(upbeat music) >> Morning guys and girls, welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of Women in Data Science WIDS 2023 live at Stanford University. Lisa Martin here with my co-host for this segment, Tracy Zhang. We're really excited to be talking with a great female rockstar. You're going to learn a lot from her next, Jacqueline Kuo, solutions engineer at Dataiku. Welcome, Jacqueline. Great to have you. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank for being here. >> I'm so excited to be here. >> So one of the things I have to start out with, 'cause my mom Kathy Dahlia is watching, she's a New Yorker. You are a born and raised New Yorker and I learned from my mom and others. If you're born in New York no matter how long you've moved away, you are a New Yorker. There's you guys have like a secret club. (group laughs) >> I am definitely very proud of being born and raised in New York. My family immigrated to New York, New Jersey from Taiwan. So very proud Taiwanese American as well. But I absolutely love New York and I can't imagine living anywhere else. >> Yeah, yeah. >> I love it. >> So you studied, I was doing some research on you you studied mechanical engineering at MIT. >> Yes. >> That's huge. And you discovered your passion for all things data-related. You worked at IBM as an analytics consultant. Talk to us a little bit about your career path. Were you always interested in engineering STEM-related subjects from the time you were a child? >> I feel like my interests were ranging in many different things and I ended up landing in engineering, 'cause I felt like I wanted to gain a toolkit like a toolset to make some sort of change with or use my career to make some sort of change in this world. And I landed on engineering and mechanical engineering specifically, because I felt like I got to, in my undergrad do a lot of hands-on projects, learn every part of the engineering and design process to build products which is super-transferable and transferable skills sort of is like the trend in my career so far. Where after undergrad I wanted to move back to New York and mechanical engineering jobs are kind of few and fall far in between in the city. And I ended up landing at IBM doing analytics consulting, because I wanted to understand how to use data. I knew that data was really powerful and I knew that working with it could allow me to tell better stories to influence people across different industries. And that's also how I kind of landed at Dataiku to my current role, because it really does allow me to work across different industries and work on different problems that are just interesting. >> Yeah, I like the way that, how you mentioned building a toolkit when doing your studies at school. Do you think a lot of skills are still very relevant to your job at Dataiku right now? >> I think that at the core of it is just problem solving and asking questions and continuing to be curious or trying to challenge what is is currently given to you. And I think in an engineering degree you get a lot of that. >> Yeah, I'm sure. >> But I think that we've actually seen that a lot in the panels today already, that you get that through all different types of work and research and that kind of thoughtfulness comes across in all different industries too. >> Talk a little bit about some of the challenges, that data science is solving, because every company these days, whether it's an enterprise in manufacturing or a small business in retail, everybody has to be data-driven, because the end user, the end customer, whoever that is whether it's a person, an individual, a company, a B2B, expects to have a personalized custom experience and that comes from data. But you have to be able to understand that data treated properly, responsibly. Talk about some of the interesting projects that you're doing at Dataiku or maybe some that you've done in the past that are really kind of transformative across things climate change or police violence, some of the things that data science really is impacting these days. >> Yeah, absolutely. I think that what I love about coming to these conferences is that you hear about those really impactful social impact projects that I think everybody who's in data science wants to be working on. And I think at Dataiku what's great is that we do have this program called Ikig.AI where we work with nonprofits and we support them in their data and analytics projects. And so, a project I worked on was with the Clean Water, oh my goodness, the Ocean Cleanup project, Ocean Cleanup organization, which was amazing, because it was sort of outside of my day-to-day and it allowed me to work with them and help them understand better where plastic is being aggregated across the world and where it appears, whether that's on beaches or in lakes and rivers. So using data to help them better understand that. I feel like from a day-to-day though, we, in terms of our customers, they're really looking at very basic problems with data. And I say basic, not to diminish it, but really just to kind of say that it's high impact, but basic problems around how do they forecast sales better? That's a really kind of, sort of basic problem, but it's actually super-complex and really impactful for people, for companies when it comes to forecasting how much headcount they need to have in the next year or how much inventory to have if they're retail. And all of those are going to, especially for smaller companies, make a huge impact on whether they make profit or not. And so, what's great about working at Dataiku is you get to work on these high-impact projects and oftentimes I think from my perspective, I work as a solutions engineer on the commercial team. So it's just, we work generally with smaller customers and sometimes talking to them, me talking to them is like their first introduction to what data science is and what they can do with that data. And sort of using our platform to show them what the possibilities are and help them build a strategy around how they can implement data in their day-to-day. >> What's the difference? You were a data scientist by title and function, now you're a solutions engineer. Talk about the ascendancy into that and also some of the things that you and Tracy will talk about as those transferable, those transportable skills that probably maybe you learned in engineering, you brought data science now you're bringing to solutions engineering. >> Yeah, absolutely. So data science, I love working with data. I love getting in the weeds of things and I love, oftentimes that means debugging things or looking line by line at your code and trying to make it better. I found that on in the data science role, while those things I really loved, sometimes it also meant that I didn't, couldn't see or didn't have visibility into the broader picture of well like, well why are we doing this project? And who is it impacting? And because oftentimes your day-to-day is very much in the weeds. And so, I moved into sales or solutions engineering at Dataiku to get that perspective, because what a sales engineer does is support the sale from a technical perspective. And so, you really truly understand well, what is the customer looking for and what is going to influence them to make a purchase? And how do you tell the story of the impact of data? Because oftentimes they need to quantify well, if I purchase a software like Dataiku then I'm able to build this project and make this X impact on the business. And that is really powerful. That's where the storytelling comes in and that I feel like a lot of what we've been hearing today about connecting data with people who can actually do something with that data. That's really the bridge that we as sales engineers are trying to connect in that sales process. >> It's all about connectivity, isn't it? >> Yeah, definitely. We were talking about this earlier that it's about making impact and it's about people who we are analyzing data is like influencing. And I saw that one of the keywords or one of the biggest thing at Dataiku is everyday AI, so I wanted to just ask, could you please talk more about how does that weave into the problem solving and then day-to-day making an impact process? >> Yes, so I started working on Dataiku around three years ago and I fell in love with the product itself. The product that we have is we allow for people with different backgrounds. If you're coming from a data analyst background, data science, data engineering, maybe you are more of like a business subject matter expert, to all work in one unified central platform, one user interface. And why that's powerful is that when you're working with data, it's not just that data scientist working on their own and their own computer coding. We've heard today that it's all about connecting the data scientists with those business people, with maybe the data engineers and IT people who are actually going to put that model into production or other folks. And so, they all use different languages. Data scientists might use Python and R, your business people are using PowerPoint and Excel, everyone's using different tools. How do we bring them all in one place so that you can have conversations faster? So the business people can understand exactly what you're building with the data and can get their hands on that data and that model prediction faster. So that's what Dataiku does. That's the product that we have. And I completely forgot your question, 'cause I got so invested in talking about this. Oh, everyday AI. Yeah, so the goal of of Dataiku is really to allow for those maybe less technical people with less traditional data science backgrounds. Maybe they're data experts and they understand the data really well and they've been working in