rebecca, we are continuously evolving with our client needs and reinventing reinventing for the future. Well, mine has been toward advisor. Our plan is to help our clients reduce carbon footprint and again, migrate to a green cloud. Uh, and additionally, we're looking at, you know, two capabilities, uh, which include sovereign cloud advisor, uh, with clients, especially in, in Europe and others are under pressure to meet, uh, stringent data norms that Kristen was talking about. And the sovereign cloud advisor helps organization to create an architecture cloud architecture that complies with the green. Uh, I would say the data sovereignty norms that is out there. The other element is around data to cloud. We are seeing massive migration, uh, for, uh, for a lot of the data to cloud. And there's a lot of migration hurdles that come within that. Uh, we have expanded mine app to support assessment capabilities, uh, for, uh, assessing applications, infrastructure, but also covering the entire state, including data and the code level to determine the right cloud solution. So we are, we are pushing the boundaries on what mine app can do with mine. Have you created the ability to take the guesswork out of cloud, navigate the complexity? We are rolling risks costs, and we are, you know, achieving client's static business objectives while building a sustainable alerts with being cloud, >>Any platform that can take some of the guesswork out of the future. I am I'm on board with thank you so much, Tristin and Kishore. This has been a great conversation. Stay tuned for more of the cubes coverage of the Accenture executive summit. I'm Rebecca Knight.

>>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome to cube three 60 fives coverage of the Accenture executive summit. Part of AWS reinvent. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. Today we are joined by a cube alum, Karthik, Lorraine. He is Accenture senior managing director and lead Accenture cloud. First, welcome back to the show Karthik. >>Thank you. Thanks for having me here. >>Always a pleasure. So I want to talk to you. You are an industry veteran, you've been in Silicon Valley for decades. Um, I want to hear from your perspective what the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been, what are you hearing from clients? What are they struggling with? What are their challenges that they're facing day to day? >>I think, um, COVID-19 is being a eye-opener from, you know, various facets, you know, um, first and foremost, it's a, it's a hell, um, situation that everybody's facing, which is not just, uh, highest economic bearings to it. It has enterprise, um, an organization with bedding to it. And most importantly, it's very personal to people, um, because they themselves and their friends, family near and dear ones are going through this challenge, uh, from various different dimension. But putting that aside, when you come to it from an organization enterprise standpoint, it has changed everything well, the behavior of organizations coming together, working in their campuses, working with each other as friends, family, and, uh, um, near and dear colleagues, all of them are operating differently. So that's what big change to get things done in a completely different way, from how they used to get things done. >>Number two, a lot of things that were planned for normal scenarios, like their global supply chain, how they interact with their client customers, how they go innovate with their partners on how that employees contribute to the success of an organization at all changed. And there are no data models that give them a hint of something like this for them to be prepared for this. So we are seeing organizations, um, that have adapted to this reasonably okay, and are, you know, launching to innovate faster in this. And there are organizations that have started with struggling, but are continuing to struggle. And the gap between the leaders and legs are widening. So this is creating opportunities in a different way for the leaders, um, with a lot of pivot their business, but it's also creating significant challenge for the lag guides, uh, as we defined in our future systems research that we did a year ago, uh, and those organizations are struggling further. So the gap is actually widening. >>So you just talked about the widening gap. I've talked about the tremendous uncertainty that so many companies, even the ones who have adapted reasonably well, uh, in this, in this time, talk a little bit about Accenture cloud first and why, why now? >>I think it's a great question. Um, we believe that for many of our clients COVID-19 has turned, uh, cloud from an experimentation aspiration to an origin mandate. What I mean by that is everybody has been doing something on the other end cloud. There's no company that says we don't believe in cloud are, we don't want to do cloud. It was how much they did in cloud. And they were experimenting. They were doing the new things in cloud, but they were operating a lot of their core business outside the cloud or not in the cloud. Those organizations have struggled to operate in this new normal, in a remote fashion, as well as, uh, their ability to pivot to all the changes the pandemic has brought to them. But on the other hand, the organizations that had a solid foundation in cloud were able to collect faster and not actually gone into the stage of innovating faster and driving a new behavior in the market, new behavior within their organization. >>So we are seeing that spend to make is actually fast-forwarded something that we always believed was going to happen. This, uh, uh, moving to cloud over the next decade is fast forward it to happen in the next three to five years. And it's created this moment where it's a once in an era, really replatforming of businesses in the cloud that we are going to see. And we see this moment as a cloud first moment where organizations will use cloud as the, the, the canvas and the foundation with which they're going to reimagine their business after they were born in the cloud. Uh, and this requires a whole new strategy. Uh, and as Accenture, we are getting a lot in cloud, but we thought that this is the moment where we bring all of that, gave him a piece together because we need a strategy for addressing, moving to cloud are embracing cloud in a holistic fashion. And that's what Accenture cloud first brings together a holistic strategy, a team that's 70,000 plus people that's coming together with rich cloud skills, but investing to tie in all the various capabilities of cloud to Delaware, that holistic strategy to our clients. So I want you to >>Delve into a little bit more about what this strategy actually entails. I mean, it's clearly about embracing change and being willing to experiment and having capabilities to innovate. Can you tell us a little bit more about what this strategy entails? >>Yeah. The reason why we say that as a need for strategy is like I said, cloud is not new. There's almost every customer client is doing something with the cloud, but all of them have taken different approaches to cloud and different boundaries to cloud. Some organizations say, I just need to consolidate my multiple data centers to a small data center footprint and move the nest to cloud. Certain other organizations say that well, I'm going to move certain workloads to cloud. Certain other organizations said, well, I'm going to build this Greenfield application or workload in cloud. Certain other said, um, I'm going to use the power of AI ML in the cloud to analyze my data and drive insights. But a cloud first strategy is all of this tied with the corporate strategy of the organization with an industry specific cloud journey to say, if in this current industry, if I were to be reborn in the cloud, would I do it in the exact same passion that I did in the past, which means that the products and services that they offer need to be the matching, how they interact with that customers and partners need to be revisited, how they bird and operate their IP systems need to be the, imagine how they unearthed the data from all of the systems under which they attract need to be liberated so that you could drive insights of cloud. >>First strategy hands is a corporate wide strategy, and it's a C-suite responsibility. It doesn't take the ownership away from the CIO or CIO, but the CIO is, and CDI was felt that it was just their problem and they were to solve it. And everyone as being a customer, now, the center of gravity is elevated to it becoming a C-suite agenda on everybody's agenda, where probably the CDI is the instrument to execute that that's a holistic cloud-first strategy >>And it, and it's a strategy, but the way you're describing it, it sounds like it's also a mindset and an approach, as you were saying, this idea of being reborn in the cloud. So now how do I think about things? How do I communicate? How do I collaborate? How do I get done? What I need to get done. Talk a little bit about how this has changed, the way you support your clients and how Accenture cloud first is changing your approach to cloud services. >>Wonderful. Um, you know, I did not color one very important aspect in my previous question, but that's exactly what you just asked me now, which is to do all of this. I talked about all of the variables, uh, an organization or an enterprise is going to go through, but the good part is they have one constant. And what is that? That is their employees, uh, because you do, the employees are able to embrace this change. If they are able to, uh, change them, says, pivot them says retool and train themselves to be able to operate in this new cloud. First one, the ability to reimagine every function of the business would be happening at speed. And cloud first approach is to do all of this at speed, because innovation is deadly proposed there, do the rate of probability on experimentation. You need to experiment a lot for any kind of experimentation. >>There's a probability of success. Organizations need to have an ability and a mechanism for them to be able to innovate faster for which they need to experiment a lot, the more the experiment and the lower cost at which they experiment is going to help them experiment a lot. And they experiment demic speed, fail fast, succeed more. And hence, they're going to be able to operate this at speed. So the cloud-first mindset is all about speed. I'm helping the clients fast track that innovation journey, and this is going to happen. Like I said, across the enterprise and every function across every department, I'm the agent of this change is going to be the employees or weapon, race, this change through new skills and new grueling and new mindset that they need to adapt to. >>So Karthik what you're describing it, it sounds so exciting. And yet for a pandemic wary workforce, that's been working remotely that may be dealing with uncertainty if for their kid's school and for so many other aspects of their life, it sounds hard. So how are you helping your clients, employees get onboard with this? And because the change management is, is often the hardest part. >>Yeah, I think it's, again, a great question. A bottle has only so much capacity. Something got to come off for something else to go in. That's what you're saying is absolutely right. And that is again, the power of cloud. The reason why cloud is such a fundamental breakthrough technology and capability for us to succeed in this era, because it helps in various forms. What we talked so far is the power of innovation that can create, but cloud can also simplify the life of the employees in an enterprise. There are several activities and tasks that people do in managing that complex infrastructure, complex ID landscape. They used to do certain jobs and activities in a very difficult underground about with cloud has simplified. And democratised a lot of these activities. So that things which had to be done in the past, like managing the complexity of the infrastructure, keeping them up all the time, managing the, um, the obsolescence of the capabilities and technologies and infrastructure, all of that could be offloaded to the cloud. >>So that the time that is available for all of these employees can be used to further innovate. Every organization is going to spend almost the same amount of money, but rather than spending activities, by looking at the rear view mirror on keeping the lights on, they're going to spend more money, more time, more energy, and spend their skills on things that are going to add value to their organization. Because you, every innovation that an enterprise can give to their end customer need not come from that enterprise. The word of platform economy is about democratising innovation. And the power of cloud is to get all of these capabilities from outside the four walls of the enterprise, >>It will add value to the organization, but I would imagine also add value to that employee's life because that employee, the employee will be more engaged in his or her job and therefore bring more excitement and energy into her, his or her day-to-day activities too. >>Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is, this is a normal evolution we would have seen everybody would have seen in their lives, that they keep moving up the value chain of what activities that, uh, gets performed buying by those individuals. And this is, um, you know, no more true than how the United States, uh, as an economy has operated where, um, this is the power of a powerhouse of innovation, where the work that's done inside the country keeps moving up to value chain. And, um, us leverage is the global economy for a lot of things that is required to power the United States and that global economic, uh, phenomenon is very proof for an enterprise as well. There are things that an enterprise needs to do them soon. There are things an employee needs to do themselves. Um, but there are things that they could leverage from the external innovation and the power of innovation that is coming from technologies like cloud. >>So at Accenture, you have long, long, deep Stan, sorry, you have deep and long-standing relationships with many cloud service providers, including AWS. How does the Accenture cloud first strategy, how does it affect your relationships with those providers? >>Yeah, we have great relationships with cloud providers like AWS. And in fact, in the cloud world, it was one of the first, um, capability that we started about years ago, uh, when we started developing these capabilities. But five years ago, we hit a very important milestone where the two organizations came together and said that we are forging a pharma partnership with joint investments to build this partnership. And we named that as a Accenture, AWS business group ABG, uh, where we co-invest and brought skills together and develop solutions. And we will continue to do that. And through that investment, we've also made several acquisitions that you would have seen in the recent times, like, uh, an invoice and gecko that we made acquisitions in in Europe. But now we're taking this to the next level. What we are saying is two cloud first and the $3 billion investment that we are bringing in, uh, through cloud-first. >>We are going to make specific investment to create unique joint solution and landing zones foundation, um, cloud packs with which clients can accelerate their innovation or their journey to cloud first. And one great example is what we are doing with Takeda, uh, billable, pharmaceutical giant, um, between we've signed a five-year partnership. And it was out in the media just a month ago or so, where we are, the two organizations are coming together. We have created a partnership as a power of three partnership, where the three organizations are jointly hoarding hats and taking responsibility for the innovation and the leadership position that Takeda wants to get to with this. We are going to simplify their operating model and organization by providing and flexibility. We're going to provide a lot more insights. Tequila has a 230 year old organization. Imagine the amount of trapped data and intelligence that is there. >>How about bringing all of that together with the power of AWS and Accenture and Takeda to drive more customer insights, um, come up with breakthrough R and D uh, accelerate clinical trials and improve the patient experience using AI ML and edge technologies. So all of these things that we will do through this partnership with joined investment from Accenture cloud first, as well as partner like AWS, so that Takeda can realize their gain. And, uh, their senior actually made a statement that five years from now, every ticket an employee will have an AI assistant. That's going to make that beginner employee move up the value chain on how they contribute and add value to the future of tequila with the AI assistant, making them even more equipped and smarter than what they could be otherwise. >>So, one last question to close this out here. What is your future vision for, for Accenture cloud first? What are we going to be talking about at next year's Accenture executive summit? Yeah, the future >>Is going to be, um, evolving, but the part that is exciting to me, and this is, uh, uh, a fundamental belief that we are entering a new era of industrial revolution from industry first, second, and third industry. The third happened probably 20 years ago with the advent of Silicon and computers and all of that stuff that happened here in the Silicon Valley. I think the fourth industrial revolution is going to be in the cross section of, uh, physical, digital and biological boundaries. And there's a great article, um, in one economic forum that people, uh, your audience can Google and read about it. Uh, but the reason why this is very, very important is we are seeing a disturbing phenomenon that over the last 10 years are seeing a Blackwing of the, um, labor productivity and innovation, which has dropped to about 2.1%. When you see that kind of phenomenon over that longer period of time, there has to be breakthrough innovation that needs to happen to come out of this barrier and get to the next, you know, base camp, as I would call it to further this productivity, um, lack that we are seeing, and that is going to happen in the intersection of the physical, digital and biological boundaries. >>And I think cloud is going to be the connective tissue between all of these three, to be able to provide that where it's the edge, especially is good to come closer to the human lives. It's going to come from cloud. Yeah. Pick totally in your mind, you can think about cloud as central, either in a private cloud, in a data center or in a public cloud, you know, everywhere. But when you think about edge, it's going to be far reaching and coming close to where we live and maybe work and very, um, get entertained and so on and so forth. And there's good to be, uh, intervention in a positive way in the field of medicine, in the field of entertainment, in the field of, um, manufacturing in the field of, um, you know, mobility. When I say mobility, human mobility, people, transportation, and so on and so forth with all of this stuff, cloud is going to be the connective tissue and the vision of cloud first is going to be, uh, you know, blowing through this big change that is going to happen. And the evolution that is going to happen where, you know, the human grace of mankind, um, our person kind of being very gender neutral in today's world. Um, go first needs to be that beacon of, uh, creating the next generation vision for enterprises to take advantage of that kind of an exciting future. And that's why it, Accenture, are we saying that there'll be change as our, as our purpose? >>I genuinely believe that cloud first is going to be the forefront of that change agenda, both for Accenture as well as for the rest of the work. >>Excellent. Let there be changed. Indeed. Thank you so much for joining us Karthik. A pleasure I'm Rebecca Knight stay tuned for more of Q3 60 fives coverage of the Accenture executive summit >>From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome everyone to the cube virtual and our coverage of the Accenture executive summit. Part of AWS reinvent 2020. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. Today, we are talking about the power of three. And what happens when you bring together the scientific, how of a global bias biopharmaceutical powerhouse in Takeda, a leading cloud services provider in AWS, and Accenture's ability to innovate, execute, and deliver innovation. Joining me to talk about these things. We have Aaron, sorry. Arjan Beatty. He is the senior managing director and chairman of Accenture's diamonds leadership council. Welcome Arjun. Thank you, Karl hick. He is the chief digital and information officer at Takeda. >>What is your bigger, thank you, Rebecca >>And Brian Beau Han global director and head of the Accenture AWS business group at Amazon web services. Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you. So, as I said, we're talking today about this relationship between, uh, your three organizations. Carl, I want to talk with you. I know you're at the beginning of your cloud journey. What was the compelling reason? Why w why, why move to the cloud and why now? >>Yeah, no, thank you for the question. So, you know, as a biopharmaceutical leader, we're committed to bringing better health and a brighter future to our patients. We're doing that by translating science into some really innovative and life transporting therapies, but throughout, you know, we believe that there's a responsible use of technology, of data and of innovation. And those three ingredients are really key to helping us deliver on that promise. And so, you know, while I think a I'll call it, this cloud journey is already always been a part of our strategy. Um, and we've made some pretty steady progress over the last years with a number of I'll call it diverse approaches to the digital and AI. We just weren't seeing the impact at scale that we wanted to see. Um, and I think that, you know, there's a, there's a need ultimately to, you know, accelerate and broaden that shift. >>And, you know, we were commenting on this earlier, but there's, you know, it's been highlighted by a number of factors. One of those has been certainly a number of the acquisitions we've made Shire, uh, being the most pressing example, uh, but also the global pandemic, both of those highlight the need for us to move faster, um, at the speed of cloud, ultimately. Uh, and so we started thinking outside of the box because it was taking us too long and we decided to leverage the strategic partner model. Uh, and it's giving us a chance to think about our challenges very differently. We call this the power of three, uh, and ultimately our focus is singularly on our patients. I mean, they're waiting for us. We need to get there faster. It can take years. And so I think that there is a focus on innovation at a rapid speed, so we can move ultimately from treating conditions to keeping people healthy. >>So as you are embarking on this journey, what are some of the insights you want to share about, about what you're seeing so far? >>Yeah, no, it's a great question. So, I mean, look, maybe right before I highlight some of the key insights, uh, I would say that, you know, with cloud now as the, as a launchpad for innovation, you know, our vision all along has been that in less than 10 years, we want every single to kid, uh, the associate or employee to be empowered by an AI assistant. And I think that, you know, that's going to help us make faster, better decisions. That'll help us, uh, fundamentally deliver transformative therapies and better experiences to, to that ecosystem, to our patients, to physicians, to payers, et cetera, much faster than we previously thought possible. Um, and I think that technologies like cloud and edge computing together with a very powerful I'll call it data fabric is going to help us to create this, this real-time, uh, I'll call it the digital ecosystem. >>The data has to flow ultimately seamlessly between our patients and providers or partners or researchers, et cetera. Uh, and so we've been thinking about this, uh, I'll call it weekly, call up sort of this pyramid, um, that helps us describe our vision. Uh, and a lot of it has to do with ultimately modernizing the foundation, modernizing and rearchitecting, the platforms that drive the company, uh, heightening our focus on data, which means that there's an accelerated shift towards, uh, enterprise data platforms and digital products. And then ultimately, uh, uh, uh, you know, really an engine for innovation sitting at the very top. Um, and so I think with that, you know, there's a few different, I'll call it insights that, you know, are quickly kind of come zooming into focus. I would say one is this need to collaborate very differently. Um, you know, not only internally, but you know, how do we define ultimately, and build a connected digital ecosystem with the right partners and technologies externally? >>I think the second component that maybe people don't think as much about, but, you know, I find critically important is for us to find ways of really transforming our culture. We have to unlock talent and shift the culture certainly as a large biopharmaceutical very differently. And then lastly, you've touched on it already, which is, you know, innovation at the speed of cloud. How do we re-imagine that? You know, how do ideas go from getting tested in months to kind of getting tested in days? You know, how do we collaborate very differently? Uh, and so I think those are three, uh, perhaps of the larger I'll call it, uh, insights that, you know, the three of us are spending a lot of time thinking about right now. >>So Arjun, I want to bring you into this conversation a little bit. Let's, let's delve into those a bit. Talk first about the collaboration, uh, that Carl was referencing there. How, how have you seen that? It is enabling, uh, colleagues and teams to communicate differently and interact in new and different ways? Uh, both internally and externally, as Carl said, >>No, thank you for that. And, um, I've got to give call a lot of credit because as we started to think about this journey, it was clear. It was a bold ambition was, uh, something that, you know, we had all to do differently. And so the concept of the power of three that Carl has constructed has become a label for us as a way to think about what are we going to do to collectively drive this journey forward. And to me, the unique ways of collaboration means three things. The first one is that, um, what is expected is that the three parties are going to come together and it's more than just the sum of our resources. And by that, I mean that we have to bring all of ourselves, all of our collective capabilities, as an example, Amazon has amazing supply chain capabilities. They're one of the best at supply chain. >>So in addition to resources, when we have supply chain innovations, uh, that's something that they're bringing in addition to just, uh, talent and assets, similarly for Accenture, right? We do a lot, uh, in the talent space. So how do we bring our thinking as to how we apply best practices for talent to this partnership? So, um, as we think about this, so that's, that's the first one, the second one is about shared success very early on in this partnership, we started to build some foundations and actually develop seven principles that all of us would look at as the basis for this success shared success model. And we continue to hold that sort of in the forefront, as we think about this collaboration. And maybe the third thing I would say is this one team mindset. So whether it's the three of our CEOs that get together every couple of months to think about, uh, this partnership, or it is the governance model that Carl has put together, which has all three parties in the governance and every level of leadership, we always think about this as a collective group so that we can keep that front and center. >>And what I think ultimately has enabled us to do is it's allowed us to move at speed, be more flexible. And ultimately all we're looking at the target the same way, the North side, the same way, >>Brian, about you, what have you observed and what are you thinking about in terms of how this is helping teams collaborate differently? Yeah, >>Absolutely. And RJ made some, some great points there. And I think if you really think about what he's talking about, it's that, that diversity of talent, diversity of skill and viewpoint and even culture, right? And so we see that in the power of three. And then I think if we drill down into what we see at Takeda and frankly Takeda was, was really, I think, pretty visionary and on their way here, right. And taking this kind of cross-functional approach and applying it to how they operate day to day. So moving from a more functional view of the world to more of a product oriented view of the world, right? So when you think about we're going to be organized around a product or a service or a capability that we're going to provide to our customers or our patients or donors in this case, it implies a different structure all to altogether and a different way of thinking, right? >>Because now you've got technical people and business experts and marketing experts all working together in this is sort of cross collaboration. And what's great about that is it's really the only way to succeed with cloud, right? Because the old ways of thinking where you've got application people and infrastructure, people in business, people is suboptimal, right? Because we can all access this tool as these capabilities and the best way to do that. Isn't across kind of a cross collaborative way. And so this is product oriented mindset. It's a keto was already on. I think it's allowed us to move faster. >>Carl, I want to go back to this idea of unlocking talent and culture. And this is something that both Brian and Arjun have talked about too. People are an essential part of their, at the heart of your organization. How will their experience of work change and how are you helping re-imagine and reinforce a strong organizational culture, particularly at this time when so many people are working remotely. >>Yeah. It's a great question. And it's something that, you know, I think we all have to think a lot about, I mean, I think, um, you know, driving this, this color, this, this digital and data kind of capability building, uh, it takes a lot of, a lot of thinking. So, I mean, there's a few different elements in terms of how we're tackling this one is we're recognizing, and it's not just for the technology organization or for those actors that, that we're innovating with, but it's really across all of the Qaeda where we're working through ways of raising what I'll call the overall digital leaders literacy of the organization, you know, what are the, you know, what are the skills that are needed almost at a baseline level, even for a global bio-pharmaceutical company and how do we deploy, I'll call it those learning resources very broadly. >>And then secondly, I think that, you know, we're, we're very clear that there's a number of areas where there are very specialized skills that are needed. Uh, my organization is one of those. And so, you know, we're fostering ways in which, you know, we're very kind of quickly kind of creating, uh, avenues excitement for, for associates in that space. So one example specifically, as we use, you know, during these, uh, very much sort of remote, uh, sort of days, we, we use what we call global it meet days, and we set a day aside every single month and this last Friday, um, you know, we, we create during that time, it's time for personal development. Um, and we provide active seminars and training on things like, you know, robotic process automation, data analytics cloud, uh, in this last month we've been doing this for months and months now, but in his last month, more than 50% of my organization participated, and there's this huge positive shift, both in terms of access and excitement about really harnessing those new skills and being able to apply them. >>Uh, and so I think that that's, you know, one, one element that can be considered. And then thirdly, um, of course every organization has to work on how do you prioritize talent, acquisition and management and competencies that you can't rescale? I mean, there are just some new capabilities that we don't have. And so there's a large focus that I have with our executive team and our CEO and thinking through those critical roles that we need to activate in order to kind of, to, to build on this, uh, this business led cloud transformation. And lastly, probably the hardest one, but the one that I'm most jazzed about is really this focus on changing the mindsets and behaviors. Um, and I think there, you know, this is where the power of three is, is really, uh, kind of coming together nicely. I mean, we're working on things like, you know, how do we create this patient obsessed curiosity, um, and really kind of unlock innovation with a real, kind of a growth mindset. >>Uh, and the level of curiosity that's needed, not to just continue to do the same things, but to really challenge the status quo. So that's one big area of focus we're having the agility to act just faster. I mean, to worry less, I guess I would say about kind of the standard chain of command, but how do you make more speedy, more courageous decisions? And this is places where we can emulate the way that a partner like AWS works, or how do we collaborate across the number of boundaries, you know, and I think, uh, Arjun spoke eloquently to a number of partnerships that we can build. So we can break down some of these barriers and use these networks, um, whether it's within our own internal ecosystem or externally to help, to create value faster. So a lot of energy around ways of working and we'll have to check back in, but I mean, we're early in on this mindset and behavioral shift, um, but a lot of good early momentum. >>Carl you've given me a good segue to talk to Brian about innovation, because you said a lot of the things that I was the customer obsession and this idea of innovating much more quickly. Obviously now the world has its eyes on drug development, and we've all learned a lot about it, uh, in the past few months and accelerating drug development is all, uh, is of great interest to all of us. Brian, how does a transformation like this help a company's ability to become more agile and more innovative and at a quicker speed to, >>Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think some of the things that Carl talked about just now are critical to that, right? I think where sometimes folks fall short is they think, you know, we're going to roll out the technology and the is going to be the silver bullet where in fact it is the culture, it is, is the talent. And it's the focus on that. That's going to be, you know, the determinant of success. And I will say, you know, in this power of three arrangement and Carl talked a little bit about the pyramid, um, talent and culture and that change, and that kind of thinking about that has been a first-class citizen since the very beginning, right. That absolutely is critical for, for being there. Um, and so that's been, that's been key. And so we think about innovation at Amazon and AWS and Chrome mentioned some of the things that, you know, a partner like AWS brings to the table is we talk a lot about builders, right? >>So we're kind of obsessive about builders. Um, and, and we meet what we mean by that is we, we, at Amazon, we hire for builders, we cultivate builders and we like to talk to our customers about it as well. And it also implies a different mindset, right? When you're a builder, you have that, that curiosity, you have that ownership, you have that stake and whatever I'm creating, I'm going to be a co-owner of this product or this service, right. Getting back to that kind of product oriented mindset. And it's not just the technical people or the it people who are builders. It is also the business people as, as Carl talked about. Right. So when we start thinking about, um, innovation again, where we see folks kind of get into a little bit of, uh, innovation, pilot paralysis, is that you can focus on the technology, but if you're not focusing on the talent and the culture and the processes and the mechanisms, you're going to be putting out technology, but you're not going to have an organization that's ready to take it and scale it and accelerate it. >>Right. And so that's, that's been absolutely critical. So just a couple of things we've been doing with, with the Qaeda and Decatur has really been leading the way is, think about a mechanism and a process. And it's really been working backward from the customer, right? In this case, again, the patient and the donor. And that was an easy one because the key value of Decatur is to be a patient focused bio-pharmaceutical right. So that was embedded in their DNA. So that working back from that, that patient, that donor was a key part of that process. And that's really deep in our DNA as well and Accentures. And so we were able to bring that together. The other one is, is, is getting used to experimenting and even perhaps failing, right. And being able to iterate and fail fast and experiment and understanding that, you know, some decisions, what we call it at Amazon are two two-way doors, meaning you can go through that door, not like what you see and turn around and go back. And cloud really helps there because the costs of experimenting and the cost of failure is so much lower than it's ever been. You can do it much faster and the implications are so much less. So just a couple of things that we've been really driving, uh, with Decatur around innovation, that's been really critical. >>Carl, where are you already seeing signs of success? Yeah, no, it's a great question. And so we chose, you know, uh, with our focus on, on innovation to try to unleash maybe the power of data digital in, uh, in focusing on what I call sort of a nave. And so we chose our, our, our plasma derived therapy business, um, and you know, the plasma-derived therapy business unit, it develops critical life-saving therapies for patients with rare and complex diseases. Um, but what we're doing is by bringing kind of our energy together, we're focusing on creating, I'll call it state of the art digitally connected donation centers. And we're really modernizing, you know, the, the, the donor experience right now, we're trying to, uh, improve also I'll call it the overall plasma collection process. And so we've, uh, selected a number of alcohol at a very high-speed pilots that we're working through right now, specifically in this, in this area. And we're seeing really great results already. Um, and so that's, that's one specific area of focus >>Arjun. I want you to close this out here. Any ideas, any best practices advice you would have for other pharmaceutical companies that are, that are at the early stage of their cloud journey for me? Yes. >>Yeah, no, I was breaking up a bit. No, I think they, um, the key is what's sort of been great for me to see is that when people think about cloud, you know, you always think about infrastructure technology. The reality is that the cloud is really the true enabler for innovation and innovating at scale. And, and if you think about that, right, in all the components that you need, that ultimately that's where the value is for the company, right? Because yes, you're going to get some cost synergies and that's great, but the true value is in how do we transform the organization in the case of the Qaeda and the life sciences clients, right. We're trying to take a 14 year process of research and development that takes billions of dollars and compress that, right. Tremendous amounts of innovation opportunity. You think about the commercial aspect, lots of innovation can come there. The plasma derived therapy is a great example of how we're going to really innovate to change the trajectory of that business. So I think innovation is at the heart of what most organizations need to do. And the formula, the cocktail that the Qaeda has constructed with this Fuji program really has all the ingredients, um, that are required for that success. >>Great. Well, thank you so much. Arjun, Brian and Carl was really an enlightening conversation. >>Yeah, it's been fun. Thanks Rebecca. >>Thank you for tuning into the cube virtuals coverage of the Accenture executive summit from around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. Welcome everyone to the cubes of Accenture >>Executive summit here at AWS reinvent. I'm your host Rebecca Knight for this segment? We have two guests. First. We have Helen Davis. She is the senior director of cloud platform services, assistant director for it and digital for the West Midlands police. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Helen, And we also have Matthew lb. He is Accenture health and public service associate director and West Midlands police account lead. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Matthew, thank you for having us. So we are going to be talking about delivering data-driven insights to the West Midlands police force. Helen, I want to start with you. Can you tell us a little bit about the West Midlands police force? How big is the force and also what were some of the challenges that you were grappling with prior to this initiative? >>Yes, certainly. So Westerners police is the second largest police force in the UK, outside of the metropolitan police in London. Um, we have an excessive, um, 11,000 people work at Westminster police serving communities, um, through, across the Midlands region. So geographically, we're quite a big area as well, as well as, um, being population, um, density, having that as a, at a high level. Um, so the reason we sort of embarked on the data-driven insights platform and it, which was a huge change for us was for a number of reasons. Um, namely we had a lot of disparate data, um, which was spread across a range of legacy systems that were many, many years old, um, with some duplication of, um, what was being captured and no single view for offices or, um, support staff. Um, some of the access was limited. You have to be in a, in an actual police building on a desktop computer to access it. Um, other information could only reach officers on the frontline through a telephone call back to one of our enabling services where they would do a manual checkup, um, look at the information, then call the offices back, um, and tell them what they needed to know. So it was a very long laborious process and not very efficient. Um, and we certainly weren't exploiting the data that we had in a very productive way. >>So it sounds like as you're describing and an old clunky system that needed a technological, uh, reimagination, so what was the main motivation for, for doing, for making this shift? >>It was really, um, about making us more efficient and more effective in how we do how we do business. So, um, you know, certainly as a, as an it leader and sort of my operational colleagues, we recognize the benefits, um, that data analytics could bring in, uh, in a policing environment, not something that was, um, really done in the UK at time. You know, we have a lot of data, so we're very data rich and the information that we have, but we needed to turn it into information that was actionable. So that's where we started looking for, um, technology partners and, um, suppliers to help us and sort of help us really with what's the art of the possible, you know, this hasn't been done before. So what could we do in this space that's appropriate for policing >>Helen? I love that idea. What is the art of the possible, can you tell us a little bit about why you chose AWS? >>I think really, you know, as with all things and when we're procuring a partner in the public sector that, you know, there are many rules and regulations quite rightly as you would expect that to be because we're spending public money. So we have to be very, very careful and, um, it's, it's a long process and we have to be open to public scrutiny. So, um, we sort of look to everything, everything that was available as part of that process, but we recognize the benefits that tide would provide in this space because, you know, without moving to a cloud environment, we would literally be replacing something that was legacy with something that was a bit more modern. Um, that's not what we wanted to do. Our ambition was far greater than that. So I think, um, in terms of AWS, really, it was around scalability, interoperability, you know, disaster things like the disaster recovery service, the fact that we can scale up and down quickly, we call it dialing up and dialing back. Um, you know, it's it's page go. So it just sort of ticked all the boxes for us. And then we went through the full procurement process, fortunately, um, it came out on top for us. So we were, we were able to move forward, but it just sort of had everything that we were looking for in that space. >>Matthew, I want to bring you into the conversation a little bit here. How are you working with the wet with the West Midlands police, sorry, and helping them implement this cloud first journey? >>Yeah, so I guess, um, by January the West Midlands police started, um, pay for five years ago now. So, um, we set up a partnership with the force I, and you to operate operation the way that was very different to a traditional supplier relationship. Um, secretary that the data difference insights program is, is one of many that we've been working with less neutral on, um, over the last five years. Um, as having said already, um, cloud gave a number of, uh, advantages certainly from a big data perspective and the things that that enabled us today, um, I'm from an Accenture perspective that allowed us to bring in a number of the different themes that we have say cloud themes, security teams, um, interacted from a design perspective, as well as more traditional services that people would associate with the country. >>So much of this is about embracing comprehensive change to experiment, innovate, and try different things. Matthew, how, how do you help an entity like West Midlands police think differently when they are, there are these ways of doing things that people are used to, how do you help them think about what is the art of the possible, as Helen said, >>There's a few things for that, you know, what's being critical is trying to co-create solutions together. Yeah. There's no point just turning up with, um, what we think is the right answer, try and say, um, collectively work through, um, the issues that the forest are seeing the outcomes they're looking to achieve rather than simply focusing on the long list of requirements I think was critical and then being really open to working together to create the right solution. Um, rather than just, you know, trying to pick something off the shelf that maybe doesn't fit the forces requirements in the way that it should to, right. It's not always a one size fits all. Obviously, you know, today what we thought was critical is making sure that we're creating something that met the forces needs, um, in terms of the outcomes they're looking to achieve the financial envelopes that were available, um, and how we can deliver those in a, uh, iterative agile way, um, rather than spending years and years, um, working towards an outcome, um, that is going to outdate before you even get that. >>How, how are things different? What kinds of business functions and processes have been re-imagined in, in light of this change and this shift >>It's, it's actually unrecognizable now, um, in certain areas of the business as it was before. So to give you a little bit of context, when we, um, started working with essentially century AWS on the data driven insights program, it was very much around providing, um, what was called locally, a wizzy tool for our intelligence analysts to interrogate data, look at data, you know, decide whether they could do anything predictive with it. And it was very much sort of a back office function to sort of tidy things up for us and make us a bit better in that, in that area or a lot better in that area. And it was rolled out to a number of offices, a small number on the front line. Um, I'm really, it was, um, in line with a mobility strategy that we, hardware officers were getting new smartphones for the first time, um, to do sort of a lot of things on, on, um, policing apps and things like that to again, to avoid them, having to keep driving back to police stations, et cetera. >>And the pilot was so successful. Every officer now has access to this data, um, on their mobile devices. So it literally went from a handful of people in an office somewhere using it to do sort of clever whizzbang things to, um, every officer in the force, being able to access that level of data at their fingertips literally. So what they would touch we've done before is if they needed to check and address or check, uh, details of an individual, um, just as one example, they would either have to, in many cases, go back to a police station to look it up themselves on a desktop computer. Well, they would have to make a call back to, um, a centralized function and speak to an operator, relay the questions either, wait for the answer or wait for a call back with the answer when those people are doing the data interrogation manually. >>So the biggest change for us is the self-service nature of the data we now have available. So officers can do it themselves on their phone, wherever they might be. So the efficiency savings, um, from that point of view are immense. And I think just parallel to that is the quality of our data because we had a lot of data, but just because you've got a lot of data and a lot of information doesn't mean it's big data and it's valuable necessarily. Um, so again, it was having the single source of truth as we, as we call it. So you know, that when you are completing those safe searches and getting the responses back, that it is the most accurate information we hold. And also you're getting it back within minutes as opposed to, you know, half an hour, an hour or a drive back to the station. So it's making officers more efficient and it's also making them safer. The more efficient they are, the more time they have to spend, um, out with the public doing what they, you know, we all should be doing. >>And have you seen that kind of return on investment because what you were just describing with all the steps that we'd needed to be taken in prior to this to verify and address say, and those are precious seconds when someone's life is on the line in, in sort of in the course of everyday police work. >>Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It's difficult to put a price on it. It's difficult to quantify. Um, but all the, you know, the minutes here and that certainly add up to a significant amount of efficiency savings, and we've certainly been able to demonstrate the officers are spending less time up police stations as a result and more time out on the front line. Also they're safer because they can get information about what may or may not be and address what may or may not have occurred in an area before very, very quickly without having to wait. >>Matthew, I want to hear your observations of working so closely with this West Midlands police. Have you noticed anything about changes in its culture and its operating model in how police officers interact with one another? Have you seen any changes since this technology change, >>Um, unique about the West new misplaces, the buy-in from the top, it depend on the chief and his exact team. And Helen is the leader from an IOT perspective. Um, the entire force is bought in. So what is a significant change program? Uh, uh, not trickles three. Um, everyone in the organization, um, change is difficult. Um, and there's a lot of time effort. That's been put into bake, the technical delivery and the business change and adoption aspects around each of the projects. Um, but you can see the step change that it's making in each aspect to the organization, uh, and where that's putting West Midlands police as a leader in, um, technology I'm policing in the UK. And I think globally, >>And this is a question for both of you because Matthew, as you said, change is difficult and there is always a certain intransigence in workplaces about this is just the way we've always done things and we're used to this and don't try to get us, don't try to get us to do anything new here. It works. How do you get the buy-in that you need to, to do this kind of digital transformation? >>I think it, it would be wrong to say it was easy. Um, um, we also have to bear in mind that this was one program in a five year program. So there was a lot of change going on, um, both internally for some of our back office functions, as well as front tie, uh, frontline offices. So with DDI in particular, I think the stat change occurred when people could see what it could do for them. You know, we had lots of workshops and seminars where we all talk about, you know, big data and it's going to be great and it's data analytics and it's transformational, you know, and quite rightly people that are very busy doing a day job that not necessarily technologists in the main and, you know, are particularly interested quite rightly so in what we are not dealing with the cloud, you know? >>And it was like, yeah, okay. It's one more thing. And then when they started to see on that, on their phones and what teams could do, that's when it started to sell itself. And I think that's when we started to see, you know, to see the stack change, you know, and, and if we, if we have any issues now it's literally, you know, our help desks in meltdown. Cause everyone's like, well, we call it manage without this anymore. And I think that speaks for itself. So it doesn't happen overnight. It's sort of incremental changes and then that's a step change in attitude. And when they see it working and they see the benefits, they want to use it more. And that's how it's become fundamental to our policing by itself, really without much selling >>Matthew, Helen just made a compelling case for how to get buy in. Have you discovered any other best practices when you are trying to get everyone on board for this kind of thing? >>So we've, um, we've used a lot of the traditional techniques, things around comms and engagement. We've also used things like, um, the 30 day challenge and nudge theory around how can we gradually encourage people to use things? Um, I think there's a point where all of this around, how do we just keep it simple and keep it user centric from an end user perspective? I think DDI is a great example of where the, the technology is incredibly complex. The solution itself is, um, you know, extremely large and, um, has been very difficult to, um, get delivered. But at the heart of it is a very simple front end for the user to encourage it and take that complexity away from them. Uh, I think that's been critical through the whole piece of video. >>One final word from Helen. I want to hear, where do you go from here? What is the longterm vision? I know that this made productivity, >>Um, productivity savings equivalent to 154 full-time officers. Uh, what's next, I think really it's