SQL for all their career. Maybe they're just subject matter experts and want to get more into working with data. We allow those people to do that through our no and low-code tools within our platform. Platform is very visual as well. And so, I've seen a lot of people learn data science, learn machine learning by working in the tool itself. And that's sort of, that's where everyday AI comes in, 'cause we truly believe that there are a lot of, there's a lot of unutilized expertise out there that we can bring in. And if we did give them access to data, imagine what we could do in the kind of work that they can do and become empowered basically with that. >> Yeah, we're just scratching the surface. I find data science so fascinating, especially when you talk about some of the real world applications, police violence, health inequities, climate change. Here we are in California and I don't know if you know, we're experiencing an atmospheric river again tomorrow. Californians and the rain- >> Storm is coming. >> We are not good... And I'm a native Californian, but we all know about climate change. People probably don't associate all of the data that is helping us understand it, make decisions based on what's coming what's happened in the past. I just find that so fascinating. But I really think we're truly at the beginning of really understanding the impact that being data-driven can actually mean whether you are investigating climate change or police violence or health inequities or your a grocery store that needs to become data-driven, because your consumer is expecting a personalized relevant experience. I want you to offer me up things that I know I was doing online grocery shopping, yesterday, I just got back from Europe and I was so thankful that my grocer is data-driven, because they made the process so easy for me. And but we have that expectation as consumers that it's going to be that easy, it's going to be that personalized. And what a lot of folks don't understand is the data the democratization of data, the AI that's helping make that a possibility that makes our lives easier. >> Yeah, I love that point around data is everywhere and the more we have, the actually the more access we actually are providing. 'cause now compute is cheaper, data is literally everywhere, you can get access to it very easily. And so, I feel like more people are just getting themselves involved and that's, I mean this whole conference around just bringing more women into this industry and more people with different backgrounds from minority groups so that we get their thoughts, their opinions into the work is so important and it's becoming a lot easier with all of the technology and tools just being open source being easier to access, being cheaper. And that I feel really hopeful about in this field. >> That's good. Hope is good, isn't it? >> Yes, that's all we need. But yeah, I'm glad to see that we're working towards that direction. I'm excited to see what lies in the future. >> We've been talking about numbers of women, percentages of women in technical roles for years and we've seen it hover around 25%. I was looking at some, I need to AnitaB.org stats from 2022 was just looking at this yesterday and the numbers are going up. I think the number was 26, 27.6% of women in technical roles. So we're seeing a growth there especially over pre-pandemic levels. Definitely the biggest challenge that still seems to be one of the biggest that remains is attrition. I would love to get your advice on what would you tell your younger self or the previous prior generation in terms of having the confidence and the courage to pursue engineering, pursue data science, pursue a technical role, and also stay in that role so you can be one of those females on stage that we saw today? >> Yeah, that's the goal right there one day. I think it's really about finding other people to lift and mentor and support you. And I talked to a bunch of people today who just found this conference through Googling it, and the fact that organizations like this exist really do help, because those are the people who are going to understand the struggles you're going through as a woman in this industry, which can get tough, but it gets easier when you have a community to share that with and to support you. And I do want to definitely give a plug to the WIDS@Dataiku team. >> Talk to us about that. >> Yeah, I was so fortunate to be a WIDS ambassador last year and again this year with Dataiku and I was here last year as well with Dataiku, but we have grown the WIDS effort so much over the last few years. So the first year we had two events in New York and also in London. Our Dataiku's global. So this year we additionally have one in the west coast out here in SF and another one in Singapore which is incredible to involve that team. But what I love is that everyone is really passionate about just getting more women involved in this industry. But then also what I find fortunate too at Dataiku is that we have a strong female, just a lot of women. >> Good. >> Yeah. >> A lot of women working as data scientists, solutions engineer and sales and all across the company who even if they aren't doing data work in a day-to-day, they are super-involved and excited to get more women in the technical field. And so. that's like our Empower group internally that hosts events and I feel like it's a really nice safe space for all of us to speak about challenges that we encounter and feel like we're not alone in that we have a support system to make it better. So I think from a nutrition standpoint every organization should have a female ERG to just support one another. >> Absolutely. There's so much value in a network in the community. I was talking to somebody who I'm blanking on this may have been in Barcelona last week, talking about a stat that showed that a really high percentage, 78% of people couldn't identify a female role model in technology. Of course, Sheryl Sandberg's been one of our role models and I thought a lot of people know Sheryl who's leaving or has left. And then a whole, YouTube influencers that have no idea that the CEO of YouTube for years has been a woman, who has- >> And she came last year to speak at WIDS. >> Did she? >> Yeah. >> Oh, I missed that. It must have been, we were probably filming. But we need more, we need to be, and it sounds like Dataiku was doing a great job of this. Tracy, we've talked about this earlier today. We need to see what we can be. And it sounds like Dataiku was pioneering that with that ERG program that you talked about. And I completely agree with you. That should be a standard program everywhere and women should feel empowered to raise their hand ask a question, or really embrace, "I'm interested in engineering, I'm interested in data science." Then maybe there's not a lot of women in classes. That's okay. Be the pioneer, be that next Sheryl Sandberg or the CTO of ChatGPT, Mira Murati, who's a female. We need more people that we can see and lean into that and embrace it. I think you're going to be one of them. >> I think so too. Just so that young girls like me like other who's so in school, can see, can look up to you and be like, "She's my role model and I want to be like her. And I know that there's someone to listen to me and to support me if I have any questions in this field." So yeah. >> Yeah, I mean that's how I feel about literally everyone that I'm surrounded by here. I find that you find role models and people to look up to in every conversation whenever I'm speaking with another woman in tech, because there's a journey that has had happen for you to get to that place. So it's incredible, this community. >> It is incredible. WIDS is a movement we're so proud of at theCUBE to have been a part of it since the very beginning, since 2015, I've been covering it since 2017. It's always one of my favorite events. It's so inspiring and it just goes to show the power that data can have, the influence, but also just that we're at the beginning of uncovering so much. Jacqueline's been such a pleasure having you on theCUBE. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> For sharing your story, sharing with us what Dataiku was doing and keep going. More power to you girl. We're going to see you up on that stage one of these years. >> Thank you so much. Thank you guys. >> Our pleasure. >> Our pleasure. >> For our guests and Tracy Zhang, this is Lisa Martin, you're watching theCUBE live at WIDS '23. #EmbraceEquity is this year's International Women's Day theme. Stick around, our next guest joins us in just a minute. (upbeat music)

>> From theCUBE studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this a CUBE conversation. >> Hello, and welcome to this CUBE conversation, I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE here, in our Palo Alto, California studios, here with our quarantine crew. We're getting all the remote interviews during this time of COVID-19. We've got two great remote guests here, Rachini Moosavi who's the Executive Director of Analytical Services and Data Governance at UNC Healthcare, and Sonya Jordan, Enterprise Analytics Manager of Data Governance at UNC Health. Welcome to theCUBE, thanks for coming on. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for having us. >> So, I'm super excited. University of North Carolina, my daughter will be a freshman this year, and she is coming, so hopefully she won't have to visit UNC Health, but looking forward to having more visits down there, it's a great place. So, thanks for coming on, really appreciate it. Okay, so the conversation today is going to be about how data and how analytics are helping solve problems, and ultimately, in your case, serve the community, and this is a super important conversation. So, before we get started, talk about UNC Health, what's going on there, how you guys organize, how big is it, what are some of the challenges that you have? >> SO UNC Health is comprised of about 12 different entities within our hospital system. We have physician groups as well as hospitals, and we serve, we're spread throughout all of North Carolina, and so we serve the patients of North Carolina, and that is our primary focus and responsibility for our mission. As part of the offices Sonya and I are in, we are in the Enterprise Analytics and Data Sciences Office that serves all of those entities and so we are centrally located in the triangle area of North Carolina, which is pretty central to the state, and we serve all of our entities equally from our Analytics and Data Governance needs. >> John: You guys got a different customer base, obviously you've got the clinical support, and you got the business applications, you got to be agile, that's what it's all about today, you don't need to rely on IT support. How do you guys do that? What's the framework? How do you guys tackle that problem of being agile, having the data be available, and you got two different customers, you got all the compliance issues with clinical, I can only imagine all the regulations involved, and you've got the business applications. How do you handle those? >> Yeah, so for us in the roles that we are in, we are fully responsible for more of the data and analytics needs of the organization, and so we provide services that truly are balanced across our clinician group, so we have physicians, and nurses, and all of the other ancillary clinical staff that we support, as well as the operational needs as well, so revenue cycle, finance, pharmacy, any of those groups that are required in order to run a healthcare system. So, we balance our time amongst all of those and for the work that we take on and how we continuously support them is really based on governance at the end of the day. How we make decisions around what the priorities are and what needs to happen next, and requires the best insights, is really how we focus on what work we do next. As for the applications that we build, in our office, we truly only build analytical applications or products like visualizations within Tableau as well as we support data governance platforms and services and so we provide some of the tools that enable our end users to be able to interact with the information that we're providing around analytics and insights, at the end of the day. >> Sonya, what's your job? Your title is Analytics Manager of Data Governance, obviously that sounds broad but governance is obviously required in all things. What is your job, what is your day-to-day roles like? What's your focus? >> Well, my day-to-day operations is first around building a data governance program. I try to work with identifying customers who we can start partnering with so that we can start getting documentation and utilizing a lot of the programs that we currently have, such as certification, so when we talk about initiatives, this is one of the initiatives that we use to partner with our stakeholders in order to start bringing visibilities to the various assets, such as metrics, or universes that we want to certify, or dashboards, algorithm, just various lists of different types of assets that we certify that we like to partner with the customers in order for them to start documenting within the tools, so that we can bring visibility to what's available, really focusing on data literacy, helping people to understand what assets are available, not only what assets are available, but who owns them, and who own the asset, and what can they do with it, making sure that we have great documentation in order to be able to leverage literacy as well. >> So, I can only imagine with how much volume you guys are dealing from a data standpoint, and the diversity, that the data warehouse must be massive, or it must be architected in a way that it can be agile because the needs, of the diverse needs. Can you guys share your thoughts on how you guys look on the data warehouse challenge and opportunity, and what you guys are currently doing? >> Well, so- >> Yeah you go ahead, Rachini. >> Go ahead, Sonya. >> Well, last year we implemented a tool, an enterprise warehouse, basically behind a tool that we implemented, and that was an opportunity for Data Governance to really lay some foundation and really bring visibility to the work that we could provide for the enterprise. We were able to embed into probably about six or seven of the 13 initiatives, I was actually within that project, and with that we were able to develop our stewardship committee, our data governance council, and because Rachini managed Data Solutions, our data solution manager was able to really help with the architect and integration of the tools. >> Rachini, your thoughts on running the data warehouse, because you've got to have flexibility for new types of data sources. How do you look at that? >> So, as Sonya just mentioned, we upgraded our data warehouse platform just recently because of these evolving needs, and like a lot of healthcare providers out there, a lot of them are either one or the other EMRs that are top in the market. With our EMR, they provide their own data warehouse, so you have to factor almost the impact of what they bring to the table in with an addition to all of those other sources of data that you're trying to co-mingle and bring together into the same data warehouse, and so for us, it was time for us to evolve our data warehouse. We ended up deciding on trying to create a virtual data warehouse, and in doing so, with virtualization, we had to upgrade our platform, which is what created that opportunity that Sonya was mentioning. And by moving to this new platform we are now able to bring all of that into one space and it's enabled us to think about how does the community of analysts interact with the data? How do we make that available to them in a secure way? In a way that they can take advantage of reusable master data files that could be our source of truth within our data warehouse, while also being able to have the flexibility to build what they need in their own functional spaces so that they can get the wealth of information that they need out of the same source and it's available to everyone. >> Okay, so I got to ask the question, and I was trying to get the good stuff out first, but let's get at the reality of COVID-19. You got pre-COVID-19 pandemic, we're kind of in the middle of it, and people are looking at strategies to come out of it, obviously the world will be changed, higher with a lot of virtualization, virtual meetings, and virtual workforce, but the data still needs to be, the business still needs to run, but data will be changing different sources, how are you guys responding to that crisis because you're going to be leaned on heavily for more and more support? >> Yeah it's been non-stop since March (laughs). So, I'm going to tell you about the reporting aspects of it, and then I'd love to turn it over to Sonya to tell you about some of the great things that we've actually been able to do to it and enhance our data governance program by not wasting this terrible event and this opportunity that's come up. So, with COVID, when it kicked off back in March, we actually formed a war room to address the needs around reporting analytics and just insights that our executives needed, and so in doing so, we created within the first week, our first weekend actually, our first dashboard, and within the next two weeks we had about eight or nine other dashboards that were available. And we continuously add to that. Information is so critical to our executives, to our clinicians, to be able to know how to address the evolving needs of COVID-19 and how we need to respond. We literally, and I'm not even exaggerating, at this very moment we have probably, let's see, I think it's seven different forecasts that we're trying to build all at the same time to try and help us prepare for this new recovery, this sort of ramp up efforts, so to your point, it started off as we're shutting down so that we can flatten the curve, but now as we try to also reopen at the same time while we're still meeting the needs of our COVID patients, there's this balancing act that we're trying to keep up with and so analytics is playing a critical factor in doing that. >> Sonya, your thoughts. First of all, congratulations, and action is what defines the players from the pretenders in my mind, you're seeing that play out, so congratulations for taking great action, I know you're working hard. Sonya, your thoughts, COVID, it's putting a lot of pressure? It highlights the weaknesses and strengths of what's kind of out there, what's your thoughts? >> Well, it just requires a great deal of collaboration and making sure that you're documenting metrics in a way where you're factoring true definition because at the end of the day, this information can go into a dashboard that's going to be visualized across the organization, I think what COVID has done was really enhanced the need and the understanding of why data governance is important and also it has allowed us to create a lot of standardization, where we we're standardizing a lot of processes that we currently had in correct place but just enhancing them. >> You know, not to go on a tangent, but I will, it's funny how the reality has kind of pulled back, exposed a lot of things, whether it's the remote work situation, people are VPNing, not under provision with the IT side. On the data side, everyone now understands the quality of the data. I mean, I got my kids talking progression analysis, "Oh, the curves are all wrong," I mean people are now