around, um, exploiting what we've got. Um, I use the phrase quite a lot, dialing it up, which drives my technical architects crazy, but because it's apparently not that simple, but, um, you know, we've, we've been through significant change in the last five years and we are still continuing to batch all of those changes into everyday, um, operational policing. But what we need to see now is we need to exploit and build on the investments that we've made, um, in terms of data and claims specifically, the next step really is about expanding our pool of data and our functions. Um, so that, you know, we keep getting better and better, um, at this, um, the more we do, the more data we have, the more refined we can be, the more precise we are with all of our actions. >>Um, you know, we're always being expected to, again, look after the public purse and do more for less. And I think this is certainly an and our cloud journey and cloud first by design, which is where we are now, um, is helping us to be future-proofed. So for us, it's very much an investment. And I see now that we have good at embedded in operational policing for me, this is the start of our journey, not the end. So it's really exciting to see where we can go from here. Exciting times. Indeed. Thank you so much. And Matthew for joining us, I really appreciate it. And you are watching the cube stay tuned for more of the cubes coverage of the AWS reinvent Accenture executive summit. I'm Rebecca Knight from around the globe with digital coverage, >>AWS reinvent executive summit, 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. Everyone. Welcome to the cube virtual coverage of the executive summit at AWS reinvent 2020 virtual. This is the cube virtual. We can't be there in person like we are every year we have to be remote. This executive summit is with special programming supported by Accenture where the cube virtual I'm your host John for a year, we had a great panel here called uncloud first digital transformation from some experts, Stuart driver, the director of it and infrastructure and operates at lion Australia, Douglas Regan, managing director, client account lead at lion for Accenture as a deep Islam associate director application development lead for Accenture gentlemen, thanks for coming on the cube virtual that's a mouthful, all that digital, but the bottom line it's cloud transformation. This is a journey that you guys have been on together for over 10 years to be really a digital company. Now, some things have happened in the past year that kind of brings all this together. This is about the next generation organization. So I want to ask Stuart you first, if you can talk about this transformation at lion has undertaken some of the challenges and opportunities and how this year in particular has brought it together because you, you know, COVID has been the accelerant of digital transformation. Well, if you're 10 years in, I'm sure you're there. You're in the, uh, uh, on that wave right now. Take a minute to explain this transformation journey. >>Yeah, sure. So number of years back, we, we looked at kind of our infrastructure and our landscape. I'm trying to figure out where we wanted to go next. And we were very analog based, um, and stuck in the old it groove of, you know, capital refresh, um, struggling to transform, struggling to get to a digital platform and we needed to change it up so that we could, uh, become very different business to the one that we were back then. Um, obviously cloud is an accelerant to that and we had a number of initiatives that needed a platform to build on. And a cloud infrastructure was the way that we started to do that. So we went through a number of transformation programs that we didn't want to do that in the old world. We wanted to do it in a new world. So for us, it was partnering up with a, you know, great organizations that can take you on the journey and, uh, you know, start to deliver a bit by bit incremental progress, uh, to get to the, uh, I guess the promise land. >>Um, we're not, uh, not all the way there, but to where we're a long way along. And then when you get to some of the challenges like we've had this year, um, it makes all of the hard work worthwhile because you can actually change pretty quickly, um, provide capacity and, uh, and increase your environments and, you know, do the things that you need to do in a much more dynamic way than we would have been able to previously where we might've been waiting for the hardware vendors, et cetera, to deliver capacity for us this year, it's been a pretty strong year from an it perspective and delivering for the business needs, >>Forget the Douglas. I want to just real quick and redirect to you and say, you know, for all the people who said, Oh yeah, you got to jump on cloud, get in early, you know, a lot of naysayers like, well, wait till to mature a little bit. Really, if you got in early and you paying your dues, if you will taking that medicine with the cloud, you're really kind of peaking at the right time. Is that true? Is that one of the benefits that comes out of this getting in the cloud, >>John, this has been an unprecedented year, right. And, um, you know, Australia, we had to live through Bush fires and then we had covert and, and then we actually had to deliver a, um, a project I'm very know transformational product project, completely remote. And then we also had had some, some cyber challenges, which is public as well. And I don't think if we weren't moved into and enabled through the cloud would have been able to achieve that this year. It would have been much different. It would have been very difficult to do the fact that we were able to work and partner with Amazon through this year, which is unprecedented and actually come out the other end and we've delivered a brand new digital capability across the entire business. Um, it wouldn't >>Have been impossible if we could, I guess, stayed in the old world. The fact that we moved into the new Naval by the Navy allowed us to work in this unprecedented gear >>Just quick. What's your personal view on this? Because I've been saying on the Cuban reporting, necessity's the mother of all invention and the word agility has been kicked around as kind of a cliche, Oh, it'd be agile. You know, we're gonna get to Sydney. You get a minute on specifically, but from your perspective, uh, Douglas, what does that mean to you? Because there is benefits there for being agile. And >>I mean, I think as Stuart mentioned writing, and a lot of these things we try to do and, you know, typically, you know, hardware capabilities of the last to be told and, and always the only critical path to be done. You know, we really didn't have that in this case, what we were doing with our projects in our deployments, right. We were able to move quickly able to make decisions in line with the business and really get things going, right. So you, a lot of times in a traditional world, you have these inhibitors, you have these critical path, it takes weeks and months to get things done as opposed to hours and days. And it truly allowed us to, we had to VJ things, move things. And, you know, we were able to do that in this environment with AWS to support and the fact that we can kind of turn things off and on as quickly as we need it. Yeah. >>Cloud-scale is great for speed. So DECA got, Gardez get your thoughts on this cloud first mission, you know, it, you know, the dev ops worlds, they saw this early, that jumping in there, they saw the, the, the agility. Now the theme this year is modern applications with the COVID pandemic pressure, there's real business pressure to make that happen. How did you guys learn to get there fast? And what specifically did you guys do at Accenture and how did it all come together? Can you take us inside kind of how it played out? >>All right. So we started off with us and we work with lions experts and, uh, the lost knowledge that allowed reconstructive being had. Um, we then applied our journey group cloud strategy basically revolves around the seven Oz and, and, uh, you know, the deep peaking steps from our perspective, uh, assessing the current bottom, setting up the new cloud in modern. And as we go modernizing and, and migrating these applications to the cloud now, you know, one of the things that, uh, no we did not along this journey was that, you know, you can have the best plans, but bottom of that, we were dealing with, we often than not have to make changes. Uh, what a lot of agility and also work with a lot of collaboration with the, uh, Lyon team, as well as, uh, uh, AWS. I think the key thing for me was being able to really bring it all together. It's not just, uh, you know, essentially mobilize all of us. >>What were some of the learnings real quick, your journey there? >>So I think perspective the key learnings around that, you know, uh, you know, what, when we look back at, uh, the, the infrastructure that was that we were trying to migrate over to the cloud, a lot of the documentation, et cetera, was not, uh, available. We were having to, uh, figure out a lot of things on the fly. Now that really required us to have, uh, uh, people with deep expertise who could go into those environments and, and work out, uh, you know, the best ways to, to migrate the workloads to the cloud. Uh, I think, you know, the, the biggest thing for me was making Jovi had on that real SMEs across the board globally, that we could leverage across various technologies, uh, uh, and, and, and, you know, that would really work in our collaborative and agile environment would line >>Just do what I got to ask you. How did you address your approach to the cloud and what was your experience? >>Yeah, for me, it's around getting the foundations right. To start with and then building on them. Um, so, you know, you've got to have your, your process and you're going to have your, your kind of your infrastructure there and your blueprints ready. Um, AWS do a great job of that, right. Getting the foundations right. And then building upon it, and then, you know, partnering with Accenture allows you to do that very successfully. Um, I think, um, you know, the one thing that was probably surprising to us when we started down this journey and kind of, after we got a long way down, the track of looking backwards is actually how much you can just turn off. Right? So a lot of stuff that you, uh, you get left with a legacy in your environment, and when you start to work through it with the types of people that civic just mentioned, you know, the technical expertise working with the business, um, you can really rationalize your environment and, uh, um, you know, cloud is a good opportunity to do that, to drive that legacy out. >>Um, so you know, a few things there, the other thing is, um, you've got to try and figure out the benefits that you're going to get out of moving here. So there's no point just taking something that is not delivering a huge amount of value in the traditional world, moving it into the cloud, and guess what it's going to deliver the same limited amount of value. So you've got to transform it, and you've got to make sure that you build it for the future and understand exactly what you're trying to gain out of it. So again, you need a strong collaboration. You need a good partners to work with, and you need good engagement from the business as well, because the kind of, uh, you know, digital transformation, cloud transformation, isn't really an it project, I guess, fundamentally it is at the core, but it's a business project that you've got to get the whole business aligned on. You've got to make sure that your investment streams are appropriate and that you're able to understand the benefits and the value that you're going to drive back towards the business. >>Let's do it. If you don't mind me asking what was some of the obstacles encountered or learnings, um, that might've differed from the expectation we all been there, Hey, you know, we're going to change the world. Here's the sales pitch, here's the outcome. And then obviously things happen, you know, you learn legacy, okay. Let's put some containerization around that cloud native, um, all that rational. You're talking about what are, and you're going to have obstacles. That's how you learn. That's how perfection has developed. How, what obstacles did you come up with and how are they different from your expectations going in? >>Yeah, they're probably no different from other people that have gone down the same journey. If I'm totally honest, the, you know, 70 or 80% of what you do is relative music, because they're a known quantity, it's relatively modern architectures and infrastructures, and you can, you know, upgrade, migrate, move them into the cloud, whatever it is, rehost, replatform, rearchitect, whatever it is you want to do, it's the other stuff, right? It's the stuff that always gets left behind. And that's the challenge. It's, it's getting that last bit over the line and making sure that you haven't invested in the future while still carrying all of your legacy costs and complexity within your environment. So, um, to be quite honest, that's probably taken longer and, and has been more of a challenge than we thought it would be. Um, the other piece I touched on earlier on in terms of what was surprising was actually how much of your environment is actually not needed anymore. >>When you start to put a critical eye across it and understand, um, uh, ask the tough questions and start to understand exactly what, what it is you're trying to achieve. So if you ask a part of a business, do they still need this application or this service a hundred percent of the time, they'll say yes, until you start to lay out to them, okay, now I'm going to cost you this to migrate it or this, to run it in the future. And, you know, here's your ongoing costs and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And then, uh, for a significant amount of those answers, you get a different response when you start to layer on the true value of it. So you start to flush out those hidden costs within the business, and you start to make some critical decisions as a company based on, uh, based on that. So that was a little tougher than we first thought and probably broader than we thought there was more of that than we anticipated, which actually resulted in a much cleaner environment post and post migration. Yeah. >>Well, expression, if it moves automated, you know, it's kind of a joke on government, how they want to tax everything, you know, you want to automate, that's a key thing in cloud, and you've got to discover those opportunities to create value, uh, Stuart and Siddique. Mainly if you can weigh in on this love to know the percentage of total cloud that you have now, versus when you started, because as you start to uncover whether it's by design for purpose, or you discover opportunities to innovate, like you guys have, I'm sure it kind of, you took on some territory inside Lyon, what percentage of cloud now versus >>Yeah. At the start, it was minimal, right. You know, close to zero, right. Single and single digits. Right. It was mainly SAS environments that we had, uh, sitting in cloud when we, uh, when we started, um, Doug mentioned earlier a really significant transformation project that we've undertaken recently gone live on a multi-year one. Um, you know, that's all stood up on AWS and is a significant portion of our environment, um, in terms of what we can move to cloud. Uh, we're probably at about 80 or 90% now. And the balanced bit is, um, legacy infrastructure that is just gonna retire as we go through the cycle rather than migrate to the cloud. Um, so we are significantly cloud-based and, uh, you know, we're reaping the benefits of it in a year, like 2020, and makes you glad that you did all of the hard yards in the previous years when you start business challenges, trying out as, >>So do you get any common reaction to the cloud percentage penetration? >>Sorry, I didn't, I didn't catch that, but I, all I was going to say was, I think it's like the typical 80 20 rule, right? We, we, we worked really hard in the, you know, I think 2018, 19 to get 80% off the, uh, application onto the cloud. And over the last year is the 20% that we have been migrating. And Stuart said, right. A lot of it is also, that's going to be your diet. And I think our next big step is going to be obviously, you know, the icing on the cake, which is to decommission all of these apps as well. Right. So, you know, to get the real benefits out of, uh, out of the whole conservation program from a, uh, from a reduction of CapEx, OPEX perspective, >>Douglas and Stuart, can you guys talk about the decision around the clouds because you guys have had success with AWS? Why AWS how's that decision made? Can you guys give some insight into some of those things? >>I can, I can start, start off. I think back when the decision was made and it was, it was a while back, um, you know, there was some clear advantages of moving relay, Ws, a lot of alignment with some of the significant projects and, uh, the trend, that particular one big transformation project that we've alluded to as well. Um, you know, we needed some, um, some very robust and, um, just future proof and, and proven technology. And AWS gave that to us. We needed a lot of those blueprints to help us move down the path. We didn't want to reinvent everything. So, um, you know, having a lot of that legwork done for us and AWS gives you that, right. And particularly when you partner up with, uh, with a company like Accenture as well, you get combinations of technology and the, the skills and the knowledge to, to move you forward in that direction side. Um, you know, for us, it was a, uh, uh, it was a decision based on, you know, best of breed, um, you know, looking forward and, and trying to predict the future needs and, and, and kind of the environmental that we might need. Um, and, you know, partnering up with organizations that can then take you on the journey >>Just to build on that. So obviously, you know, lines like an antivirus, but, you know, we knew it was a very good choice given the, um, >>Uh, skills and the capability that we had, as well as the assets and tools we had to get the most out of an AWS. And obviously our CEO globally just made an announcement about a huge investment that we're making in cloud. Um, but you know, we've, we've worked very well with AWS. We've done some joint workshops and joint investments, um, some joint POC. So yeah, w we have a very good working relationship, AWS, and I think, um, one incident to reflect upon whether it's cyber it's and again, where we actually jointly, you know, dove in with, um, with Amazon and some of their security experts and our experts. And we're able to actually work through that with mine quite successful. So, um, you know, really good behaviors as an organization, but also really good capabilities. >>Yeah. As you guys, your essential cloud outcomes, research shown, it's the cycle of innovation with the cloud, that's creating a lot of benefits, knowing what you guys know now, looking back certainly COVID has impacted a lot of people kind of going through the same process, knowing what you guys know now, would you advocate people to jump on this transformation journey? If so, how, and what tweaks they make, which changes, what would you advise? >>I might take that one to start with. Um, I hate to think where we would have been when, uh, COVID kicked off here in Australia and, you know, we were all sent home, literally were at work on the Friday, and then over the weekend. And then Monday, we were told not to come back into the office and all of a sudden, um, our capacity in terms of remote access and I quadrupled, or more four, five X, what we had on the Friday we needed on the Monday. And we were able to stand that up during the day Monday into Tuesday, because we were cloud-based and, uh, you know, we just spun up your instances and, uh, you know, sort of our licensing, et cetera. And, and we had all of our people working remotely, um, within, uh, you know, effectively one business day. Um, I know peers of mine in other organizations and industries that are relying on kind of a traditional wise and getting hardware, et cetera, that were weeks and months before they could get the right hardware to be able to deliver to their user base. >>So, um, you know, one example where you're able to scale and, uh, uh, get, uh, get value out of this platform beyond probably what was anticipated at the time you talk about, um, you know, less this, the, and all of these kinds of things. And you can also think of a few scenarios, but real world ones where you're getting your business back up and running in that period of time is, is just phenomenal. There's other stuff, right? There's these programs that we've rolled out, you do your sizing, um, and in the traditional world, you would just go out and buy more servers than you need. And, you know, probably never realize the full value of those, you know, the capability of those servers over the life cycle of them. Whereas, you know, in a cloud world, you put in what you think is right. And if it's not right, you pump it up a little bit when, when all of your metrics and so on telling you that you need to bump it up and conversely Scarlett down at the same rate. So for us with the types of challenges and programs and, uh, uh, and just business need, that's come at as this year, uh, we wouldn't have been able to do it without a strong cloud base, uh, to, uh, to move forward with >>Yeah, Douglas, one of the things that I talked to, a lot of people on the right side of history who have been on the right wave with cloud, with the pandemic, and they're happy, they're like, and they're humble. Like, well, we're just lucky, you know, luck is preparation meets opportunity. And this is really about you guys getting in early and being prepared and readiness. This is kind of important as people realize, then you gotta be ready. I mean, it's not just, you don't get lucky by being in the right place, the right time. And there were a lot of companies were on the wrong side of history here who might get washed away. This is a second >>I think, to echo and kind of build on what Stewart said. I think that the reason that we've had success and I guess the momentum is we, we didn't just do it in isolation within it and technology. It was actually linked to broader business changes, you know, creating basically a digital platform for the entire business, moving the business, where are they going to be able to come back stronger after COVID, when they're actually set up for growth, um, and actually allows, you know, a line new achievements, growth objectives, and also its ambitions as far as what he wants to do, uh, with growth in whatever they may do as acquiring other companies and moving into different markets and launching new product. So we've actually done it in a way that there's, you know, real and direct business benefit, uh, that actually enables line to grow >>General. I really appreciate you coming. I have one final question. If you can wrap up here, uh, Stuart and Douglas, you don't mind waiting, and what's the priorities for the future. What's next for lion and a century >>Christmas holidays, I'll start Christmas holidays. And I spent a third year and then a, and then a reset, obviously, right? So, um, you know, it's, it's figuring out, uh, transform what we've already transformed, if that makes sense. So God, a huge proportion of our services sitting in the cloud. Um, but we know we're not done even with the stuff that is in there. We need to take those next steps. We need more and more automation and orchestration. We need to, um, our environment, there's more future growth. We need to be able to work with the business and understand what's coming at them so that we can, um, you know, build that into, into our environment. So again, it's really transformation on top of transformation is the way that I'll describe it. And it's really an open book, right? Once you get it in and you've got the capabilities and the evolving tool sets that AWS continue to bring to the market base, um, you know, working with the partners to, to figure out how we unlock that value, um, you know, drive our costs down our efficiency, uh, all of those kind of, you know, standard metrics. >>Um, but you know, we're looking for the next things to transform and show value back out to our customer base, um, that, uh, that we continue to, you know, sell our products to and work with and understand how we can better meet their needs. Yeah, I think just to echo that, I think it's really leveraging this and then digital capability they have and getting the most out of that investment. And then I think it's also moving to, >>Uh, and adopting more new ways of working as far as, you know, the state of the business. Um, it's getting up the speed of the market is changing. So being able to launch and do things quickly and also, um, competitive and efficient operating costs, uh, now that they're in the cloud, right. So I think it's really leveraging the most out of a platform and then, you know, being efficient in launching things. So putting the, with the business, >>Cedric, any word from you on your priorities by UC this year and folding. >>Yeah. So, uh, just going to say like e-learning squares, right for me were around, you know, just journey. This is a journey to the cloud, right. And, uh, you know, as well dug into sort of Saturday, it's getting all, you know, different parts of the organization along the journey business to ID to your, uh, product windows, et cetera. Right. And it takes time with this stuff, but, uh, uh, you know, you gotta get started on it and, you know, once we, once we finish off, uh, it's the realization of the benefits now that, you know, I'm looking forward? I think for, from Alliance perspective, it's, it is, uh, you know, once we migrate all the workloads to the cloud, it is leveraging, uh, all stack drive. And as I think Stewart said earlier, uh, with, uh, you know, the latest and greatest stuff that AWS it's basically working to see how we can really, uh, achieve more better operational excellence, uh, from a, uh, from a cloud perspective. >>Well, Stewart, thanks for coming on with a century and sharing your environment and what's going on and your journey you're on the right wave. Did the work you were in that it's all coming together with faster, congratulations for your success, and really appreciate Douglas with Steve for coming on as well from Accenture. Thank you for coming on. Thanks, John. Okay. Just the cubes coverage of executive summit at AWS reinvent. This is where all the thought leaders share their best practices, their journeys, and of course, special programming with the center and the cube. I'm Sean ferry, your host, thanks for watching From around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome everyone to the cube virtuals coverage of the Accenture executive summit. Part of AWS reinvent 2020. I'm your host Rebecca Knight. We are talking today about reinventing the energy data platform. We have two guests joining us. First. We have Johan Krebbers. He is the GM digital emerging technologies and VP of it. Innovation at shell. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Johan you're welcome. And next we have Liz Dennett. She is the lead solution architect for O S D U on AWS. Thank you so much, Liz. You'll be. So I want to start our conversation by talking about OSD. You like so many great innovations. It started with a problem Johan. What was the problem you were trying to solve at shell? >>Yeah, the ethical back a couple of years, we started summer 2017, where we had a meeting with the deg, the gas exploration in shell, and the main problem they had. Of course, they got lots of lots of data, but are unable to find the right data. They need to work from once the day, this was scattered in is scattered my boss kind of Emirates all over the place and turned them into real, probably tried to solve is how that person working exploration could find their proper date, not just a day of loss of date. You really needed that we did probably talked about is summer 2017. We said, okay. The only way ABC is moving forward is to start pulling that data into a single data platform. And that, that was at the time that we called it as the, you, the subsurface data universe in there was about the shell name was so in, in January, 2018, we started a project with Amazon to start grating a freaking that building, that Stu environment that the, that universe, so that single data level to put all your exploration and Wells data into that single environment that was intent and every cent, um, already in March of that same year, we said, well, from Michele point of view, we will be far better off if we could make this an industry solution and not just a shelf solution, because Shelby, Shelby, if you can make this industry solution, but people are developing applications for it. >>It also is far better than for shell to say we haven't shell special solution because we don't make money out of how we start a day that we can make money out of, if you have access to the data, we can explore the data. So storing the data we should do as efficiently possibly can. So in March, we reached out to about eight or nine other large, uh, I gas operators, like the economics, like the totals, like the chefs of this world and say, Hey, we inshallah doing this. Do you want to join this effort? And to our surprise, they all said, yes. And then in September, 2018, we had our kickoff meeting with your open group where we said, we said, okay, if you want to work together, lots of other companies, we also need to look at, okay, how, how we organize that, or is that if you started working with lots of large companies, you need to have some legal framework around some framework around it. So that's why we went to the open group and said, okay, let's, let's form the ODU forum as we call it the time. So it's September, 2080, where I did a Galleria in Houston, but the kick off meeting for the OT four with about 10 members at the time. So there's just over two years ago, we started an exercise for me called ODU, kicked it off. Uh, and so that's really then we'll be coming from and how we got there. Also >>The origin story. Um, well, so what digging a little deeper there? What were some of the things you were trying to achieve with the OSD? >>Well, a couple of things we've tried to achieve with OSU, um, first is really separating data from applications. And what is the, what is the biggest problem we have in the subsurface space that the data and applications are all interlinked or tied together. And if you have them and a new company coming along and say, I have this new application and has access to the data that is not possible because the data often interlinked with the application. So the first thing we did is really breaking the link between the application, the data as those levels, the first thing we did, secondly, put all the data to a single data platform, take the silos out what was happening in the subsurface space. And they got all the data in what we call silos in small little islands out there. So we're trying to do is first break the link to great, great. >>They put the data in a single data bathroom, and a third part who does standard layer. On top of that, it's an API layer on top of the, a platform. So we could create an ecosystem out of companies to start developing soft applications on top of dev data platform across you might have a data platform, but you're only successful. If you have a rich ecosystem of people start developing applications on top of that. And then you can explore today, like small companies, last company, university, you name it, we're getting after create an ecosystem out here. So the three things, whereas was first break the link between application data, just break it and put data at the center and also make sure that data, this data structure would not be managed by one company. It would only be met. It will be managed the data structures by the OT forum. Secondly, then the data of single data platform certainly has an API layer on top and then create an ecosystem. Really go for people, say, please start developing applications because now you have access to the data. I've got the data no longer linked to somebody whose application was all freely available for an API layer. That was, that was all September, 2018, more or less. >>And to bring you in here a little bit, can you talk a little bit about some of the imperatives from the AWS standpoint in terms of what you were trying to achieve with this? Yeah, absolutely. And this whole thing is Johan said started with a challenge that was really brought out at shell. The challenges that geo-scientists spend up to 70% of their time looking for data, I'm a geologist I've spent more than 70% of my time trying to find data in these silos. And from there, instead of just figuring out how we could address that one problem, we worked together to really understand the root cause of these challenges and working backwards from that use case OSU and OSU on AWS has really enabled customers to create solutions that span, not just this in particular problem, but can really scale to be inclusive of the entire energy chain and deliver value from these use cases to the energy industry and beyond. Thank you, Lee, uh, Johann. So talk a little bit about Accenture's cloud first approach and how it has, uh, helped shell work faster and better with speed. >>Well, of course, access a cloud first approach only works together in an Amazon environment, AWS environment. So we really look at, at, at, at Accenture and others altogether helping shell in this space. Now the combination of the two is what we're really looking at, uh, where access of course can be, this is not a student who that environment operates, support knowledge to an environment. And of course, Amazon would be doing that to today's environment that underpinning, uh, services, et cetera. So, uh, we would expect a combination, a lot of goods when we started rolling out and put in production, the old you are three and bubble because we are anus. Then when the release feed comes to the market in Q1 next year of ODU, when he started going to Audi production inside shell, but as the first release, which is ready for prime time production across an enterprise will be released one just before Christmas, last year when he's still in may of this year. But release three is the first release we want to use for full scale production deployment inside shell, and also all the operators around the world. And there is what Amazon, sorry. Um, extensive can play a role in the ongoing, in the, in deployment building up, but also support environment. >>So one of the other things that we talk a lot about here on the cube is sustainability. And this is a big imperative at so many organizations around the world in particular energy companies. How does this move to OSD you, uh, help organizations become, how is this a greener solution for companies? >>Well, firstly make it, it's a great solution because you start making a much more efficient use of your resources, which is, which is already an important one. The second thing they're doing is also, we started with ODU in the oil and gas space with the expert development space. We've grown, uh OTU but in our strategy of growth, OSU now also do an alternative energy sociology. We'll all start supporting next year. Things like solar farms, wind farms, uh, the, the dermatomal environment hydration. So it becomes an and, and an open energy data platform, not just for the, for the, I want to get into steam that's for new industry, any type of energy industry. So our focus is to create, bring that data of all those various energy data sources together into a single data platform. You're going to use AI and other technology on top of that to exploit the data, to meet again in a single data platform. >>Liz, I want to ask you about security because security is, is, is such a big concern when it comes to how secure is the data on OSD you, um, actually, can I talk, can I do a follow up on the sustainability talking? Oh, absolutely. By all means. I mean, I want to interject though security is absolutely our top priority. I don't mean to move away from that, but with sustainability, in addition to the benefits of the OSU data platform, when a company moves from on-prem to the cloud, they're also able to leverage the benefits of scale. Now, AWS is committed to running our business in the most environmentally friendly way possible. And our scale allows us to achieve higher resource utilization and energy efficiency than a typical on-prem data center. Now, a recent study by four 51 research found that AWS is infrastructure is 3.6 times more energy efficient than the median of surveyed enterprise data centers. Two thirds of that advantage is due to higher server utilization and a more energy efficient server population. But when you factor in the carbon intensity of consumed electricity and renewable energy purchases, four 51 found that AWS performs the same task with an 88% lower carbon footprint. Now that's just another way that AWS and OSU are working to support our customers is they seek to better understand their workflows and make their legacy businesses less carbon intensive. >>That's that's those are those statistics are incredible. Do you want to talk a little bit now about security? Absolutely. And security will always be AWS is top priority. In fact, AWS has been architected to be the most flexible and secure cloud computing environment available today. Our core infrastructure is built to satisfy. There are the security requirements for the military global banks and other high sensitivity organizations. And in fact, AWS uses the same secure hardware and software to build and operate each of our regions. So that customers benefit from the only commercial cloud that's had hits service offerings and associated supply chain vetted and deemed secure enough for top secret workloads. That's backed by a deep set of cloud security tools with more than 200 security compliance and governmental service and key features as well as an ecosystem of partners like Accenture, that can really help our customers to make sure that their environments for their data meet and or exceed their security requirements. Johann, I want you to talk a little bit about how OSD you can be used today. Does it only handle subsurface data >>And today it's hundreds of servers or Wells data. We got to add to that production around the middle of next year. That means that the whole upstate business. So we've got, if you look at MC, obviously this goes from exploration all the way to production. You've been at the into to a single data platform. So production will be added the round Q3 of next year. Then it principal, we have a difficult, the elder data that single environment, and we want to extended them to other data sources or energy sources like solar farms, wheat farms, uh, hydrogen hydro at San Francisco. We want to add a whore or a list of other day. >>And he saw a student and B all the data together into a single data club. So we move from an fallen guest, a data platform to an energy data platform. That's really what our objective is because the whole industry we've looked at, I've looked at our company companies all moving in that same direction of quantity, of course are very strong at all, I guess, but also increase the, got into all the other energy sources like, like solar, like wind, like, like the hydrogen, et cetera. So we, we move exactly the same method that, that, that the whole OSU can really support at home. And as a spectrum of energy sources, of course, >>And Liz and Johan. I want you to close us out here by just giving us a look into your crystal balls and talking about the five and 10 year plan for OSD. You we'll start with you, Liz. What do you, what do you see as the future holding for this platform? Um, honestly, the incredibly cool thing about working at AWS is you never know where the innovation and the journey is going to take you. I personally am looking forward to work with our customers, wherever their OSU journeys, take them, whether it's enabling new energy solutions or continuing to expand, to support use cases throughout the energy value chain and beyond, but really looking forward to continuing to partner as we innovate to slay tomorrow's challenges. >>Yeah. First, nobody can look that far ahead, any more nowadays, especially 10 years mean now, who knows what happens in 10 years, but if you look what our whole objective is that really in the next five years owes you will become the key backbone for energy companies for storing your data. You are efficient intelligence and optimize the whole supply energy supply chain in this world out there. >>Rubbers Liz Dennett. Thank you so much for coming on the cube virtual, >>Thank you, >>Rebecca nights, stay tuned for more of our coverage of the Accenture executive summit >>Around the globe. It's the cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent executive summit 2020, sponsored by Accenture and AWS. >>Welcome everyone to the cubes coverage of the Accenture executive summit. Part of AWS reinvent. I'm your host Rebecca Knight today we're welcoming back to Kubila. We have Kishor Dirk. He is the Accenture senior managing director cloud first global services lead. Welcome back to the show >>Kishore. Thank you very much. >>Nice to meet again. And, uh, Tristin moral horse set. He is the managing director, Accenture cloud first North American growth. Welcome back to YouTube. >>Great to be back in. Great to see you again, Rebecca. >>Exactly. Even in this virtual format, it is good to see your faces. Um, today we're going to be talking about my nav and green cloud advisor >>Capability. Kishor I want to start with you. So my NAB is a platform that is really celebrating its first year in existence. Uh, November, 2019 is when Accenture introduced it. Uh, but it's, it has new relevance in light of this global pandemic that we are all enduring and suffering through. Tell us a little bit about the miner platform, what it is. >>Sure, Rebecca, you know, we lost it and now 2019 and, uh, you know, it is a cloud platform to help our clients navigate the complexity of cloud and cloud decisions and to make it faster and obviously innovate in the cloud, uh, you know, with the increased relevance and all the, especially over the last few months with the impact of COVID crisis and exhibition of digital transformation, you know, we are seeing the transformation of the acceleration to cloud much faster. This platform that you're talking about has enabled hundred and 40 clients globally across different industries. You identify the right cloud solution, navigate the complexity, provide a cloud specific solution simulate for our clients to meet the strategy business needs and the clients are loving it. >>I want to go to you now trust and tell us a little bit about how my nav works and how it helps companies make good cloud choices. >>Yeah. So Rebecca we've talked about cloud is, is more than just infrastructure and that's what mine app tries to solve for. It really looks at a variety of variables, including infrastructure operating model and fundamentally what clients business outcomes, um, uh, our clients are, are looking for and, and identify as the optimal solution for what they need. And we design this to accelerate and we mentioned the pandemic. One of the big focus now is to accelerate. And so we worked through a three-step process. The first is scanning and assessing our client's infrastructure, their data landscape, their application. Second, we use our automated artificial intelligence engine to interact with. We have a wide variety and library of, uh, collective plot expertise. And we look to recommend what is the enterprise architecture and solution. And then third, before we aligned with our clients, we look to simulate and test this scaled up model. And the simulation gives our clients a wait to see what cloud is going to look like, feel like and how it's going to transform their business before they go there. >>Tell us a little bit about that in real life. Now as a company, so many of people are working remotely having to collaborate, uh, not in real life. How is that helping them right now? >>So, um, the, the pandemic has put a tremendous strain on systems, uh, because of the demand on those systems. And so we talk about resiliency. We also now need to collaborate across data across people. Um, I think all of us are calling from a variety of different places where our last year we were all at the cube itself. Um, and, and cloud technologies such as teams, zoom that we're we're leveraging now has fundamentally accelerated and clients are looking to onboard this for their capabilities. They're trying to accelerate their journey. They realize that now the cloud is what is going to become important for them to differentiate. Once we come out of the pandemic and the ability to collaborate with their employees, their partners, and their clients through these systems is becoming a true business differentiator for our clients. >>Sure. I want to talk with you now about my NABS multiple capabilities, um, and helping clients design and navigate their cloud journeys. Tell us a little bit about the green cloud advisor capability and its significance, particularly as so many companies are thinking more deeply and thoughtfully about sustainability. >>Yes. So since the launch of my NAB, we continue to enhance capabilities for our clients. One of the significant, uh, capabilities that we have enabled is the brain trust advisor today. You know, Rebecca, a lot of the businesses are more environmentally aware and are expanding efforts to decrease power consumption, uh, and obviously carbon emissions and, uh, and run a sustainable operations across every aspect of the enterprise. Uh, as a result, you're seeing an increasing trend in adoption of energy, efficient infrastructure in the global market. And one of the things that we did, a lot of research we found out is that there's an ability to influence our client's carbon footprint through a better cloud solution. And that's what we entered by brings to us, uh, in, in terms of a lot of the client connotation that you're seeing in Europe, North America and others, lot of our clients are accelerating to a green cloud strategy to unlock beta financial, societal and environmental benefit, uh, through obviously cloud-based circular, operational and sustainable products and services. That is something that, uh, we are enhancing my now and we are having active client discussions at this point of time. >>So Tristan, tell us a little bit about how this capability helps clients make greener. >>Yeah. Um, well, let's start about the investments from the cloud providers in renewable and sustainable energy. Um, they have most of the hyperscalers today, um, have been investing significantly on data centers that are run or renewable energy, some incredibly creative constructs on the how to do that. And sustainability is therefore a key, um, key item of importance for the hyperscalers and also for our clients who now are looking for sustainable energy. And it turns out this marriage is now possible. I can, we marry the, the green capabilities of the cloud providers with a sustainability agenda of our clients. And so what we look into way the mine EF works is it looks at industry benchmarks and evaluates our current clients, um, capabilities and carpet footprint leveraging their existing data centers. We then look to model from an end-to-end perspective, how the, their journey to the cloud leveraging sustainable and, um, and data centers with renewable energy. We look at how their solution will look like and, and quantify carbon tax credits, um, improve a green index score and provide quantifiable, um, green cloud capabilities and measurable outcomes to our clients, shareholders, stakeholders, clients, and customers, um, and our green plot advisors, sustainability solutions already been implemented at three clients. And in many cases in two cases has helped them reduce the carbon footprint by up to 400% through migration from their existing data center to green club. Very, very important. Yeah, >>That is remarkable. Now tell us a little bit about the kinds of clients. Is this, is this more interesting to clients in Europe? Would you say that it's catching on in the United States where we're at? What is the breakdown that you're seeing right now? >>Sustainability is becoming such a global agenda and we're seeing our clients, um, uh, tie this and put this at board level, um, uh, agenda and requirements across the globe. Um, Europe has specific constraints around data sovereignty, right, where they need their data in country, but from a green, a sustainability agenda, we see clients across all our markets, North America, Europe, and our growth markets adopt this. And we have seen case studies in all three markets >>Kisha. I want to bring you back into the conversation. Talk a little bit about how mine up ties into Accenture's cloud first strategy, your Accenture's CEO, Julie Sweet has talked about post COVID leadership requiring every business to become a cloud first business. Tell us a little bit about how this ethos is in Accenture and how you're sort of looking outward with it too. >>So Rebecca mine is the launch pad, uh, to a cloud first transformation for our clients. Uh, Accenture, see you, uh, Julie Sweet, uh, shared the Accenture cloud first and our substantial investment demonstrate our commitment and is delivering data value for our clients when they need it the most. And with the district transformation requiring cloud at scale, you know, we're seeing that in the post COVID leadership, it requires that every business should become a cloud business. And my nap helps them get there by evaluating the cloud landscape, navigating the complexity, modeling architecting and simulating an optimal cloud solution for our clients. And as Justin was sharing a greener cloud, Tristan, talk a little >>Bit more about some of the real life use cases in terms of what are we, what are clients seeing? What are the results? >>Yes, thank you, Rebecca. I would say two key things right around my now the first is the iterative process. Clients don't want to wait, um, until they get started, they want to get started and see what their journey is going to look like. And the second is fundamental acceleration, dependent make, as we talked about, has accelerated the need to move to cloud very quickly. And my nav is there to do that. So how do we do that? First is generating the business cases. Clients need to know in many cases that they have a business case by business case, we talk about the financial benefits, as well as the business outcomes, the green green cloud impact sustainability impacts with minus we can build initial recommendations using a basic understanding of their environment and benchmarks in weeks versus months with indicative value savings in the millions of dollars arranges. >>So for example, very recently, we worked with a global oil and gas company, and in only two weeks, we're able to provide an indicative savings for $27 million over five years. This enabled the client to get started, knowing that there is a business case benefit and then iterate on it. And this iteration is, I would say the second point that is particularly important with my nav that we've seen in bank, the clients, which is, um, any journey starts with an understanding of what is the application landscape and what are we trying to do with those, these initial assessments that used to take six to eight weeks are now taking anywhere from two to four weeks. So we're seeing a 40 to 50% reduction in the initial assessment, which gets clients started in their journey. And then finally we've had discussions with all of the hyperscalers to help partner with Accenture and leverage mine after prepared their detailed business case module as they're going to clients. And as they're accelerating the client's journey, so real results, real acceleration. And is there a journey? Do I have a business case and furthermore accelerating the journey once we are by giving the ability to work in an iterative approach, >>It sounds as though that the company that clients and and employees are sort of saying, this is an amazing time savings look at what I can do here in, in so much in a condensed amount of time, but in terms of getting everyone on board, one of the things we talked about last time we met, uh, Tristin was just how much, uh, how one of the obstacles is getting people to sign on and the new technologies and new platforms. Those are often the obstacles and struggles that companies face. Have you found that at all? Or what is sort of the feedback that you're getting from? >>Yeah. Sorry. Yes. We clearly, there are always obstacles to a con journey. If there weren't obstacles, all our clients would be already fully in the cloud. What man I gives the ability is to navigate through those, to start quickly. And then as we identify obstacles, we can simulate what things are going to look like. We can continue with certain parts of the journey while we deal with that obstacle. And it's a fundamental accelerator. Whereas in the past one, obstacle would prevent a class from starting. We can now start to address the obstacles one at a time while continuing and accelerating the contrary. That is the fundamental difference. Kishor I want to give you the final word here. Tell us a little bit about what is next for Accenture might have and what we'll be discussing next year at the Accenture executive summit >>Sort of echo, we are continuously evolving with our client needs and reinventing, reinventing for the future. For my advisor, our plan is to help our clients reduce carbon footprint and again, migrate to a green cloud. Uh, and additionally, we're looking at, you know, two capabilities, uh, which include sovereign cloud advisor, uh, with clients, especially in, in Europe and others are under pressure to meet stringent data norms that Kristen was talking about. And the sovereign cloud advisor health organization to create an architecture cloud architecture that complies with the green. Uh, I would say the data sound-bitey norms that is out there. The other element is around data to cloud. We are seeing massive migration, uh, for, uh, for a lot of the data to cloud. And there's a lot of migration hurdles that come within that. Uh, we have expanded mine app to support assessment capabilities, uh, for, uh, assessing applications, infrastructure, but also covering the entire state, including data and the code level to determine the right cloud solution. So we are, we are pushing the boundaries on what might have can do with mine. And we have created the ability to take the guesswork out of cloud, navigate the complexity. We are rolling risks costs, and we are achieving clients strategy, business objectives, while building a sustainable lots with being cloud, >>Any platform that can take some of the guesswork out of the future. I'm I'm on board with. Thank you so much, Kristin and Kishore. This has been a great conversation. Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you, Rebecca. Stay tuned for more of the cubes coverage of the Accenture executive summit. I'm Rebecca Knight. >>Yeah, Yeah.