seeing the science behind the data and they're looking at graphs all the time, you guys are in the visualization piece, this really highlights the need of data as a story, because there's an impact, and two, quality data. And if you don't have the data, the story isn't being told and then misinformation comes out of it, and this is actually playing out in real time, so it's not like it's just a use case for the most analytics but this again highlights the value of proposition of what you guys do. What's your personal thoughts on all this because this really is playing out globally. >> Yeah, it's been amazing how much information is out there. So, we have been extremely blessed at times but also burdened at times by that amount of information. So, there's the data that's going through our healthcare system that we're trying to manage and wrangle and do that data storytelling so that people can drive those insights to very effective decisions. But there's also all of this external data that we're trying to be able to leverage as well. And this is where the whole sharing of information can sometimes become really hard to try and get ahead of, we leverage the Johns Hopkins data for some time, but even that, too, can have some hiccups in terms of what's available. We try to use our State Department of Health and Human Services data and they just about updated their website and how information was being shared every other week and it was making it impossible for us to ingest that into our dashboards that we were providing, and so there's really great opportunities but also risks in some of the information that we're pulling. >> Sonya, what's your thoughts? I was just having a conversation this morning with the Chief of Analytics and Insight from NOA which is the National Oceanic Administration, about weather data and forecasting weather, and they've got this community model where they're trying to get the edges to kind of come in, this teases out a template. You guys have multiple locations. As you get more democratized in the connection points, whether it's third-party data, having a system managing that is hard, and again, this is a new trend that's emerging, this community connection points, where I think you guys might also might be a template, and your multiple locations, what's your general thoughts on that because the data's coming in, it's now connected in, whether it's first-party to the healthcare system or third-party. >> Yeah, well we have been leveraging our data governance tool to try to get that centralized location, making sure that we obtain the documentations. Due to COVID, everything is moving very fast, so it requires us to really sit down and capture the information and when you don't have enough resources in order to do that, it's easy to miss some very important information, so really trying to encourage people to understand the reason why we have data governance tools in order for them to leverage, in order to capture the documentation in a way that it can tell the story about the data, but most of all, to be able to capture it in a way so that if that person happened to leave the organization, we're not spending a lot of time trying to figure out how was this information created, how was this dashboard designed, where are the requirements, where are the specifications, where are the key elements, where does that information live, and making sure we capture that up front. >> So, guys, you guys are using Informatica, how are they helping you? Obviously, they have a system they're getting some great feedback on, how are you using Informatica, how is it going, and how has that enabled you guys to be successful? >> Yeah, so we decided on Informatica after doing a really thorough vetting of all of the other vendors in the industry that could provide us these services. We've really loved the capabilities that we've been able to provide to our customers at this point. It's evolving, I think, for us, the ability to partner with a group like Prominence, to be able to really leverage the capabilities of Informatica and then be really super, super hyper focused on providing data literacy back to our end users and making that the full intent of what we're doing within data governance has really enabled us to take the tools and make it something that's specific to UNC Health and the needs that our end users are verbalizing and provide that to them in a very positive way. >> Sonya, they talk about this master catalog, and I've talked to the CEO of Informatica and all their leaders, governance is a big part of it, and I've always said, I've always kind of had a hard time, I'm an entrepreneur, I like to innovate, move fast, break things, which is kind of not the way you work in the data world, you don't want to be breaking anything, so how do you balance governance and compliance with innovation? This has been a key topic and I know that you guys are using their enterprise data catolog. Is that helping? How does that fit in, is that part of it? >> Well, yeah, so during our COVID initiatives and building these telos dashboards, these visualizations and forecast models for executive leaders, we were able to document and EMPower you, which we rebranded Axon to EMPower, we were able to document a lot of our dashboards, which is a data set, and pretty much document attributes and show lineage from EMPower to EDC, so that users would know exactly when they start looking at the visualization not only what does this information mean, but they're also able to see what other sources that that information impacts as well as the data lineage, where did the information come from in EDC. >> So I got to ask the question to kind of wrap things up, has Informatica helped you guys out now that you're in this crisis? Obviously you've implemented before, now that you're in the middle of it, have you seen any things that jumped out at you that's been helpful, and are there areas that need to be worked on so that you guys continue to fight the good fight, come out of this thing stronger than before you came in? >> Yeah, there is a lot of new information, what we consider as "aha" moments that we've been learning about, and how EMPower, yes there's definitely a learning curve because we implemented EDC and EMPower last year doing our warehouse implementation, and so there's a lot of work that still needs to be done, but based on where we were the first of the year, I can say we have evolved tremendously due to a lot of the pandemic issues that arised, and we're looking to really evolve even greater, and pilot across the entire organization so that they can start leveraging these tools for their needs. >> Rachini you got any thoughts on your end on what's worked, what you see improvements coming, anything to share? >> Yeah, so we're excited about some of the new capabilities like the marketplace for example that's available in Axon, we're looking forward to being able to take advantage of some of these great new aspects of the tool so that we can really focus more on providing those insights back to our end users. I think for us, during COVID, it's really been about how do we take advantage of the immediate needs that are surfacing. How do we build all of these dashboards in record-breaking time but also make sure that folks understand exactly what's being represented within those dashboards, and so being able to provide that through our Informatica tools and service it back to our end users, almost in a seamless way like it's built into our dashboards, has been a really critical factor for us, and feeling like we can provide that level of transparency, and so I think that's where as we evolve that we would look for more opportunities, too. How do we make it simple for people to get that immediate answers to their questions, of what does the information need without it feeling like they're going elsewhere for the information. >> Rachini, thank you so much for your insight, Sonya as well, thanks for the insight, and stay safe. Sonya, behind you, I was pointing out, that's your artwork, you painted that picture. >> Yes. >> Looks beautiful. >> Yes, I did. >> You got two jobs, you're an artist, and you're doing data governance. >> Yes, I am, and I enjoy painting, that's how I relax (laughs). >> Looks great, get that on the market soon, get that on the marketplace, let's get that going. Appreciate the time, thank you so much for the insights, and stay safe and again, congratulations on the hard work you're doing, I know there's still a lot more to do, thanks for your time, appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> It's theCUBE conversation, I'm John Furrier at the Palo Alto studios, for the remote interviews with Informatica, I'm John Furrier, thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: From around the globe it's theCUBE, with coverage of SUSECON Digital. Brought to you by SUSE. >> Stu: Welcome back, I'm Stu Miniman and this is theCUBE's coverage of SUSECON Digital '20. Apeda Welcome to the program Vincente Moranta, who is the Vice President of Offer Management of Enterprise Linux Workloads on Power. Vincente, pleasure to see you, thanks for joining us. >> Vincente: Hey Stu and thank you for having me. >> All right, so we know that SUSE lives on a lot of platforms. We're going to talk a bit about applications specifically, primarily SAP. Give us a little bit, Vincente, about what you're working on, and the relevance to the partnership with SUSE. >> Sure, absolutely. So, the last five years I've been responsible for offering management at IBM. Focused on solutions that live on IBM powered systems. In particular, we started with SAP HANA, and obviously SAP and SUSE, with their fantastic relationship, was a big part of that and continues to be as we have grown the platform for the last five years. >> Excellent. So, SAP of course, critical workload, we've been seeing SAP go through those transformation. So, help us understand what work needs to be done to integrate these things? Make sure that companies can run their business. >> Yeah, I think primarily as clients are making their transition from a traditional type of an ERP, CRM, and even BW type workloads, they're looking for a way to make those transitions. Really get in to the whole digital transformation and all of the spaces of being able to leverage technology in a way that creates value to the client, in almost real time. But they want to do it with technology partners that are going to enable the client to do it with minimal risk, with high flexibility and with partners who are there for them to, in some cases, do things that are not necessarily all too forwarded or ready to go yet. But really giving the customer the ability to adapt to things. And when we started with SAP HANA, as I mentioned, the customers in the market who were doing HANA on X86 platforms were limited to certain set of capabilities, certain set of support statements, and things like that. And a big part of that was bare metal implementations which still to this day remain the most popular way to deploy HANA in an X86 environment. But when we got together with SUSE and with SAP and we started the partnership around HANA, the thing that became very clear was that customers needed flexibility. They needed to be able to adapt to changing environments, very interesting challenges that they were trying to tackle with these HANA projects. But the capabilities of the servers that they were using, were not allowing them to have that flexibility. And then, even if SUSE was trying to do certain things and give some flexibility to those clients, if the infrastructure cannot handle it, or vice verse, it really just is a one-party trick and it doesn't work. So the focus with SUSE, almost from the beginning, has been on tool innovation. And we've been able to accomplish really amazing things together with them and SAP. Things that could not have been possible without that very strong collaboration. And one of them that is very recent, is shared processor pool. Right? In a world where HANA is deployed bare-metal systems, IBM Power is always doing virtualization, and together with SUSE, we were able to come up with a solution. And with SAP, obviously. That allowed customers to share source in a virtual way across many HANA instances. So completely revolutionizing the DCO and the ROI for clients working with HANA. Without trading out any of the resiliency, any of the performance, and everything else. So, that's the balance that a lot of these customers are looking for is flexibility, and better returns, especially now more than ever. Without trading out all of the things that they need for an S/4 HANA project or an ERP or a BW project. >> You talked about the flexibility and the returns that customers get on this. I wonder if you step back for a second, where is this hitting on a CIO's priority list? What has changed in today's Cloud era? Couple weeks ago, IBM Think was going on, heard a lot about customers, how they're going through their journey in the cloud. We know there's a lot of options there so. SAP solutions specifically, there's a lot of ways that we can do this. So how does a CIO figure out what the best solution for their skill-set and the technology partner that they work with. >> Yeah, I think at a high-level where the CIO's are basing nowadays, is kind of, it's a good time to be a CIO, I think, because you get a chance to have a broad range of deployment options. Without having to trade out from the features. I'm sure some CIO's will disagree and will say there's plenty of other challenges that are making their lives complicated. But if we just focus on the fact that you can deploy HANA - you can deploy it in the cloud, you can deploy it in hybrid, you can deploy it on premises. And the largest then, and especially with our capabilities, and together with SUSE, the CIO doesn't have to make a choice on trade out of things that they have to lose if they make one of the other. I think that is what helps them to feel comfortable to go in to SAP and being able to adapt. If a project becomes too large or the data transfer requirements become too complicated or too expensive, it's easy enough to bring it back and to maybe leave dev test in a cloud and move the rest of the production environment to on premise. Through a number of partnerships that we have done over the last few years, there's a number of very large MSP's and CSP's including SAP HANA Enterprise Crowd - HEC - and very soon IBM cloud as well. Who can provide all of these capabilities that SUSE and Empower allow for a HANA deployment to be done in a Cloud. So from our perspective, even though I'm a hardware guy, and some people may think I only care about on premises business, the reality is when a customer says, or a CIO as you were asking. When a CIO is trying to make a decision we don't want that CIO to be thinking they have to make a decision between IBM supporting them only if it's on premises or only if it's on Cloud. We can do both. And they don't have to do, it's not a hard trade off to decide. You can start with one, you can go to the other one. We can have capacity for them like we're doing with SAP HEC today, SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud. They're using Power9 technology. The customers benefit in regardless of which deployment option they choose. Both with SUSE underneath it. I think we're trying to make it simpler for them to make those choices without infrastructure becoming the sticky point. >> Yeah, and you talked about the support that users can get, of course, from IBM. At SUSECON, a lot of the discussion about the community there. >> Absolutely. >> So, what can you tell us about, you've got thousands of customers that are running SAP HANA on Power, how do you help them rally together and be part of (muted). >> Yeah, so, you and I have known each other for a while and I think when we started working together at a prior company it was around communities practice. And the organizational network and social network. A big part of what we have done is just going to that same approach. Of just connecting people with people. Right? Connecting people from SUSE with people from IBM, with clients and trying to foster valuable interaction between those clients. Whether it's TechU, IBM TechU Conferences, SAP TechEd, SUSECON, you name it. We're always kind of looking for ways to bring people together. And I'll put in a plug for a client entity, a client council called the SAP Power Customer Council, which is a group of clients that decided on their own to get together and bring other customers who are doing SAP deployments on AIX, on Linux, obviously with SUSE and HANA, and come together once a year. We also have almost monthly interlock and workshops with them. But that is one way where the SUSE folks, IBM Power, SAP Development, all come together with a whole bunch of clients and they're giving us feedback. But also identifying things for us to work on next. From a support perspective, as you said, we have thousands of clients nowadays, and the really fantastic thing has been very few issues and the issues that we have had, SUSE, SAP and IBM, all three of us together, have been able to resolve them to the customers satisfaction. So it just kind of demonstrates that regardless of where something is invented SUSE with SLES, SAP with HANA, us with our hardware and our hypervisors, when it comes to the clients we all work very closely together for their success. >> Great. Those feedback loops are so critically important to everyone involved. I guess last thing, maybe if you've got a customer example that might highlight the partnership between IBM and SUSE? >> Yeah, there's a number of them and we have, I think it's over 60 public references together with SUSE of clients who are doing an SAP HANA with SUSE Empower. But a couple that come to mind, obviously Robert Bosch is a fantastic client for all of us. A fantastic partner. And they've been with us almost from the very beginning, together with SUSE and together with us. And they helped us to identify early on some things that they would like to be able to see supported. Some capabilities that they expected to be able to have, especially given that Bosch had a strong knowledge of IBM technology, IBM product. And they wanted to be able to apply some of the same capabilities around Live Partition Mobility and large size L-bars for HANA and things like that. And they worked very closely with SUSE and with us, and with SAP, to not just give us the requirement, but really help us to identify okay, how should this work? Right, it's not just creating the technology and adding more and more features but how do we integrate it, how do we integrate it in to Bosch, who had created a fantastic self-provisioning type of a portal for all of their clients, all of their internal entities around the world. That was really cool and it really kind of helped us to highlight how we could integrate into tools, monetary, and reporting, etc that our clients have. Another example if I can, is Richemont. Richemont International is based in Geneva. Luxury brand. And Helga Delterad who was the Director of Idea at the time, kind of came to me and gave me a challenge. He said, "Look, I love HANA Power. I love that we can do all of these things with it. But I really would like be able to share processors across multiple HANA instances. That would really reduce the bill. It would really reduce the cost. And Richemont would be able to achieve a much quicker return on investment than we had anticipated." So, he gave us a challenge. The challenge went to everybody. It went to SUSE, to us and to SAP, we all got together and again with Helga being the executive sponsor on the client side, he really kind of worked with all of us. Brought us together and it was a power of the possible type of situation that now is generally available to all clients. And it's thanks to Helga, thanks to Richemont, who brought us together and gave us that challenge. >> Excellent. Well Vincenta Morante, great to catch up with you. Thanks so much for sharing the update on IBM Power and the partnership with SUSE. >> Thanks Stu. >> All right, we'll be back with more coverage from SUSECON Digital '20. I'm Stu Miniman and as always, thank you for watching theCUBE. (upbeat music plays)