>> Voice Over: Data is at the heart of transformation, and the change every company needs to succeed. But it takes more than new technology. It's about teams, talent and cultural change. Empowering everyone on the front lines to make decisions, all at the speed of digital. The transformation starts with you, it's time to lead the way, it's time for thought leaders. (soft upbeat music) >> Welcome to Thought.Leaders a digital event brought to you by ThoughtSpot, my name is Dave Vellante. The purpose of this day is to bring industry leaders and experts together to really try and understand the important issues around digital transformation. We have an amazing lineup of speakers, and our goal is to provide you with some best practices that you can bring back and apply to your organization. Look, data is plentiful, but insights are not, ThoughtSpot is disrupting analytics, by using search and machine intelligence to simplify data analysis and really empower anyone with fast access to relevant data. But in the last 150 days, we've had more questions than answers. Creating an organization that puts data and insights at their core, requires not only modern technology but leadership, a mindset and a culture, that people often refer to as data-driven. What does that mean? How can we equip our teams with data and fast access to quality information that can turn insights into action? And today we're going to hear from experienced leaders who are transforming their organizations with data, insights, and creating digital first cultures. But before we introduce our speakers, I'm joined today by two of my co-hosts from ThoughtSpot. First, chief data strategy officer of the ThoughtSpot is Cindi Howson, Cindi is an analytics and BI expert with 20 plus years experience, and the author of Successful Business Intelligence: Unlock the Value of BI & Big Data. Cindi was previously the lead analyst at Gartner for the data and analytics Magic Quadrant. In early last year, she joined ThoughtSpot to help CEOs and their teams understand how best to leverage analytics and AI for digital transformation. Cindi great to see you, welcome to the show. >> Thank you Dave, nice to join you virtually. >> Now our second cohost and friend of theCUBE is ThoughtSpot CEO Sudheesh Nair Hello Sudheesh, how are you doing today? >> I'm well, good to talk to you again. >> That's great to see you, thanks so much for being here. Now Sudheesh, please share with us why this discussion is so important to your customers and of course to our audience, and what they're going to learn today. (upbeat music) >> Thanks Dave, I wish you were there to introduce me into every room that I walk into because you have such an amazing way of doing it. It makes me feel also good. Look, since we have all been you know, cooped up in our homes, I know that the vendors like us, we have amped up our sort of effort to reach out to you with, invites for events like this. So we are getting very more invites for events like this than ever before. So when we started planning for this, we had three clear goals that we wanted to accomplish. And our first one, that when you finish this and walk away, we want to make sure that you don't feel like it was a waste of time, we want to make sure that we value your time, then this is going to be used. Number two, we want to put you in touch with industry leaders and thought leaders, generally good people, that you want to hang around with long after this event is over. And number three, as we plan through this, you know we are living through these difficult times we want this event to be more of an uplifting and inspiring event too. Now, the challenge is how do you do that with the team being change agents, because teens and as much as we romanticize it, it is not one of those uplifting things that everyone wants to do or likes to do. The way I think of it, changes sort of like, if you've ever done bungee jumping, and it's like standing on the edges, waiting to make that one more step you know, all you have to do is take that one step and gravity will do the rest, but that is the hardest step today. Change requires a lot of courage, and when we are talking about data and analytics, which is already like such a hard topic not necessarily an uplifting and positive conversation most businesses, it is somewhat scary, change becomes all the more difficult. Ultimately change requires courage, courage to first of all, challenge the status quo. People sometimes are afraid to challenge the status quo because they are thinking that you know, maybe I don't have the power to make the change that the company needs, sometimes they feel like I don't have the skills, sometimes they may feel that I'm probably not the right person to do it. Or sometimes the lack of courage manifest itself as the inability to sort of break the silos that are formed within the organizations when it comes to data and insights that you talked about. You know, that are people in the company who are going to have the data because they know how to manage the data, how to inquire and extract, they know how to speak data, they have the skills to do that. But they are not the group of people who have sort of the knowledge, the experience of the business to ask the right questions off the data. So there is the silo of people with the answers, and there is a silo of people with the questions, and there is gap, this sort of silos are standing in the way of making that necessary change that we all know the business needs. And the last change to sort of bring an external force sometimes. It could be a tool, it could be a platform, it could be a person, it could be a process but sometimes no matter how big the company is or how small the company is you may need to bring some external stimuli to start the domino of the positive changes that are necessary. The group of people that we are brought in, the four people, including Cindi that you will hear from today are really good at practically telling you how to make that step, how to step off that edge, how to dress the rope, that you will be safe and you're going to have fun, you will have that exhilarating feeling of jumping for a bungee jump, all four of them are exceptional, but my owner is to introduce Michelle. And she's our first speaker, Michelle I am very happy after watching our presentation and reading your bio that there are no country vital worldwide competition for cool parents, because she will beat all of us. Because when her children were small, they were probably into Harry Potter and Disney and she was managing a business and leading change there. And then as her kids grew up and got to that age where they like football and NFL, guess what? She's the CIO of NFL, what a cool mom. I am extremely excited to see what she's going to talk about. I've seen this slides, a bunch of amazing pictures, I'm looking to see the context behind it, I'm very thrilled to make that client so far, Michelle, I'm looking forward to her talk next. Welcome Michelle, it's over to you. (soft upbeat music) >> I'm delighted to be with you all today to talk about thought leadership. And I'm so excited that you asked me to join you because today I get to be a quarterback. I always wanted to be one, and I thought this is about as close as I'm ever going to get. So I want to talk to you about quarterbacking our digital revolution using insights data, and of course as you said, leadership. First a little bit about myself, a little background as I said, I always wanted to play football, and this is something that I wanted to do since I was a child, but when I grew up, girls didn't get to play football. I'm so happy that that's changing and girls are now doing all kinds of things that they didn't get to do before. Just this past weekend on an NFL field, we had a female coach on two sidelines, and a female official on the field. I'm a lifelong fan and student of the game of football, I grew up in the South, you can tell from the accent and in the South is like a religion and you pick sides. I chose Auburn University working in the Athletic Department, so I'm testament to you can start the journey can be long it took me many, many years to make it into professional sports. I graduated in 1987 and my little brother, well, not actually not so little, he played offensive line for the Alabama Crimson Tide. And for those of you who know SEC football you know, this is a really big rivalry. And when you choose sides, your family is divided, so it's kind of fun for me to always tell the story that my dad knew his kid would make it to the NFL he just bet on the wrong one. My career has been about bringing people together for memorable moments at some of America's most iconic brands. Delivering memories and amazing experiences that delight from Universal Studios, Disney to my current position as CIO of the NFL. In this job I'm very privileged to have the opportunity to work with the team, that gets to bring America's game to millions of people around the world. Often I'm asked to talk about how to create amazing experiences for fans, guests, or customers. But today I really wanted to focus on something different and talk to you about being behind the scenes and backstage. Because behind every event every game, every awesome moment is execution, precise repeatable execution. And most of my career has been behind the scenes, doing just that, assembling teams to execute these plans, and the key way that companies operate at these exceptional levels, is making good decisions, the right decisions at the right time and based upon data, so that you can translate the data into intelligence and be a data-driven culture. Using data and intelligence is an important way that world-class companies do differentiate themselves. And it's the lifeblood of collaboration and innovation. Teams that are working on delivering these kinds of world-class experiences are often seeking out and leveraging next generation technologies and finding new ways to work. I've been fortunate to work across three decades of emerging experiences, which each required emerging technologies to execute. A little bit first about Disney, in the 90s I was at Disney, leading a project called destination Disney, which it's a data project, it was a data project, but it was CRM before CRM was even cool. And then certainly before anything like a data-driven culture was ever brought up. But way back then we were creating a digital backbone that enabled many technologies for the things that you see today, like the magic band, just these magical express. My career at Disney began in finance, but Disney was very good about rotating you around, and it was during one of these rotations that I became very passionate about data. I kind of became a pain in the butt to the IT team, asking for data more and more data. And I learned that all of that valuable data was locked up in our systems, all of our point of sales systems, our reservation systems, our operation systems, and so I became a shadow IT person in marketing, ultimately leading to moving into IT, and I haven't looked back since. In the early 2000s I was at Universal Studios Theme Park as their CIO, preparing for and launching the wizarding world of Harry Potter. Bringing one of history's most memorable characters to life required many new technologies and a lot of data. Our data and technologies were embedded into the rides and attractions. I mean, how do you really think a wand selects you at a wine shop. As today at the NFL, I am constantly challenged to do leading edge technologies using things like sensors, AI, machine learning, and all new communication strategies, and using data to drive everything from player performance, contracts to where we build new stadiums and hold events. With this year being the most challenging, yet rewarding year in my career at the NFL. In the middle of a global pandemic, the way we are executing on our season is leveraging data from contract tracing devices joined with testing data. Talk about data, actually enabling your business without it we wouldn't be having a season right now. I'm also on the board of directors of two public companies, where data and collaboration are paramount. First RingCentral, it's a cloud based unified communications platform, and collaboration with video message and phone, all in one solution in the cloud. And Quotient Technologies, whose product is actually data. The tagline at quotient is the result in knowing. I think that's really important, because not all of us are data companies, where your product is actually data. But we should operate more like your product is data. I'd also like to talk to you about four areas of things to think about, as thought leaders in your companies. First just hit on it is change, how to be a champion and a driver of change. Second, how to use data to drive performance for your company, and measure performance of your company. Third, how companies now require intense collaboration to operate, and finally, how much of this is accomplished through solid data-driven decisions. First let's hit on change. I mean, it's evident today more than ever, that we are in an environment of extreme change. I mean, we've all been at this for years and as technologists we've known it, believed it, lived it, and thankfully for the most part knock on wood we were prepared for it. But this year everyone's cheese was moved, all the people in the back rooms, IT, data architects and others, were suddenly called to the forefront. Because a global pandemic has turned out to be the thing that is driving intense change in how people work and analyze their business. On March 13th, we closed our office at the NFL in the middle of preparing for one of our biggest events, our kickoff event, the 2020 Draft. We went from planning, a large event in Las Vegas under the bright lights red carpet stage to smaller events in club facilities. And then ultimately to one where everyone coaches, GMs, prospects and even our commissioner were at home in their basements. And we only had a few weeks to figure it out. I found myself for the first time being in the live broadcast event space, talking about bungee dress jumping, this is really what it felt like. It was one in which no one felt comfortable, because it had not been done before. But leading through this, I stepped up, but it was very scary, it was certainly very risky but it ended up being Oh, so rewarding when we did it. And as a result of this, some things will change forever. Second, managing performance. I mean, data should inform how you're doing and how to get your company to perform at this level, highest level. As an example, the NFL has always measured performance obviously, and it is one of the purest examples of how performance directly impacts outcome. I mean, you can see performance on the field, you can see points being scored and stats, and you immediately know that impact, those with the best stats, usually win the games. The NFL has always recorded stats, since the beginning of time, here at the NFL a little this year as our 100 and first year and athletes ultimate success as a player has also always been greatly impacted by his stats. But what has changed for us, is both how much more we can measure, and the immediacy with which it can be measured. And I'm sure in your business, it's the same, the amount of data you must have has got to have quadrupled recently and how fast you need it and how quickly you need to analyze it, is so important. And it's very important to break the silos between the keys to the data and the use of the data. Our next generation stats platform is taking data to a next level, it's powered by Amazon Web Services, and we gathered this data real time from sensors that are on players' bodies. We gather it in real time, analyze it, display it online and on broadcast, and of course it's used to prepare week to week in addition to what is a normal coaching plan would be. We can now analyze, visualize, route patterns speed, matchups, et cetera, so much faster than ever before. We're continuing to roll out sensors too, that we'll gather more and more information about player's performance as it relates to their health and safety. The third trend is really I think it's a big part of what we're feeling today and that is intense collaboration. And just for sort of historical purposes it's important to think about for those of you that are IT professionals and developers, you know more than 10 years ago, agile practices began sweeping companies or small teams would work together rapidly in a very flexible, adaptive and innovative way, and it proved to be transformational. However today, of course, that is no longer just small teams the next big wave of change, and we've seen it through this pandemic is that it's the whole enterprise that must collaborate and be agile. If I look back on my career when I was at Disney, we owned everything 100%, we made a decision, we implemented it, we were a collaborative culture but it was much easier to push change because you own the whole decision. If there was buy in from the top down, you got the people from the bottom up to do it, and you executed. At Universal, we were a joint venture, our attractions and entertainment was licensed, our hotels were owned and managed by other third parties. So influence and collaboration and how to share across companies became very important. And now here I am at the NFL and even the bigger ecosystem. We have 32 clubs that are all separate businesses 31 different stadiums that are owned by a variety of people. We have licensees, we have sponsors, we have broadcast partners. So it seems that as my career has evolved centralized control has gotten less and less and has been replaced by intense collaboration not only within your own company, but across companies. The ability to work in a collaborative way across businesses and even other companies that has been a big key to my success in my career. I believe this whole vertical integration and big top down decision making is going by the wayside in favor of ecosystems that require cooperation, yet competition to coexist. I mean the NFL is a great example of what we call coopertition, which is cooperation and competition. When in competition with each other, but we cooperate to make the company the best it can be. And at the heart of these items really are data-driven decisions and culture. Data on its own isn't good enough, you must be able to turn it to insights, partnerships between technology teams who usually hold the keys to the raw data, and business units who have the knowledge to build the right decision models is key. If you're not already involved in this linkage, you should be, data mining isn't new for sure. The availability of data is quadrupling and it's everywhere. How do you know what to even look at? How do you know where to begin? How do you know what questions to ask? It's by using the tools that are available for visualization and analytics and knitting together strategies of the company. So it begins with first of all making sure you do understand the strategy of the company. So in closing, just to wrap up a bit, many of you joined today looking for thought leadership on how to be a change agent, a change champion, and how to lead through transformation. Some final thoughts are be brave, and drive, don't do the ride along program, it's very important to drive, driving can be high risk but it's also high reward. Embracing the uncertainty of what will happen, is how you become brave, get more and more comfortable with uncertainty be calm and let data be your map on your journey, thanks. >> Michelle, thank you so much. So you and I share a love of data, and a love of football. You said you want to be the quarterback, I'm more an old wine person. (Michelle laughing) >> Well, then I can do my job without you. >> Great, and I'm getting the feeling now you know, Sudheesh is talking about bungee jumping. My boat is when we're past this pandemic, we both take them to the Delaware Water Gap and we do the cliff jumping. >> That sounds good, I'll watch. >> You'll watch, okay, so Michelle, you have so many stakeholders when you're trying to prioritize the different voices, you have the players, you have the owners you have the league, as you mentioned to the broadcasters your, your partners here and football mamas like myself. How do you prioritize when there's so many different stakeholders that you need to satisfy? I think balancing across stakeholders starts with aligning on a mission. And if you spend a lot of time understanding where everyone's coming from, and you can find the common thread ties them all together you sort of do get them to naturally prioritize their work, and I think that's very important. So for us at the NFL, and even at Disney, it was our core values and our core purpose is so well known, and when anything challenges that we're able to sort of lay that out. But as a change agent, you have to be very empathetic, and I would say empathy is probably your strongest skill if you're a change agent. And that means listening to every single stakeholder even when they're yelling at you, even when they're telling you your technology doesn't work and you know that it's user error, or even when someone is just emotional about what's happening to them and that they're not comfortable with it. So I think being empathetic and having a mission and understanding it, is sort of how I prioritize and balance. >> Yeah, empathy, a very popular word this year. I can imagine those coaches and owners yelling. So I thank you for your metership here. So Michelle, I look forward to discussing this more with our other customers and disruptors joining us in a little bit. (soft upbeat music) >> So we're going to take a hard pivot now and go from football to Chernobyl, Chernobyl, what went wrong? 1986, as the reactors were melting down they had the data to say, this is going to be catastrophic and yet the culture said, "No, we're perfect, hide it. Don't dare tell anyone," which meant they went ahead and had celebrations in Kiev. Even though that increased the exposure the additional thousands getting cancer, and 20,000 years before the ground around there and even be inhabited again, This is how powerful and detrimental a negative culture, a culture that is unable to confront the brutal facts that hides data. This is what we have to contend with, and this is why I want you to focus on having fostering a data-driven culture. I don't want you to be a laggard, I want you to be a leader in using data to drive your digital transformation. So I'll talk about culture and technology, isn't really two sides of the same coin, real-world impacts and then some best practices you can use to disrupt and innovate your culture. Now, oftentimes I would talk about culture and I talk about technology, and recently a CDO said to me, "You know Cindi, I actually think this is two sides of the same coin. One reflects the other, what do you think?" Let me walk you through this, so let's take a laggard. What is the technology look like? Is it based on 1990s BI and reporting largely parameterized reports on-premises data warehouses, or not even that operational reports, at best one enterprise data warehouse very slow moving and collaboration is only email. What does that culture tell you? Maybe there's a lack of leadership to change, to do the hard work that Sudheesh referred to. Or is there also a culture of fear, afraid of failure, resistance to change complacency and sometimes that complacency it's not because people are lazy, it's because they've been so beaten down every time a new idea is presented. It's like, no we're measured on least cost to serve. So politics and distrust, whether it's between business and IT or individual stakeholders is the norm. So data is hoarded, let's contrast that with a leader, a data and analytics leader, what is their technology look like? Augmented analytics, search and AI-driven insights not on-premises, but in the cloud and maybe multiple clouds. And the data is not in one place, but it's in a data lake, and in a data warehouse, a logical data warehouse. The collaboration is being a newer methods whether it's Slack or teams allowing for that real time decisioning or investigating a particular data point. So what is the culture in the leaders? It's transparent and trust, there is a trust that data will not be used to punish, that there is an ability to confront the bad news. It's innovation, valuing innovation in pursuit of the company goals, whether it's the best fan experience and player safety in the NFL or best serving your customers. It's innovative and collaborative. There's none of this, oh, well, I didn't invent that, I'm not going to look at that. There's still pride of ownership, but it's collaborating to get to a better place faster. And people feel empowered to present new ideas to fail fast, and they're energized, knowing that they're using the best technology and innovating at the pace that business requires. So data is democratized and democratized, not just for power users or analysts, but really at the point of impact what we like to call the new decision makers. Or really the frontline workers. So Harvard business review partnered with us to develop this study to say, just how important is this? They've been working at BI and analytics as an industry for more than 20 years. Why is it not at the front lines? Whether it's a doctor, a nurse, a coach, a supply chain manager a warehouse manager, a financial services advisor. 87% said they would be more successful if frontline workers were empowered with data-driven insights, but they recognize they need new technology to be able to do that. It's not about learning hard tools, the sad reality only 20% of organizations are actually doing this, these are the data-driven leaders. So this is the culture and technology, how did we get here? It's because state of the art keeps changing. So the first generation BI and analytics platforms were deployed on-premises, on small datasets really just taking data out of ERP systems that were also on-premises, and state of the art was maybe getting a management report, an operational report. Over time visual based data discovery vendors, disrupted these traditional BI vendors, empowering now analysts to create visualizations with the flexibility on a desktop, sometimes larger data sometimes coming from a data warehouse, the current state of the art though, Gartner calls it augmented analytics, at ThoughtSpot, we call it search and AI-driven analytics. And this was pioneered for large scale data sets, whether it's on-premises or leveraging the cloud data warehouses, and I think this is an important point. Oftentimes you, the data and analytics leaders, will look at these two components separately, but you have to look at the BI and analytics tier in lockstep with your data architectures to really get to the granular insights, and to leverage the capabilities of AI. Now, if you've never seen ThoughtSpot I'll just show you what this looks like, instead of somebody's hard coding a report, it's typing in search keywords and very robust keywords contains rank, top, bottom getting to a visualization that then can be pinned to an existing Pinboard that might also contain insights generated by an AI engine. So it's easy enough for that new decision maker, the business user, the non analyst to create themselves. Modernizing the data and analytics portfolio is hard, because the pace of change has accelerated. You used to be able to create an investment, place a bet for maybe 10 years. A few years ago, that time horizon was five years, now it's maybe three years, and the time to maturity has also accelerated. So you have these different components the search and AI tier, the data science tier, data preparation and virtualization. But I would also say equally important is the cloud data warehouse. And pay attention to how well these analytics tools can unlock the value in these cloud data warehouses. So ThoughtSpot was the first to market with search and AI-driven insights. Competitors have followed suit, but be careful if you look at products like Power BI or SAP Analytics Cloud, they might demo well, but do they let you get to all the data without moving it in products like Snowflake, Amazon Redshift or Azure Synapse or Google BigQuery, they do not. They require you to move it into a smaller in memory engine. So it's important how well these new products inter operate. The pace of change, it's acceleration, Gartner recently predicted that by 2022, 65% of analytical queries will be generated using search or NLP or even AI, and that is roughly three times the prediction they had just a couple years ago. So let's talk about the real world impact of culture. And if you've read any of my books or used any of the maturity models out there whether the Gartner IT score that I worked on, or the data warehousing institute also has a maturity model. We talk about these five pillars to really become data-driven, as Michelle spoke about, it's focusing on the business outcomes, leveraging all the data, including new data sources. It's the talent, the people, the technology, and also the processes, and often when I would talk about the people in the talent, I would lump the culture as part of that. But in the last year, as I've traveled the world and done these digital events for thought leaders you have told me now culture is absolutely so important. And so we've pulled it out as a separate pillar, and in fact, in polls that we've done in these events, look at how much more important culture is, as a barrier to becoming data-driven. It's three times as important as any of these other pillars. That's how critical it is, and let's take an example of where you can have great data but if you don't have the right culture there's devastating impacts. And I will say, I have been a loyal customer of Wells Fargo for more than 20 years, but look at what happened in the face of negative news with data, that said, "Hey, we're not doing good cross selling, customers do not have both a checking account and a credit card and a savings account and a mortgage." They opened fake accounts, facing billions in fines, change in leadership, that even the CEO attributed to a toxic sales culture, and they're trying to fix this. But even recently there's been additional employee backlash saying that culture has not changed. Let's contrast that with some positive examples, Medtronic a worldwide company in 150 countries around the world, they may not be a household name to you, but if you have a loved one or yourself, you have a pacemaker, spinal implant, diabetes you know, this brand. And at the start of COVID when they knew their business would be slowing down, because hospitals would only be able to take care of COVID patients, they took the bold move of making their IP for ventilators publicly available, that is the power of a positive culture. Or Verizon, a major telecom organization, looking at late payments of their customers, and even though the US federal government said "Well, you can't turn them off." They said, "We'll extend that even beyond the mandated guidelines," and facing a slow down in the business because of the tough economy, he said, "You know what? We will spend the time upskilling our people giving them the time to learn more about the future of work, the skills and data and analytics," for 20,000 of their employees, rather than furloughing them. That is the power of a positive culture. So how can you transform your culture to the best in class? I'll give you three suggestions, bring in a change agent identify the relevance, or I like to call it WIIFM, and organize for collaboration. So the CDO whatever your title is, chief analytics officer chief digital officer, you are the most important change agent. And this is where you will hear, that oftentimes a change agent has to come from outside the organization. So this is where, for example in Europe, you have the CDO of Just Eat takeout food delivery organization, coming from the airline industry or in Australia, National Australian Bank, taking a CDO within the same sector from TD Bank going to NAB. So these change agents come in disrupt, it's a hard job. As one of you said to me, it often feels like Sisyphus, I make one step forward and I get knocked down again, I get pushed back. It is not for the faint of heart, but it's the most important part of your job. The other thing I'll talk about is WIIFM, what is in it for me? And this is really about understanding the motivation, the relevance that data has for everyone on the frontline as well as those analysts, as well as the executives. So if we're talking about players in the NFL they want to perform better, and they want to stay safe. That is why data matters to them. If we're talking about financial services this may be a wealth management advisor, okay, we could say commissions, but it's really helping people have their dreams come true whether it's putting their children through college, or being able to retire without having to work multiple jobs still into your 70s or 80s. For the teachers, teachers, you asked them about data, they'll say, "We don't need that, I care about the student." So if you can use data to help a student perform better that is WIIFM. And sometimes we spend so much time talking the technology, we forget what is the value we're trying to deliver with it. And we forget the impact on the people that it does require change. In fact, the Harvard Business Review Study, found that 44% said lack of change management is the biggest barrier to leveraging both new technology but also being empowered to act on those data-driven insights. The third point, organize for collaboration. This does require diversity of thought, but also bringing the technology, the data and the business people together. Now there's not a single one size fits all model for data and analytics. At one point in time, even having a BICC, a BI Competency Center was considered state of the art. Now for the biggest impact, what I recommend is that you have a federated model, centralized for economies of scale, that could be the common data, but then in bed, these evangelists, these analysts of the future, within every business unit, every functional domain, and as you see this top bar, all models are possible but the hybrid model has the most impact, the most leaders. So as we look ahead to the months ahead, to the year ahead, an exciting time, because data is helping organizations better navigate a tough economy lock in the customer loyalty, and I look forward to seeing how you foster that culture that's collaborative with empathy and bring the best of technology, leveraging the cloud, all your data. So thank you for joining us at thought leaders, and next I'm pleased to introduce our first change agent Thomas Mazzaferro, chief data officer of Western Union, and before joining Western Union, Tom made his mark at HSBC and JP Morgan Chase spearheading digital innovation in technology operations, risk compliance, and retail banking. Tom, thank you so much for joining us today. (soft upbeat music) >> Very happy to be here and looking forward to talking to all of you today. So as we look to move organizations to a data-driven capability into the future, there is a lot that needs to be done on the data side, but also how does data connect and enable, different business teams and technology teams into the future. As we look across our data ecosystems and our platforms and how we modernize that to the cloud in the future, it all needs to basically work together, right? To really be able to drive over the shift from a data standpoint, into the future. That includes being able to have the right information with the right quality of data at the right time to drive informed business decisions, to drive the business forward. As part of that, we actually have partnered with ThoughtSpot to actually bring in the technology to help us drive that, as part of that partnership, and it's how we've looked to integrated into our overall business as a whole. We've looked at how do we make sure that our business and our professional lives, right? Are enabled in the same ways as our personal lives. So for example, in your personal lives, when you want to go and find something out, what do you do? You go on to google.com or you go on to Bing, or go to Yahoo and you search for what you want, search to find an answer. ThoughtSpot for us as the same thing, but in the business world. So using ThoughtSpot and other AI capability is allowed us to actually enable our overall business teams in our company, to actually have our information at our fingertips. So rather than having to go and talk to someone or an engineer to go pull information or pull data, we actually can have the end users or the business executives, right? Search for what they need, what they want, at the exact time that action needed, to go and drive the business forward. This is truly one of those transformational things that we've put in place. On top of that, we are on the journey to modernize our larger ecosystem as a whole. That includes modernizing our underlying data warehouses, our technology or our (indistinct) environments, and as we move that we've actually picked to our cloud providers going to AWS and GCP. We've also adopted Snowflake to really drive into organize our information and our data, then drive these new solutions and capabilities forward. So big portion of us though is culture, so how do we engage with the business teams and bring the IT teams together to really drive these holistic end to end solutions and capabilities, to really support the actual business into the future. That's one of the keys here, as we look to modernize and to really enhance our organizations to become data-driven, this is the key. If you can really start to provide answers to business questions before they're even being asked, and to predict based upon different economic trends or different trends in your business, what does is be made and actually provide those answers to the business teams before they're even asking for it. That is really becoming a data-driven organization. And as part of that, it's really then enables the business to act quickly and take advantage of opportunities as they come in based upon industries, based upon markets, based upon products, solutions, or partnerships into the future. These are really some of the keys that become crucial as you move forward right into this new age, especially with COVID, with COVID now taking place across the world, right? Many of these markets, many of these digital transformations are celebrating, and are changing rapidly to accommodate and to support customers in these very difficult times. As part of that, you need to make sure you have the right underlying foundation, ecosystems and solutions to really drive those capabilities, and those solutions forward. As we go through this journey, both of my career but also each of your careers into the future, right? It also needs to evolve, right? Technology has changed so drastically in the last 10 years, and that change is only a celebrating. So as part of that, you have to make sure that you stay up to speed, up to date with new technology changes both on the platform standpoint, tools, but also what our customers want, what do our customers need, and how do we then surface them with our information, with our data, with our platform, with our products and our services, to meet those needs and to really support and service those customers into the future. This is all around becoming a more data-driven organization such as how do you use your data to support the current business lines. But how do you actually use your information your data, to actually better support your customers better support your business, better support your employees, your operations teams and so forth, and really creating that full integration in that ecosystem is really when you start to get large dividends from these investments into the future. With that being said I hope you enjoyed the segment on how to become and how to drive a data-driven organization, and looking forward to talking to you again soon, thank you. >> Tom, that was great, thanks so much. Now I'm going to have to brag on you for a second, as a change agent you've come in disrupted, and how long have you been at Western Union? >> Only nine months, I just started this year, but there'd be some great opportunities and big changes, and we have a lot more to go, but we're really driving things forward in partnership with our business teams, and our colleagues to support those customers forward. >> Tom, thank you so much that was wonderful. And now I'm excited to introduce you to Gustavo Canton, a change agent that I've had the pleasure of working with meeting in Europe, and he is a serial change agent. Most recently with Schneider Electric, but even going back to Sam's Club, Gustavo welcome. (soft upbeat music) >> So hi everyone my name is Gustavo Canton and thank you so much Cindi for the intro. As you mentioned, doing transformations is a you know, high effort, high reward situation. I have empowerment in transformation and I have led many transformations. And what I can tell you is that it's really hard to predict the future, but if you have a North Star and you know where you're going, the one thing that I want you to take away from this discussion today, is that you need to be bold to evolve. And so in today, I'm going to be talking about culture and data, and I'm going to break this down in four areas. How do we get started barriers or opportunities as I see it, the value of AI, and also how do you communicate, especially now in the workforce of today with so many different generations, you need to make sure that you are communicating in ways that are nontraditional sometimes. And so how do we get started? So I think the answer to that is, you have to start for you, yourself as a leader and stay tuned. And by that, I mean you need to understand not only what is happening in your function or your field, but you have to be very into what is happening in society, socioeconomically speaking, wellbeing, you know, the common example is a great example. And for me personally, it's an opportunity because the number one core value that I have is wellbeing. I believe that for human potential, for customers and communities to grow, wellbeing should be at the center of every decision. And as somebody mentioned, it's great to be you know, stay in tune and have the skillset and the courage. But for me personally, to be honest to have this courage is not about not being afraid. You're always afraid when you're making big changes and your swimming upstream. But what gives me the courage is the empathy part, like I think empathy is a huge component because every time I go into an organization or a function, I try to listen very attentively to the needs of the business, and what the leaders are trying to do, what I do it thinking about the mission of how do I make change for the bigger, you know workforce so the bigger good, despite the fact that this might have a perhaps implication, so my own self interest in my career, right? Because you have to have that courage sometimes to make choices, that are not well seeing politically speaking what are the right thing to do, and you have to push through it. So the bottom line for me is that, I don't think they're transforming fast enough. And the reality is I speak with a lot of leaders and we have seen stories in the past, and what they show is that if you look at the four main barriers, that are basically keeping us behind budget, inability to add, cultural issues, politics, and lack of alignment, those are the top four. But the interesting thing is that as Cindi has mentioned, this topic about culture is actually gaining more and more traction, and in 2018, there was a story from HBR and it was for about 45%. I believe today, it's about 55%, 60% of respondents say that this is the main area that we need to focus on. So again, for all those leaders and all the executives who understand, and are aware that we need to transform, commit to the transformation and set us deadline to say, "Hey, in two years, we're going to make this happen, what do we need to do to empower and enable these search engines to make it happen?" You need to make the tough choices. And so to me, when I speak about being bold is about making the right choices now. So I'll give you samples of some of the roadblocks that I went through, as I think the intro information most recently as Cindi mentioned in Schneider. There are three main areas, legacy mindset, and what that means is that we've been doing this in a specific way for a long time, and here is how we have been successful. We're working the past is not going to work now, the opportunity there is that there is a lot of leaders who have a digital mindset, and their up and coming leaders that are perhaps not yet fully developed. We need to mentor those leaders and take bets on some of these talents, including young talent. We cannot be thinking in the past and just wait for people you know, three to five years for them to develop, because the world is going to in a way that is super fast. The second area and this is specifically to implementation of AI is very interesting to me, because just example that I have with ThoughtSpot, right? We went to an implementation and a lot of the way the IT team functions, so the leaders look at technology, they look at it from the prism of the prior or success criteria for the traditional BIs, and that's not going to work. Again, your opportunity here is that you need to really find what success look like, in my case, I want the user experience of our workforce to be the same as your experience you have at home. It's a very simple concept, and so we need to think about how do we gain that user experience with this augmented analytics tools, and then work backwards to have the right talent, processes and technology to enable that. And finally, and obviously with COVID a lot of pressure in organizations and companies to do more with less, and the solution that most leaders I see are taking is to just minimize cost sometimes and cut budget. We have to do the opposite, we have to actually invest some growth areas, but do it by business question. Don't do it by function, if you actually invest in these kind of solutions, if you actually invest on developing your talent, your leadership, to see more digitally, if you actually invest on fixing your data platform is not just an incremental cost, it's actually this investment is going to offset all those hidden costs and inefficiencies that you have on your system, because people are doing a lot of work in working very hard but it's not efficiency, and it's not working in the way that you might want to work. So there is a lot of opportunity there, and you just to put it into some perspective, there have been some studies in the past about you know, how do we kind of measure the impact of data? And obviously this is going to vary by organization, maturity there's going to be a lot of factors. I've been in companies who have very clean, good data to work with, and I think with companies that we have to start basically from scratch. So it all depends on your maturity level, but in this study what I think is interesting is, they try to put a tagline or attack price to what is a cost of incomplete data. So in this case, it's about 10 times as much to complete a unit of work, when you have data that is flawed as opposed to have imperfect data. So let me put that just in perspective, just as an example, right? Imagine you are trying to do something and you have to do 100 things in a project, and each time you do something it's going to cost you a dollar. So if you have perfect data, the total cost of that project might be a $100. But now let's say you have any percent perfect data and 20% flow data, by using this assumption that flow data is 10 times as costly as perfect data, your total costs now becomes $280 as opposed to $100, this just for you to really think about as a CIO, CTO, you know CSRO, CEO, are we really paying attention and really closing the gaps that we have on our infrastructure? If we don't do that, it's hard sometimes to see the snowball effect or to measure the overall impact, but as you can tell, the price tag goes up very, very quickly. So now, if I were to say, how do I communicate this? Or how do I break through some of these challenges or some of these barriers, right? I think the key is I am in analytics, I know statistics obviously, and love modeling and you know, data and optimization theory and all that stuff, that's what I can do analytics, but now as a leader and as a change agent, I need to speak about value, and in this case, for example for Schneider, there was this tagline coffee of your energy. So the number one thing that they were asking from the analytics team was actually efficiency, which to me was very interesting. But once I understood that I understood what kind of language to use, how to connect it to the overall strategy and basically how to bring in the right leaders, because you need to, you know, focus on the leaders that you're going to make the most progress. You know, again, low effort, high value, you need to make sure you centralize all the data as you can, you need to bring in some kind of augmented analytics, you know, solution, and finally you need to make it super simple for the you know, in this case, I was working with the HR teams and other areas, so they can have access to one portal. They don't have to be confused and looking for 10 different places to find information. I think if you can actually have those four foundational pillars, obviously under the guise of having a data-driven culture, that's when you can actually make the impact. So in our case, it was about three years total transformation but it was two years for this component of augmented analytics. It took about two years to talk to, you know, IT, get leadership support, find the budgeting, you know, get everybody on board, make sure the success criteria was correct. And we call this initiative, the people analytics, I pulled up, it was actually launched in July of this year. And we were very excited and the audience was very excited to do this. In this case, we did our pilot in North America for many, many manufacturers, but one thing that is really important is as you bring along your audience on this, you know, you're going from Excel, you know in some cases or Tableau to other tools like you know, ThoughtSpot, you need to really explain them, what is the difference, and how these two can truly replace some of the spreadsheets or some of the views that you might have on these other kind of tools. Again, Tableau, I think it's a really good tool, there are other many tools that you might have in your toolkit. But in my case, personally I feel that you need to have one portal going back to seeing these points that really truly enable the end user. And I feel that this is the right solution for us, right? And I will show you some of the findings that we had in the pilot in the last two months. So this was a huge victory, and I will tell you why, because it took a lot of effort for us to get to these stations. Like I said it's been years for us to kind of lay the foundation, get the leadership and chasing culture, so people can understand why you truly need to invest what I meant analytics. And so what I'm showing here is an example of how do we use basically, you know a tool to capturing video, the qualitative findings that we had, plus the quantitative insights that we have. So in this case, our preliminary results based on our ambition for three main metrics, hours saved, user experience and adoption. So for hours saved, our ambition was to have 10 hours per week per employee save on average, user experience or ambition was 4.5 and adoption 80%. In just two months, two months and a half of the pilot we were able to achieve five hours, per week per employee savings. I used to experience for 4.3 out of five, and adoption of 60%. Really, really amazing work. But again, it takes a lot of collaboration for us to get to the stage from IT, legal, communications obviously the operations things and the users, in HR safety and other areas that might be basically stakeholders in this whole process. So just to summarize this kind of effort takes a lot of energy, you are a change agent, you need to have a courage to make these decision and understand that, I feel that in this day and age with all this disruption happening, we don't have a choice. We have to take the risk, right? And in this case, I feel a lot of satisfaction in how we were able to gain all these very souls for this organization, and that gave me the confidence to know that the work has been done, and we are now in a different stage for the organization. And so for me it safe to say, thank you for everybody who has believed obviously in our vision, everybody who has believed in, you know, the word that we were trying to do and to make the life for, you know workforce or customers that are in community better. As you can tell, there is a lot of effort, there is a lot of collaboration that is needed to do something like this. In the end, I feel very satisfied with the accomplishments of this transformation, and I just want to tell for you, if you are going right now in a moment that you feel that you have to swim upstream you know, what would mentors what people in this industry that can help you out and guide you on this kind of a transformation is not easy to do is high effort but is well worth it. And with that said, I hope you are well and it's been a pleasure talking to you, talk to you soon, take care. >> Thank you Gustavo, that was amazing. All right, let's go to the panel. (soft upbeat music) >> I think we can all agree how valuable it is to hear from practitioners, and I want to thank the panel for sharing their knowledge with the community, and one common challenge that I heard you all talk about was bringing your leadership and your teams along on the journey with you. We talk about this all the time, and it is critical to have support from the top, why? Because it directs the middle, and then it enables bottoms up innovation effects from the cultural transformation that you guys all talked about. It seems like another common theme we heard, is that you all prioritize database decision making in your organizations, and you combine two of your most valuable assets to do that, and create leverage, employees on the front lines, and of course the data. That was rightly pointed out, Tom, the pandemic has accelerated the need for really leaning into this. You know, the old saying, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, well COVID's broken everything. And it's great to hear from our experts, you know, how to move forward, so let's get right into it. So Gustavo let's start with you if I'm an aspiring change agent, and let's say I'm a budding data leader. What do I need to start doing? What habits do I need to create for long lasting success? >> I think curiosity is very important. You need to be, like I say, in tune to what is happening not only in your specific field, like I have a passion for analytics, I can do this for 50 years plus, but I think you need to understand wellbeing other areas across not only a specific business as you know, I come from, you know, Sam's Club Walmart retail, I mean energy management technology. So you have to try to push yourself and basically go out of your comfort zone. I mean, if you are staying in your comfort zone and you want to use lean continuous improvement that's just going to take you so far. What you have to do is and that's what I tried to do is I try to go into areas, businesses and transformations that make me, you know stretch and develop as a leader. That's what I'm looking to do, so I can help transform the functions organizations, and do these change management and decisions mindset as required for these kinds of efforts. >> Thank you for that is inspiring and Cindi, you love data, and the data is pretty clear that diversity is a good business, but I wonder if you can add your perspectives to this conversation. >> Yeah, so Michelle has a new fan here because she has found her voice, I'm still working on finding mine. And it's interesting because I was raised by my dad, a single dad, so he did teach me how to work in a predominantly male environment. But why I think diversity matters more now than ever before, and this is by gender, by race, by age, by just different ways of working and thinking is because as we automate things with AI, if we do not have diverse teams looking at the data and the models, and how they're applied, we risk having bias at scale. So this is why I think I don't care what type of minority, you are finding your voice, having a seat at the table and just believing in the impact of your work has never been more important. And as Michelle said more possible >> Great perspectives thank you, Tom, I want to go to you. I mean, I feel like everybody in our businesses in some way, shape or form become a COVID expert but what's been the impact of the pandemic on your organization's digital transformation plans? >> We've seen a massive growth actually you know, in a digital business over the last 12 months really, even in celebration, right? Once COVID hit, we really saw that in the 200 countries and territories that we operate in today and service our customers and today, that there's been a huge need, right? To send money, to support family, to support friends and loved ones across the world. And as part of that, you know, we are very honored to support those customers that we across all the centers today. But as part of that celebration, we need to make sure that we had the right architecture and the right platforms to basically scale, right? To basically support and provide the right kind of security for our customers going forward. So as part of that, we did do some pivots and we did celebrate some of our plans on digital to help support that overall growth coming in, and to support our customers going forward. Because there were these times during this pandemic, right? This is the most important time, and we need to support those that we love and those that we care about. And in doing that, it's one of those ways is actually by sending money to them, support them financially. And that's where really are part of that our services come into play that, you know, I really support those families. So it was really a great opportunity for us to really support and really bring some of our products to this level, and supporting our business going forward. >> Awesome, thank you. Now I want to come back to Gustavo, Tom, I'd love for you to chime in too. Did you guys ever think like you were pushing the envelope too much and doing things with data or the technology that was just maybe too bold, maybe you felt like at some point it was failing, or you pushing your people too hard, can you share that experience and how you got through it? >> Yeah, the way I look at it is, you know, again, whenever I go to an organization I ask the question, Hey, how fast you would like to conform?" And, you know, based on the agreements on the leadership and the vision that we want to take place, I take decisions and I collaborate in a specific way. Now, in the case of COVID, for example, right? It forces us to remove silos and collaborate in a faster way, so to me it was an opportunity to actually integrate with other areas and drive decisions faster. But make no mistake about it, when you are doing a transformation, you are obviously trying to do things faster than sometimes people are comfortable doing and you need to be okay with that. Sometimes you need to be okay with tension, or you need to be okay, you know debating points or making repetitive business cases onto people connect with the decision because you understand, and you are seeing that, hey, the CEO is making a one, two year, you know, efficiency goal, the only way for us to really do more with less is for us to continue this path. We cannot just stay with the status quo, we need to find a way to accelerate transformation... >> How about you Tom, we were talking earlier was Sudheesh had said about that bungee jumping moment, what can you share? >> Yeah you know, I think you hit upon it. Right now, the pace of change will be the slowest pace that you see for the rest of your career. So as part of that, right? That's what I tell my team is that you need to feel comfortable being uncomfortable. I mean, that we have to be able to basically scale, right? Expand and support that the ever changing needs the marketplace and industry and our customers today and that pace of change that's happening, right? And what customers are asking for, and the competition the marketplace, it's only going to accelerate. So as part of that, you know, as we look at what how you're operating today in your current business model, right? Things are only going to get faster. So you have to plan into align, to drive the actual transformation, so that you can scale even faster into the future. So as part of that, so we're putting in place here, right? Is how do we create that underlying framework and foundation that allows the organization to basically continue to scale and evolve into the future? >> We're definitely out of our comfort zones, but we're getting comfortable with it. So, Cindi, last question, you've worked with hundreds of organizations, and I got to believe that you know, some of the advice you gave when you were at Gartner, which is pre COVID, maybe sometimes clients didn't always act on it. You know, they're not on my watch for whatever variety of reasons, but it's being forced on them now, but knowing what you know now that you know, we're all in this isolation economy how would you say that advice has changed, has it changed? What's your number one action and recommendation today? >> Yeah well, first off, Tom just freaked me out. What do you mean this is the slowest ever? Even six months ago, I was saying the pace of change in data and analytics is frenetic. So, but I think you're right, Tom, the business and the technology together is forcing this change. Now, Dave, to answer your question, I would say the one bit of advice, maybe I was a little more, very aware of the power in politics and how to bring people along in a way that they are comfortable, and now I think it's, you know what? You can't get comfortable. In fact, we know that the organizations that were already in the cloud, have been able to respond and pivot faster. So if you really want to survive as Tom and Gustavo said, get used to being uncomfortable, the power and politics are going to happen. Break the rules, get used to that and be bold. Do not be afraid to tell somebody they're wrong and they're not moving fast enough. I do think you have to do that with empathy as Michelle said, and Gustavo, I think that's one of the key words today besides the bungee jumping. So I want to know where's Sudheesh going to go on bungee jumping? (all chuckling) >> That's fantastic discussion really. Thanks again to all the panelists and the guests, it was really a pleasure speaking with you today. Really virtually all of the leaders that I've spoken to in theCUBE program recently, they tell me that the pandemic is accelerating so many things, whether it's new ways to work, we heard about new security models and obviously the need for cloud. I mean, all of these things are driving true enterprise wide digital transformation, not just as I said before lip service. And sometimes we minimize the importance and the challenge of building culture and in making this transformation possible. But when it's done right, the right culture is going to deliver tremendous results. Yeah, what does that mean getting it right? Everybody's trying to get it right. My biggest takeaway today, is it means making data part of the DNA of your organization. And that means making it accessible to the people in your organization that are empowered to make decisions that can drive you revenue, cut costs, speed, access to critical care, whatever the mission is of your organization. Data can create insights and informed decisions that drive value. Okay, let's bring back Sudheesh and wrap things up. Sudheesh please bring us home. >> Thank you, thank you Dave, thank you theCUBE team, and thanks goes to all of our customers and partners who joined us, and thanks to all of you for spending the time with us. I want to do three quick things and then close it off. The first thing is I want to summarize the key takeaways that I had from all four of our distinguished speakers. First, Michelle, I was simply put it, she said it really well, that is be brave and drive. Don't go for a drive along, that is such an important point. Often times, you know that I think that you have to do to make the positive change that you want to see happen. But you wait for someone else to do it, why not you? Why don't you be the one making that change happen? That's the thing that I picked up from Michelle's talk. Cindi talked about finding the importance of finding your voice, taking that chair, whether it's available or not and making sure that your ideas, your voices are heard and if it requires some force then apply that force, make sure your ideas are good. Gustavo talked about the importance of building consensus, not going at things all alone sometimes building the importance of building the courtroom. And that is critical because if you want the changes to last, you want to make sure that the organization is fully behind it. Tom instead of a single take away, what I was inspired by is the fact that a company that is 170 years old, 170 years old, 200 companies and 200 countries they're operating in, and they were able to make the change that is necessary through this difficult time. So in a matter of months, if they could do it, anyone could. The second thing I want to do is to leave you with a takeaway that is I would like you to go to thoughtspot.com/nfl because our team has made an app for NFL on Snowflake. I think you will find this interesting now that you are inspired and excited because of Michelle's talk. And the last thing is, please go to thoughtspot.com/beyond, our global user conferences happening in this December, we would love to have you join us. It's again, virtual, you can join from anywhere, we are expecting anywhere from five to 10,000 people, and we would love to have you join and see what we would have been up to since the last year. We have a lot of amazing things in store for you, our customers, our partners, our collaborators, they will be coming and sharing, you'll be sharing things that you have been working to release something that will come out next year. And also some of the crazy ideas for engineers I've been cooking up. All of those things will be available for you at ThoughtSpot Beyond, thank you, thank you so much.