(upbeat music) >> Female: From our studios, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, California, this is a Cube conversation. >> Hey welcome back everybody. Jeffrey here with The Cube. We're in our Palo Alto studios today for a Cube conversation. Again, it's a little bit of a let down in the crazy conference season, so it gives us an opportunity to do more studio work, and check in with some folks. So we're really excited to have our next guest. We'd love to talk to practitioners, people out on the front lines that are really living this digital transformation experience. So we'd like to welcome in, all the way from Toronto, the NBA champion, Toronto, home of the Raptors, he's Phillip Armstrong, global C.I.O., and E.V.P. from Great-West Lifeco. Philip, great to see you. >> Thanks, Jeff, good afternoon. >> And I got to say congrats, you know, you took the title away from us this year, but a job well done, and we all rejoiced in Canada's happy celebration. I'm sure it was a lot of fun. >> Lots of excitement here in Toronto for sure. >> Great, so let's jump into it. A lot of conversations about digital transformations. You're right in the heart of it, you're running a big company that's complicated, it's old. So first off, give us a little bit of a background just for people that aren't familiar with Great-West Lifeco in terms of how long you've been around, the scale and size, and then we can get into some of the challenges and the opportunities that you're facing. >> Sure, I'd love to. Actually, one of probably the world's best kept secrets. So Great-West Lifeco is a holding company, and underneath that company, we have a number of companies. So for example in the U.S., you may have heard of Putnam Mutual Funds out of Boston, or Empower Retirement Services, the second largest pension administration company in the United States out of Denver. We have companies called Canada Life and Irish Life. We operate in Europe, the U.S., and Canada. We were formed in 1847, so we're 170 odd years old. Very old, established company, in fact, the first life insurance company to get its charter in Canada. So we were certainly not born digital, we were not born in the cloud. In fact, we weren't even born analog. I think our history goes back to parchment, green ink, and "I" shares. So this has been quite the digital transformation for our company. >> So when you think about digital transformation, insurance companies are always interesting, right? Because insurance companies, by their very nature, they created actuarials, and you guys have always been doing math, and you've always been forecasting, and building models. What does digital transformation mean for you, and that core business in the way you look at insurance and the products that you offer your customers? >> It's been massive, it's had a massive impact right across our company. We have 30 million customers around the globe. Customers' expectations are rising every single day. They want online access to their information. We're an insurance company, but we're also a wealth management company, so we're open to market timing and exposures to the market. Our pace in our business has accelerated dramatically. So just the expectation, the other companies, digitally-native companies are setting with our customers, has forced us to completely re-examine our traditional business models that have served us so well, almost to the point where you have to take a hand grenade and just blow it up and start again. This is very, very difficult when you've got actuarial tables that are working, that are built on hundreds of years of experience. We're moving into a completely new world now. We've come from a world where security has always been very important to us. We manage 1.4 trillion dollars of other people's money. We have traditional business models and traditional data centers, and we operate at a certain level, a certain pace, and all of that, all of that, now has to change. We have skill sets and people who are very, very technical in nature, in their jobs, and have we got the right skills to take us into the future? Can we future-proof our business? This has been, not just a technology transformation, but a massive cultural transformation for our company. A reinvention of all of our business models, the way we look at our customers. A lot of our business is done through advisors. We have half a million advisors around the world that give financial planning and advice to people, and allow them to have some financial security. Our relationship with them has to change, and their expectations in using technology has to change. So this digital transformation is only a thin sliver of the transformation that our company has been going through globally over the last few years. >> That's interesting, you talked on so many topics there I want to kind of break it down into three. One is the consumerization of IT that we've talked about over and over and over, and people's experience with Yahoo and Amazon, and shopping with Google and Google Maps, really drives their expectations of the way they want to interact with every application on their phone when they want to, how they want to. So that's interesting in terms of your customer engagement. The other piece I want to go in a little bit is your own employees. You've been around since 1847, the expectations of the kids that you're hiring out of college today, and what they expect in their work environment, also driven in a big part by the phones that they carry in their pockets. And then the third leg of the stool are these, I forget the word that you used, but your partners or associates, or these advisors that you are enabling with your technology stack, but they're, I assume, independent folks out there just like you see at the local insurance office, that you need to enable them in a very different way. You're sitting in the middle. How do you break down the problems across those three groups of people, or contingencies, or constituencies? That's the word I'm looking for. >> Let's start with our advisors. We have many relationships with advisors. We have a relationship with an advisory force that is almost like a tied sales force that is positioned just to sell our products. We have advisors who are quite independent, and yet they sell our products. And then we have advisors that occasionally sell our products, and everything in between. Companies that are advisors, sort of managing general agents. We have bank assurance arrangements. We have all kinds of distribution arrangements around the globe, with our company to distribute our products. But the heart of what we do is an advice-based channel with many variants. So what do those advisors want? The want tools, online tools, they want safe connectivity, they want fast access to the internet, they want to be able to pull in advice, they want video conferencing, they want to be able to be reachable by their customers, and really leverage technology to allow them to provide that timely advice and be responsive to market changes. Almost delivering a bespoke service to each individual, in yet a mass way that's simple and timely. When you look at our employees, our employees pretty much want the same thing. They want safe access to the internet, they want safe access to the cloud and our applications. We've had to go through massive amounts of cultural change and training and education to bring our employees into the new world with new skills and equip them, just ways of working. Video, introducing video into our company, upgrading our networks. The change behind all of this different way of working has been phenomenal. I wish you could see the building we're sitting in today, that I'm coming to you from today. It's a stone building that was built in the early 1930s, a prominent landmark here in Toronto. And from the outside, it looks archaic. When you walk into the lobby, it's all art deco and beautiful. They can't make buildings like this today. But in many ways, it epitomizes our company, because then you go up the elevators and walk onto the floors, and it's all open plan, all digitally enabled. We have Microsoft Teams in every meeting room. The floors are all modern and newly decorated and designed to allow us to collaborate and create new solutions for our customers. It's a real juxtaposition . And that, I feel, is a good analogy for our company right now, and what we're going through. >> So let's talk about how it's changed in terms of the infrastructure. Your job is to both provide tools to all these different constituents you talked about as well as protect it. So it's this interesting dynamic where before, you could build a moat, and keep everybody inside the brick building. But you can't do that anymore, and security has changed dramatically both with the cloud as well as all these hybrid business relationships that you described. So how did you address that? How have you seen that evolve over the last several years, and what are some of the top of mind