(speaks in foreign language) >> Narrator: Data is at the heart of transformation and the change every company needs to succeed, but it takes more than new technology. It's about teams, talent, and cultural change. Empowering everyone on the front lines to make decisions, all at the speed of digital. The transformation starts with you. It's time to lead the way, it's time for thought leaders. >> Welcome to Thought Leaders, a digital event brought to you by ThoughtSpot. My name is Dave Vellante. The purpose of this day is to bring industry leaders and experts together to really try and understand the important issues around digital transformation. We have an amazing lineup of speakers and our goal is to provide you with some best practices that you can bring back and apply to your organization. Look, data is plentiful, but insights are not. ThoughtSpot is disrupting analytics by using search and machine intelligence to simplify data analysis, and really empower anyone with fast access to relevant data. But in the last 150 days, we've had more questions than answers. Creating an organization that puts data and insights at their core, requires not only modern technology, but leadership, a mindset and a culture that people often refer to as data-driven. What does that mean? How can we equip our teams with data and fast access to quality information that can turn insights into action. And today, we're going to hear from experienced leaders, who are transforming their organizations with data, insights and creating digital-first cultures. But before we introduce our speakers, I'm joined today by two of my co-hosts from ThoughtSpot. First, Chief Data Strategy Officer for ThoughtSpot is Cindi Hausen. Cindi is an analytics and BI expert with 20 plus years experience and the author of Successful Business Intelligence Unlock The Value of BI and Big Data. Cindi was previously the lead analyst at Gartner for the data and analytics magic quadrant. And early last year, she joined ThoughtSpot to help CDOs and their teams understand how best to leverage analytics and AI for digital transformation. Cindi, great to see you, welcome to the show. >> Thank you, Dave. Nice to join you virtually. >> Now our second cohost and friend of theCUBE is ThoughtSpot CEO Sudheesh Nair. Hello Sudheesh, how are you doing today? >> I am well Dave, it's good to talk to you again. >> It's great to see you. Thanks so much for being here. Now Sudheesh, please share with us why this discussion is so important to your customers and of course, to our audience and what they're going to learn today? (gentle music) >> Thanks, Dave, I wish you were there to introduce me into every room that I walk into because you have such an amazing way of doing it. It makes me feel also good. Look, since we have all been cooped up in our homes, I know that the vendors like us, we have amped up our, you know, sort of effort to reach out to you with invites for events like this. So we are getting way more invites for events like this than ever before. So when we started planning for this, we had three clear goals that we wanted to accomplish. And our first one that when you finish this and walk away, we want to make sure that you don't feel like it was a waste of time. We want to make sure that we value your time, and this is going to be useful. Number two, we want to put you in touch with industry leaders and thought leaders, and generally good people that you want to hang around with long after this event is over. And number three, as we plan through this, you know, we are living through these difficult times, we want an event to be, this event to be more of an uplifting and inspiring event too. Now, the challenge is, how do you do that with the team being change agents? Because change and as much as we romanticize it, it is not one of those uplifting things that everyone wants to do or likes to do. The way I think of it, change is sort of like, if you've ever done bungee jumping. You know, it's like standing on the edges, waiting to make that one more step. You know, all you have to do is take that one step and gravity will do the rest, but that is the hardest step to take. Change requires a lot of courage and when we are talking about data and analytics, which is already like such a hard topic, not necessarily an uplifting and positive conversation, in most businesses it is somewhat scary. Change becomes all the more difficult. Ultimately change requires courage. Courage to to, first of all, challenge the status quo. People sometimes are afraid to challenge the status quo because they are thinking that, "You know, maybe I don't have the power to make the change that the company needs. Sometimes I feel like I don't have the skills." Sometimes they may feel that, I'm probably not the right person to do it. Or sometimes the lack of courage manifest itself as the inability to sort of break the silos that are formed within the organizations, when it comes to data and insights that you talked about. You know, there are people in the company, who are going to hog the data because they know how to manage the data, how to inquire and extract. They know how to speak data, they have the skills to do that, but they are not the group of people who have sort of the knowledge, the experience of the business to ask the right questions off the data. So there is this silo of people with the answers and there is a silo of people with the questions, and there is gap. These sort of silos are standing in the way of making that necessary change that we all I know the business needs, and the last change to sort of bring an external force sometimes. It could be a tool, it could be a platform, it could be a person, it could be a process, but sometimes no matter how big the company is or how small the company is. You may need to bring some external stimuli to start that domino of the positive changes that are necessary. The group of people that we have brought in, the four people, including Cindi, that you will hear from today are really good at practically telling you how to make that step, how to step off that edge, how to trust the rope that you will be safe and you're going to have fun. You will have that exhilarating feeling of jumping for a bungee jump. All four of them are exceptional, but my honor is to introduce Michelle and she's our first speaker. Michelle, I am very happy after watching her presentation and reading her bio, that there are no country vital worldwide competition for cool patents, because she will beat all of us because when her children were small, you know, they were probably into Harry Potter and Disney and she was managing a business and leading change there. And then as her kids grew up and got to that age, where they like football and NFL, guess what? She's the CIO of NFL. What a cool mom. I am extremely excited to see what she's going to talk about. I've seen the slides with a bunch of amazing pictures, I'm looking to see the context behind it. I'm very thrilled to make the acquaintance of Michelle. I'm looking forward to her talk next. Welcome Michelle. It's over to you. (gentle music) >> I'm delighted to be with you all today to talk about thought leadership. And I'm so excited that you asked me to join you because today I get to be a quarterback. I always wanted to be one. This is about as close as I'm ever going to get. So, I want to talk to you about quarterbacking our digital revolution using insights, data and of course, as you said, leadership. First, a little bit about myself, a little background. As I said, I always wanted to play football and this is something that I wanted to do since I was a child but when I grew up, girls didn't get to play football. I'm so happy that that's changing and girls are now doing all kinds of things that they didn't get to do before. Just this past weekend on an NFL field, we had a female coach on two sidelines and a female official on the field. I'm a lifelong fan and student of the game of football. I grew up in the South. You can tell from the accent and in the South football is like a religion and you pick sides. I chose Auburn University working in the athletic department, so I'm testament. Till you can start, a journey can be long. It took me many, many years to make it into professional sports. I graduated in 1987 and my little brother, well not actually not so little, he played offensive line for the Alabama Crimson Tide. And for those of you who know SEC football, you know this is a really big rivalry, and when you choose sides your family is divided. So it's kind of fun for me to always tell the story that my dad knew his kid would make it to the NFL, he just bet on the wrong one. My career has been about bringing people together for memorable moments at some of America's most iconic brands, delivering memories and amazing experiences that delight. From Universal Studios, Disney, to my current position as CIO of the NFL. In this job, I'm very privileged to have the opportunity to work with a team that gets to bring America's game to millions of people around the world. Often, I'm asked to talk about how to create amazing experiences for fans, guests or customers. But today, I really wanted to focus on something different and talk to you about being behind the scenes and backstage. Because behind every event, every game, every awesome moment, is execution. Precise, repeatable execution and most of my career has been behind the scenes doing just that. Assembling teams to execute these plans and the key way that companies operate at these exceptional levels is making good decisions, the right decisions, at the right time and based upon data. So that you can translate the data into intelligence and be a data-driven culture. Using data and intelligence is an important way that world-class companies do differentiate themselves, and it's the lifeblood of collaboration and innovation. Teams that are working on delivering these kind of world class experiences are often seeking out and leveraging next generation technologies and finding new ways to work. I've been fortunate to work across three decades of emerging experiences, which each required emerging technologies to execute. A little bit first about Disney. In '90s I was at Disney leading a project called Destination Disney, which it's a data project. It was a data project, but it was CRM before CRM was even cool and then certainly before anything like a data-driven culture was ever brought up. But way back then we were creating a digital backbone that enabled many technologies for the things that you see today. Like the MagicBand, Disney's Magical Express. My career at Disney began in finance, but Disney was very good about rotating you around. And it was during one of these rotations that I became very passionate about data. I kind of became a pain in the butt to the IT team asking for data, more and more data. And I learned that all of that valuable data was locked up in our systems. All of our point of sales systems, our reservation systems, our operation systems. And so I became a shadow IT person in marketing, ultimately, leading to moving into IT and I haven't looked back since. In the early 2000s, I was at Universal Studio's theme park as their CIO preparing for and launching the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Bringing one of history's most memorable characters to life required many new technologies and a lot of data. Our data and technologies were embedded into the rides and attractions. I mean, how do you really think a wand selects you at a wand shop. As today at the NFL, I am constantly challenged to do leading edge technologies, using things like sensors, AI, machine learning and all new communication strategies, and using data to drive everything, from player performance, contracts, to where we build new stadiums and hold events. With this year being the most challenging, yet rewarding year in my career at the NFL. In the middle of a global pandemic, the way we are executing on our season is leveraging data from contact tracing devices joined with testing data. Talk about data actually enabling your business. Without it we wouldn't be having a season right now. I'm also on the board of directors of two public companies, where data and collaboration are paramount. First, RingCentral, it's a cloud based unified communications platform and collaboration with video message and phone, all-in-one solution in the cloud and Quotient Technologies, whose product is actually data. The tagline at Quotient is The Result in Knowing. I think that's really important because not all of us are data companies, where your product is actually data, but we should operate more like your product is data. I'd also like to talk to you about four areas of things to think about as thought leaders in your companies. First, just hit on it, is change. how to be a champion and a driver of change. Second, how to use data to drive performance for your company and measure performance of your company. Third, how companies now require intense collaboration to operate and finally, how much of this is accomplished through solid data-driven decisions. First, let's hit on change. I mean, it's evident today more than ever, that we are in an environment of extreme change. I mean, we've all been at this for years and as technologists we've known it, believed it, lived it. And thankfully, for the most part, knock on wood, we were prepared for it. But this year everyone's cheese was moved. All the people in the back rooms, IT, data architects and others were suddenly called to the forefront because a global pandemic has turned out to be the thing that is driving intense change in how people work and analyze their business. On March 13th, we closed our office at the NFL in the middle of preparing for one of our biggest events, our kickoff event, The 2020 Draft. We went from planning a large event in Las Vegas under the bright lights, red carpet stage, to smaller events in club facilities. And then ultimately, to one where everyone coaches, GMs, prospects and even our commissioner were at home in their basements and we only had a few weeks to figure it out. I found myself for the first time, being in the live broadcast event space. Talking about bungee jumping, this is really what it felt like. It was one in which no one felt comfortable because it had not been done before. But leading through this, I stepped up, but it was very scary, it was certainly very risky, but it ended up being also rewarding when we did it. And as a result of this, some things will change forever. Second, managing performance. I mean, data should inform how you're doing and how to get your company to perform at its level, highest level. As an example, the NFL has always measured performance, obviously, and it is one of the purest examples of how performance directly impacts outcome. I mean, you can see performance on the field, you can see points being scored and stats, and you immediately know that impact. Those with the best stats usually win the games. The NFL has always recorded stats. Since the beginning of time here at the NFL a little... This year is our 101st year and athlete's ultimate success as a player has also always been greatly impacted by his stats. But what has changed for us is both how much more we can measure and the immediacy with which it can be measured and I'm sure in your business it's the same. The amount of data you must have has got to have quadrupled recently. And how fast do you need it and how quickly you need to analyze it is so important. And it's very important to break the silos between the keys to the data and the use of the data. Our next generation stats platform is taking data to the next level. It's powered by Amazon Web Services and we gather this data, real-time from sensors that are on players' bodies. We gather it in real time, analyze it, display it online and on broadcast. And of course, it's used to prepare week to week in addition to what is a normal coaching plan would be. We can now analyze, visualize, route patterns, speed, match-ups, et cetera, so much faster than ever before. We're continuing to roll out sensors too, that will gather more and more information about a player's performance as it relates to their health and safety. The third trend is really, I think it's a big part of what we're feeling today and that is intense collaboration. And just for sort of historical purposes, it's important to think about, for those of you that are IT professionals and developers, you know, more than 10 years ago agile practices began sweeping companies. Where small teams would work together rapidly in a very flexible, adaptive and innovative way and it proved to be transformational. However today, of course that is no longer just small teams, the next big wave of change and we've seen it through this pandemic, is that it's the whole enterprise that must collaborate and be agile. If I look back on my career, when I was at Disney, we owned everything 100%. We made a decision, we implemented it. We were a collaborative culture but it was much easier to push change because you own the whole decision. If there was buy-in from the top down, you got the people from the bottom up to do it and you executed. At Universal, we were a joint venture. Our attractions and entertainment was licensed. Our hotels were owned and managed by other third parties, so influence and collaboration, and how to share across companies became very important. And now here I am at the NFL an even the bigger ecosystem. We have 32 clubs that are all separate businesses, 31 different stadiums that are owned by a variety of people. We have licensees, we have sponsors, we have broadcast partners. So it seems that as my career has evolved, centralized control has gotten less and less and has been replaced by intense collaboration, not only within your own company but across companies. The ability to work in a collaborative way across businesses and even other companies, that has been a big key to my success in my career. I believe this whole vertical integration and big top-down decision-making is going by the wayside in favor of ecosystems that require cooperation, yet competition to co-exist. I mean, the NFL is a great example of what we call co-oppetition, which is cooperation and competition. We're in competition with each other, but we cooperate to make the company the best it can be. And at the heart of these items really are data-driven decisions and culture. Data on its own isn't good enough. You must be able to turn it to insights. Partnerships between technology teams who usually hold the keys to the raw data and business units, who have the knowledge to build the right decision models is key. If you're not already involved in this linkage, you should be, data mining isn't new for sure. The availability of data is quadrupling and it's everywhere. How do you know what to even look at? How do you know where to begin? How do you know what questions to ask? It's by using the tools that are available for visualization and analytics and knitting together strategies of the company. So it begins with, first of all, making sure you do understand the strategy of the company. So in closing, just to wrap up a bit, many of you joined today, looking for thought leadership on how to be a change agent, a change champion, and how to lead through transformation. Some final thoughts are be brave and drive. Don't do the ride along program, it's very important to drive. Driving can be high risk, but it's also high reward. Embracing the uncertainty of what will happen is how you become brave. Get more and more comfortable with uncertainty, be calm and let data be your map on your journey. Thanks. >> Michelle, thank you so much. So you and I share a love of data and a love of football. You said you want to be the quarterback. I'm more an a line person. >> Well, then I can't do my job without you. >> Great and I'm getting the feeling now, you know, Sudheesh is talking about bungee jumping. My vote is when we're past this pandemic, we both take him to the Delaware Water Gap and we do the cliff jumping. >> Oh that sounds good, I'll watch your watch. >> Yeah, you'll watch, okay. So Michelle, you have so many stakeholders, when you're trying to prioritize the different voices you have the players, you have the owners, you have the league, as you mentioned, the broadcasters, your partners here and football mamas like myself. How do you prioritize when there are so many different stakeholders that you need to satisfy? >> I think balancing across stakeholders starts with aligning on a mission and if you spend a lot of time understanding where everyone's coming from, and you can find the common thread that ties them all together. You sort of do get them to naturally prioritize their work and I think that's very important. So for us at the NFL and even at Disney, it was our core values and our core purpose is so well known and when anything challenges that, we're able to sort of lay that out. But as a change agent, you have to be very empathetic, and I would say empathy is probably your strongest skill if you're a change agent and that means listening to every single stakeholder. Even when they're yelling at you, even when they're telling you your technology doesn't work and you know that it's user error, or even when someone is just emotional about what's happening to them and that they're not comfortable with it. So I think being empathetic, and having a mission, and understanding it is sort of how I prioritize and balance. >> Yeah, empathy, a very popular word this year. I can imagine those coaches and owners yelling, so thank you for your leadership here. So Michelle, I look forward to discussing this more with our other customers and disruptors joining us in a little bit. >> (gentle music) So we're going to take a hard pivot now and go from football to Chernobyl. Chernobyl, what went wrong? 1986, as the reactors were melting down, they had the data to say, "This is going to be catastrophic," and yet the culture said, "No, we're perfect, hide it. Don't dare tell anyone." Which meant they went ahead and had celebrations in Kiev. Even though that increased the exposure, additional thousands getting cancer and 20,000 years before the ground around there can even be inhabited again. This is how powerful and detrimental a negative culture, a culture that is unable to confront the brutal facts that hides data. This is what we have to contend with and this is why I want you to focus on having, fostering a data-driven culture. I don't want you to be a laggard. I want you to be a leader in using data to drive your digital transformation. So I'll talk about culture and technology, is it really two sides of the same coin? Real-world impacts and then some best practices you can use to disrupt and innovate your culture. Now, oftentimes I would talk about culture and I talk about technology. And recently a CDO said to me, "You know, Cindi, I actually think this is two sides of the same coin, one reflects the other." What do you think? Let me walk you through this. So let's take a laggard. What does the technology look like? Is it based on 1990s BI and reporting, largely parametrized reports, on-premises data warehouses, or not even that operational reports. At best one enterprise data warehouse, very slow moving and collaboration is only email. What does that culture tell you? Maybe there's a lack of leadership to change, to do the hard work that Sudheesh referred to, or is there also a culture of fear, afraid of failure, resistance to change, complacency. And sometimes that complacency, it's not because people are lazy. It's because they've been so beaten down every time a new idea is presented. It's like, "No, we're measured on least to serve." So politics and distrust, whether it's between business and IT or individual stakeholders is the norm, so data is hoarded. Let's contrast that with the leader, a data and analytics leader, what does their technology look like? Augmented analytics, search and AI driven insights, not on-premises but in the cloud and maybe multiple clouds. And the data is not in one place but it's in a data lake and in a data warehouse, a logical data warehouse. The collaboration is via newer methods, whether it's Slack or Teams, allowing for that real-time decisioning or investigating a particular data point. So what is the culture in the leaders? It's transparent and trust. There is a trust that data will not be used to punish, that there is an ability to confront the bad news. It's innovation, valuing innovation in pursuit of the company goals. Whether it's the best fan experience and player safety in the NFL or best serving your customers, it's innovative and collaborative. There's none of this, "Oh, well, I didn't invent that. I'm not going to look at that." There's still pride of ownership, but it's collaborating to get to a better place faster. And people feel empowered to present new ideas, to fail fast and they're energized knowing that they're using the best technology and innovating at the pace that business requires. So data is democratized and democratized, not just for power users or analysts, but really at the point of impact, what we like to call the new decision-makers or really the frontline workers. So Harvard Business Review partnered with us to develop this study to say, "Just how important is this? We've been working at BI and analytics as an industry for more than 20 years, why is it not at the front lines? Whether it's a doctor, a nurse, a coach, a supply chain manager, a warehouse manager, a financial services advisor." 87% said they would be more successful if frontline workers were empowered with data-driven insights, but they recognize they need new technology to be able to do that. It's not about learning hard tools. The sad reality only 20% of organizations are actually doing this. These are the data-driven leaders. So this is the culture and technology, how did we get here? It's because state-of-the-art keeps changing. So the first generation BI and analytics platforms were deployed on-premises, on small datasets, really just taking data out of ERP systems that were also on-premises and state-of-the-art was maybe getting a management report, an operational report. Over time, visual based data discovery vendors disrupted these traditional BI vendors, empowering now analysts to create visualizations with the flexibility on a desktop, sometimes larger data, sometimes coming from a data warehouse. The current state-of-the-art though, Gartner calls it augmented analytics. At ThoughtSpot, we call it search and AI driven analytics, and this was pioneered for large scale data sets, whether it's on-premises or leveraging the cloud data warehouses. And I think this is an important point, oftentimes you, the data and analytics leaders, will look at these two components separately. But you have to look at the BI and analytics tier in lock-step with your data architectures to really get to the granular insights and to leverage the capabilities of AI. Now, if you've never seen ThoughtSpot, I'll just show you what this looks like. Instead of somebody hard coding a report, it's typing in search keywords and very robust keywords contains rank, top, bottom, getting to a visual visualization that then can be pinned to an existing pin board that might also contain insights generated by an AI engine. So it's easy enough for that new decision maker, the business user, the non-analyst to create themselves. Modernizing the data and analytics portfolio is hard because the pace of change has accelerated. You used to be able to create an investment, place a bet for maybe 10 years. A few years ago, that time horizon was five years. Now, it's maybe three years and the time to maturity has also accelerated. So you have these different components, the search and AI tier, the data science tier, data preparation and virtualization but I would also say, equally important is the cloud data warehouse. And pay attention to how well these analytics tools can unlock the value in these cloud data warehouses. So ThoughtSpot was the first to market with search and AI driven insights. Competitors have followed suit, but be careful, if you look at products like Power BI or SAP analytics cloud, they might demo well, but do they let you get to all the data without moving it in products like Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, or Azure Synapse, or Google BigQuery, they do not. They require you to move it into a smaller in-memory engine. So it's important how well these new products inter-operate. The pace of change, its acceleration, Gartner recently predicted that by 2022, 65% of analytical queries will be generated using search or NLP or even AI and that is roughly three times the prediction they had just a couple of years ago. So let's talk about the real world impact of culture and if you've read any of my books or used any of the maturity models out there, whether the Gartner IT Score that I worked on or the Data Warehousing Institute also has a maturity model. We talk about these five pillars to really become data-driven. As Michelle spoke about, it's focusing on the business outcomes, leveraging all the data, including new data sources, it's the talent, the people, the technology and also the processes. And often when I would talk about the people in the talent, I would lump the culture as part of that. But in the last year, as I've traveled the world and done these digital events for thought leaders. You have told me now culture is absolutely so important, and so we've pulled it out as a separate pillar. And in fact, in polls that we've done in these events, look at how much more important culture is as a barrier to becoming data-driven. It's three times as important as any of these other pillars. That's how critical it is. And let's take an example of where you can have great data, but if you don't have the right culture, there's devastating impacts. And I will say I have been a loyal customer of Wells Fargo for more than 20 years, but look at what happened in the face of negative news with data. It said, "Hey, we're not doing good cross-selling, customers do not have both a checking account and a credit card and a savings account and a mortgage." They opened fake accounts facing billions in fines, change in leadership that even the CEO attributed to a toxic sales culture and they're trying to fix this, but even recently there's been additional employee backlash saying the culture has not changed. Let's contrast that with some positive examples. Medtronic, a worldwide company in 150 countries around the world. They may not be a household name to you, but if you have a loved one or yourself, you have a pacemaker, spinal implant, diabetes, you know this brand. And at the start of COVID when they knew their business would be slowing down, because hospitals would only be able to take care of COVID patients. They took the bold move of making their IP for ventilators publicly available. That is the power of a positive culture. Or Verizon, a major telecom organization looking at late payments of their customers and even though the U.S. Federal Government said, "Well, you can't turn them off." They said, "We'll extend that even beyond the mandated guidelines," and facing a slow down in the business because of the tough economy, They said, "You know what? We will spend the time upskilling our people, giving them the time to learn more about the future of work, the skills and data and analytics for 20,000 of their employees rather than furloughing them. That is the power of a positive culture. So how can you transform your culture to the best in class? I'll give you three suggestions. Bring in a change agent, identify the relevance or I like to call it WIIFM and organize for collaboration. So the CDO, whatever your title is, Chief Analytics Officer, Chief Digital Officer, you are the most important change agent. And this is where you will hear that oftentimes a change agent has to come from outside the organization. So this is where, for example, in Europe you have the CDO of Just Eat, a takeout food delivery organization coming from the airline industry or in Australia, National Australian Bank taking a CDO within the same sector from TD Bank going to NAB. So these change agents come in, disrupt. It's a hard job. As one of you said to me, it often feels like. I make one step forward and I get knocked down again, I get pushed back. It is not for the faint of heart, but it's the most important part of your job. The other thing I'll talk about is WIIFM What's In It For Me? And this is really about understanding the motivation, the relevance that data has for everyone on the frontline, as well as those analysts, as well as the executives. So, if we're talking about players in the NFL, they want to perform better and they want to stay safe. That is why data matters to them. If we're talking about financial services, this may be a wealth management advisor. Okay, we could say commissions, but it's really helping people have their dreams come true, whether it's putting their children through college or being able to retire without having to work multiple jobs still into your 70s or 80s. For the teachers, teachers you ask them about data. They'll say, "We don't need that, I care about the student." So if you can use data to help a student perform better, that is WIIFM and sometimes we spend so much time talking the technology, we forget, what is the value we're trying to deliver with this? And we forget the impact on the people that it does require change. In fact, the Harvard Business Review study found that 44% said lack of change management is the biggest barrier to leveraging both new technology, but also being empowered to act on those data-driven insights. The third point, organize for collaboration. This does require diversity of thought, but also bringing the technology, the data and the business people together. Now there's not a single one size fits all model for data and analytics. At one point in time, even having a BICC, a BI competency center was considered state of the art. Now for the biggest impact, what I recommend is that you have a federated model centralized for economies of scale. That could be the common data, but then embed these evangelists, these analysts of the future within every business unit, every functional domain. And as you see this top bar, all models are possible, but the hybrid model has the most impact, the most leaders. So as we look ahead to the months ahead, to the year ahead, an exciting time because data is helping organizations better navigate a tough economy, lock in the customer loyalty and I look forward to seeing how you foster that culture that's collaborative with empathy and bring the best of technology, leveraging the cloud, all your data. So thank you for joining us at Thought Leaders. And next, I'm pleased to introduce our first change agent, Tom Mazzaferro Chief Data Officer of Western Union and before joining Western Union, Tom made his Mark at HSBC and JP Morgan Chase spearheading digital innovation in technology, operations, risk compliance and retail banking. Tom, thank you so much for joining us today. (gentle music) >> Very happy to be here and looking forward to talking to all of you today. So as we look to move organizations to a data-driven capability into the future, there is a lot that needs to be done on the data side, but also how does data connect and enable different business teams and the technology teams into the future? As we look across our data ecosystems and our platforms, and how we modernize that to the cloud in the future, it all needs to basically work together, right? To really be able to drive an organization from a data standpoint, into the future. That includes being able to have the right information with the right quality of data, at the right time to drive informed business decisions, to drive the business forward. As part of that, we actually have partnered with ThoughtSpot to actually bring in the technology to help us drive that. As part of that partnership and it's how we've looked to integrate it into our overall business as a whole. We've looked at, how do we make sure that our business and our professional lives, right? Are enabled in the same ways as our personal lives. So for example, in your personal lives, when you want to go and find something out, what do you do? You go onto google.com or you go onto Bing or you go onto Yahoo and you search for what you want, search to find an answer. ThoughtSpot for us is the same thing, but in the business world. So using ThoughtSpot and other AI capability is it's allowed us to actually enable our overall business teams in our company to actually have our information at our fingertips. So rather than having to go and talk to someone, or an engineer to go pull information or pull data. We actually can have the end users or the business executives, right. Search for what they need, what they want, at the exact time that they actually need it, to go and drive the business forward. This is truly one of those transformational things that we've put in place. On top of that, we are on a journey to modernize our larger ecosystem as a whole. That includes modernizing our underlying data warehouses, our technology, our... The local environments and as we move that, we've actually picked two of our cloud providers going to AWS and to GCP. We've also adopted Snowflake to really drive and to organize our information and our data, then drive these new solutions and capabilities forward. So a big portion of it though is culture. So how do we engage with the business teams and bring the IT teams together, to really help to drive these holistic end-to-end solutions and capabilities, to really support the actual business into the future. That's one of the keys here, as we look to modernize and to really enhance our organizations to become data-driven. This is the key. If you can really start to provide answers to business questions before they're even being asked and to predict based upon different economic trends or different trends in your business, what decisions need to be made and actually provide those answers to the business teams before they're even asking for it. That is really becoming a data-driven organization and as part of that, it really then enables the business to act quickly and take advantage of opportunities as they come in based upon industries, based upon markets, based upon products, solutions or partnerships into the future. These are really some of the keys that become crucial as you move forward, right, into this new age, Especially with COVID. With COVID now taking place across the world, right? Many of these markets, many of these digital transformations are celebrating and are changing rapidly to accommodate and to support customers in these very difficult times. As part of that, you need to make sure you have the right underlying foundation, ecosystems and solutions to really drive those capabilities and those solutions forward. As we go through this journey, both in my career but also each of your careers into the future, right? It also needs to evolve, right? Technology has changed so drastically in the last 10 years, and that change is only accelerating. So as part of that, you have to make sure that you stay up to speed, up to date with new technology changes, both on the platform standpoint, tools, but also what do our customers want, what do our customers need and how do we then service them with our information, with our data, with our platform, and with our products and our services to meet those needs and to really support and service those customers into the future. This is all around becoming a more data-driven organization, such as how do you use your data to support your current business lines, but how do you actually use your information and your data to actually better support your customers, better support your business, better support your employees, your operations teams and so forth. And really creating that full integration in that ecosystem is really when you start to get large dividends from these investments into the future. With that being said, I hope you enjoyed the segment on how to become and how to drive a data-driven organization, and looking forward to talking to you again soon. Thank you. >> Tom, that was great. Thanks so much and now going to have to drag on you for a second. As a change agent you've come in, disrupted and how long have you been at Western Union? >> Only nine months, so just started this year, but there have been some great opportunities to integrate changes and we have a lot more to go, but we're really driving things forward in partnership with our business teams and our colleagues to support those customers going forward. >> Tom, thank you so much. That was wonderful. And now, I'm excited to introduce you to Gustavo Canton, a change agent that I've had the pleasure of working with meeting in Europe and he is a serial change agent. Most recently with Schneider Electric but even going back to Sam's Clubs. Gustavo, welcome. (gentle music) >> So, hey everyone, my name is Gustavo Canton and thank you so much, Cindi, for the intro. As you mentioned, doing transformations is, you know, a high reward situation. I have been part of many transformations and I have led many transformations. And, what I can tell you is that it's really hard to predict the future, but if you have a North Star and you know where you're going, the one thing that I want you to take away from this discussion today is that you need to be bold to evolve. And so, in today, I'm going to be talking about culture and data, and I'm going to break this down in four areas. How do we get started, barriers or opportunities as I see it, the value of AI and also, how you communicate. Especially now in the workforce of today with so many different generations, you need to make sure that you are communicating in ways that are non-traditional sometimes. And so, how do we get started? So, I think the answer to that is you have to start for you yourself as a leader and stay tuned. And by that, I mean, you need to understand, not only what is happening in your function or your field, but you have to be very in tune what is happening in society socioeconomically speaking, wellbeing. You know, the common example is a great example and for me personally, it's an opportunity because the number one core value that I have is wellbeing. I believe that for human potential for customers and communities to grow, wellbeing should be at the center of every decision. And as somebody mentioned, it's great to be, you know, stay in tune and have the skillset and the courage. But for me personally, to be honest, to have this courage is not about not being afraid. You're always afraid when you're making big changes and you're swimming upstream, but what gives me the courage is the empathy part. Like I think empathy is a huge component because every time I go into an organization or a function, I try to listen very attentively to the needs of the business and what the leaders are trying to do. But I do it thinking about the mission of, how do I make change for the bigger workforce or the bigger good despite the fact that this might have perhaps implication for my own self interest in my career. Right? Because you have to have that courage sometimes to make choices that are not well seen, politically speaking, but are the right thing to do and you have to push through it. So the bottom line for me is that, I don't think we're they're transforming fast enough. And the reality is, I speak with a lot of leaders and we have seen stories in the past and what they show is that, if you look at the four main barriers that are basically keeping us behind budget, inability to act, cultural issues, politics and lack of alignment, those are the top four. But the interesting thing is that as Cindi has mentioned, these topic about culture is actually gaining more and more traction. And in 2018, there was a story from HBR and it was about 45%. I believe today, it's about 55%, 60% of respondents say that this is the main area that we need to focus on. So again, for all those leaders and all the executives who understand and are aware that we need to transform, commit to the transformation and set a deadline to say, "Hey, in two years we're going to make this happen. What do we need to do, to empower and enable these change agents to make it happen? You need to make the tough choices. And so to me, when I speak about being bold is about making the right choices now. So, I'll give you examples of some of the roadblocks that I went through as I've been doing transformations, most recently, as Cindi mentioned in Schneider. There are three main areas, legacy mindset and what that means is that, we've been doing this in a specific way for a long time and here is how we have been successful. What worked in the past is not going to work now. The opportunity there is that there is a lot of leaders, who have a digital mindset and they're up and coming leaders that are perhaps not yet fully developed. We need to mentor those leaders and take bets on some of these talents, including young talent. We cannot be thinking in the past and just wait for people, you know, three to five years for them to develop because the world is going in a way that is super-fast. The second area and this is specifically to implementation of AI. It's very interesting to me because just the example that I have with ThoughtSpot, right? We went on implementation and a lot of the way the IT team functions or the leaders look at technology, they look at it from the prism of the prior or success criteria for the traditional BIs, and that's not going to work. Again, the opportunity here is that you need to redefine what success look like. In my case, I want the user experience of our workforce to be the same user experience you have at home. It's a very simple concept and so we need to think about, how do we gain that user experience with these augmented analytics tools and then work backwards to have the right talent, processes, and technology to enable that. And finally and obviously with COVID, a lot of pressure in organizations and companies to do more with less. And the solution that most leaders I see are taking is to just minimize costs sometimes and cut budget. We have to do the opposite. We have to actually invest on growth areas, but do it by business question. Don't do it by function. If you actually invest in these kind of solutions, if you actually invest on developing your talent and your leadership to see more digitally, if you actually invest on fixing your data platform, it's not just an incremental cost. It's actually this investment is going to offset all those hidden costs and inefficiencies that you have on your system, because people are doing a lot of work and working very hard but it's not efficient and it's not working in the way that you might want to work. So there is a lot of opportunity there and just to put in terms of perspective, there have been some studies in the past about, you know, how do we kind of measure the impact of data? And obviously, this is going to vary by organization maturity, there's going to be a lot of factors. I've been in companies who have very clean, good data to work with and I've been with companies that we have to start basically from scratch. So it all depends on your maturity level. But in this study, what I think is interesting is they try to put a tagline or a tag price to what is the cost of incomplete data. So in this case, it's about 10 times as much to complete a unit of work when you have data that is flawed as opposed to having perfect data. So let me put that just in perspective, just as an example, right? Imagine you are trying to do something and you have to do 100 things in a project, and each time you do something, it's going to cost you a dollar. So if you have perfect data, the total cost of that project might be $100. But now let's say you have 80% perfect data and 20% flawed data. By using this assumption that flawed data is 10 times as costly as perfect data, your total costs now becomes $280 as opposed to $100. This just for you to really think about as a CIO, CTO, you know CHRO, CEO, "Are we really paying attention and really closing the gaps that we have on our data infrastructure?" If we don't do that, it's hard sometimes to see the snowball effect or to measure the overall impact, but as you can tell, the price tag goes up very, very quickly. So now, if I were to say, how do I communicate this or how do I break through some of these challenges or some of these barriers, right? I think the key is, I am in analytics, I know statistics obviously and love modeling, and, you know, data and optimization theory, and all that stuff. That's what I came to analytics, but now as a leader and as a change agent, I need to speak about value and in this case, for example, for Schneider. There was this tagline, make the most of your energy. So the number one thing that they were asking from the analytics team was actually efficiency, which to me was very interesting. But once I understood that, I understood what kind of language to use, how to connect it to the overall strategy and basically, how to bring in the right leaders because you need to, you know, focus on the leaders that you're going to make the most progress, you know. Again, low effort, high value. You need to make sure you centralize all the data as you can, you need to bring in some kind of augmented analytics, you know, solution. And finally, you need to make it super-simple for the, you know, in this case, I was working with the HR teams and other areas, so they can have access to one portal. They don't have to be confused and looking for 10 different places to find information. I think if you can actually have those four foundational pillars, obviously under the guise of having a data-driven culture, that's when you can actually make the impact. So in our case, it was about three years total transformation, but it was two years for this component of augmented analytics. It took about two years to talk to, you know, IT, get leadership support, find the budgeting, you know, get everybody on board, make sure the success criteria was correct. And we call this initiative, the people analytics portal. It was actually launched in July of this year and we were very excited and the audience was very excited to do this. In this case, we did our pilot in North America for many, many, many factors but one thing that is really important is as you bring along your audience on this, you know. You're going from Excel, you know, in some cases or Tableu to other tools like, you know, ThoughtSpot. You need to really explain them what is the difference and how this tool can truly replace some of the spreadsheets or some of the views that you might have on these other kinds of tools. Again, Tableau, I think it's a really good tool. There are other many tools that you might have in your toolkit but in my case, personally, I feel that you need to have one portal. Going back to Cindi's points, that really truly enable the end user. And I feel that this is the right solution for us, right? And I will show you some of the findings that we had in the pilot in the last two months. So this was a huge victory and I will tell you why, because it took a lot of effort for us to get to this stage and like I said, it's been years for us to kind of lay the foundation, get the leadership, initiating culture so people can understand, why you truly need to invest on augmented analytics. And so, what I'm showing here is an example of how do we use basically, you know, a tool to capturing video, the qualitative findings that we had, plus the quantitative insights that we have. So in this case, our preliminary results based on our ambition for three main metrics. Hours saved, user experience and adoption. So for hours saved, our ambition was to have 10 hours per week for employee to save on average. User experience, our ambition was 4.5 and adoption 80%. In just two months, two months and a half of the pilot, we were able to achieve five hours per week per employee savings, a user experience for 4.3 out of five and adoption of 60%. Really, really amazing work. But again, it takes a lot of collaboration for us to get to the stage from IT, legal, communications, obviously the operations things and the users. In HR safety and other areas that might be basically stakeholders in this whole process. So just to summarize, this kind of effort takes a lot of energy. You are a change agent, you need to have courage to make this decision and understand that, I feel that in this day and age with all this disruption happening, we don't have a choice. We have to take the risk, right? And in this case, I feel a lot of satisfaction in how we were able to gain all these great resource for this organization and that give me the confident to know that the work has been done and we are now in a different stage for the organization. And so for me, it's just to say, thank you for everybody who has belief, obviously in our vision, everybody who has belief in, you know, the work that we were trying to do and to make the life of our, you know, workforce or customers and community better. As you can tell, there is a lot of effort, there is a lot of collaboration that is needed to do something like this. In the end, I feel very satisfied with the accomplishments of this transformation and I just want to tell for you, if you are going right now in a moment that you feel that you have to swim upstream, you know, work with mentors, work with people in the industry that can help you out and guide you on this kind of transformation. It's not easy to do, it's high effort, but it's well worth it. And with that said, I hope you are well and it's been a pleasure talking to you. Talk to you soon. Take care. >> Thank you, Gustavo. That was amazing. All right, let's go to the panel. (light music) Now I think we can all agree how valuable it is to hear from practitioners and I want to thank the panel for sharing their knowledge with the community. Now one common challenge that I heard you all talk about was bringing your leadership and your teams along on the journey with you. We talk about this all the time and it is critical to have support from the top. Why? Because it directs the middle and then it enables bottoms up innovation effects from the cultural transformation that you guys all talked about. It seems like another common theme we heard is that you all prioritize database decision making in your organizations. And you combine two of your most valuable assets to do that and create leverage, employees on the front lines, and of course the data. Now as as you rightly pointed out, Tom, the pandemic has accelerated the need for really leaning into this. You know, the old saying, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, well COVID has broken everything and it's great to hear from our experts, you know, how to move forward, so let's get right into it. So Gustavo, let's start with you. If I'm an aspiring change agent and let's say I'm a budding data leader, what do I need to start doing? What habits do I need to create for long-lasting success? >> I think curiosity is very important. You need to be, like I said, in tune to what is happening, not only in your specific field, like I have a passion for analytics, I've been doing it for 50 years plus, but I think you need to understand wellbeing of the areas across not only a specific business. As you know, I come from, you know, Sam's Club, Walmart retail. I've been in energy management, technology. So you have to try to push yourself and basically go out of your comfort zone. I mean, if you are staying in your comfort zone and you want to just continuous improvement, that's just going to take you so far. What you have to do is, and that's what I try to do, is I try to go into areas, businesses and transformations, that make me, you know, stretch and develop as a leader. That's what I'm looking to do, so I can help transform the functions, organizations, and do the change management, the essential mindset that's required for this kind of effort. >> Well, thank you for that. That is inspiring and Cindi you love data and the data is pretty clear that diversity is a good business, but I wonder if you can, you know, add your perspectives to this conversation? >> Yeah, so Michelle has a new fan here because she has found her voice. I'm still working on finding mine and it's interesting because I was raised by my dad, a single dad, so he did teach me how to work in a predominantly male environment, but why I think diversity matters more now than ever before and this is by gender, by race, by age, by just different ways of working and thinking, is because as we automate things with AI, if we do not have diverse teams looking at the data, and the models, and how they're applied, we risk having bias at scale. So this is why I think I don't care what type of minority you are, finding your voice, having a seat at the table and just believing in the impact of your work has never been more important and as Michelle said, more possible. >> Great perspectives, thank you. Tom, I want to go to you. So, I mean, I feel like everybody in our businesses is in some way, shape, or form become a COVID expert, but what's been the impact of the pandemic on your organization's digital transformation plans? >> We've seen a massive growth, actually, in our digital business over the last 12 months really, even acceleration, right, once COVID hit. We really saw that in the 200 countries and territories that we operate in today and service our customers in today, that there's been a huge need, right, to send money to support family, to support friends, and to support loved ones across the world. And as part of that we are very honored to be able to support those customers that, across all the centers today, but as part of the acceleration, we need to make sure that we have the right architecture and the right platforms to basically scale, right? To basically support and provide the right kind of security for our customers going forward. So as part of that, we did do some pivots and we did accelerate some of our plans on digital to help support that overall growth coming in and to support our customers going forward, because during these times, during this pandemic, right, this is the most important time and we need to support those that we love and those that we care about. And doing that some of those ways is actually by sending money to them, support them financially. And that's where really our products and our services come into play that, you know, and really support those families. So, it was really a great opportunity for us to really support and really bring some of our products to the next level and supporting our business going forward. >> Awesome, thank you. Now, I want to come back to Gustavo. Tom, I'd love for you to chime in too. Did you guys ever think like you were pushing the envelope too much in doing things with data or the technology that it was just maybe too bold, maybe you felt like at some point it was failing, or you're pushing your people too hard? Can you share that experience and how you got through it? >> Yeah, the way I look at it is, you know, again, whenever I go to an organization, I ask the question, "Hey, how fast you would like to conform?" And, you know, based on the agreements on the leadership and the vision that we want to take place, I take decisions and I collaborate in a specific way. Now, in the case of COVID, for example, right, it forces us to remove silos and collaborate in a faster way. So to me, it was an opportunity to actually integrate with other areas and drive decisions faster, but make no mistake about it, when you are doing a transformation, you are obviously trying to do things faster than sometimes people are comfortable doing, and you need to be okay with that. Sometimes you need to be okay with tension or you need to be okay, you know, debating points or making repetitive business cases until people connect with the decision because you understand and you are seeing that, "Hey, the CEO is making a one, two year, you know, efficiency goal. The only way for us to really do more with less is for us to continue this path. We can not just stay with the status quo, we need to find a way to accelerate the transformation." That's the way I see it. >> How about Utah, we were talking earlier with Sudheesh and Cindi about that bungee jumping moment. What can you share? >> Yeah, you know, I think you hit upon it. Right now, the pace of change will be the slowest pace that you see for the rest of your career. So as part of that, right, this is what I tell my team, is that you need to be, you need to feel comfortable being uncomfortable. Meaning that we have to be able to basically scale, right? Expand and support the ever changing needs in the marketplace and industry and our customers today, and that pace of change that's happening, right? And what customers are asking for and the competition in the marketplace, it's only going to accelerate. So as part of that, you know, as you look at how you're operating today in your current business model, right? Things are only going to get faster. So you have to plan and to align and to drive the actual transformation, so that you can scale even faster into the future. So it's part of that, that's what we're putting in place here, right? It's how do we create that underlying framework and foundation that allows the organization to basically continue to scale and evolve into the future? >> Yeah, we're definitely out of our comfort zones, but we're getting comfortable with it. So Cindi, last question, you've worked with hundreds of organizations and I got to believe that, you know, some of the advice you gave when you were at Gartner, which was pre-COVID, maybe sometimes clients didn't always act on it. You know, not my watch or for whatever, variety of reasons, but it's being forced on them now. But knowing what you know now that, you know, we're all in this isolation economy, how would you say that advice has changed? Has it changed? What's your number one action and recommendation today? >> Yeah, well first off, Tom, just freaked me out. What do you mean, this is the slowest ever? Even six months ago I was saying the pace of change in data and analytics is frenetic. So, but I think you're right, Tom, the business and the technology together is forcing this change. Now, Dave, to answer your question, I would say the one bit of advice, maybe I was a little more very aware of the power in politics and how to bring people along in a way that they are comfortable and now I think it's, you know what, you can't get comfortable. In fact, we know that the organizations that were already in the cloud have been able to respond and pivot faster. So, if you really want to survive, as Tom and Gustavo said, get used to being uncomfortable. The power and politics are going to happen, break the rules, get used to that and be bold. Do not be afraid to tell somebody they're wrong and they're not moving fast enough. I do think you have to do that with empathy, as Michelle said and Gustavo, I think that's one of the key words today besides the bungee jumping. So I want to know where Sudheesh is going to go bungee jumping. (all chuckling) >> Guys, fantastic discussion, really. Thanks again to all the panelists and the guests, it was really a pleasure speaking with you today. Really, virtually all of the leaders that I've spoken to in theCUBE program recently, they tell me that the pandemic is accelerating so many things. Whether it's new ways to work, we heard about new security models and obviously the need for cloud. I mean, all of these things are driving true enterprise-wide digital transformation, not just as I said before, lip service. You know, sometimes we minimize the importance and the challenge of building culture and in making this transformation possible. But when it's done right, the right culture is going to deliver tournament results. You know, what does that mean? Getting it right. Everybody's trying to get it right. My biggest takeaway today is it means making data part of the DNA of your organization. And that means making it accessible to the people in your organization that are empowered to make decisions, decisions that can drive new revenue, cut costs, speed access to critical care, whatever the mission is of your organization, data can create insights and informed decisions that drive value. Okay, let's bring back Sudheesh and wrap things up. Sudheesh, please bring us home. >> Thank you, thank you, Dave. Thank you, theCUBE team, and thanks goes to all of our customers and partners who joined us, and thanks to all of you for spending the time with us. I want to do three quick things and then close it off. The first thing is I want to summarize the key takeaways that I heard from all four of our distinguished speakers. First, Michelle, I will simply put it, she said it really well. That is be brave and drive, don't go for a drive alone. That is such an important point. Often times, you know the right thing that you have to do to make the positive change that you want to see happen, but you wait for someone else to do it, not just, why not you? Why don't you be the one making that change happen? That's the thing that I picked up from Michelle's talk. Cindi talked about finding, the importance of finding your voice. Taking that chair, whether it's available or not, and making sure that your ideas, your voice is heard and if it requires some force, then apply that force. Make sure your ideas are heard. Gustavo talked about the importance of building consensus, not going at things all alone sometimes. The importance of building the quorum, and that is critical because if you want the changes to last, you want to make sure that the organization is fully behind it. Tom, instead of a single takeaway, what I was inspired by is the fact that a company that is 170 years old, 170 years old, 200 companies and 200 countries they're operating in and they were able to make the change that is necessary through this difficult time in a matter of months. If they could do it, anyone could. The second thing I want to do is to leave you with a takeaway, that is I would like you to go to ThoughtSpot.com/nfl because our team has made an app for NFL on Snowflake. I think you will find this interesting now that you are inspired and excited because of Michelle's talk. And the last thing is, please go to ThoughtSpot.com/beyond. Our global user conference is happening in this December. We would love to have you join us, it's, again, virtual, you can join from anywhere. We are expecting anywhere from five to 10,000 people and we would love to have you join and see what we've been up to since last year. We have a lot of amazing things in store for you, our customers, our partners, our collaborators, they will be coming and sharing. We'll be sharing things that we have been working to release, something that will come out next year. And also some of the crazy ideas our engineers have been cooking up. All of those things will be available for you at ThoughtSpot Beyond. Thank you, thank you so much.

>> Data is at the heart of transformation and the change every company needs to succeed, but it takes more than new technology. It's about teams, talent and cultural change. Empowering everyone on the front lines to make decisions all at the speed of digital. The transformation starts with you. It's time to lead the way it's time for Thought leaders. >> Welcome to "Thought Leaders" a digital event brought to you by ThoughtSpot. My name is Dave Vellante. The purpose of this day is to bring industry leaders and experts together to really try and understand the important issues around digital transformation. We have an amazing lineup of speakers and our goal is to provide you with some best practices that you can bring back and apply to your organization. Look, data is plentiful, but insights are not. ThoughtSpot is disrupting analytics by using search and machine intelligence to simplify data analysis and really empower anyone with fast access to relevant data. But in the last 150 days, we've had more questions than answers. Creating an organization that puts data and insights at their core requires not only modern technology, but leadership, a mindset and a culture that people often refer to as data-driven. What does that mean? How can we equip our teams with data and fast access to quality information that can turn insights into action. And today we're going to hear from experienced leaders who are transforming their organizations with data, insights and creating digital first cultures. But before we introduce our speakers, I'm joined today by two of my co-hosts from ThoughtSpot first chief data strategy officer at the ThoughtSpot is Cindi Howson. Cindi is an analytics and BI expert with 20 plus years experience and the author of "Successful Business Intelligence "Unlock the Value of BI & Big Data." Cindi was previously the lead analyst at Gartner for the data and analytics magic quadrant. And early last year, she joined ThoughtSpot to help CDOs and their teams understand how best to leverage analytics and AI for digital transformation. Cindi, great to see you welcome to the show. >> Thank you, Dave. Nice to join you virtually. >> Now our second cohost and friend of the cube is ThoughtSpot CEO Sudheesh Nair Hello, Sudheesh how are you doing today? >> I'm well Dave, it's good to talk to you again. >> It's great to see you thanks so much for being here. Now Sudheesh please share with us why this discussion is so important to your customers and of course, to our audience and what they're going to learn today. (upbeat music) >> Thanks, Dave. I wish you were there to introduce me into every room and that I walk into because you have such an amazing way of doing it. Makes me feel all so good. Look, since we have all been cooped up in our homes, I know that the vendors like us, we have amped up our sort of effort to reach out to you with invites for events like this. So we are getting very more invites for events like this than ever before. So when we started planning for this, we had three clear goals that we wanted to accomplish. And our first one that when you finish this and walk away, we want to make sure that you don't feel like it was a waste of time. We want to make sure that we value your time and this is going to be useful. Number two, we want to put you in touch with industry leaders and thought leaders, generally good people that you want to hang around with long after this event is over. And number three, as we plan through this, we are living through these difficult times. We want an event to be this event, to be more of an uplifting and inspiring event too. Now, the challenge is how do you do that with the team being change agents because change and as much as we romanticize it, it is not one of those uplifting things that everyone wants to do, or like to do. The way I think of it sort of like a, if you've ever done bungee jumping and it's like standing on the edges waiting to make that one more step, all you have to do is take that one step and gravity will do the rest, but that is the hardest step to take. Change requires a lot of courage. And when we are talking about data and analytics, which is already like such a hard topic, not necessarily an uplifting and positive conversation in most businesses, it is somewhat scary. Change becomes all the more difficult. Ultimately change requires courage. Courage to first of all challenge the status quo. People sometimes are afraid to challenge the status quo because they are thinking that maybe I don't have the power to make the change that the company needs. Sometimes they feel like I don't have the skills. Sometimes they may feel that I'm probably not the right person do it. Or sometimes the lack of courage manifest itself as the inability to sort of break the silos that are formed within the organizations, when it comes to data and insights that you talked about. There are people in the company who are going to hog the data because they know how to manage the data, how to inquire and extract. They know how to speak data. They have the skills to do that. But they are not the group of people who have sort of the knowledge, the experience of the business to ask the right questions off the data. So there is the silo of people with the answers, and there is a silo of people with the questions. And there is gap. This sort of silos are standing in the way of making that necessary change that we all know the business needs. And the last change to sort of bring an external force sometimes. It could be a tool. It could be a platform, it could be a person, it could be a process, but sometimes no matter how big the company is or how small the company is, you may need to bring some external stimuli to start the domino of the positive changes that are necessary. The group of people that we are brought in, the four people, including Cindi, that you will hear from today are really good at practically telling you how to make that step, how to step off that edge, how to dress the rope, that you will be safe and you're going to have fun. You will have that exhilarating feeling of jumping, for a bungee jump. All four of them are exceptional, but my honor is to introduce Michelle and she's our first speaker. Michelle, I am very happy after watching her presentation and reading our bio, that there are no country vital worldwide competition for cool patterns, because she will beat all of us because when her children were small, they were probably into Harry Potter and Disney. She was managing a business and leading change there. And then as her kids grew up and got to that age where they like football and NFL, guess what? She's the CIO of NFL. What a cool mom? I am extremely excited to see what she's going to talk about. I've seen the slides, tons of amazing pictures. I'm looking to see the context behind it. I'm very thrilled to make the acquaintance of Michelle and looking forward to her talk next. Welcome Michelle, it's over to you. (upbeat music) >> I'm delighted to be with you all today to talk about thought leadership. And I'm so excited that you asked me to join you because today I get to be a quarterback. I always wanted to be one. And I thought this is about as close as I'm ever going to get. So I want to talk to you about quarterbacking, our digital revolution using insights data. And of course, as you said, leadership, first a little bit about myself, a little background, as I said, I always wanted to play football. And this is something that I wanted to do since I was a child. But when I grew up, girls didn't get to play football. I'm so happy that that's changing and girls are now doing all kinds of things that they didn't get to do before. Just this past weekend on an NFL field, we had a female coach on two sidelines and a female official on the field. I'm a lifelong fan and student of the game of football. I grew up in the South. You can tell from the accent. And in the South football is like a religion and you pick sides. I chose Auburn university working in the athletic department. So I'm Testament to you can start the journey can be long. It took me many, many years to make it into professional sports. I graduated in 1987 and my little brother, well, not actually not so little. He played offensive line for the Alabama Crimson Tide. And for those of you who know SCC football, you know this is a really big rivalry. And when you choose sides, your family is divided. So it's kind of fun for me to always tell the story that my dad knew his kid would make it to the NFL. He just bet on the wrong one. My career has been about bringing people together for memorable moments at some of America's most iconic brands, delivering memories and amazing experiences that delight from Universal Studios, Disney to my current position as CIO of the NFL. In this job I'm very privileged to have the opportunity to work with the team that gets to bring America's game to millions of people around the world. Often I'm asked to talk about how to create amazing experiences for fans, guests, or customers. But today I really wanted to focus on something different and talk to you about being behind the scenes and backstage because behind every event, every game, every awesome moment is execution, precise, repeatable execution. And most of my career has been behind the scenes doing just that assembling teams to execute these plans. And the key way that companies operate at these exceptional levels is making good decisions, the right decisions at the right time and based upon data so that you can translate the data into intelligence and be a data-driven culture. Using data and intelligence is an important way that world-class companies do differentiate themselves. And it's the lifeblood of collaboration and innovation. Teams that are working on delivering these kinds of world casts experiences are often seeking out and leveraging next-generation technologies and finding new ways to work. I've been fortunate to work across three decades of emerging experiences, which each required emerging technologies to execute a little bit first about Disney in the 90s, I was at Disney leading a project called destination Disney, which it's a data project. It was a data project, but it was CRM before CRM was even cool. And then certainly before anything like a data-driven culture was ever brought up, but way back then we were creating a digital backbone that enabled many technologies for the things that you see today, like the magic band, Disney's magical express. My career at Disney began in finance, but Disney was very good about rotating you around. And it was during one of these rotations that I became very passionate about data. I kind of became a pain in the butt to the IT team asking for data more and more data. And I learned that all of that valuable data was locked up in our systems. All of our point of sales systems, our reservation systems, our operation systems. And so I became a shadow IT person in marketing, ultimately leading to moving into IT. And I haven't looked back since. In the early two thousands, I was at universal studios theme park as their CIO preparing for and launching "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" bringing one of history's most memorable characters to life required many new technologies and a lot of data. Our data and technologies were embedded into the rides and attractions. I mean, how do you really think a wan selects you at a wan shop. As today at the NFL? I am constantly challenged to do leading edge technologies, using things like sensors, AI, machine learning, and all new communication strategies and using data to drive everything from player performance, contracts, to where we build new stadiums and hold events with this year being the most challenging yet rewarding year in my career at the NFL. In the middle of a global pandemic, the way we are executing on our season is leveraging data from contract tracing devices joined with testing data, talk about data, actually enabling your business without it w wouldn't be having a season right now. I'm also on the board of directors of two public companies where data and collaboration are paramount. First RingCentral, it's a cloud based unified communications platform and collaboration with video message and phone all in one solution in the cloud and Quotient technologies whose product is actually data. The tagline at Quotient is the result in knowing I think that's really important because not all of us are data companies where your product is actually data, but we should operate more like your product is data. I'd also like to talk to you about four areas of things to think about as thought leaders in your companies. First just hit on it is change how to be a champion and a driver of change. Second, how do you use data to drive performance for your company and measure performance of your company? Third, how companies now require intense collaboration to operate. And finally, how much of this is accomplished through solid data driven decisions. First let's hit on change. I mean, it's evident today more than ever, that we are in an environment of extreme change. I mean, we've all been at this for years and as technologists we've known it, believed it, lived it and thankfully for the most part, knock on what we were prepared for it. But this year everyone's cheese was moved. All the people in the back rooms, IT, data architects and others were suddenly called to the forefront because a global pandemic has turned out to be the thing that is driving intense change in how people work and analyze their business. On March 13th, we closed our office at the NFL in the middle of preparing for one of our biggest events, our kickoff event, the 2020 draft. We went from planning a large event in Las Vegas under the bright lights, red carpet stage to smaller events in club facilities. And then ultimately to one where everyone coaches GM's prospects and even our commissioner were at home in their basements. And we only had a few weeks to figure it out. I found myself for the first time being in the live broadcast event space, talking about bungee jumping. This is really what it felt like. It was one in which no one felt comfortable because it had not been done before. But leading through this, I stepped up, but it was very scary. It was certainly very risky, but it ended up being all so rewarding when we did it. And as a result of this, some things will change forever. Second, managing performance. I mean, data should inform how you're doing and how to get your company to perform at it's level. Highest level. As an example, the NFL has always measured performance, obviously, and it is one of the purest examples of how performance directly impacts outcome. I mean, you can see performance on the field. You can see points being scored in stats, and you immediately know that impact those with the best stats usually when the games. The NFL has always recorded stats since the beginning of time here at the NFL a little this year is our 101 year and athletes ultimate success as a player has also always been greatly impacted by his stats. But what has changed for us is both how much more we can measure and the immediacy with which it can be measured. And I'm sure in your business it's the same. The amount of data you must have has got to have quadrupled and how fast you need it and how quickly you need to analyze it is so important. And it's very important to break the silos between the keys, to the data and the use of the data. Our next generation stats platform is taking data to a next level. It's powered by Amazon web services. And we gathered this data real-time from sensors that are on players' bodies. We gather it in real time, analyze it, display it online and on broadcast. And of course it's used to prepare week to week in addition to what is a normal coaching plan would be. We can now analyze, visualize route patterns, speed match-ups, et cetera. So much faster than ever before. We're continuing to roll out sensors too that will gather more and more information about a player's performance as it relates to their health and safety. The third trend is really, I think it's a big part of what we're feeling today and that is intense collaboration. And just for sort of historical purposes, it's important to think about for those of you that are IT professionals and developers, more than 10 years ago, agile practices began sweeping companies where small teams would work together rapidly in a very flexible, adaptive, and innovative way. And it proved to be transformational. However, today, of course, that is no longer just small teams, the next big wave of change. And we've seen it through this pandemic is that it's the whole enterprise that must collaborate and be agile. If I look back on my career, when I was at Disney, we owned everything 100%. We made a decision, we implemented it. We were a collaborative culture, but it was much easier to push change because you own the whole decision. If there was buy-in from the top down, you've got the people from the bottom up to do it and you executed. At Universal we were a joint venture. Our attractions and entertainment was licensed. Our hotels were owned and managed by other third parties. So influence and collaboration and how to share across companies became very important. And now here I am at the NFL and even the bigger ecosystem, we have 32 clubs that are all separate businesses. 31 different stadiums that are owned by a variety of people. We have licensees, we have sponsors, we have broadcast partners. So it seems that as my career has evolved, centralized control has gotten less and less and has been replaced by intense collaboration, not only within your own company, but across companies. The ability to work in a collaborative way across businesses and even other companies that has been a big key to my success in my career. I believe this whole vertical integration and big top-down decision-making is going by the wayside in favor of ecosystems that require cooperation yet competition to co-exist. I mean, the NFL is a great example of what we call co-op petition, which is cooperation and competition. We're in competition with each other, but we cooperate to make the company the best it can be. And at the heart of these items really are data driven decisions and culture. Data on its own isn't good enough. You must be able to turn it to insights. Partnerships between technology teams who usually hold the keys to the raw data and business units who have the knowledge to build the right decision models is key. If you're not already involved in this linkage, you should be. Data mining isn't new for sure. The availability of data is quadrupling and it's everywhere. How do you know what to even look at? How do you know where to begin? How do you know what questions to ask it's by using the tools that are available for visualization and analytics and knitting together strategies of the company. So it begins with first of all, making sure you do understand the strategy of the company. So in closing, just to wrap up a bit, many of you joined today, looking for thought leadership on how to be a change agent, a change champion, and how to lead through transformation. Some final thoughts are be brave and drive. Don't do the ride along program. It's very important to drive. Driving can be high risk, but it's also high reward. Embracing the uncertainty of what will happen is how you become brave. Get more and more comfortable with uncertainty, be calm and let data be your map on your journey. Thanks. >> Michelle, tank you so much. So you and I share a love of data and a love of football. You said you want to be the quarterback. I'm more an old line person. (Michelle and Cindi laughing) >> Well, then I can do my job without you. >> Great. And I'm getting the feeling now, Sudheesh is talking about bungee jumping. My vote is when we're past this pandemic, we both take them to the Delaware water gap and we do the cliff jumping. >> That sounds good, I'll watch. >> Yeah, you'll watch, okay. So Michelle, you have so many stakeholders when you're trying to prioritize the different voices. You have the players, you have the owners, you have the league, as you mentioned, the broadcasters, your partners here and football mamas like myself. How do you prioritize when there's so many different stakeholders that you need to satisfy? >> I think balancing across stakeholders starts with, aligning on a mission. And if you spend a lot of time understanding where everyone's coming from, and you can find the common thread that ties them all together, you sort of do get them to naturally prioritize their work. And I think that's very important. So for us, at the NFL and even at Disney, it was our core values and our core purpose, is so well known and when anything challenges that we're able to sort of lay that out. But as a change agent, you have to be very empathetic. And I would say empathy is probably your strongest skill if you're a change agent. And that means listening to every single stakeholder, even when they're yelling at you, even when they're telling you your technology doesn't work and you know that it's user error, or even when someone is just emotional about what's happening to them and that they're not comfortable with it. So I think being empathetic and having a mission and understanding it is sort of how I prioritize and balance. >> Yeah, empathy, a very popular word this year. I can imagine those coaches and owners yelling. So, thank you for your leadership here. So Michelle, I look forward to discussing this more with our other customers and disruptors joining us in a little bit. (upbeat music) So we're going to take a hard pivot now and go from football to Chernobyl. Chernobyl what went wrong? 1986, as the reactors were melting down, they had the data to say, this is going to be catastrophic. And yet the culture said, "no, we're perfect, hide it. "Don't dare tell anyone." Which meant they went ahead and had celebrations in Kiev. Even though that increased the exposure, the additional thousands getting cancer and 20,000 years before the ground around there can even be inhabited again, this is how powerful and detrimental a negative culture, a culture that is unable to confront the brutal facts that hides data. This is what we have to contend with. And this is why I want you to focus on having, fostering a data-driven culture. I don't want you to be a laggard. I want you to be a leader in using data to drive your digital transformation. So I'll talk about culture and technology. Is it really two sides of the same coin, real-world impacts and then some best practices you can use to and innovate your culture. Now, oftentimes I would talk about culture and I talk about technology. And recently a CDO said to me, "Cindi, I actually think this is two sides "of the same coin. "One reflects the other." What do you think? Let me walk you through this. So let's take a laggard. What does the technology look like? Is it based on 1990s BI and reporting largely parametrized reports, on premises data, warehouses, or not even that operational reports at best one enterprise data warehouse, very slow moving and collaboration is only email. What does that culture tell you? Maybe there's a lack of leadership to change, to do the hard work that Sudheesh referred to, or is there also a culture of fear, afraid of failure, resistance to change complacency. And sometimes that complacency it's not because people are lazy. It's because they've been so beaten down every time a new idea is presented. It's like, no we're measured on least cost to serve. So politics and distrust, whether it's between business and IT or individual stakeholders is the norm. So data is hoarded. Let's contrast that with a leader, a data and analytics leader, what is their technology look like? Augmented analytics search and AI driven insights, not on premises, but in the cloud and maybe multiple clouds. And the data is not in one place, but it's in a data Lake and in a data warehouse, a logical data warehouse. The collaboration is being a newer methods, whether it's Slack or teams allowing for that real time decisioning or investigating a particular data point. So what is the culture in the leaders? It's transparent and trust. There is a trust that data will not be used to punish that there is an ability to confront the bad news. It's innovation, valuing innovation in pursuit of the company goals, whether it's the best fan experience and player safety in the NFL or best serving your customers. It's innovative and collaborative. There's none of this. Oh, well, I didn't invent that. I'm not going to look at that. There's still pride of ownership, but it's collaborating to get to a better place faster. And people feel empowered to present new ideas to fail fast, and they're energized knowing that they're using the best technology and innovating at the pace that business requires. So data is democratized. And democratized, not just for power users or analysts, but really at the point of impact what we like to call the new decision-makers or really the frontline workers. So Harvard business review partnered with us to develop this study to say, just how important is this? We've been working at BI and analytics as an industry for more than 20 years. Why is it not at the front lines? Whether it's a doctor, a nurse, a coach, a supply chain manager, a warehouse manager, a financial services advisor. Everyone said that if our 87% said, they would be more successful if frontline workers were empowered with data driven insights, but they recognize they need new technology to be able to do that. It's not about learning hard tools. The sad reality, only 20% of organizations are actually doing this. These are the data-driven leaders. So this is the culture in technology. How did we get here? It's because state-of-the-art keeps changing. So the first-generation BI and analytics platforms were deployed on premises on small datasets, really just taking data out of ERP systems that were also on premises. And state-of-the-art was maybe getting a management report, an operational report. Over time visual-based data discovery vendors disrupted these traditional BI vendors, empowering now analysts to create visualizations with the flexibility on a desktop, sometimes larger data, sometimes coming from a data warehouse. The current state of the art though, Gartner calls it augmented analytics at ThoughtSpot, we call it search and AI driven analytics. And this was pioneered for large scale datasets, whether it's on premises or leveraging the cloud data warehouses. And I think this is an important point. Oftentimes you, the data and analytics leaders will look at these two components separately, but you have to look at the BI and analytics tier in lockstep with your data architectures to really get to the granular insights and to leverage the capabilities of AI. Now, if you've never seen ThoughtSpot, I'll just show you what this looks like. Instead of somebody hard coding, a report it's typing in search keywords and very robust keywords contains rank top bottom, getting to a visual visualization that then can be pinned to an existing Pin board that might also contain insights generated by an AI engine. So it's easy enough for that new decision maker, the business user, the non analyst to create themselves. Modernizing the data and analytics portfolio is hard because the pace of change has accelerated. You use to be able to create an investment place a bet for maybe 10 years, a few years ago, that time horizon was five years, now it's maybe three years and the time to maturity has also accelerated. So you have these different components, the search and AI tier, the data science tier, data preparation and virtualization. But I would also say equally important is the cloud data warehouse and pay attention to how well these analytics tools can unlock the value in these cloud data warehouses. So ThoughtSpot was the first to market with search and AI driven insights. Competitors have followed suit, but be careful if you look at products like power BI or SAP analytics cloud, they might demo well, but do they let you get to all the data without moving it in products like Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, or Azure synapse or Google big query, they do not. They require you to move it into a smaller in memory engine. So it's important how well these new products inter operate. the pace of change, its acceleration Gartner recently predicted that by 2022, 65% of analytical queries will be generated using search or NLP or even AI. And that is roughly three times the prediction they had just a couple years ago. So let's talk about the real world impact of culture. And if you read any of my books or used any of the maturity models out there, whether the Gartner IT score that I worked on, or the data warehousing Institute also has the money surety model. We talk about these five pillars to really become data-driven. As Michelle, I spoke about it's focusing on the business outcomes, leveraging all the data, including new data sources, it's the talent, the people, the technology, and also the processes. And often when I would talk about the people and the talent, I would lump the culture as part of that. But in the last year, as I've traveled the world and done these digital events for Thought leaders, you have told me now culture is absolutely so important. And so we've pulled it out as a separate pillar. And in fact, in polls that we've done in these events, look at how much more important culture is as a barrier to becoming data-driven it's three times as important as any of these other pillars. That's how critical it is. And let's take an example of where you can have great data, but if you don't have the right culture, there's devastating impacts. And I will say, I have been a loyal customer of Wells Fargo for more than 20 years. But look at what happened in the face of negative news with data, it said, "hey, we're not doing good cross selling, "customers do not have both a checking account "and a credit card and a savings account and a mortgage." They opened fake accounts facing billions in fines, change in leadership that even the CEO attributed to a toxic sales culture, and they're trying to fix this. But even recently there's been additional employee backlash saying the culture has not changed. Let's contrast that with some positive examples, Medtronic, a worldwide company in 150 countries around the world. They may not be a household name to you, but if you have a loved one or yourself, you have a pacemaker, spinal implant diabetes, you know this brand. And at the start of COVID when they knew their business would be slowing down, because hospitals would only be able to take care of COVID patients. They took the bold move of making their IP for ventilators publicly available. That is the power of a positive culture. Or Verizon, a major telecom organization looking at late payments of their customers. And even though the U.S federal government said, "well, you can't turn them off. They said, "we'll extend that even beyond "the mandated guidelines." And facing a slow down in the business because of the tough economy, they said, you know what? "We will spend the time up skilling our people, "giving them the time to learn more "about the future of work, the skills and data "and analytics," for 20,000 of their employees, rather than furloughing them. That is the power of a positive culture. So how can you transform your culture to the best in class? I'll give you three suggestions, bring in a change agent, identify the relevance, or I like to call it WIFM and organize for collaboration. So the CDO, whatever your title is, chief analytics officer, chief digital officer, you are the most important change agent. And this is where you will hear that oftentimes a change agent has to come from outside the organization. So this is where, for example, in Europe, you have the CDO of Just Eat a takeout food delivery organization coming from the airline industry or in Australia, National Australian bank, taking a CDO within the same sector from TD bank going to NAB. So these change agents come in disrupt. It's a hard job. As one of you said to me, it often feels like Sisyphus. I make one step forward and I get knocked down again. I get pushed back. It is not for the faint of heart, but it's the most important part of your job. The other thing I'll talk about is WIFM. What is in it for me? And this is really about understanding the motivation, the relevance that data has for everyone on the frontline, as well as those analysts, as well as the executives. So if we're talking about players in the NFL, they want to perform better and they want to stay safe. That is why data matters to them. If we're talking about financial services, this may be a wealth management advisor. Okay we could say commissions, but it's really helping people have their dreams come true, whether it's putting their children through college or being able to retire without having to work multiple jobs still into your 70s or 80s for the teachers, teachers, you ask them about data. They'll say we don't, we don't need that. I care about the student. So if you can use data to help a student perform better, that is WIFM. And sometimes we spend so much time talking the technology, we forget what is the value we're trying to deliver with it. And we forget the impact on the people that it does require change. In fact, the Harvard business review study found that 44% said lack of change management is the biggest barrier to leveraging both new technology, but also being empowered to act on those data-driven insights. The third point organize for collaboration. This does require diversity of thought, but also bringing the technology, the data and the business people together. Now there's not a single one size fits all model for data and analytics. At one point in time, even having a BICC, a BI competency center was considered state-of-the-art. Now for the biggest impact what I recommend is that you have a federated model centralized for economies of scale. That could be the common data, but then in bed, these evangelists, these analysts of the future within every business unit, every functional domain. And as you see this top bar, all models are possible, but the hybrid model has the most impact, the most leaders. So as we look ahead to the months ahead, to the year ahead an exciting time, because data is helping organizations better navigate a tough economy, lock in the customer loyalty. And I look forward to seeing how you foster that culture that's collaborative with empathy and bring the best of technology, leveraging the cloud, all your data. So thank you for joining us at Thought Leaders. And next I'm pleased to introduce our first change agent, Tom Mazzaferro chief data officer of Western union. And before joining Western union, Tom made his Mark at HSBC and JPMorgan Chase spearheading digital innovation in technology, operations, risk compliance, and retail banking. Tom, thank you so much for joining us today. (upbeat music) >> Very happy to be here and looking forward to talking to all of you today. So as we look to move organizations to a data-driven, capability into the future, there is a lot that needs to be done on the data side, but also how does data connect and enable different business teams and technology teams into the future. As you look across, our data ecosystems and our platforms and how we modernize that to the cloud in the future, it all needs to basically work together, right? To really be able to drive and over the shift from a data standpoint, into the future, that includes being able to have the right information with the right quality of data, at the right time to drive informed business decisions, to drive the business forward. As part of that, we actually have partnered with ThoughtSpot, to actually bring in the technology to help us drive that as part of that partnership. And it's how we've looked to integrate it into our overall business as a whole we've looked at how do we make sure that our business and our professional lives right, are enabled in the same ways as our personal lives. So for example, in your personal lives, when you want to go and find something out, what do you do? You go onto google.com or you go on to Bing we go onto Yahoo and you search for what you want search to find and answer. ThoughtSpot for us as the same thing, but in the business world. So using ThoughtSpot and other AI capability it's allowed us to actually, enable our overall business teams in our company to actually have our information at our fingertips. So rather than having to go and talk to someone or an engineer to go pull information or pull data, we actually can have the end-users or the business executives, right. Search for what they need, what they want at the exact time that action need it to go and drive the business forward. This is truly one of those transformational things that we've put in place. On top of that, we are on the journey to modernize our larger ecosystem as a whole. That includes modernizing our underlying data warehouses, our technology, or our Eloqua environments. And as we move that, we've actually picked two of our cloud providers going to AWS and GCP. We've also adopted Snowflake to really drive and to organize our information and our data then drive these new solutions and capabilities forward. So they portion of us though is culture. So how do we engage with the business teams and bring the IT teams together to really drive these holistic end to end solutions and capabilities to really support the actual business into the future? That's one of the keys here, as we look to modernize and to really enhance our organizations to become data-driven, this is the key. If you can really start to provide answers to business questions before they're even being asked and to predict based upon different economic trends or different trends in your business, what does this is maybe be made and actually provide those answers to the business teams before they're even asking for it, that is really becoming a data-driven organization. And as part of that, it's really then enables the business to act quickly and take advantage of opportunities as they come in based upon, industries based upon markets, based upon products, solutions, or partnerships into the future. These are really some of the keys that become crucial as you move forward, right, into this new age, especially with COVID. With COVID now taking place across the world, right? Many of these markets, many of these digital transformations are accelerating and are changing rapidly to accommodate and to support customers in these very difficult times, as part of that, you need to make sure you have the right underlying foundation ecosystems and solutions to really drive those capabilities and those solutions forward. As we go through this journey, both of my career, but also each of your careers into the future, right? It also needs to evolve, right? Technology has changed so drastically in the last 10 years, and that change is only accelerating. So as part of that, you have to make sure that you stay up to speed, up to date with new technology changes both on the platform standpoint tools, but also what do our customers want? What do our customers need and how do we then service them with our information, with our data, with our platform and with our products and our services to meet those needs and to really support and service those customers into the future. This is all around becoming a more data organization such as how do you use your data to support the current business lines, but how do you actually use your information, your data to actually put a better support your customers, better support your business, better support your employees, your operations teams, and so forth, and really creating that full integration in that ecosystem is really when you start to get large dividends from this investments into the future. But that being said, hope you enjoy the segment on how to become and how to drive it data driven organization. And, looking forward to talking to you again soon. Thank you. >> Tom that was great thanks so much. Now I'm going to have to brag on you for a second as a change agent you've come in disrupted and how long have you been at Western union? >> Only nine months, so just started this year, but, doing some great opportunities and great changes. And we have a lot more to go, but, we're really driving things forward in partnership with our business teams and our colleagues to support those customers going forward. >> Tom, thank you so much. That was wonderful. And now I'm excited to introduce you to Gustavo Canton, a change agent that I've had the pleasure of working with meeting in Europe, and he is a serial change agent, most recently with Schneider electric, but even going back to Sam's clubs, Gustavo welcome. (upbeat music) >> So, hey everyone, my name is Gustavo Canton and thank you so much, Cindi, for the intro, as you mentioned, doing transformations is high effort, high reward situation. I have empowered many transformations and I have led many transformations. And what I can tell you is that it's really hard to predict the future, but if you have a North star and where you're going, the one thing that I want you to take away from this discussion today is that you need to be bold to evolve. And so in today, I'm going to be talking about culture and data, and I'm going to break this down in four areas. How do we get started barriers or opportunities as I see it, the value of AI, and also, how do you communicate, especially now in the workforce of today with so many different generations, you need to make sure that you are communicating in ways that are non-traditional sometimes. And so how do we get started? So I think the answer to that is you have to start for you yourself as a leader and stay tuned. And by that, I mean, you need to understand not only what is happening in your function or your field, but you have to be varying into what is happening in society, socioeconomically speaking wellbeing. The common example is a great example. And for me personally, it's an opportunity because the one core value that I have is well-being, I believe that for human potential, for customers and communities to grow wellbeing should be at the center of every decision. And as somebody mentioned is great to be, stay in tune and have the skillset and the courage. But for me personally, to be honest, to have this courage is not about not being afraid. You're always afraid when you're making big changes when you're swimming upstream, but what gives me the courage is the empathy part. Like I think empathy is a huge component because every time I go into an organization or a function, I try to listen very attentively to the needs of the business and what the leaders are trying to do. What I do it thinking about the mission of how do I make change for the bigger, workforce? for the bigger good. Despite this fact that this might have a perhaps implication on my own self-interest in my career, right? Because you have to have that courage sometimes to make choices that I know we'll see in politically speaking, what are the right thing to do? And you have to push through it. And you have to push through it. So the bottom line for me is that I don't think they're transforming fast enough. And the reality is I speak with a lot of leaders and we have seen stories in the past. And what they show is that if you look at the four main barriers that are basically keeping us behind budget, inability to act cultural issues, politics, and lack of alignment, those are the top four. But the interesting thing is that as Cindi has mentioned, these topics culture is actually gaining, gaining more and more traction. And in 2018, there was a story from HBR and it was about 45%. I believe today it's about 55%, 60% of respondents say that this is the main area that we need to focus on. So again, for all those leaders and all the executives who understand and are aware that we need to transform, commit to the transformation and set a state, deadline to say, "hey, in two years, we're going to make this happen. "What do we need to do to empower and enable "this change engines to make it happen?" You need to make the tough choices. And so to me, when I speak about being bold is about making the right choices now. So I'll give you samples of some of the roadblocks that I went through as I think transformation most recently, as Cindi mentioned in Schneider. There are three main areas, legacy mindset. And what that means is that we've been doing this in a specific way for a long time and here is how we have been successful what was working the past is not going to work now. The opportunity there is that there is a lot of leaders who have a digital mindset and there're up and coming leaders that are not yet fully developed. We need to mentor those leaders and take bets on some of these talent, including young talent. We cannot be thinking in the past and just wait for people, three to five years for them to develop because the world is going to in a way that is super fast. The second area, and this is specifically to implementation of AI is very interesting to me because just example that I have with ThoughtSpot, right, we went to implementation and a lot of the way is the IT team function of the leaders look at technology, they look at it from the prism of the prior all success criteria for the traditional Bi's. And that's not going to work. Again the opportunity here is that you need to really find what successful look like. In my case, I want the user experience of our workforce to be the same as user experience you have at home is a very simple concept. And so we need to think about how do we gain the user experience with this augmented analytics tools and then work backwards to have the right talent processes and technology to enable that. And finally, with COVID a lot of pressuring organizations, and companies to do more with less. And the solution that most leaders I see are taking is to just minimize costs, sometimes in cut budget, we have to do the opposite. We have to actually invest some growth areas, but do it by business question. Don't do it by function. If you actually invest in these kind of solutions, if you actually invest on developing your talent, your leadership to see more digitally, if you actually invest on fixing your data platform, it's not just an incremental cost. It's actually this investment is going to offset all those hidden costs and inefficiencies that you have on your system, because people are doing a lot of work and working very hard, but it's not efficiency, and it's not working in the way that you might want to work. So there is a lot of opportunity there. And you just to put into some perspective, there have studies in the past about, how do we kind of measure the impact of data. And obviously this is going to vary by your organization maturity, is going to, there's going to be a lot of factors. I've been in companies who have very clean, good data to work with. And I think with companies that we have to start basically from scratch. So it all depends on your maturity level, but in this study, what I think is interesting is they try to put attack line or attack price to what is the cost of incomplete data. So in this case, it's about 10 times as much to complete a unit of work when you have data that is flawed as opposed to have perfect data. So let me put that just in perspective, just as an example, right? Imagine you are trying to do something and you have to do 100 things in a project, and each time you do something, it's going to cost you a dollar. So if you have perfect data, the total cost of that project might be $100. But now let's say you have any percent perfect data and 20% flawed data by using this assumption that flawed data is 10 times as costly as perfect data. Your total costs now becomes $280 as opposed to $100. This is just for you to really think about as a CIO CTO, CHRO CEO, are we really paying attention and really closing the gaps that we have on our data infrastructure. If we don't do that, it's hard sometimes to see the snowball effect or to measure the overall impact. But as you can tell the price that goes up very, very quickly. So now, if I were to say, how do I communicate this? Or how do I break through some of these challenges or some of these various, right. I think the key is I am in analytics. I know statistics obviously, and love modeling and data and optimization theory and all that stuff. That's what I came to analytics. But now as a leader and as a change agent, I need to speak about value. And in this case, for example, for Schneider, there was this tagline called free up your energy. So the number one thing that they were asking from the analytics team was actually efficiency, which to me was very interesting. But once I understood that I understood what kind of language to use, how to connect it to the overall strategy and basically how to bring in the, the right leaders, because you need to focus on the leaders that you're going to make the most progress. Again, low effort, high value. You need to make sure you centralize all the data as you can. You need to bring in some kind of augmented analytics solution. And finally you need to make it super simple for the, in this case, I was working with the HR teams in other areas, so they can have access to one portal. They don't have to be confused in looking for 10 different places to find information. I think if you can actually have those four foundational pillars, obviously under the guise of having a data-driven culture, that's when you can actually make the impact. So in our case, it was about three years total transformation, but it was two years for this component of augmented analytics. It took about two years to talk to IT get leadership support, find the budgeting, get everybody on board, make sure the safe criteria was correct. And we call this initiative, the people analytics portal, it was actually launched in July of this year. And we were very excited and the audience was very excited to do this. In this case, we did our pilot in North America for many, many manufacturers. But one thing that is really important is as you bring along your audience on this, you're going from Excel, in some cases or Tableau to other tools like, ThoughtSpot, you need to really explain them what is the difference and how these tools can truly replace, some of the spreadsheets or some of the views that you might have on these other kind of tools. Again, Tableau, I think it's a really good tool. There are other many tools that you might have in your toolkit. But in my case, personally, I feel that you need to have one portal going back to Cindi's point. I really truly enable the end user. And I feel that this is the right solution for us, right? And I will show you some of the findings that we had in the pilot in the last two months. So this was a huge victory, and I will tell you why, because it took a lot of effort for us to get to the station. Like I said, it's been years for us to kind of lay the foundation, get the leadership, and shaping culture so people can understand why you truly need to invest on (indistinct) analytics. And so what I'm showing here is an example of how do we use basically, a tool to capture in video the qualitative findings that we had, plus the quantitative insights that we have. So in this case, our preliminary results based on our ambition for three main metrics, hours saved user experience and adoption. So for hours saved or a mission was to have 10 hours per week per employee save on average user experience, or ambition was 4.5. And adoption, 80%. In just two months, two months and a half of the pilot, we were able to achieve five hours per week per employee savings. Our user experience for 4.3 out of five and adoption of 60%. Really, really amazing work. But again, it takes a lot of collaboration for us to get to the stage from IT, legal, communications, obviously the operations teams and the users in HR safety and other areas that might be, basically stakeholders in this whole process. So just to summarize this kind of effort takes a lot of energy. You are a change agent. You need to have a courage to make the decision and understand that I feel that in this day and age, with all this disruption happening, we don't have a choice. We have to take the risk, right? And in this case, I feel a lot of satisfaction in how we were able to gain all these very source for this organization. And that gave me the confidence to know that the work has been done and we are now in a different stage for the organization. And so for me, it to say, thank you for everybody who has believed, obviously in our vision, everybody who has believe in the word that we were trying to do and to make the life of four workforce or customers or in community better. As you can tell, there is a lot of effort. There is a lot of collaboration that is needed to do something like this. In the end, I feel very satisfied. With the accomplishments of this transformation, and I just want to tell for you, if you are going right now in a moment that you feel that you have to swim upstream what would mentors, what would people in this industry that can help you out and guide you on this kind of a transformation is not easy to do is high effort, but is well worth it. And with that said, I hope you are well, and it's been a pleasure talking to you. Talk to you soon, take care. >> Thank you, Gustavo, that was amazing. All right, let's go to the panel. (air whooshing) >> Okay, now we're going to go into the panel and bring Cindi, Michelle, Tom, and Gustavo back and have an open discussion. And I think we can all agree how valuable it is to hear from practitioners. And I want to thank the panel for sharing their knowledge with the community. And one common challenge that I heard you all talk about was bringing your leadership and your teams along on the journey with you. We talk about this all the time, and it is critical to have support from the top. Why? Because it directs the middle and then it enables bottoms up innovation effects from the cultural transformation that you guys all talked about. It seems like another common theme we heard is that you all prioritize database decision-making in your organizations and you combine two of your most valuable assets to do that and create leverage, employees on the front lines. And of course the data. And as you rightly pointed out, Tom, the pandemic has accelerated the need for really leaning into this. The old saying, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Well COVID is broken everything. And it's great to hear from our experts, how to move forward. So let's get right into it. So Gustavo, let's start with you if I'm an aspiring change agent and let's say I'm a budding data leader. What do I need to start doing? What habits do I need to create for long lasting success? >> I think curiosity is very important. You need to be, like I say, in tune to what is happening, not only in your specific field, like I have a passion for analytics, I can do this for 50 years plus, but I think you need to understand wellbeing other areas across not only a specific business, as you know I come from, Sam's club Walmart, retail, I mean energy management technology. So you have to try to push yourself and basically go out of your comfort zone. I mean, if you are staying in your comfort zone and you want to use lean continuous improvement, that's just going to take you so far. What you have to do is, and that's what I try to do is I try to go into areas, businesses, and transformation that make me stretch and develop as a leader. That's what I'm looking to do so I can help transform the functions organizations and do the change management, change of mindset required for these kinds of efforts. >> Michelle, you're at the intersection of tech and sports and what a great combination, but they're both typically male oriented fields. I mean, we've talked a little bit about how that's changing, but two questions. Tell us how you found your voice and talk about why diversity matters so much more than ever now. >> No, I found my voice really as a young girl, and I think I had such amazing support from men in my life. And I think the support and sponsorship as well as sort of mentorship along the way, I've had amazing male mentors who have helped me understand that my voice is just as important as anyone else's. I mean, I have often heard, and I think it's been written about that a woman has to believe they'll 100% master topic before they'll talk about it where a man can feel much less mastery and go on and on. So I was that way as well. And I learned just by watching and being open, to have my voice. And honestly at times demand a seat at the table, which can be very uncomfortable. And you really do need those types of, support networks within an organization. And diversity of course is important and it has always been. But I think if anything, we're seeing in this country right now is that diversity among all types of categories is front and center. And we're realizing that we don't all think alike. We've always known this, but we're now talking about things that we never really talked about before. And we can't let this moment go unchecked and on, and not change how we operate. So having diverse voices within your company and in the field of tech and sports, I am often the first and only I'm was the first, CIO at the NFL, the first female senior executive. It was fun to be the first, but it's also, very challenging. And my responsibility is to just make sure that, I don't leave anyone behind and make sure that I leave it good for the next generation. >> Well, thank you for that. That is inspiring. And Cindi, you love data and the data's pretty clear that diversity is a good business, but I wonder if you can add your perspectives to this conversation? >> Yeah, so Michelle has a new fan here because she has found her voice. I'm still working on finding mine. And it's interesting because I was raised by my dad, a single dad. So he did teach me how to work in a predominantly male environment, but why I think diversity matters more now than ever before. And this is by gender, by race, by age, by just different ways of working in thinking is because as we automate things with AI, if we do not have diverse teams looking at the data and the models and how they're applied, we risk having bias at scale. So this is why I think I don't care what type of minority you are finding your voice, having a seat at the table and just believing in the impact of your work has never been more important. And as Michelle said more possible. >> Great perspectives, thank you. Tom I want to go to you. I mean, I feel like everybody in our businesses in some way, shape or form become a COVID expert, but what's been the impact of the pandemic on your organization's digital transformation plans? >> We've seen a massive growth actually in a digital business over the last, 12 months, really, even in celebration, right? Once COVID hit, we really saw that in the 200 countries and territories that we operate in today and service our customers, today, that there's been a huge need, right? To send money, to support family, to support, friends and support loved ones across the world. And as part of that we are very, honored to get to support those customers that we, across all the centers today. But as part of that acceleration we need to make sure that we had the right architecture and the right platforms to basically scale, right, to basically support and provide the right kind of security for our customers going forward. So as part of that, we did do some pivots and we did accelerate some of our plans on digital to help support that overall growth coming in and to support our customers going forward, because there were these times during this pandemic, right? This is the most important time. And we need to support those that we love and those that we care about and doing that it's one of those ways is actually by sending money to them, support them financially. And that's where, really our part of that our services come into play that we really support those families. So it was really a great opportunity for us to really support and really bring some of our products to this level and supporting our business going forward. >> Awesome, thank you. Now I want to come back to Gustavo, Tom I'd love for you to chime in too. Did you guys ever think like you were, you were pushing the envelope too much in doing things with data or the technology that was just maybe too bold, maybe you felt like at some point it was failing or you're pushing your people too hard. Can you share that experience and how you got through it? >> Yeah, the way I look at it is, again, whenever I go to an organization, I ask the question, hey, how fast you would like transform. And, based on the agreements from the leadership and the vision that we want to take place, I take decisions. And I collaborate in a specific way now, in the case of COVID, for example, right. It forces us to remove silos and collaborate in a faster way. So to me, it was an opportunity to actually integrate with other areas and drive decisions faster, but make no mistake about it. When you are doing a transformation, you are obviously trying to do things faster than sometimes people are comfortable doing, and you need to be okay with that. Sometimes you need to be okay with tension, or you need to be okay debating points or making repetitive business cases until people connect with the decision because you understand, and you are seeing that, "hey, the CEO is making a one two year, efficiency goal. "The only way for us to really do more with less "is for us to continue this path. "We cannot just stay with the status quo. "We need to find a way to accelerate the transformation." That's the way I see it. >> How about you Tom, we were talking earlier with Sudheesh and Cindi, about that bungee jumping moment. What could you share? >> Yeah, I think you hit upon it, right now, the pace of change with the slowest pace that you see for the rest of your career. So as part of that, right, that's what I tell my team is that you need to be, you need to feel comfortable being uncomfortable. I mean, that we have to be able to basically scale, right, expand and support that the ever-changing needs in the marketplace and industry our customers today, and that pace of change that's happening, right. And what customers are asking for and the competition in the marketplace, it's only going to accelerate. So as part of that, as you look at what, how you're operating today in your current business model, right. Things are only going to get faster. So you have to plan into a line into drive the agile transformation so that you can scale even faster in the future. So as part of that, that's what we're putting in place here, right, is how do we create that underlying framework and foundation that allows the organization to basically continue to scale and evolve into the future? >> Yeah, we're definitely out of our comfort zones, but we're getting comfortable with it. So, Cindi, last question, you've worked with hundreds of organizations, and I got to believe that, some of the advice you gave when you were at Gartner, which is pre COVID, maybe sometimes clients didn't always act on it. They're not on my watch for whatever variety of reasons, but it's being forced on them now. But knowing what you know now that we're all in this isolation economy, how would you say that advice has changed? Has it changed? What's your number one action and recommendation today? >> Yeah, well, first off, Tom just freaked me out. What do you mean? This is the slowest ever even six months ago I was saying the pace of change in data and analytics is frenetic. So, but I think you're right, Tom, the business and the technology together is forcing this change. Now, Dave, to answer your question, I would say the one bit of advice, maybe I was a little more, very aware of the power and politics and how to bring people along in a way that they are comfortable. And now I think it's, you know what you can't get comfortable. In fact, we know that the organizations that were already in the cloud have been able to respond and pivot faster. So if you really want to survive as Tom and Gustavo said, get used to being uncomfortable, the power and politics are going to happen. Break the rules, get used to that and be bold. Do not be afraid to tell somebody they're wrong and they're not moving fast enough. I do think you have to do that with empathy, as Michelle said, and Gustavo, I think that's one of the key words today besides the bungee jumping. So I want to know where's the dish going to go bungee jumping. >> Guys fantastic discussion, really. Thanks again to all the panelists and the guests. It was really a pleasure speaking with you today. Really virtually all of the leaders that I've spoken to in the Cube program. Recently, they tell me that the pandemic is accelerating so many things, whether it's new ways to work, we heard about new security models and obviously the need for cloud. I mean, all of these things are driving true enterprise wide digital transformation, not just, as I said before, lip service. Sometimes we minimize the importance and the challenge of building culture and in making this transformation possible. But when it's done, right, the right culture is going to deliver tremendous results. Yeah, what does that mean getting it right? Everybody's trying to get it right. My biggest takeaway today is it means making data part of the DNA of your organization. And that means making it accessible to the people in your organization that are empowered to make decisions, decisions that can drive new revenue, cut costs, speed access to critical care, whatever the mission is of your organization. Data can create insights and informed decisions that drive value. Okay. Let's bring back Sudheesh and wrap things up. Sudheesh, please bring us home. >> Thank you. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, the Cube team, and thank goes to all of our customers and partners who joined us and thanks to all of you for spending the time with us. I want to do three quick things and then close it off. The first thing is I want to summarize the key takeaways that I had from all four of our distinguished speakers. First, Michelle, I will simply put it. She said it really well. That is be brave and drive. Don't go for a drive along. That is such an important point. Oftentimes, you know that I think that you have to do to make the positive change that you want to see happen but you wait for someone else to do it, not just, why not you? Why don't you be the one making that change happen? That's the thing that I've picked up from Michelle's talk. Cindi talked about finding the importance of finding your voice. Taking that chair, whether it's available or not, and making sure that your ideas, your voices are heard, and if it requires some force, then apply that force. Make sure your ideas are heard. Gustavo talked about the importance of building consensus, not going at things all alone sometimes building the importance of building the quorum. And that is critical because if you want the changes to last, you want to make sure that the organization is fully behind it. Tom, instead of a single takeaway, what I was inspired by is the fact that a company that is 170 years old, 170 years old, 200 companies and 200 countries they're operating in. And they were able to make the change that is necessary through this difficult time. So in a matter of months, if they could do it, anyone could. The second thing I want to do is to leave you with a takeaway that is I would like you to go to topspot.com/nfl because our team has made an app for NFL on Snowflake. I think you will find this interesting now that you are inspired and excited because of Michelle's talk. And the last thing is please go to thoughtspot.com/beyond our global user conference is happening in this December. We would love to have you join us. It's again, virtual, you can join from anywhere. We are expecting anywhere from five to 10,000 people, and we would love to have you join and see what we've been up to since last year. We have a lot of amazing things in store for you, our customers, our partners, our collaborators, they will be coming and sharing. We'll be sharing things that we've have been working to release something that will come out next year. And also some of the crazy ideas our engineers have been cooking up. All of those things will be available for you at the Thought Spot Beyond. Thank you. Thank you so much.

>>from around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of a new era and database management brought to you by Nutanix. >>Welcome back. I'm still minimum and we're covering Nutanix Is New Era database launch Of course, we had to do instead of conversation with Monica Ambala talking about era to Dato and to dig into it a little bit further. We have some new tennis guests as well as what? One of their close partners. So going across the channel, first of all, happy to welcome to the program. Uh, the new kid UPA she is the gsc strategy and go to market with Nutanix sitting in the middle chair we have on and Akila whose product marketing leader with Nutanix and then from HCL happy to welcome to the program Tasing who is the senior vice president with HCL Technologies. I mentioned all three of you. Thank you so much for joining us. >>Glad to be here, >>right? Uh they knew What? Why don't we start with you? You handle the relationship between Nutanix and HCL. As I said, some exciting announcements database services help us understand how Ah partner like HCL takes the technology and what will help bring it to market. >>Let me start by thanking used to for this opportunity. Head Seal is a very significant partner for Nutanix and we've had this partnership for a long time now. It's one of our long standing partnership. Over the five years we've closed over 100 accounts across all three theaters. Trained professionals both on the Nutanix side on the outside, on built a 3 60 relationships so we can deliver the best experience around solutions to our partners. In the very recent announcement, we're looking to build a database as a service offering. With that CL we want Thio leverage are intelligent technology that allows us to simplify off and increase operating efficiency. Andi Couple it with head seals ability to offer world class services on it. It's a scale to reach the go to market needs needed right. We're very confident that the solution is going to drive significant incremental business for both our companies. >>Excellent taste. We would love to hear from your standpoint. What is it that excites you? We we know HCL knows the data space real well. So I think you've got some customers that air looking to take advantage of some of these new offerings. >>Yeah, So if you look at where the focus has been so far, most of the focus is on taking applications to cloud and moving them from VM two probably containers one of the most. Uh, I won't say, uh, neglected, but the space that needs to change now is the entire database space on. If you look at how customers are managing databases today, they have taken hardware on a KPIX model. They have the operating system and the database licenses on L. A model from the E. M s on. Then they have, ah, teams which are siloed depending upon the database technology that is there in the environment and managing that I think that whole model is has to change, enabling customers to transform Onda accelerate the digital transformation journey on. That is where our offering off database as a service ises very unique because it offers a full stack off services which includes right from hardware and all the way to operations on a completely utility model powered by the Nutanix era. >>Yeah, on it might make sense if you could give us a little bit of a broader context for your users. Some of the data that you have around this offering, >>yeah, you know, attend effect. All the solution, our joint solutions. Our customers, uh, they are trying to deliver the best individual experience, right? That's at the heart of it. What they're trying to do, I'll give you a couple of customer examples. For example, Arbil Bank in India. You know, they deployed their database solutions and applications, and Nutanix got 16 fasters application response. That means like they used to take 180 seconds. Uh, Thio logging into the application. And now it's, uh, 20 seconds, 36 times faster. Another example I could give. I can give many examples, but when this one is really interesting, Delaware Valley community held, you know, at the time of Kobe they went remote. They started working from home and they had medical systems applications. EMR electronic medical record applications and used to take even before they were working from home, is take like 171 seconds to log into medical systems before they could, you know, talk to their patients and look at their, you know, health results and everything and that from 171 seconds, it went to 19 seconds. So these are some of the values that customers seeing when it comes to delivering the individual experience to their customers. >>Yeah, absolutely. We've seen police stage go ahead. >>Yeah, and I just had to What men? Who said that? It's also the ability tohave self service with dynamic provisioning capability that really brings the value toe the to the I T teams and to the application teams who are consuming these services. So we have cases where customers were waiting for about a week, 10 days for the environments to be provisioned to them. And now it's a matter of seconds or minutes where they can have a full fledged environments leading to develop a productivity. And that also really adds the whole acceleration that we just spoke about. >>Yeah, we we've absolutely seen such a transformation in database for the longest time. It was, you know, a database. It didn't change too much. That's what everything run on Now there's a lot of flexibility. Open source is a big piece of what's going on there. I'd like to come back to you and you know, they know. I know you're gonna want to chime in here. You know, HCL doesn't just, you know, take this off the shelf and, you know, resell it, help us understand. You know what is unique about the offering that that HCL brings market? Uh, with with >>Nutanix. Right. So one is that we have standardized reference architectures, which really x ray the time to consume the offering. We're not building anything from from from ground up. Three Nutanix is also part off our velocity framework, which helps customers deploy software defined infrastructure as the as a foundation element for their for their private cloud. Now, what is unique is also the ability toe not only provide operations on different databases that are there in the environment on a completely utility model, but also help customers, you know, move to cloud and adopt the database clouded of databases and then manage the whole show seamlessly using using the BP platform and that really, you know, if you look at the trend that is there, there's a short term impact on the long term impact off transformation. In the short term, there's hardly an industry which is not touched by by covert on most of our customers are either looking at cost or initiatives or are looking at ah platform, which will help them in a weight or find new business model to to sail through. In the long term, we strongly believe that the customers will be in a hybrid, multi cloud world where they will still have the heritage environments. The article and the Sequels on a lot off cloud native data business will also start coming into picture. How do you manage is also seamlessly is what will be the next challenge for for most of the customers. And that's where we come in, along with Nutanix, to solve the problem. >>Well, very simply put right, we have different categories of customers. One off them refers to buy the ingredients and make their own meal on some really large customers, and global customers prefer to buy the meal and pay for it on on as consumer basis. What that seal does is take era, which simplifies a lot of the database operations, puts it into a full stack solution and gives the customer the full stack solution. Everything from assessing that environment to deploying, to making sure that the designers I accurate and then of course, the day and through they do through and, uh, uh, environment, right. So literally the customer can Now I'll offload any off their data center, our database management and operation to hit cl from my perspective on do rest assured, run their projects toe, etc. Also, excel becomes their extended arm, the beauty off. It is also like working with dead C. Elgar now able to offer the entire solution on a pay as you go model or pay as you use model, which is very relevant to the existing times where everybody is trying to cut their Catholics costs and and optimized on the utilization. >>Well, great. Great to hear about that. You've mentioned that this partnership has been for many years, so I know you've got plenty of joint customers. Anything specifically could share about these new offerings on. And I know you've got a lot of the customer stories there. Maybe you could start would look love, freedom. The rest of you, >>Thio, I'll start what? You know, Like I talked about a couple of customers. But recently I'm really excited about. And this is something that to be a announcing today as well. Ah, study that we did with Forrester called Forrester T I study, which is what it means total economic impact study. And what they do is that they topped with customers, uh, interviewed them, four of them. And based on their experience, uh, you know what? They observe what kind of benefit they got, what challenges they had, what was cause they built an economic model. And based on that economic model, they found that customers were rolled all off them were able to get their payback within six months. So Bala talked about it earlier that, you know, like all the great experience, all the great value that we offer, but at a very, very good cost. So the six less than six months payback was used and the r y for the three years period and again, this is ah, model based on four enterprises was 2 91 100% almost like three times mawr. So whatever they invested, I think on an average day the cost was 2.3 million and the benefit was nine million or so so huge value customers have observed already. And with this new launch, I believe that it will just go to the next level. All the things about provisioning copy data saving that the stories All of that adds to the R Y that I'm talking about and our joint customers with SCL or otherwise, who are customers who are running their applications, their business critical applications on you can X Platform managed by era an era is built out off a bunch off best practices that over time that we have done. I talked about custom performance earlier, and a lot of the performance comes from fine tuning. You do that like a lot of tea tuning and to get to the right kind of performance. Uh, era comes with that, those best practices. So when your provisioning an application, you know, it gives you you don't have to do all that tuning. So that's the value customers are experiencing. And I'm really excited about the joint customers what they could experience and benefit out off the new expanded solution. >>Great Tiger. Any other customer examples that you'd like to share? >>Well, we got a lot of go ahead page, >>but it's okay. >>No, I was just saying that we've had a lot of success with Head cl across the board anywhere from data center organization Thio v. D. I. We had a very large manufacturing company in America where we partner together. They have a huge number of sub brands. We partnered together to go evaluate that environment and then also even that is a B infrastructure with databases. It's a relatively new offering we're announcing today. But we're leveraging the expertise that SCL has in the market, uh, to go to go deeper into that market with cl eso. I will leave it to page to give us the NCL examples. >>So one thing that is happening is the very definition off infrastructure and infrastructure operation itself is changing. So a couple of years ago, for many of our customers, it was about operating system management, hardware management, network management and all the use. Uh, the concept that you're going back to customer is about platform operations. That means everything to do with application operations. Downward is going to be done by one integrated unit. Now, with Nutanix, we can we can really bring a lot of change, and we're bringing a lot of change in our in the operations model for for lot off a large customers where earlier you had siloed teams around Compute network storage, offering system databases both at the Level two and level three, and you had a level one, which was basically command center. Now, we're saying is that with the artificial intelligence and machine learning driven OBS, you can practically eliminate the need for command center on the level two layer because the platform enables you toe be multi skilled. You need not have siloed engineers looking after databases separately on and operating system separately. You can have the same sort of people who are cross train, multi skilled, looking at the entire state. On at level three. You may want to keep people who are deep into databases as a separate team, then from people who are managing the Nutanix platform, which is a combination off compute storage and and and and the SCN. So that's the change that we're bringing. A lot of our customers were going about infrastructure, platform modernization, Azaz, the public cloud or hybrid clubs. >>Well, I think you're really articulated well, that modernization journey we've seen so many companies going through. The thing I've been saying with Nutanix for years is modernize the platform, then you can modernize everything that runs on top of it. All the applications on, of course, did databases a major piece of this on. And that brings up a point I want to get your take on. We haven't talked about developers, you know, the DEV ops trend. Something we've seen, you know, huge growth for for a number of years. So what >>does this >>mean from developers? This something that you know, mostly the infrastructure team's gonna handle. Or how do you bridge that gap to the people that really are? You know, building and building and building the APS. >>Yeah. And in this digital world, you know the cycle time from idea to production. Everyone is trying to reduce that. What that means is that things are moving left. People are trying to develop and test early in the life cycle when it is easy to find a problem and easy to and cheaper to fix. Right. So for that, you need a your application environment, your application and database available to test and develop in, uh, you know, like in volume. And that's where databases the service era helps developers and develops professionals to provision in the whole infrastructure for testing and involvement in hundreds and thousands of them at the same time without, you know, worrying about the storage back back and how much story it is consuming. So it is. It helps developers to to really expedite their development and testing left lifecycle ultimately resulting in excellent and unique experience. >>Yeah, absolutely way no. Of just moving faster. Being able to respond to the business so critically important. Uh, they know Tasia wanna let you have the final word Talk about the partnership and what we should expect, you know, in the coming months and quarters. >>So, uh, I'll go first. And then we can come in, uh, a salon and Nutanix you to share the same values where we believe that we need to provide a very innovative platform for our customers to accelerate their digital transformation journey. No matter what it is right, we share common values and way have a 3 60 degree relationship. It started way back in 2015 and we have come a long way since then. A C also does engineering services for for Nutanix, and we have closed about 850 r plus people who has prayed and 35 on Nutanix Solutions. Providing manage services to our customers on Nutanix is also part off our software defined infrastructure portfolio on we're taking it to our customers as part of our entire infrastructure platform modernization that, I suppose talk about earlier three recent announcement off Nutanix clusters running on AWS. I think it's a significant announcement and it will provide a lot off options to our customers. And as an S, I, uh, you know, we are able to bring a lot of value to our customers. We're looking at adopting cloud the database as a service offering. I think we're very excited about it. I I think we have about 300 plus customers, and many of them are still stuck with the way they are managing databases the old way. And we can bring in a lot of value to those customers, whether it is about reducing cars or increasing agility or helping them modern ice, The platform one ended up hybrid multi club >>business critical lapse are growing, are still growing, and data is pretty much gold in these scenarios, right? It's it's doubling every two years, if not more with every transaction being remote today with zeal. We actually look forward to addressing that market and optimizing the environment for our customers. Both of our companies believe in partnership crossed and the customer first mindset. And when you have that belief, trust comes with delivering the best experience to our customers. So we're looking forward to this partnership and you're looking forward to growing our joint revenue and modernizing our customers platforms with this often? >>Well, I wanna thank all three of you for for sharing the exciting news. Absolutely. It looks like a strong partnership. Lots of potential there for the future. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for >>having thank you. Mhm. >>All right, when I think the audience were watching this lot with Nutanix, the new era in database management personally, a big thank you to the Nutanix community has been a pleasure being able to host these interviews with Nutanix for for many years. So I'm still minimum and thank you as always for watching the Cube

>> Narrator: From Miami Beach, Florida, it's theCUBE, covering Acronis Global Cyber Summit 2019. Brought to you by Acronis. >> Okay, welcome back everyone. It's theCUBE's two day coverage of Acronis' Global Cyber Summit 2019, here in Miami Beach, at the Fontainebleau Hotel. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We're with Katya Fisher, Partner Chief and Chief Privacy Officer at Greenspoon Marder. Legal advice is right here on theCUBE, ask her anything. We're going to do a session here. Thanks for coming on, appreciate it. >> Thank you very much, I'm going to have to do the little disclaimer that all lawyers do, which is, nothing here is to be construed as advice. It's just opinions and information only. >> I didn't mean to set you up like that. All kidding aside, you closed for the panel here for Acronis' conference. Obviously, cyber protection's their gig. Data protection, cyber protection. Makes sense, I think that category is evolving from a niche, typical enterprise niche, to a much more holistic view as data becomes you know, critical in the security piece of it. What was on the, what were you guys talking about in the panel? >> Well, so, the first issue that you have to understand is that cyber protection is something that has now become critical for pretty much every individual on the planet, as well as governments. So something that we talked about on the panel today was how governments are actually dealing with incoming cyber threats. Because now, they have to take a look at it from the perspective of, first of all, how they themselves are going to become technologically savvy enough to protect themselves, and to protect their data, but also, in terms of regulation and how to protect citizens. So, that was what the panel discussion was about today. >> On the regulatory front, we've been covering on SiliconANGLE, our journalism site, the innovation balance, is regulatory action helpful or hurtful to innovation? Where is the balance? What is the education needed? What's your thoughts on this, where are we? I mean early stages, where's the progress? What needs to get done? What's your view on the current situation? >> So, I'm an attorney, so my views are perhaps a bit more conservative than some of the technologists you might speak with and some of my clients as well. I think that regulation is, as a general matter, it can be a good thing. And it can be quite necessary. The issues that we see right now, with regard to regulation, I think one of the hottest issues today is with respect to data laws and data privacy laws. And that's obviously something that I think everyone is familiar with. I mean take a look at, in the United States alone. We've seen the city of Baltimore dealing with breaches. We've seen other parts of the government, from the Federal level all the way down to municipalities, dealing with breaches in cyber attacks. We've seen data breaches from banks, Capital One, right? I believe Dunkin' Donuts suffered a breach. Equifax, and then at the same time we've also seen individuals up in arms over companies like 23andMe and Facebook, and how data is used and processed. So data seems to be a very very hot button issue today across the board. So something that we're really thinking about now is, first of all, with respect to the regulatory climate, how to deal with it, not only in the United States, but on a global level, because, when we talk about technology and the internet right, we're in an era of globalization. We're in an era where a lot of these things go across boarders and therefore we have to be mindful of the regulatory regimes in other places. So, I'll give you an example. You might be familiar with the GDPR. So the GDPR is in the European Union. It's been in effect now for the last year and a half, but it affects all my U.S. clients. We still have to take a look at the GDPR because at the end of the day my clients, my firm, might be dealing with foreign companies, foreign individuals, companies that have some sort of nexus in the European Union, et cetera. So because of that, even though the GDPR is a set of regulations specific to the European Union, it becomes extremely important in the context of the United States and globally. At the same time, the GDPR has certain issues that then end up conflicting often times with some of the regulations that we have here in the United States. So, for example, the right to be forgotten is perhaps the most famous clause or part of the GDPR and the right to be forgotten is this concept in the GDPR that an individual can have information erased about him or her in order to protect his or her privacy. The problem is that from a technical's perspective, first of all, it's an issue because it becomes very very difficult to figure out where data is stored, if you're using third-party processors, et cetera. But from a regulatory perspective, the conflict comes in when you take a look at certain U.S. laws. So take a look for example at banking regulations in the United States. Banks have to hold some types of data for seven years and other types of data they can never delete. Right? Lawyers. I am licensed by the New York State Bar Association. Lawyers have their own rules and regulations with regard to how they store data and how they store information. HIPAA, medical records. So, you see these conflicts and there are ways to deal with them appropriately, but it becomes some food for thought. >> So it's complicated. >> It's really complicated >> There's a lot of conflicts. >> Yeah. >> First of all, I talked to a storage guy. He's like data? I don't even know which drive that's on. Storage is not elevated up to the level of state-of-the-art, from a tracking standpoint. So, it's just on the business logic is complicated. I can't imagine that. So, I guess my question to you is that, are you finding that the jurisdictional issue, is it the biggest problem, in terms of crossport and the business side or is the technical underpinnings, that with GDPR's the problem or both? What's your-- >> I mean it's both, right? They're a lot of issues. You're right, it's very complicated. I mean, in the United States we don't have some sort of overarching federal law. There's no cyber protection law in the United States. There's no overarching data protection law. So, even in the U.S. alone, because of federalism, we have HIPAA and we have COPPA which protects children and we have other types of acts, but then we also have state regulations. So, in California you have the California Privacy Act. In New York you have certain regulations with regard to cyber security and you have to deal with this patchwork. So, that becomes something that adds a new layer of complexity and a new layer of issues, as we take a look, even within the U.S. alone, as to how to deal with all of this. And then we start looking at the GDPR and all of this. From a technical perspective. I'm not a technologist, but. >> Katya, let me ask you a question on the (mumbles) and business front. (mumbles) I think one of the things. I'm saying it might or may not be an issue, but I want to get your legal weigh-in on this. >> Katya: Sure. >> It used to be when you started a company, you go to Delaware, very friendly, domicile in Delaware, do some formation there, whether you're a C corp or whatever, that's where we tend to go, raise some money, get some preferred stock, you're in business. >> Is there a shift in where companies with domicile, their entity, or restructure their companies around this complexity? Because, there's two schools of thought. This brute force act, everything coming at you, or you restructure your corporate formation to handle some of the nuances, whether it's I have a Cayman or a Bermuda... whatever's going on in the regulatory regime, whether it's innovative or not. Are people thinking like that? Or, what's your take on it? What's some of the data you're seeing from the field around, restructuring around the problem? >> So, with respect to restructuring, specifically around data laws and data protection laws, I'm not seeing too much of that, simple because of the fact that regulations like the GDPR are just so all-encompassing. With respect to companies setting up in Delaware as opposed to other jurisdictions, those are usually based on two issues, right, two core ones, if I can condense it. One has to do with the court system and how favorable a court system is to the corporation, and the second is taxes. So, a lot of times when you see companies that are doing all of this restructuring, where they're setting up in offshore zones, or et cetera, it's usually because of some sort of a tax benefit. It might be because of the fact that, I don't know, for example, intellectual property. If you have a company that's been licensing IP to the United States, there's a 30% withholding tax when royalties are paid back overseas. So a lot of times when you're looking at an international structuring, you're trying to figure out a jurisdiction that might have a tax treaty with the United States, that will create some sort of an opportunity to get rid of that 30% withholding. So, that's where things usually come into play with regard to taxes and IP. I haven't seen yet, on the side of looking for courts that are more favorable to companies, with respect to data privacy and data protection. I just haven't seen that happen yet because I think that it's too soon. >> How do companies defend themselves against claims that come out of these new relations? I mean GDPR, I've called it the shitstorm when it came out. I never was a big fan of it. It just didn't. I mean, I get the concept, but I kind of understood the technical issues, but let's just say that you're a small growing business and you don't have the army of lawyers or if someone makes a claim on you, I have to defend it. How are companies defending themselves? Do they just shut down? Do they hire you guys? I mean, obviously lawyers need to be involved. But, at some point there's a line of where having a U.S. company and someone consumes my media in Germany and it says, hey I'm a German citizen. You American company, delete my records. How does that work? Do I have to be responsible for that? I mean, what's? >> So, it's really case-by-case basis. First of all, obviously, with regard to what I was talking about earlier, with respect to the fact that there are certain regulations in the U.S. that conflict with GDPR and the right to be forgotten. If you can actually assert a defense and sort of a good reason for why you have to maintain that information, that's step one. Step two is, if it's some complaint that you received, is to delete the person's information. There's an easier way to do it. >> Yeah, just do what they want. >> Just comply with what they want. If somebody wants to be off of a mailing list, take them off the mailing list. The third is, putting in best practices. So, I'm sure a lot of things that people see online, it's always great to go ahead and obtain legal counsel, even if you're consulting with a lawyer just for an hour or two, just to really understand your particular situation. But, take a look at privacy policies online. Take a look at the fact that cookies now have a pop-up whenever you go to a website. I'm sure you've noticed this, right? >> John: Yeah. So, there are little things like this. Think about the fact that there are, what is known as clickwrap agreements. So, usually you have to consent. You have to check a box or uncheck a box with respect to reading privacy policies, being approved for having your email address and contact information somewhere. So, use some common sense. >> So, basically don't ignore the prompt. >> Don't ignore the problem. >> Don't ignore it. Don't stick your head in the sand. It'll bite you. >> Correct. And the thing is, to be honest, for most people, for most small companies, it's not that difficult to comply. When we start talking about mid-size and large businesses, the next level, the next step, obviously beyond hiring attorneys and the like, is try to comply with standards and certifications. For example, there's what is known as ISO standards. Your company can go through the ISO 27001 certification process. I think it costs around approximately $20,000. But, it's an opportunity to go ahead, go through that process, understand how compliant you are, and because you have the certification, you're then able to go to your customers and say, hey, we've been through this, we're certified. >> Yeah. Well, I want to get, Katya, your thoughts, as we wrap up on this segment, around Crypto and Blockchain. Obviously, we're bullish on Blockchain. We think this is a supply chain. (mumbles) Blockchain can be a good force, although some think there's some work needs to be done on the whole energy side of it, which is, we would agree. But, still. I'm not going to make that be a wet blanket of excitement. But cryptocurrency has been fraudulent. It's been. The SCC's been cracking down in the U.S., in the news. Lieber's falling apart, although, I called that separately, but, (laughing) it had nothing to do with that Lieber. It was more of Facebook, but. Telegram. We were talking about that, others. People are getting handcuffed on this stuff. They're really kind of clamping down. But, overseas in Asia, it's still an unregulated, seems to be (mumbles) kind of market. Your advice to clients was to shy away, be careful? >> My advice to clients is as follows. First of all, Blockchain and cryptocurrency are not the same thing. Right? Cryptocurrency is a use case coming out of Blockchain technology. I think that in the United States, the best way to think about it is to understand that the term cryptocurrency, from a regulatory perspective, is actually a misnomer. It's not a currency. It's property. Right? It's an asset. It's digital assets. So, if you think about it the same way that we think of shares in a company, it's actually much easier to become compliant, because, then you can understand that it's going to be subject to U.S. securities laws, just like other securities. It's going to be taxed, just like securities are taxed, which means that it's going to be subject to long and short-term capitol gain, and it's also going to be subject to the other regulatory restrictions that are adherent to securities, both on the federal and state level. >> It's interesting that you mentioned security. The word security. If you look back at the ICO craze, internet coin offerings, crypto offerings, whatever you call it, The people who got whacked the most were the ones that went out as a utility tokens. Not to get nerdy on this, but utility and security are two types of tokens. The ones that went out and raised money as the utility token had no product, raised money using the utility that doesn't exist. That's essentially a security. And, so, no wonder why they're getting slapped. >> They're securities. Look, Bitcoin, different story, because Bitcoin is the closest to being I guess, what we could consider to be truly decentralized, right? And the regulatory climate around Bitcoin is a little bit different from what I'm talking about, with respects to securities laws. Although, from a tax perspective, it's the same. It's taxed as property. It's not taxed the way that foreign currency is taxed. But ultimately, yeah. You had a lot of cowboys who went out, and made a lot of money, and were just breaking the law, and now everyone is shocked when they see what's going on with this cease-and-desist order from the SCC against Telegram, and these other issues. But, none of it is particularly surprising because at the end of the day we have regulations in place, we have a regulatory regime, and most people just chose to ignore it. >> It's interesting how fast the SCC modernized their thinking around this. They really. From a speed standpoint, all government agencies tend to be glacier speed kind of movement. They were pretty fast. I mean, they kind of huddled on this for a couple months and came out with direction. They've been proactive. I got to say. I was usually skeptical of most government organization. I don't think they well inform. In this case, I think the SCC did a good job. >> So, I think that the issue is as follows. You know, Crypto is a very very very small portion of what the SCC deals with, so, they actually paid an inordinate amount of attention to this, and, I think that they did it for a couple of reasons. One is because, you asked me in the beginning of this interview about regulations versus innovation. And, I don't think anyone wants to stifle innovation in America. It's a very interesting technology. It's very interesting ideas, right? No one wants that to go away and no one wants people to stop experimenting and stop dreaming bigger. At the same time, the other issue that we've seen now, especially, not only with the SCC, but with the IRS now getting involved, is the fact that even though this is something very very small, they are very concerned about where the technology could go in the future. The IRS is extremely concerned about erosion of the tax space. So, because of that, it makes a lot of sense for them to pay attention to this very very early on, nip this in the bud, and help guide it back into the right direction. >> I think that's a good balance. Great point. Innovation doesn't want to be stifled at all, absolutely. What's new and exciting for you? Share some personal or business updates in your world. What's going on? What's getting you excited these days, in the field? >> What's getting me excited these days? Well, I have to tell you that one thing that actually has gotten me excited these days is the fact that the Blockchain and cryptocurrency industries have grown up, substantially. And, now we're able to take a look at those industries in tandem with the tech industry at large, because they seem to sort of be going off in a different direction, and now we're taking a look at it, and now you can really see sort of where the areas that things are going to get exciting. I look at my clients and I see the things that they're doing and I'm always excited for them, and I'm always interested to see what new things that they'll innovate, because, again, I'm not a technologist. So, for me, that's a lot of fun. And, in addition to that, I think that other areas are extremely exciting as well. I'm a big fan of Acronis. I'm a big fan of cyber protection issues, data protection, data regulation. I think something that's really interesting in the world of data regulation, that actually has come out of the Blockchain community, in a way, is the notion of data as a personal right, as personal property. So, one of the big things is the idea that now that we've seen these massive data breaches with Facebook and 23andME, and the way that big government, big companies, are using individuals' datas, the idea that if data were to be personal property, it would be used very very differently. And technologists who are using Blockchain technology say that Blockchain technology might actually be able to make that happen. Because if you could have a decentralized Facebook, let's say, people could own their own data and then use that data as they want to and be compensated for it. So, that's really interesting, right-- Yeah, but, if you're just going to use the product, they might as well own their data, right? >> Katya: Exactly. >> Katya, thanks for coming on theCUBE. Thanks for the insight. Great, compelling narrative. Thanks for sharing. >> Sure, thank you very much. >> Appreciate it. I'm John Furrier here on theCUBE, Miami Beach, at the Fontainebleau hotel for Acronis' Global Cyber Summit 2019. We'll be back with more coverage after this short break.

(upbeat music) >> Hello everyone. I'm John Furrier here in Palo Alto at our CUBE headquarters. We're here with John Del Santo, Senior Managing Director at Accenture for a Cube Conversation. John, welcome to theCUBE. Good to see you. >> Thanks, John. Great to be here. >> So we just talked before we came on camera about Accenture and all the stuff you guys are doing. You guys are in the cloud heavily. We've been following, you guys have probably one of the most comprehensive analytics teams out there. And global SI market and just, the world's changing. So it's pretty fun. I'm looking forward to this conversation. So I got to ask you first, before we get started. I want to jump in with a ton of questions. What is your role at Accenture? You're in the Bay Area. Take a minute to explain what you do for Accenture and what's your territory. >> I've got the best job at Accenture. So, Accenture's got close to half a million people right now and my job is, I'm responsible for our business on the West Coast, across all of our industries, et cetera. I've been here 32 years, so I've seen a lot of things happen in the Bay Area. And I now have the responsibility of making sure that we're doing great work for our clients. And we're doing great work in the community. And then we're providing great opportunities to the thousands of people that work for us here in the Bay Area and across the West Coast. So it's a lot of fun. >> Obviously, West Coast is booming. And for tech it's been a hotbed. And obviously the industry's across the board now is global. I got to ask you because, you know, you've been around multiple waves of innovation. And Accenture's been, had their hands in enabling a lot of value creation for clients. You guys have a great reputation. There's a lot of smart people. But the waves are always kind of different in their own way, but sometimes it's the same. What's different about the way we're living now? Because you can almost look back and see the major inflection points. Obviously the PC revolution, client server, interoperability, networking stacks went standard. Then you saw the Internet come. Now you've got Web 2.0. And now you got the whole global, you got things like cryptocurrency and blockchain. You have multiple clouds. You have a whole new game-changing dynamic going on with IT infrastructure combined with opensource at a whole 'nother level. So how is this wave different? Is it like the, how would you compare? >> Well, I think all the technologies that have waved through my career, at least, have been real enablers for the business model that the companies had at the time, and that they evolved. What we see now is epic disruption, right? So, the waves now are, we have digital native companies that are just disrupting the heck out of the industry or the company that we're trying to help. And so it's now about pulling all of those technologies together, and really figuring out a new business model for a client. Figuring out a new distribution channel, a new product that's maybe natively digital. And so it's very, very different, I feel, then it was five, 10, 15, 20 years ago, through some of the other waves. >> Talk about the things going on in the Bay Area before we get more in the global themes, because I think the Bay Area is always kind of a leading indicator. I call it a bellwether. Some cool things happened. You've got things like the Golden State Warriors got a stadium that's being built. I'm watching the World Series with the Red Sox, and you see Amazon stat cast, you're seeing overlays, you're seeing rosserial. All these things are changing the work and play. The Bay Area's got a lot of leading indicators. What are some of the projects that you've been involved in? What's happening now that you think is worth noting, that's exciting, that piques your interest? >> Yeah, I mean, we work across every industry, and we do a ton of work in tech, but I actually find some of the more interesting projects are the ones we're doing for healthcare companies in the Bay Area, some of the utilities in the Bay Area, some of the big resource companies, some of the financial services institutions, 'cause, like I said before, all of those industries have disruption coming or have been disrupted, and so we're doing some work right now around patient services in healthcare and in pharma that is really interesting. It's meant to change the experience that a patient has, that you and I have when we interact with our healthcare providers or, you know, the whole industry. And so those kinds of projects are real interesting cause a lot of these industries are old and sort of have a big legacy estate and model that they need to transform from. So they need to move fast, and we kind of describe it as a wise pivot. They sort of need to move, but they need to make sure they're moving at the right time. They can't hurt their existing business, but they got to pivot to the next business model, and that's happening in lots of places. And you're right, I think it is happening a lot in the Bay Area and the West Coast as sort of a bellwether. >> I want to get your thoughts on some of the moments that are going on in tech. You mentioned prior, before we came on camera, you worked for Apple in the old days. Tim Cook was just recently tweeting yesterday, and that tweet's going around, privacy. He was at this big GDPR conference. The role of regulatory now is changing some of the West Coast dynamics. Used to be kind of fast and loose West Coast, innovate, and then it gets operationalized globally with tech, tech trends. What's the tech enablers now that you see that are involved that actually have to deal with regulatory, and is regulatory an opportunity? You're mentioning utilities, finance, those are two areas you can jump out and say okay, we see something there. Privacy is another one. So you have a perfect storm with tech and regulatory frameworks. How has that impacted your job in the West Coast? >> Well, I mean, GDBR, we live with everyday. And clearly we're doing a ton of work in Europe. And I think that's one of the advantages Accenture has of being a big global company, and being able to take lessons learned from other parts of the world that are likely to come to the United States, et cetera, so, but I think the combination of tech and regulatory are going to be merging together here pretty quickly, especially when you talk about AI and data privacy, and that sort of thing. But it's definitely been an evolution. Great to hear Tim's point of view on what Apple thinks. And it's been really fun in my life to see Apple in the 80s when I worked there. They were a client of mine in the 80s. I worked with NEXT Computing in the 90s. And then obviously they're a big partner of ours now, so it's been a really interesting evolution. >> What are some of the growth accomplishments you guys have in the Bay Area? Obviously there's been growth here for you guys. Obviously, we've been seeing it. >> Well, I think the amount of tech-driven disruption, or digital transformation, we call it, is growing like crazy. So, you know, 20 years ago we were doing a lot of eCommerce work. We kind of shied away from doing Y2K work and a lot of our competitors saw that as a big opportunity. We didn't think it was a lot of value for our clients, fixing the old systems. And so we pivoted to eCommerce in a very aggressive way. And I would say now that's evolved even further, where more than close to 2/3 of our business here on the West Coast is what we call the new, which is clouds, security, digital analytics. And I really think it gets down to, we were talking a little bit earlier, about the data. And so we have more data scientists than we've ever had. We're probably hiring one or two every day out here on the West Coast. And it's about the data. Data is driving our consulting business. It's driving our technology business. It's driving what we're doing with AI, obviously, and things like that, so. The transformation's been pretty tremendous. >> So take a minute to explain the difference (mumbles), data, you mentioned a lot of things, you got data in there, you got cloud, and you mentioned earlier you got kind of cloud first companies, got born in the cloud, born in AI, AI first, data first, these new companies that are essentially disrupting incumbents, also your clients, that are kind of born before the cloud. And they got to transform. Is digital transformation one of those things or both of those things? How does digital transformation translate to the clients that you guys work with? >> Well, every client has a unique set of needs depending on where they came from. We do a lot of work with the digital natives. We do a lot of work with the unicorns out here on the West Coast. And their needs are different. You know, they need to learn how to scale globally. They need help in the back office. They need help sort of maturing their business model. We do a lot of work with legacy financial services companies, healthcare companies, that sort of thing. They need to figure out how to sort of, you know, pivot to digital products or digital interactions with their customers. We have a very large business now in Accenture Interactive around helping to find customer experiences for clients. And we think our mission is sort of help our clients really redefine that relationship with their customer, their supplier, their supply chain, and the experience is a key part of that. Given expectations means a lot. >> We have a lot of CUBE Conversations around IT transformation as well. And I had a CIO, big time firm, we won't say the name cause it'll out em, but he said, "We've been outsourcing IT for so many years, but now we got to build the core competency internally because now it's a competitive advantage." And they have to ramp up pretty quickly. Cloud helps them there, and they need partners that can help them move the needle on the top line. That this is not just cost control and operational scale or whether it's horizontally scalable scale-out or whatnot. Top line revenue. This is where the bread and butter of the companies are. >> Right. >> So how are you guys engaging with the clients? Give some examples of how you're helping them with the digital transition to drive their business, how do you engage them? Do you do the standard sales calls engagements? You bring them to a technology center? As the world starts to change, how do you guys help those clients meet those top lines? >> Well, a perfect client for us, you know, we're really good at helping clients cut costs and get really efficient and be good with their peers on cost structure. We love a client where they want us to help em with that and they want to pivot the savings to the new part. The way, one of the things that triggered a thought when you mentioned that was we like to bring our clients into our innovation hubs, so we've had labs here on the West Coast for a long time. We now have 10 innovation hubs in the U.S. We have a very large one in San Francisco now, and so we'll bring a client into our innovation hub and really roll up our sleeves with the client and over a week or two weeks or three period of time, we really brainstorm on envisioning their future for their company, build a minimal viable product if we have to out of our rapid prototyping capability and really envision what the target and state of their business could be, of their product could be or their customer interaction and we'll model it. Rather than sort of do a study, do another study, do a PowerPoint presentation, it's let's roll up our sleeves and figure out how to really pivot your business to the new and then take it from there. >> And they come to your location Absolutely. >> For an extended period of time? >> Yeah, so we'll have, any given day we'll have at least two different clients in our location doing either a couple a day workshop, a multi-week workshop, and it's co-creation. It's us collaborating with our client to figure out a solution. A good example is we had one of our large clients from the West Coast in there recently and we were trying to figure out how to use drone technology to drive analytics in, you know, over a geography to provide better data for them to minimize risk. And we've got a number of co-creation projects now going on with them to figure out how do we take that into a solution that not only helps their business but maybe it is a commercially available system. >> Yeah, our Wikibon research team brings us all the time with IOT and security you're starting to see companies leverage their existing assets, which is physical as well as digital and then figure out a model that makes them work together because these new use cases are springing up. So what if some of those use cases that you guys see happening, because you mentioned drones, cause that's an IOT device, right, essentially. There's all these new scenarios that are emerging and the speed is critical. It's not like, you can't do a study. There's no time to do a study. There's no time to do these things. You got to get some feet on the ground. You got to have product in market, you got to iterate. This is devops culture. >> Right. >> What is an example? >> So we did a project for a big ag company and not actually a West Coast based company but they came to our labs to look at it. And basically what we did was, we covered an area that's basically the size of Delaware in terms of drone video and we were able to drive analytics from that and ten times faster figure out for them where the forest was weak and where it wasn't. where they ought to worry about vegetation, where they might have disease issues or other risks that were facing them. And those analytics we were able to drive a lot faster and so rather than manually going around this huge square mile set of geography, they were able to sort of do it through technology a lot faster. >> Yeah, just a side note. I was talking to Paul Daugherty and interviewed him. We were celebrating, covering the celebration, your 30th anniversary of your labs. And one of the interviews I did was a wacky idea which made total sense, was during like a car accident or scene where there's been a car accident, they send drones in first and they map out the forensics- >> Sure. >> First. And you think, okay, who would have thought of that? I mean, these are new things that are happening that are changing the game on the road because they'll open up faster. They get the data that they need. They don't have to spend all that physical time laying things out. This is not just a one-off, this is like in every industry. Is there an industry that's hotter than another for you guys? (mumbles) oil and gas, utilities, financial services is kind of the big ones. What are some of the hot areas that you guys see the most activity on, on this kind of new way of taking existing industries and transforming them? >> I don't know if I could pinpoint an industry, I really don't. I mean, because I see what we're trying to do with anti-money laundering and banking is really moving the ball forward. What we're doing with patient services and pharma in health care is pretty aggressive. Even some of the things that we're doing for some of the states and governments around citizen services to make sure that ... Cause all of us have expectations now on how we want to interact with government and our expectations are not being met in just about every department, right? So we're doing a lot of work with states around how to provide a better experience to citizens. So I don't know if I could pinpoint an actual industry. One of the fun ones that we just, that we're involved with our here in our patch is one of the big gaming companies in Vegas. We are doing a lot of video analytics and technology and again, it's something like 20 times faster being able to detect fraud, being able to figure out what's going on on a gaming table and how to provide rewards quicker to their customers, keep em at the table faster or longer- >> He's got to nice stack of chips. Oh, he's going down. (laughs) Give him a comp through, he's feeling down. Look at his facial expression. I can (mumbles) imagine, I mean, this is the thing. I would agree. I think this every vertical we see is being disrupted. Just mentioned public sectors. Interesting. We were riffing at an Amazon event one time around who decides with the self-driving cars? These towns and cities don't have the budget or the bandwidth to figure out and reimagine the public services that they have, they're offering the citizens. The consumerization of IT hits the public sector. >> For sure. >> And they need help. So again every industry is going on. Okay, well I want to step back and get some time in for analytics because you guys have been investing as a company heavily in analytics in the past 10 years. Past, I think, seven years, you guys have been really, really ramping up the investment on data science, analytics. Give us an update on that. How is that going? How's that changed? And what's the update today? >> Yeah, and it's a good point. I mean, and again, you mentioned those labs being here for 30 years. A lot of our data scientists and big machine learning and big data folks frankly started at the labs here years and years ago and so, we've now got one of the largest analytics capabilities, I think, of any services company globally. We called it applied intelligence. It's a combination of our analytics capability and artificial intelligence, and we basically have an analytics capability that's built into all the different services that we provide. So we think it's, everything's about analytics just about. I mean, clearly you can't do a consulting project unless you've really got a unique analytical point of view and unique data around assessing a client's problem. You really can't really do a project or implement a system without a heavy data influence. So we are adding, frankly, I think every day I'm approving more analytics head count into our team on the West Coast in lots of different practices. And so it disbands industries, it spans all the platform sets, that sort of thing, but we're the largest of most of the big data players. >> I think one of the consistent trends with AI, which is now being the word artificial intelligence, AI, is kind of encapsulated the whole big data world because big data's now AI is the implementation of it. You're seeing everything from fraud. You mentioned anti-money laundering, know your customer, these kind of dynamics. But you get the whole dark web phenomenon going out there with fraud. All kinds of underground economies going on. So AI is a real value driver across all industries around one, understanding what's happening, >> Sure. >> And then how to figure out how to applications development could be smarter. >> Right. >> This is kind of relatively new concept for these scale out applications, which is what businesses do. So how is that going? Any color commentary on the impact of AI specifically around how companies are operationally changing and re-imagining their businesses? >> Well, I think it's very early days for most of our clients, most big companies. I think, we've done some recent surveys that say something like 78% of our clients believe that AI's really, really important and they're not at all prepared to deal with or apply it to their business. So I think it's relatively early days. There's a huge fight for skills, so we're building our team and that sort of thing. We're also classic Accenture. We grow skills pretty well too through both on-the-job training and real training. And so I think we're seeing sort of baby steps with AI. There's a lot of great vended solutions out there that we're able to apply to business problems as well. But I think we're in relatively early days. >> It's almost as if, you know, the old black-box garbage in, garbage out. You have good data, >> Exactly. >> and you got to understand data differently, and I think what I'm seeing is a lot of data architects going on, figuring out how do we take the role of data and put it in a position to be successful. It's kind of like, cause then you use AI and you go, that's great, but what about, oh, we missed this data set. >> Right. >> You'll have fully exposed data sets, so this is all new dynamics. >> So you have to iterate through it and you'll have to (mumble) solutions that'll start and restart. >> All right, so final question for you. Talk about this technology hubs again. So you have the labs, get that. So how many hubs do you have, technology hubs? >> Well, in the U.S., there's 10. But I would say in the West Coast it's really San Francisco and Seattle right now, with San Francisco being our flagship and frankly it's a flagship in the U.S. We've had the 30 year presence of our labs here on the West Coast and we've had design studios on the West Coast. We've had our what we call liquid studios, which is a big rapid prototyping sort of capability. We've had our research, et cetera. We've pulled all of those locations, so our lab started in Palo Alto, went to San Jose and is now in San Francisco. We've pulled all those locations together into what we're calling the innovation hub for the West Coast and it's a five-story marquee building in San Francisco and it's where we bring our clients and we expect to have literally, I think last year we had 200 and something client workshops and co-creation sessions there. This year we think the number's going to go to 400 and so it's really becoming a fabric of all our practices. >> How important is the co-creation, because you have a physical presence here and it's the flagship for the innovation hub and it's an accumulation of a lot of work you guys have done across multiple things you've done. Labs, liquid labs, all that stuff coming together. How important is the co-creation part as a mechanism for fostering collaboration with your clients? Co-creation's certainly hot. Your thoughts on co-creation. >> Great question, and I would tell you Accenture's kind of gone through waves as technology's gone through waves and so we were always an enabler for a client's projects and we did a lot of project work. I think we're in a wave now where we're going to be the innovation partner. We continue to sort of be named the innovation partner or the digital partner for certain clients. And we're going to do that through co-creating with them, and it's not just at their site, et cetera. It's going to be co-creation in our labs where we're taking advantage of the hundreds of data scientists and computer researchers and technical architects that we have in our labs to create something that's new and fresh and purpose-built for their particular business model. So we think co-creation is a huge part of the formula for us being successful with our clients over the next 10 years. And so that's why we've put this infrastructure in place, expect it to expand and to be sold out and that sort of thing. But it's a good way for us to build capability and really, really viable solutions for our clients going forward. >> So it's not just a sales development initiative. It's an operationalized engagement and delivery mechanism for you guys. >> Exactly, exactly. It's not, I mean it has, it self markets but it's not about marketing. It's about, we'll have tours and we'll have a little tourism through our center and so clients'll say, Wait, look at that maker lab. Look what you're doing with that client. I want one of those, right? I need to do that in my business, even though I'm in a different industry. So it's not really a marketing tool per se, it's a way for us to interact and engage with our clients. >> Well, it's a showcase in the sense of where you can showcase what you have and if clients see value, they can go to the next step. It's an accelerated path to outcomes re-imagining businesses. Okay, final question. What have you learned from all this? Because now you guys have a state of the art engagement model, delivery model, around cloud, all these things coming together, perfect storm for what you guys do. As you guys look back and see what you've built and where it's going to go, what are the key learnings that you guys came out of the West Coast team around pulling it all together over the years? What's the key learnings? >> Well, I think that our clientele is just thirsty for innovation and innovation now. It's now about sort of let's envision the future and we'll get to it some other day. It's what can we do right now and what journey, what glide path are we on to change our business? So the pace is just radically different than it used to be. And so it's about changing, rapidly changing, putting real innovation on it, and collaborating with clients in a pace that we've never seen before. I mean, I've been here 32 years and I've just never the pace of change. >> That's great, John. So (mumbles), really appreciate it. We'll get a quick plug in. What's coming up for you guys? What's going on in the West Coast? What's happening? >> Well, we're in event season right now, so we just finished all the ... We're wrapping up Oracle Open World. We just won five awards at Oracle Open World. We just did an acquisition on the West Coast to beef up our Oracle capabilities. We've got ReInvent and we have all kinds of events coming up but it's a, it's been a pretty busy season. >> So cloud and data have certainly helped rise the tide for your business. >> 100%. I mean, cloud is taking Accenture from kind of in the back of the office and put us into the front office over the last 10 years. >> Well, certainly it's awesome, (mumbles), leveling the playing field, allowing companies to scale out very rapidly, bringing a devops culture, new kinds of modern application developments, real value being created, super exciting time. Thanks for coming in and sharing your time. John Del Santo here in theCube for Cube Conversation, senior managing director at Accenture. I'm John Furrier here in theCube studios for Cube Conversation. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

(techy music) >> Live from Toronto, Canada, it's theCUBE covering Blockchain Futurist Conference 2018, brought to you by theCUBE. (techy music) >> Hello, everyone, and welcome back. This is the live CUBE coverage here in Toronto, Ontario here in Canada for the Untraceable Blockchain Futurist Conference. This is day two of wall-to-wall CUBE coverage. We've got great presentations going on, live content here on theCUBE as well as in the sessions, great networking, but more important all the thought leaders in the industry around the world are coming together to try to set the standards and set up a great future for cryptocurrency and blockchain in general. Our next two guests are very special guests for theCUBE and we're excited to have them on, the Honorable Wayne Caines, Minister of National Security for the government of Bermuda, and Kevin Richards, concierge on the Fintech business development manager, part of the Bermuda Business Development Agency. Thank you guys for coming on, really appreciate the time. >> Thanks very much. >> Thank you for having us. >> Why this is so important is that we heard your presentation onstage, for the folks, they can catch it online when they film it and record it, but the Bermuda opportunity has really emerged as a shining light around the world, specifically in the United States. In California, where I live, Silicon Valley, you guys are now having great progress in hosting companies and being crypto-friendly. Take a minute to explain what's happening, what's the current situation, why Bermuda, why now, what's developing? >> This has all happened over the last eight months. We were looking in November of 2017 to go in the space. In January we went to the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland. When we went to Davos in Switzerland something very interesting happened. People kept coming up to us, I was like the Hound of the Baskerville, or the Pied Piper if you please, and so, so many people were coming up to us finding out more information about Bermuda. We realized that our plan that we thought we could phase in over 18 months, that it had to be accelerated. So, whilst we were at the World Economic Forum in Davos we said to people, "Listen, if you want to change the world, "if you want to help Bermuda to grow, if you're serious," this is a Thursday, "Meet us in Bermuda on the Monday morning." On the Monday morning there are 14 different people in the room. We sat in the room, we talked about what we wanted the world to be, how could Bermuda be in place, what are the needs in this industry, and by the Wednesday we had a complete and total framework, and so we split up into industries. Number one was ICOs, we wanted to look at how to regulate the ICO market. Number two, we wanted to look at digital asset exchanges or cryptocurrencies or how do we regulate security tokens and utility tokens and what do exchanges look like, how do we do exchanges in Bermuda, and then we wanted to talk about education and setting up incubators. And so, come fast forward to July, August, we have an ICO bill in place that allows us to look at setting up ICOs in Bermuda. We wanted to focus on the legal and the regulatory framework, so this is a nascent space. A number of people are concerned about the dark actors, and so we wanted to set up a jurisdiction that traded on our international reputation. Now, remember for the last 60 years reinsurance, finance, captives, hedge funds, people in the financial services market have been coming to Bermuda because that's what we do well. We were trading on the reputation of our country, and so we couldn't do anything to jeopardize that. And so, when we put in place the ICO legislation we had consultants from all over the world, people that were bastions and beasts in industry, in the ICO industry and in the crypto world came to Bermuda and helped us to develop the legislation around setting up an ICO. So, we passed the ICO legislation. The next phase was regulating cryptocurrencies, regulating digital assets, and we set up a piece of legislation called the Digital Asset Business Act, and that just regulates the digital asset space exchanges, and the last piece we wanted to do was a banking piece, and this is the last and we believe the most significant piece. We were talking to people and they were not able to open up bank accounts and they were not able to do, so we said, "Listen, "the Bermuda banking environment is very strong." Our banking partners were like, "Listen, "we love what you guys are doing, "but based on our corresponding banking relationships "we don't want to do anything to jeopardize that space," but how could we tell people to come to Bermuda, set up your company, and they can't open bank accounts? And so, we looked at, we just recently passed creating a new banking license that allows people to set up their business in Bermuda and set up banking relationships and set up bank accounts. That simply has to receive the governor's Royal Assent. As you know, Bermuda's still a British pan-territory, and financial matters have to get the okay of the Queen, and so that is in the final stages, but we're excited, we're seeing an influx, excuse me, a deluge of people coming to Bermuda to set up their companies in Bermuda. >> So, the first two pieces are in place, you have the legislation... >> Mm-hm. >> Mm-hm. >> You have the crypto piece, and now the banking's not yet, almost approved, right? >> It's there, it simply has to get the final sign-off, and we believe that it should take place within the next two weeks. So, by the time this goes to air and people see it we believe that piece will be in place. >> So, this is great news, so the historical perspective is you guys had a good reputation, you have things going on, now you added on a new piece not to compromise your existing relationships and build it on. What have you guys learned in the process, what did you discover, was it easy, was it hard, what are some of the learnings? >> What we've learnt is that KYC, know your customers, and the AML, anti-money laundering, and terrorist financing pieces, those are the critical pieces. People are looking in this space now for regulatory certainty, so when you're talking about people that are in the space that are doing ICOs of $500 million or exchanges that are becoming unicorns, a billion dollar entity in three months, they want a jurisdiction that has regulatory certainty. Not only do they want a jurisdiction with regulatory certainty, they want to open up the kimono. What has this country done in the past, what do they have to trade on? We're saying you can go to a number of countries in the world, but look at our reputation, what we're trading on, and so we wanted to create a space with regulatory certainty, and so we have a regulatory body in Bermuda called the Bermuda Monetary Authority, and they are an independent regulator that they penned the Digital Asset Business Act, and so the opportunity simply for people around the world saying, "Listen, we want to do an ICO, "we want to set up an exchange. "Where's a country that we can go to that has a solid reputation? Hold on, how many countries have law surrounding"-- >> Yeah. >> "The Digital Asset Business Act, how many ICO countries have laws. Guess what, Bermuda becomes a standout jurisdiction in that regard. >> Having a regulation signaling is really important, stability or comfort is one, but the one concern that we hear from entrepreneurs, including, you know, ourselves when we look at the market is service providers. You want to have enough service providers around the table so when I come in and domicile, say, in Bermuda you want to have the banking relationships, you want to have the fiduciary-- >> Yes. >> You want to have service providers, law firms and other people. >> Yes. >> How are you guys talking about that, is that already in place? How does that fit into the overall roadmap for your vision? >> I don't want to beat a horse (laughs) or beat a drum too much, that is what we do as a country. So, we have set up, whether it's a group of law firms and the Bermuda, excuse me, the Bermuda Monetary Authority, the Bermuda that's the register of companies that sets up the companies. We have Kevin, and Kevin will tell you about it, he leads our concierge team. So, it's one throat to choke, one person that needs, so when you come to really understand that the ease of business, a county that's business-friendly with a small country and with a small government it's about ease of reference. Kevin, tell us a little about the concierge team. >> It's like the Delaware of the glove, right? >> Absolutely. >> Come in, domicile, go and tell us how it works. >> I'll give you a little bit of background on what we do on the concierge side. So, one thing that we identified is that we want to make sure that we've got a structure and a very clearly defined roadmap for companies to follow so that process from when they first connect with the BDA in Bermuda to when they're incorporated and set up and moved to Bermuda to start running their business is a seamless process that has very clearly identifiable road marks of different criteria to get through. So, what I do as a concierge manager is I will identify who that company needs to connect with when they're on the ground in Bermuda, get those meetings set up for when they come down so that they have a very clearly mapped out day for their trip to Bermuda. So, they meet with the regulator, they meet with the government leaders, they meet with the folks who've put together legislation that, obviously you mentioned the service providers, so identifying who's the right law firm, corporate service provider, advisory firm on the ground in Bermuda, compliance company, and then making sure that depending on what that company wants to achieve out of their operation in Bermuda they've got an opportunity to connect with those partners on their first trip so that they can put that road map together for-- >> So, making it easy... >> Making it very easy to set up in Bermuda. >> So, walk me through, I want to come down, I want to do business-- >> Yeah. >> Like what I hear, what do I do? >> So, you send me an email and you say, "Listen, Wayne, we're looking at "doing an ICO launch in Bermuda. "I would like to meet with the regulator. "Can you put a couple law firms in place," in an email. I zip that over to Kevin or you go on our Fintech.bm website-- >> Yeah, I was going to say... >> Fintech.bm website, and Kevin literally organizes a meeting. So, when you come to Bermuda for your meeting you have a boardroom and all the key players will be in the boardroom. >> Got it. >> If you need somebody to pick you up at the airport, if you need a hotel, whatever you need from soup to nuts our team actually makes that available to you, so you're not running around trying to find different people to meet, everyone's there in the room. >> And the beauty of Bermuda is that, you know, the city of Hamilton's two square kilometers, so your ability to get a lot done in one day is, I think, second to nowhere else on the planet, and working with the BDA concierge team you're, you know, we connect with the client before they come down and make sure we identify what their needs are. >> The number one question I have to ask, and this is probably the most important for everyone, is do they have to wear Bermuda shorts? (laughs) >> When you come you tell us your size, you tell us what size and what color you want and we'll make sure, so the... I tell this story about the Bermuda shorts. The Bermuda shorts, Bermuda's always had to adapt and overcome. Bermuda, we have something called the Bermuda sloop and it's a sailing rig, and so we... The closest port to Bermuda is Cape Hatteras in North Carolina and we wanted to cut down the time of their voyage, so we created a sailing rig called the Bermuda rig or the Bermuda sloop. Over the years that has become the number one adopted rig on sailing boats. We've always had to adapt and become innovative. The Bermuda shorts were a way to adapt and to get through our very hot climate, and so if you look at just keep that in mind, the innovation of the Bermuda sloop and the Bermuda shorts. Now, this Fintech evolution is another step in that innovation and a way that we take what's going on in the world and adapt it to make it palatable for everyone. >> What's the brand promise for you guys when you look at when entrepreneurs out there and other major institutions, especially in the United States, again, Silicon Valley's one of the hottest issues around-- >> Yes. >> Startups for expansion, right now people are stalled, they don't know what to do, they hear Malta, they hear other things going on. What's the promise that you guys are making to the law firms and the people, entrepreneurs out there trying to establish and grow? >> The business proposition is this, you want a jurisdiction that is trading on years of solid regulation, a country and a government that understands business, how to be efficacious in business. When you come to Bermuda you are trading on a country that this is what we've done for a living. So, you don't have to worry about ethical government, is your money going to be safe. We have strong banking relationships, strong law firms, top tier law firms in Bermuda, but more importantly, we have legislation that is in place that allow you to have a secure environment with a clear regulatory framework. >> What should people look for as potentially might be gimmicks for other countries to promote that, you know, being the Delaware for the globe and domiciling, and what are some of the requirements? I mean, some have you've got to live there, you know, what are some of the things that are false promises that you hear from other potential areas that you guys see and don't have to require and put the pressure on someone? >> When you hear the people say, "We can turn your company around in the next day." That we don't require significant KYC and AML. Red flags immediately go up with the global regulatory bodies. We want when a person comes to Bermuda to know that we have set what we believe is called the Bermuda Standard. When you come to Bermuda you're going to have to jump through some legal and regulatory hoops. You can see regulation, the ICO regulation and the Digital Asset Business Act on BermudaLaws.bm. BermudaLaws.bm, and you can go through the legislation clause by clause to see if this meets your needs, how it will affect your business. It sets up clearly what the requirements are to be in Bermuda. >> What's the feedback from business, because you know, when you hear about certain things, that's why Delaware's so easy, easy to set up, source price all know how to do in a corporation, let's say in the United States-- >> We don't have the SEC handicaps that they have in America, going from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. You're dealing with a colony that allows you to be in a domicile that all of the key players finances... We have a number of the key elements that are Bermuda. We're creating a biosphere that allows a person to be in a key space, and this is, you have first move as advantage in Bermuda. We have a number of things that we're working on, like the Estonia model of e-residency, which we will call EID, that creates a space that you are in Bermuda in a space that is, it's protected, it's governed. We believe that when companies set up in Bermuda they are getting the most secure, the strongest business reputation that a country could have. >> The other thing I would add, I'll just say, you know, quality, certainty, and community is what that brand represents. So, you know, you've got that historical quality of what Bermuda brings as a business jurisdiction, you have the certainty of the regulation and that pathway to setting your company up and incorporating in Bermuda, and then the community piece is something that we've been working on to make sure that any of the players that are coming to Bermuda and connecting with Bermuda and setting up there, they feel like they're really integrated into that whole community in Bermuda, whether it be from the government side, the private sector side. You can see it with the companies that have set up that are here today, you know, they really have embraced that Bermuda culture, the Bermuda shorts, and what we're really trying to do as a jurisdiction in the tech space. >> What can I expect if I domicile in Bermuda from a company perspective, what do I have to forecast? What's the budget, what do I got to do, what's my expectation? Allocate resources, what's going to be reporting, can you just give us some color commentary? >> So, with reference, it depends what you're trying to do, and so there will be different requirements for the ICO legislation. For the ICO legislation a key piece of the document actually is the whitepaper. Within the whitepaper you will settle what your scope of business is, what do you want to do, what you know, everything, everything that you require will be settled in your whitepaper. After the whitepaper is approved and if it is indeed successful, you go to the Bermuda Monetary Authority and they will outline what they require of you, and very shortly thereafter you will able to set up and do business in Bermuda. With reference to the digital asset exchanges, the Digital Asset Business Act, such a clear guideline, so you're going to need to have a key man in Bermuda, a key woman in Bermuda. >> Yeah. >> You're going to need to have a place of presence in Bermuda, so there are normal requirements-- >> There's levels of requirements based upon the scope. >> Absolutely. >> So, if you run an exchange it has to be like ghosting there. >> Yeah, yeah, you need boots on the ground. >> And that's why the AML and the KYC piece is so important. >> Yeah. Well, I'm super excited, I think this is a great progress and this has been a big uncertainty, you know, what does this signal. People have, you know, cognitive dissonance around some-- >> Yes. >> Of the decisions they're making, and I've seen entrepreneurs flip flop between Liechtenstein, Malta, Caymans. >> Right. >> You know, so this is a real concern and you guys want to be that place. >> Not only, we will say this, Bermuda is open for business, but remember, when you see the requirements that we have some companies won't meet the standard. We're not going to alter the standard to accommodate a business that might not be what we believe is best for Bermuda, and we believe that once people see the standard, the Bermuda Standard, it'll cascade down and we believe that high tides raises all boats. >> Yeah. >> We have a global standard, and if a company meets it we will be happy for them to set up and do business in Bermuda. >> Well, I got to say, it's looking certainly that leaders like Grant Fondo in Silicon Valley and others have heard good things. >> Yeah. >> How's been the reaction for some of the folks on the East Coast, in New York and around the United States and around the world? What has been some of the commentary, what's been the anecdotal feedback that you've heard? >> We're meeting three and four companies every day of the week. Our runway is full of Fintech companies coming to Bermuda, from... We have insurtech companies that are coming in Bermuda, people are coming to Bermuda for think tanks, to set up incubators and to do exploratory meetings, and so we're seeing a huge interest in Bermuda the likes have not been seen in the last 20 years in Bermuda. >> Well, it's been a pleasure chatting with you and thanks for sharing the update and congratulations. We'll keep in touch, we're following your progress from California, we'll follow up again. The Honorable Wayne Caines, the Minister of National Security of the government of Bermuda, and Kevin Richards, concierge taking care of business, making it easy for people. >> Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. >> We'll see, I'm going to come down, give me the demo. >> We're open for business and we're looking forward to seeing everybody. (laughs) >> Thank you for the opportunity. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Major developments happening in the blockchain, crypto space. We're starting to see formation clarity around, standards around traditional structures but not so traditional. It's not your grandfather's traditional model. This is what's great about blockchain and crypto. CUBE coverage here, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching, stay with us. More day two coverage after this short break. (techy music)

>> Announcer: From the Corinium Chief Analytics Officer Conference. Spring, San Francisco, it's theCUBE! >> Hey, welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in downtown San Francisco at the Corinium Chief Analytics Officer Spring event 2018. About 100 people, really intimate, a lot of practitioners sharing best practices about how they got started, how are they really leveraging data and becoming digitally transformed, analytically driven, data driven. We're excited to have Vishal Morde. He's the VP of Data Science at Barclays, welcome. >> Glad to be here, yeah. >> Absolutely. So we were just talking about Philly, you're back in Delaware, and you actually had a session yesterday talking about Barclays journey. So I was wondering if you could share some of the highlights of that story with us. >> Absolutely, so I had a talk, I opened the conference with data science journey at Barclays. And, we have been on this journey for five years now where we transform our data and analytics practices and really harness the power of Big Data, Machine Learning, and advanced analytics. And the whole idea was to use this power of, newly found power that we have, to make the customer journey better. Better through predictive models, better through deeper and richer consumer insights and better through more personalized customer experience. So that is the sole bet. >> Now it's interesting because we think of financial services as being a data driven, organization already. You guys are way ahead Obviously Wall Street's trading on microseconds. What was different about this digital transformation than what you've been doing for the past? >> I think the key was, we do have all the data in the world. If you think about it, banks know everything about you, right? We have our demographic data, behaviors data. From very granular credit card transactions data, we have your attitudal data, but what we quickly found out that we did not have a strategy to use that data well. To improve our our productivity, profitability of a business and make the customer experience better. So what we did was step one was developing a comprehensive data strategy and that was all about organizing, democratizing, and monetizing our data assets. And step towards, then we went about the monetization part in a very disciplined way. We built a data science lab where we can quickly do a lot of rapid prototyping, look at any idea in machine learning data science, incubate it, validate it, and finally, it was ready for production. >> So I'm curious on that first stage, so you've got all this data, you've been collecting it forever, suddenly now you're going to take an organized approach to it. What'd you find in that first step when you actually tried to put a little synthesis and process around what you already had? >> Well the biggest challenge was, the data came from different sources. So we do have a lot of internal data assets, but we are in the business where we do have to get a lot of external data. Think about credit bureau's, right? Also we have a co-brand business, where we work with partners like Uber, imagine the kind of data we get from them, we have data from American Airlines. So our idea was to create a data governance structure of, we formed a Chief Data Office, the officer forum, we got all the people across our organization to understand the value of data. We are a data driven company as you said but, it took us a while to take that approach and importance of data, and then, data analytics need to be embedded in the organizational DNA, and that's what we're going to focus on first. Data awareness of importance of data, importance of governance as well, and then we could think about democratizing and monetizing, organization's the key for us. >> Right, right, well so how did you organize, how has the Chief Data Officer, what did he or she, who did he or she report to, how did you organize? >> Right, so it was directly reporting to our CEO. >> Jeff: Into the CEO, not into the CIO? >> Not into the CIO. We had a technology office, we do kind of, have a line-of-sight or adopted line with technology, and we made sure that that office has a lot of high-level organization buy-in, they are given budgets to make sure the data governance was in place, key was to get data ownership going. We were using a lot of data, but there was no data ownership. And that was the key, once we know that, who actually owned this data, then you can establish a governance framework, then you can establish how you use this data, and then, how to be monetized. >> So who owned it before you went through this exercise, just kind of, it was just kind of there? >> Yeah, there wasn't a clear ownership, and that's the key for us. Once you establish ownership, then it becomes an asset, we were not treating data as an asset, so there was a change in, kind of mindset, that we had to go through, that data is an asset, and it was used as a means to an end, rather than an asset. >> Right, well what about the conflict with the governance people, I'm sure there was a lot of wait, wait, wait, we just can't open this up to anybody, I'm sure it's a pretty interesting discussion because you have to open it up to more people, but you still have to obviously follow the regs. >> Right, and that's where there are a lot of interesting advancement in data science, where, in the area of data governance, there are new tools out there which lets you track who's actually accessing your data. Once we had that infrastructure, then you can start figuring out okay, how do we allow access, how do we actually proliferate that data across different levels of the organization? Because data needs to be in the hands of decision makers, no matter who they are, could be our CEO, to somebody who's taking our phone calls. So that democratization piece became so important, then we can think about how do you-- you can't directly jump into monetization phase before you get your, all the ducks in order. >> So what was the hardest part, the biggest challenge, of that first phase in organizing the data? >> Creating that 360 degree view on our customers, we had a lot of interesting internal data assets, but we were missing big pieces of the puzzles, where we're looking at, you're trying to create a 360 degree view on a customer, it does take a while to get that right, and that's where the data, setting up the data governance piece, setting up the CDO office, those are the more painful, more difficult challenges, but they lay the foundation for all the the work that we wanted to do, and it allowed to us to kind of think through more methodically about our problems and establish a foundation that we can now, we can take any idea and use it, and monetize it for you. >> So it's interesting you, you said you've been on this journey for five years, so, from zero to a hundred, where are you on your journey do you think? >> Right, I think we're just barely scratching the surface, (both laughing) - I knew you were going to say that >> Because I do feel that, the data science field itself is evolving, I look at data science as like ever-evolving, ever-mutating kind of beast, right? And we just started our journey, I think we are off to a good start, we have really good use-cases, we have starting using the data well, we have established importance of data, and now we are operationalized on the machine learning data science projects as well. So that's been great, but I do feel there's a lot of untapped potential in this, and I think it'll only get better. >> What about on the democratization, we just, in the keynote today there was a very large retailer, I think he said he had 50 PhDs on staff and 150 data centers this is a multi-billion dollar retailer. How do you guys deal with resource constraints of your own data science team versus PhDs, and trying to democratize the decision making out to a much broader set of people? >> So I think the way we've thought about this is think big, but start small. And what we did was, created a data science lab, so what it allowed is to kind of, and it was the cross-functional team of data scientists, data engineers, software developers kind of working together, and that is a primary group. And they were equally supported by your info-sec guys, or data governance folks, so, they're a good support group as well. And with that cross-functional team, now we are able to move from generating an idea, to incubating it, making sure it has a true commercial value and once we establish that, then we'll even move forward operationalization, so it was more surgical approach rather than spending millions and millions of dollars on something that we're not really sure about. So that did help us to manage a resource constraint now, only the successful concepts were actually taken through operationalization, and we before, we truly knew the bottom line impact, we could know that, here's what it means for us, and for consumers, so that's the approach that we took. >> So, we're going to leave it there, but I want to give you the last word, what advice would give for a peer, not in the financial services industry, they're not watching this. (both laugh) But you know, in terms of doing this journey, 'cause it's obviously, it's a big investment, you've been at it for five years, you're saying you barely are getting started, you're in financial services, which is at it's base, basically an information technology industry. What advice do you give your peers, how do they get started, what do they do in the dark days, what's the biggest challenge? >> Yeah, I feel like my strong belief is, data science is a team sport, right? A lot of people come and ask me: how do we find these unicorn data scientist, and my answer always being that, they don't exist, they're figments of imagination. So it's much better to take cross-functional team, with a complimentary kind of skill set, and get them work together, how do you fit different pieces of the puzzle together, will determine the success of the program. Rather than trying to go really big into something, so that's, the team sport is the key concept here, and if I can get the word out across, that'll be really valuable. >> Alright, well thanks for sharin' that, very useful piece of insight! >> Vishal: Absolutely! >> Alright thanks Vishal, I'm Jeff Frick, you are watching theCUBE, from the Corinium Chief Analytic Officer summit, San Francisco, 2018, at the Parc 55, thanks for watching! (bubbly music plays)

>> Announcer: From New York, it's theCUBE, covering Blockchain Week, now here's John Furrier. (upbeat music) >> Hello and welcome back, this is theCUBE's coverage here in New York City in Manhattan at the Hilton Midtown for Consensus 2018 part of Blockchain Week New York. Our next guest here is Greg Landegger who's with Smith Parsons and Whittemore also known for Bit Digest, investor in this space since the beginning, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you for having me John. >> So I've got to ask you, you've been an investor in a lot of coins and equity deals the space is now busting out, I mean first of all are you amazed by the amount of people here? >> I'm more than amazed, it's surreal. >> And you now have an interesting culture of new investors in the space coming in. What's it like for you working with the new investors? >> So we are a single family office that started originally in 2014 and the way I describe it is for the past few years I was the loser at the lunchroom, everyone was making fun of me and then last year all the cool jocks wanted me to sit at their table. (John laughing) A lot of our bankers, all the traditional firms, started calling up saying, "What are you doing? What is this bitcoin thing that you've been spending your time on?" >> So you had a nice little cover story there for a while but can't ignore the returns, at the end of the day. >> That's exactly right, last year was too good a year. >> Alright, so talk about some of the dynamics that you're seeing here at Blockchain Week. What are you seeing? What's the top story, what's the big news that you think is most important? >> I think the news right now is that there's real development going on, I mean we're all waiting, the holy grail to me is coming up with an institutional custodial project. Ledger Wallets announced something today so we're very excited about that and there's more and more effort being done in that area. And that's really what'll bring in more people into the market. >> Big controversy yesterday in the panel about you know Blockchain washing or you know seeing blockchain, pretty heated argument there, your thoughts? I mean obviously, it's early, embryonic, it's growing really fast, I've heard the same arguments when the web came along, too slow, you know it's not fully functional, but it was still early. Same here? What's your take on all this? >> As an investor we'd like it to be must faster, but realistically everything's surpassing any expectations. I mean nobody, if you talked to people early last year we would laugh about people predicting bitcoin at 2,500. >> So with the coins, talk about the investment you're making in coins. >> So we invest it. >> 'Cause that's different than the equity. >> It is, but we had a learning experience where one of our companies ICOed, we chose not to participate in it and it was the wrong decision, it really told us we need to be on the equity side as well the coin side. >> When was that? Early on or? >> Last year. >> Last year. >> The middle of last year. >> Okay, so what kind of coin deals are you doing? What's that profile? >> So we do a little bit of everything, I mean we've come up with a term rebel coins which are the top six coins, it's Ripple, Etherium, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, and Lightcoin, we like those. Then we invest in a total of about 20 coins. >> And the blockchain doesn't bother you in the performance and all that good stuff? >> No because we're making a bet on the future of different things >> Long game. >> It's a long game for us. >> What's your criteria for investment? You obviously get the, you're kind of a rebel in yourself, but your returns are there, I've seen this movie before in the web, but everything happened in the web and the returns were made you know really before the dot com bubble popped around 2001 timeframe. But there's still great returns, but the decisions were interesting then. How do you make your choices? How do you know what a good deal is? >> It's, I'd say 80% the team. Do they have the experience? Do they have an understanding of what they're doing? I mean I have a lot of great ideas on things I know nothing about and know I'll never succeed in 'em. So if we find a team that is experienced in an area, understands it, has a real go to market story, >> Interesting enough. >> that's exciting us. >> Okay so it's the classic criteria with a twist. How about running hard? You say really you got to run hard in this game it's a fast-moving, unlike the dot com bubble, this thing is highly accelerated, you got to, you can't be sittin' on you butt on this one. >> No agreed, you've got to be very aggressive in the area, but I think with the ICOs there's more money up front than people typically had and that's really what's changed the market a lot for us, is it's not a deal where the venture capitalists go out and give a million dollars to five companies, wait to see what happens, now those five companies are able to raise a lot more money, but it doesn't guarantee they'll succeed. >> Greg you've become kind of a great known investor, certainly the Bit Digest is well-known for great following there. I got to ask you the double coin question, pun intended. There's the good and the bad, name something that's really good about this industry right now, that people should know about that might not be familiar. And what are some of the things that you're concerned with? That you want to see kind of stopped, or bad behavior eradicated? Share your perspective on the double coin side of the life if you're in the crypto world. >> So let's, starting with the bad, I think it's education, people don't understand what's going on. We keep on hearing about Mt Gox, Silk Road, that's in the past, bitcoin, and I use bitcoin as a general term at times, but you know it is not a, I mean it's a transparent currency, it's safer than a lot of other things out there, people don't understand that and I blame the media a lot for just repeating the story, maybe it sells papers, but just people aren't explaining what's really going on in the market. >> That's the Ed model for you, if it leads, if it bleeds, it leads, and that's a story. No but I think people see the ICO things too happening right? They go, "Okay, there's been some scams on the ICO-side, so I've heard that story, you know I'm worried about that." >> I mean I've spent some time in the microcap space I dealt with a lot more questionable people in microcaps than I deal in crypto. >> You mean in the traditional market? >> Traditional, pink sheets area. >> So I think what's different now, I'd love to get your perspective on that I see at least, observation wise, is you have an open source ethos kind of community model where there's a lot of self-governing going on. Are you seeing the same thing? Is there people talking, it's a tight knit community, still small, growing, is there like a special self-governance thing going on in the finance world? I mean you know there's been talk on people kind of organizing, syndicating, pooling deals together, which is natural. But how about the self-governing aspect of it? >> You know I think, I mean people, the funds or the actual token offerings themselves, that's still something that needs to be addressed, people haven't done it in the same way a typical equity raise would be done and a lot of the different fund managers, let me back up by saying this is the most open market I've ever seen where everybody is willing to talk to each other to try and share ideas and make this grow and a lot of the fund managers are now looking at it saying, "We need some more governance." There're things going on today, such as in the ICO market, if you invested in equity, you never thought that a ICO offering may occur originally and is it a liquidity event and what happens? So we're trying to come up with some governance that hasn't existed but probably needs to be, but to be fair the companies that we've been lucky enough to invest with are supporting the ideas. >> Yeah so there's liquidity going on. It's a new kind of liquidity. What is that liquidity? Where is the liquidity? It's not just a Kickstarter campaign, there's actually liquidity going on. >> There is liquidity going on and I think we're trying to figure out how to now take equity that is established in the traditional sense, we talked about security tokens, but the companies that are actually have issued ICOs are trying to determine how to give a dividend or some form of liquidity to the shareholders and that's a new market. >> Greg does the domicile matter to you? Where they are located? I mean I've heard things like special purpose vehicles have always been kind of an analogy. >> I mean traditionally I will say no, our attorneys would say yes, but if it's a Cayman, we've invested in some Cayman companies, Europe, Asian companies, so that really doesn't bother us that much, again it's the team >> It's not a deal killer. >> It's definitely not a deal killer. >> But you'd prefer, obviously, security token, in the US. >> Delaware-based would make us the happiest. But if they have a real team behind it, if they have real attorneys, real auditors, we'll look past that. >> And global reach, that's a big factor. >> Absolutely. >> How much is global impacting this world? I mean, we're in the US, we're kind of turning into it. >> It's incredibly, but I think the one area where we need to do a better job is in expanding it, I mean there are a lot of foreigners at this market today, at this event, but it's, we know the US market really well, we don't know what's going on in Asia, we read the trade magazines and that's how we know what's going on there's efforts now, I'm even, Consensus announced today they're having an event next year, or this year, in Singapore. We need to have greater reach to share what's going on around the world versus what a few people are telling us. >> John: You see that as a big issue? >> I do, we don't see what's going on in China today, we don't see what's going on in Singapore, the Philippines, and that's where a lot of the effort is going on. >> Well I think you're right, I think one of the things and that's where fake news on Facebook, you know with the whole election here in the US and now outside influence, whether it's terrorist groups or propaganda-based systems, quality of the data >> That's exactly right. >> is a really important with real time. >> And the data's limited today, I mean it's not. >> I agree, I mean we totally agree with the same thing. Okay final thought, walk away this week from big data, not big data, Blockchain Week NYC, your big walk away here this week. What's your takeaway? What do you take home? >> We went in the right direction, I mean that this is still developing, we're not there yet, there's still a lot of work to be done, but long-term whether you believe in digital currencies or not today, this is something that central governments are looking at in supporting, enterprise is getting into it, and this is the future. So we made the right choice. >> And is it only going to get better you think? >> Absolutely. >> Yeah I think stability-wise, technically, and the business models are starting to shake out. Just quickly before, I know you got to go, thank you for your time, quickly token economics, big part of the business model side of it your thoughts and reaction to how that's going and how people should start thinking about that if they could meet their criteria for some sort of de-centralized business opportunity. >> So I think, it's looking at network usage, I mean that's really the way we look at it today, the fundamental model doesn't work, or we haven't been able to determine how to do that, but adoption, it's growth, and that's how we've focused things and see where it is. >> Well congratulations for all the work and all the work you're doing and that continue to do. Thanks for coming on theCUBE, appreciate it. >> Thank you very much. >> Great to have a big-time investor on theCUBE here. Big-time investors, we had entrepreneurs, we had folks from Europe, Lithuania, all over the world here on theCUBE, we're out in the open. This is theCUBE covering Blockchain Week New York City Consensus 2018, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. Stay with us for more, after this break. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico, it's theCUBE, covering Blockchain Unbound. Brought to you by Blockchain Industries. (Caribbean music) >> Welcome back, everyone. We're here for exclusive CUBE coverage in Puerto Rico for Blockchain Unbound, a great conference where entrepreneurs and leaders are all here, coming together at a global level. You've got investors, you've got entrepreneurs, you've got the ecosystem developing. We've got it covered for you, I'm John Furrier, your host of theCUBE. Next guest, Joe Mohen, CEO of Chimes, industry executive, a lot of experience doing an ICO, doing some great work, Joe welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here. >> So, tell us first what Chimes is doing. You've got an interesting approach with music. What are you guys doing? Is there an ICO in the future? Have you done an ICO? Give the quick update. >> Okay, sure. Chimes is a digital media company, and we are consolidating music-related search results on Google in a similar way to what Amazon did with IMDB, consolidating film and television results many years ago. Amazon built an audience of about quarter of a billion to half a billion monthly users, and we expect we can create an audience on that order of magnitude over time. Just like IMDB is the third largest entertainment website in the world, it is our objective to create the fourth largest one. >> What's the value proposition there? Acquire audience, use that audience to tokenize? How does the token economics fit into all this? >> Well, first, like any media company, the first thing you have to get is an audience, right? I remember I interviewed for a job at CBS when I was out of college, and in the interview they said, "Do you know what we make here?" And I said, "You make TV shows." They go, "No, we make audiences." So we have to make an audience with a good product. The audience will be driven primarily by search, okay? But we also do have a double ICO in our future. First, we monetize the big audience. You can monetize with advertising, but that's not enough to make big money anymore, right, we all know that. So we have a layer of crypto products over and above that that we're going to be launching, including, for example, inter-country commerce, hiring producers in another country, hiring songwriters, et cetera, but automating that so we can do it on scale with smart contract. So we are creating a micro-currency that we can use on the website. We're doing an ICO for that but that's not for the purpose of raising capital. >> That's more part of the business model. >> That's part of the business model. >> That's not the financial aspect of it. >> Correct, and that's done so we can scale international commerce with automation. We're doing an actual ICO for the equity, for securities tokens as well. I've done a full IPO myself. My first company, I had Microsoft and Novell as my shareholders and it was a full S1, full registration. >> Interviewer: You went through the whole process. >> Yeah, but I also did a Form 10 once, ten years ago, for another reason. So what we're doing is possibly the first, certainly one of the first, but I think the first registration with the SEC of a company actually doing an ICO. And we're doing that using, I don't want to call it a loophole in securities laws, but there is a provision in the 1934 Securities Act called Section 12G. And what this does is it allows us basically to go public by telling the SEC we're doing it without having to delay it to wait for their permission. A Form 10 looks just like an S1, but when you file it, it's automatically effective 60 days after you file it, period. And so what we're doing is-- >> Period, full stop, no issues, no questions. >> Joe: No issue, right. >> So do you have to fill out all the same paperwork, the S1, >> Correct. >> the normal format, do the business plan, the normal paperwork? >> Joe: No, right, in 1930-- >> But there's no comments coming back? You just chip it to them? >> Comments come back and you have to clear them, just like with a prospectus, just like with an S1, however that doesn't delay it becoming effective. It's effective 60 days later. >> So they can be commenting during the 60 day time clock going on, but after 60 days, you're in. >> It's effective. So we'll continue to clear comments, but the thing is, with tokens, who knows how long that'll take? Is the SEC going to shepherd something through with crypto, or are they going to make it take five years? I don't know! Who knows? So, the thing is, we are complying with all of the laws for registration, but 60 days after we file it, it's effective. What we're doing is, in the pre-sale for the tokens, we're not issuing the tokens themselves to the buyers of the pre-sale for six months. The reason for that is they will have met the statutory holding period. So once the Form 10 is effective, those buyers can sell freely on token exchanges-- >> And what's the statutory holding period, six months? >> Generally six months. There's a few exceptions for affiliates, like an insider like me. >> I'm confused, a holding period kicks in before or after six months? >> After six months, the statutory holding period is satisfied. >> So you're going to wait to delay them anyway six months. >> Joe: Yes. >> So that covers the holding period. >> Correct, and then we file the Form 10, and 60 days later, they can trade and anybody can buy them. >> So do you file a Form 10 before the six month holding period? >> It'll be at about the same time. The reason being is because we have to get all the ducks in a row to be a public company. >> Cutting edge advice here, this is fantastic. So you're basically going to be the first ICO that actually files with the SEC. >> Correct. >> I mean, who does that, nobody. You! >> Watch us! >> John: That's awesome. >> Basically, we're using a provision, it's like we went back in time to 1934, got them to put something in the 1934 Securities Act for the purposes of ICO's, and then we came back to 2018 with the time machine-- >> Are you from the future? Back to the future! You went back and jerry rigged it. Hey, we should put this Form 10 in there! >> Joe: There you go! That's right. >> It could come in handy some day during the crypto bubble. >> Joe: That's right. >> So let's back to the cryptocurrency thing. I think you're onto something that I think is a tell sign that I haven't seen yet. I've been seeing some formation of it. You are using two types of tokens. Your business model is do security token for funding, trade that puppy through the Form 10. Utility token, a separate ICO for the product, and that's going to have one token, two tokens? >> There's one utility token, so to speak, one currency token, and that has its own regulations that you have to manage to also. But that's designed to appreciate, but not to go up 17 times. >> Okay, I want to dig into that for a second, because you mentioned scale. You're going to scale your business model with the utility token. That's the purpose of the utility token. So let's get into how you're going to do these smart contracts. Let's just say that a producer in Europe somewhere, in Italy, says, "Hey, I'm going to do something "with Joe in the UK." And they form a collaboration. >> Joe: That's right. >> Do they use that utility token or a new token gets created? >> No, that utility token. It's called a Chime, the Chime token. And what happens with that token is you can build in the contract administration through the token. Right now, you can do international deals. People do them every day. The difficulty is if you've got an audience of a half a billion people a month, for example, to do that on scale and automate it... Right now, if you do a deal with somebody in Japan, you, the American, has to have an American lawyer and a Japanese lawyer. And if there's a dispute, good luck suing. I, one time, a customer in Hong Kong, owed me a million and a half bucks and he's like, "Sue me." I'm in New York, he's in Hong Kong, and good luck. >> Did you do the New York thing? I'm flying over there and going to break your legs! >> We bitched and complained, threatened them, and ultimately we settled on 30 cents on the dollar, so we did, that's exactly what happened. With a situation like this, with smart contracts, neither side has to hire two sets of lawyers in the other country-- >> So Chime takes care of that. You want Chime to take care of that administrative inefficiency? >> Correct. The company might still get involved in administering exceptions but not everyone single one. What the smart contract does is it allows you to scale international business. The key is international business, and that's a new efficiency into the market, and that's a great-- >> And in the business model, what does that scale mean to you for operationalizing it? More people, do you have to hire them? >> More cash. No, less people and more cash because there's more automation, right? It means more software development-- >> Where's the cash coming from? >> We have a lot of revenue products. Like the obvious, like every other website, we have subscription revenue and advertising revenue. Subscription revenue comes from like... You know how IMDB is the LinkedIn of the TV and film business? So we'll have that too. >> It's not really large, though. It can be. >> Amazon could make it larger if they wanted to. They have their reasons for doing it the way they do it. But, in our case, I'll give you an example of some revenue products. Let's say you want to crowdfund a project. So let's say you want a bunch of Taylor Swift fans to crowdfund a project for her to do a duet with Kanye West. Sounds preposterous, but it's goofy enough. You'd be amazed, Stormy Daniels is crowdfunding a project for her legal bills with Donald Trump, and I betcha it's going to get funded, right? >> John: I would agree. >> So there's a lot of nutty stuff that gets crowdfunded. >> The wisdom of the crowd is actually efficient. >> Yes, that's right, and the whims of the crowd. But also, I'll give you another example. Let's say people want, if they go to a webpage about an artist, the band All American Rejects, for example, and Wheeler, one of the band members... Ten years ago, you could have given your niece a gift of a CD of All American Rejects. Well, good luck now. They wouldn't even know what a CD is in many cases, right? But what you could do is say, "Hey, you know what? "I'll give you a gift of a Google Hangouts chat with him, "And I'll pay $200 for that, or $500 for it." >> It's probably a bot, but anyway, how do you make this happen? This is really important. You're creating value by allowing people to collaborate in a way that's different, so that scales. Is that going to be done in the Chime contract or it's all going to be part of one currency? >> One currency, that's right. We're very careful. We brought in as an advisor, Rod Garrett, who gave one of the keynotes here yesterday. Rod Garrett is the money supply economist from UCSB, but he was also former VP of the New York Fed, he was the leader at the New York Fed for cryptocurrency. Rod is one of the smartest people I've ever met. >> You know him? >> Very well now, and you know what, Rod can explain the most complex things in simple words, which means he actually understands them. So we've actually used Fisher's equation to help model the utility token value over time. And, again, it's designed to appreciate, but we don't want nutty appreciation because then it'll be useless as a currency, right? We have fixed supply, the Bitcoin principle, the fixed supply and stable market so we can keep it reasonably stable. >> You're using the utility token to create value on your network so the creators can capture that value. >> Correct. >> That's what you're doing with the utility. The security is the money making side. How are you backing the security token, with equity or cash flow? >> Equity, and very important, really important, if you did a percentage of revenue or royalties, it wouldn't work, and I'll tell you why. It wouldn't scale, because we're looking five years out, 10 years out, for this to be a good investment. We want investors to buy it. And if you, let's say you need to do a secondary, because an acquisition becomes available, because you're low on money or whatever. Then how do you do a secondary if you've already given away 20% of your revenue to token holders. What if you have to do a secondary or tertiary capital round? How many rounds were necessary for Spotify, I happen to know Spotify, it was six, right? Facebook, Google, how many founds of financing did they do? A lot, and by the way, they still might do more. >> So basically the revenue share is hair on the deal. It really puts a lot of hair on the deal. >> Destroys it, in my opinion, destroys it. It's a dressing thing, but look, if you're really going to grow to a major company and have, be it five or 10 year success, it kills it. This is my opinion. >> What percentage of equity, say they're going to do a 50 million dollar raise, hard cap, soft cap, say 25, that's what seems to be the norm right now, what would be a percentage of equity converting to tokens that you'd see? >> In Chimes' case, we have a Common A class of stock. We're creating a preferred class of stock called a Series T which, if fully sold, would be about 43% of the equity of the company. They had to do it preferred stock, because there's too many, in Delaware Corporate Law, which all the tech companies are all Delaware, common stock would be very difficult to make a token. You can do whatever you want with preferred. So the preferred is more flexible, so it's actual equity, actual shares, it's not a derivative, it's not a rev share, it's not a royalty, it's actual equity. >> It's paper that converts nicely and it scales on the business side. >> So you say, "What's the evaluation?" >> We're selling 100 million dollars worth of the equity, or we're offering 100 million dollars of the equity, the pre-sale evaluation is a little over 200 million. In Chimes' cases, that's because we're not a startup, we're an early stage company. >> How old is the company? >> Pardon me? >> How old is the company? >> Three and a half years. >> So you weren't born yesterday. >> We acquired music databases that were built at a cost of tens of millions of dollars in Europe, funded by the richest guy in Europe, who built it out and then got tired of it, tired of funding it, and then we were able to pick it up basically for equity deals. We picked it up and we're buying a second music database also that's a very big one. So it's not like we're a startup with an idea and a business plan. >> No, you've got assets, and you've got momentum, good management, you obviously know what you're doing. It's awesome. You've got a great scalability mindset. You've got a nicely packaged, clear target. >> That's right, so we're probably a little bit different than a lot of crypto startups, in that, a lot of brilliant entrepreneurs that you see here, but we've been around the block with having to do IPO's, having to do exits, having to do... And you know, I'm a contrarian, right? I was getting a lot of advice yesterday from a lot of really smart people saying, "Hey, raise the money overseas through a foundation." >> "Everyone's doing it!" >> Look, I'm going to take a contrarian approach. >> I'm just going to comply with the law, by doing the registration. And they say, "What if your utility token has to comply "with money transfer laws?" Then we'll comply with them! It's like look, the contrarian approach is, whatever the law is, follow it! It gives us the flex-- >> The thing is you're actually doing what they want you to do, notifying them of what you're doing, and you have a utility! >> By separating out the token into two, one that has the attributes of currency, one that has the attributes of an equity, neither one is screwing up the other. >> I agree, that's really smart, and very novel. A lot of smart people are going down that road because it's actually known things people can understand. Security token is paperwork that you can do. >> Yes, but I'll tell you the other thing that feels very important, a pretty important point to make. By doing registration, the resale can go to anybody. My personal opinion, is you know these second market type of approaches that you can only resale them to accredited investors or to foreign investors or whatever, I think that's mistake. I think what happens is people who take that approach are going to find that the resale value of the token, or the token that has securities is going to be about 10% of what it would have been otherwise. >> If they only do accredited? >> Well yeah, because here's the thing. First, it's not only that they got to be accredited-- >> How do you get around the security token? >> Because it's registered. The waitress working the bar here can buy a publicly traded equity if it's registered, right? She can buy a publicly traded token-- >> That's the Form 10 that you were talking about. >> Right, Form 10 registers the company. The initial batch of trading will be done under 144 because the token holds will evolve over six months, so they can sell them at their leisure, right? There are exceptions, by the way, like an affiliate might have to do some form filing. I would have to file a Form 3, you know, the usual stuff. But, a regular token investor, he can do whatever he wants. And I can call them investors. I can do business in the United States. I don't have to pretend I'm domiciled in a country you've never heard of, right? So it's like look, I'm an American, my staff is mostly American, we do business in America, let's follow American law instead of-- >> Joe, this is a great conversation. We're getting down and dirty under the hood, capital structure, business models, Chimes' really interesting approach. Joe, thanks for sharing that great data here on theCUBE. Section 12G of the 1934 Securities Act. Form 10 is the secret weapon that was built by aliens before us to allow us to get this special clause in there for crypto. I'd love to continue this conversation another time. I think there's four or five things we just identified, great great topics, thanks for sharing. It's theCUBE's coverage here in Puerto Rico, I'm John Furrier, we'll be back with more after this short break. (digital jingle)