issues that you have when you're thinking about I've got to give access to all these people. They want fast, efficient tools, they want really a great way for them to execute their job. At the same time, I've got to keep that $1.4 trillion and all that that represents secure. Not an easy challenge. >> Not easy at all. A few years ago, it was pretty trendy to say we're going to move everything to the cloud. I think now, especially for large, complex companies like ours, a hybrid cloud is the way to go. I think we're starting to see a lot more CIOs like myself say, yes I'd love to take advantage of the cloud, and I'm certainly moving a lot of my footprint to the cloud. To start with it was because of cost, but now I think it's because of agility and access to new technologies as well. But when you move things to the cloud, you have to be very cautious around how you do that. We have in-house data centers that we have systems, administration systems that are obfuscated from our clients by fancy front ends and easy-to-use experiences. And they're running on pennies on the dollar, and you can't make a business case to move that to the cloud. So a hybrid cloud is the way to go for us. But what we realized very quickly is that we need to push our Cyrus security and defenses out to the intelligent edge, out to the edge of the internet. Stop bad things happening, stop malware, stop infections coming into our organization before they even come into our organization. The cloud has complicated that. We're reducing our surface areas. I heard just the other day a colleague of mine said yeah the cloud is fabulous, it's a faster way to deliver your mistakes to your customers and in many ways, it is, if you're not careful with what you're doing. We've deployed technology like Zscaler and other types of sand-boxing technology. But it's always a cat and mouse game. The bad guys are putting artificial intelligence into their malware. We saw the other day a piece of malware coming into our organization through email, and when it was exploded, the first thing it did was try to check signatures to see if it was in a virtualized environment. And if it was, it just went back to sleep again and didn't activate. The nice thing about Zscaler and some of the technologies that I'm deploying is that they're proprietary. They don't have these signatures. And so we can screen out, we literally get hundreds of thousands, close to millions, of malware attempts coming into our organization on a daily basis. It is a constant fight. What we've also found is that organizations like ours are big targets. What companies are trying to do is not steal our data, because they know that we won't pay ransoms. What we'd like to do is spend that money protecting our customers with credit monitoring, or changing their passwords and helping them deal with if there is a breach. So the bad guys have changed their tactics. Instead of stealing our data, they'd like to try and penetrate our networks and our systems and cripple us. They would really like to bring us down. And that determines a different strategy and protection. >> You touch on so many things there, Philip. We could go for like three hours I think just on follow-ups to that answer. Let me drill in on a couple. One of them, I'm just curious to get your perspective on how you finance insurance. You made an interesting comment, you don't pay ransom, and you have a budget that you spend on security within all the other priorities you have on your plate. But you can't spend everything on insurance, you can't get ultimate 100% protection. So when you think about your trade-offs, when you think about security almost from like an insurance or business mindset, what's the right amount to spend? How do you think about the right amount to spend for security versus everything else that you have to spend on? >> That's a great question, and I've been talking to my peers around what is the right amount of money? You could spend tons and tons of money on Cyber and still be breached. You can do everything right and again, still be breached. You just have to be very pragmatic about where you direct your resources. For us, it was hardening the perimeter was the start. We wanted to stop things getting in as best we could, so we went out to the cloud and put defenses right at the edge, right at the intelligent edge, and extended our network out. Then we went and said, what is our weakest link, and through social engineering and through dropping things onto people's desktops and them trying to breach into our network, we got some pretty sophisticated technology in end point detection. We monitor our devices using our SIM, we have a dedicated monitoring center that is global, that is in-house and staffed. We've built up a lot of capabilities around that. So then it becomes prioritizing your crown jewels, your most sensitive data, trying to put that most sensitive data into protected zones on your network, and clustering even more defenses around that most sensitive data. I'm a big believer in a defense in depth strategy, so I would have multiple layers of cyber security that overlap. So if you can manage to circumvent some, you might get caught by others. And really that's about it. It's been a struggle. We have a lot of people who specialize in risk-management in our company. So everyone's got an opinion, but I think this is a common challenge for global CIOs. >> I'll share you a pro-tip in a couple of the security shows. It seems HVAC systems are ripe for attack, and the funniest one I've every heard was the automated thermometer in a lobby fish tank at a casino that was the access point. So IOT adds a different challenge. >> Or vending machines. >> Yeah, but HVAC came up like five times out of ten, so watch our for those HVAC systems. But, we're here as part of the Zscaler program, and you've already mentioned them before, their name is on this screen. You've talked before about leveraging partners, and Zscaler specifically, but you mentioned a whole host of really the top names in tech. I wonder if you could give us a bit more color on how do you partner? It's a very different way to look at people in a relationship with a company and the reps that you deal with, versus just buying a product and putting in their product. You really talk about partnering with these companies to help you take on this ever-evolving challenge that is security. >> That's a fabulous question. I know that I cannot match the research and development budgets of some of these very large tech companies. And I don't have the expertise. They're specialists, this is what they do. We were the first company I think to install Zscaler in Canada. We have a great relationship with that company, and Jay's onto something here. He's a thought leader in this space. We've been very pleased with our cooperation and support we got from Zscaler in helping us with our perimeter. When we look inside our company, the network played a big part of delivering cyber security and protection for our customers. We placed a phone call over to Cisco and said come on in and help us with this. We need to completely revamp our network, build a leaf and spine architecture, software-defined network, state of the art, we really want the best and the brightest to come in and help us design this network globally for us. So Cisco has been a superb partner. Cisco has one North American lab, where they try out their new technologies and they advance their technologies. It's just down the street here in Toronto, so we've been able to avail ourselves with some pretty decent thought-leadership in the space. And then also FireEye has been absolutely superb working with them, and we developed pretty close relationships with them. We support their activities, they come in and help us with ours. We've used their consulting agency, Mandiant, quite a bit, to give us advice and help us protect our organization. And I think aligning yourself with these quality companies, Microsoft, I have to call out Microsoft, have been superb, starting from the desktop and moving us through, vertically aligned into the cloud, and providing cyber security every step of the way. You can't rely on one vendor, you have to make sure that these suppliers are partners. You turn vendors into partners and you make sure that they play well together, and that they understand what your priorities are and where you want to go. We've been very transparent with them around what we like and what we don't like, and what we think is working well and what isn't working well. We just build this ecosystem that has to work well in this day and age. >> Well Phillip I think that's a great summary, that it's really important to have partners, and really have a deeper business relationship than simply exchanging money for services. The only way, in this really rapidly evolving world, to get by, because nobody can do it by themselves. I think you summarized that very, very well. So final question before I let you go back to the open floor plan, and all the hard working people over there at Great-West Lifeco. What are you priorities for the balance of the year? I can't believe it's July already, this year is just zooming by. What are some of the things, as you look down the road, that you've got your eye on? >> Well we're certainly watching some of the geo-political activities. We have large operations in Europe, from my accent you can probably tell I'm a Brit. So we're watching Brexit and how that plays out. We're certainly trying to develop new and innovative products for our customers, and certain segments are interesting. The millennial segment, the transference of wealth from people in the later generations into earlier generations, passing wealth down to their kids. Retirement is a really big category for us, and making sure that people have good retirement options and retirement products. And of course, we're always kicking tires, and we're looking out for any opportunities in the M&A market as well, as our industry consolidates and costs rise. So that's kind of what's keeping us busy, and of course rolling out really cool technology. >> All right well thanks for taking a few minutes in your very busy day to spend it with us, and give us your story on the global transformation, the digital transformation and Great-West Life Company. >> You're very welcome, Jeff. Nice chatting with you. >> You too, thanks again. So he's Phil, I'm Jeff, you're watching The Cube. Just had a Cube Conversation out of Palo Alto studios. Thanks for watching, we'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

>> Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering Dell Technologies World 2019, brought to you by Dell Technologies and it's ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back everyone. So CUBE's live coverage here in Vegas, day three as we wind down three days of deep coverage, two sets, a lot of content flowing on siliconangle.com and theCUBE.net. I'm John Furrier, Dave Vellante. Day Three's still got a lot of action to it. Rick, Rich Steeves, Senior Director, Worldwide Partner Programs welcome to theCUBE. We just talked about people calling you Rick. >> It's going to happen. >> Rich, welcome to theCUBE. >> It's been an, I'm really honored to be on with you guys. >> Worldwide Partner Programs. Obviously, VMware is hot. Revenue's up, Pat Gelsing was on yesterday. >> That's right. >> Everything's going up and to the right. Lot of things that the bets that VMware made paying off. Still great customer base growing. Cloudified, multiple partnerships. So you guys are in a good market position. >> Clearly. >> Now with the Dell Technologies integration you got touchpoints with Azure. VCF, the VMware Cloud Foundation. >> That's right. >> You have a foundational bedrock now to integrate into multiple environments. Really puts the software-defined data centers in play for everybody. >> That's correct. >> Now you're bringing it out to the partners for money-making opportunities where they can deliver value. >> Exactly. >> And get paid for it. Make a lot of profit. >> Win, win, win. >> This is the equation of partnering. >> Correct. >> Where are you guys at right now? Again, a lot of now, partnering, you do joint programs. It seems complex to me. Break if down for us. >> Yeah, well clearly we're at a great moment right now. Where the portfolios coming together. The market opportunities coming together. And we're really looking to help drive a change in the vision in the way that we partner together in the marketplace. To win together with our customers. You know, we feel like our responsibility is if we're going to have the opportunity to win the business with our partners for the foreseeable future and to become that essential, ubiquitous digital platform to help drive innovation together with our partners for our customers during their digital transformation. We fundamentally have to change the way that we look at the business and the way that we engage in the marketplace. We have to make it radically simple. Simple to engage, drive profitability and drive growth. And spend less time focused on, maybe, some of the traditional motions that have been aligned in the channel programs of the past. Around traditional routes to market or silos of complexity within the program. >> Rick, what's an example of old versus new? Give us a couple of them. >> You know, I've had the opportunity to lead and drive some of the changes and transformations. Some of the larger vendor programs in the marketplace. I think there are some pitfalls and traps we've all fell into in the past. And a lot of that has come into really siloing our partners based on traditional routes to market. Here's the bar program. Here's the distributor program. Here's the OEM program. But what we're seeing in this cloud, hybrid cloud, mobile first world, is that our partners are delivering value across the spectrum. And yet, many vendors are continuing to look at their partners as individual segments and silos. We've got to do better, right? And that's really the business proposition and some of the exciting announcements we've had recently. >> Well, I would just add just some complexity standpoint. Because of data and AI and, now, scalable infrastructure, you now have every vertical industry with specialty capabilities apps. >> Quite right. >> So, in a way, your service area for partnering is increased. So not only do you have to simplify the programs, you've got a bigger landscape to take territory on. >> Clearly. As we look at building on the foundation that we've built. Through the compute layer and b-sphere, and the ecosystem of incredibly valuable partnerships that we've built. As we take that across and hyperfocus on accelerating the cloud journey, but also transforming networking and security, or also empowering digital workspace. We've got to look at that broad base of partners and how they're delivering value to their customers. >> So what is the segmentation if it's not by the old traditional buckets? What are the new buckets or seams, really? >> It's a great question. I think we're coming to the market with a simpler proposition that says we want to offer our partners greater flexibility and choice to choose the business model that makes sense for how they want to go to market to solve their customers most pressing IT needs and priorities. Whether I'm a reseller or a cloud-service provider or an OEM. I want to have one engagement model. A consistent experience as I engage with VMware. And I want you to recognize the total value I'm bringing to the customer relationship, rather than the individual piece parts. So, one agreement, any business model, one single program. >> So, let's take some friction out of the complexity, make it simpler. What about specific programs? What are you guys launching? What are some of the news that you're rolling out to get these guys up and running quickly? >> We're really excited. We've had the opportunity over the last few weeks to change what has been in the past the tradition of over a decade the VMware Partner Network evolving to become the VMware Partner Connect Program. So we announced three weeks ago to our most strategic partners the introduction of that one-program framework, offering simplicity and choice. To focus on their customers rather than how we've asked them to engage based on how we're aligned often internally by business unit or route to market. And the reception's really just been incredible. >> The other thing that partners want, and I hear this a lot from my friends that are in the business, own a bunch of firms. Hey, what's in it for me? I need to make some cash. I would need simplicity. I don't need a lot of high cost of sales. And I want to have high margins on what we're doing. But also want to wrap services around it. >> Clearly. >> How are you guys helping that scenario? >> Really in multiple ways. I think for VMware, as we look at the opportunity, and I know you guys had a chance to catch up with Pat. We've got some really bold statements of where we want to grow the business in the coming years, together with our partners. I mean, it's a pretty powerful position to say, we want to double the business together with you in the next three-to-five years. We want to go from 5% of revenue, delivered through SAS and subscription to 20% together with our partners. And that's going to come through a vibrant and committed partner ecosystem. And that vibrancy as we go forward is really going to be in the way that partners differentiate, based on their skill sets and capabilities. Rather than program tiers, names and brands. I'll give you an example. We've had the opportunity in this last year to introduce our Master Services Competencies. Really industry best-of-breed recognition of where partners are unlocking value for their customers. So whether they're driving data-center virtualization, network virtualization or desktop and mobility. We now have the ability to say to our fields, to our services organization, and most importantly, to customers, here is the partner that is going to drive and deliver on the transformation. Through, for the partner, margin-rich services opportunities. And, again, in a lot of these conversations with our partners, as they're making that change and transition many of them from traditional resale business models to cloud. A lot of the services opportunity is really delivering most of the profitability. >> So part of that transition, you just mentioned it, is quadrupling the subscription component. How are you dealing with the obvious challenge of how you compensate for that? What a lot of SAS companies will do is say, "Yeah, SAS, pay by the drink. "But you got to sign up for three years." (laughter) So, it's really not cloud. So how are you dealing with that challenge and how is the channel absorbing it? >> It's a great question. If we look at the economics of the relationship in the past, it's been really focused on the initial transaction. But that transaction in the cloud world, it is an important milestone along the customer journey, but it's only the initial step, right? In this try, buy, proof-of-concept life cycle, we've got to do a better job of taking our investment envelope and wallet and spreading that across the customer journey. Looking at monthly recurring revenue. Looking at the ways that our partners are unlocking value and driving consumption. So, moving it from the initial transaction to deployment, consumption and expand opportunities with our customers. It's going to add tremendous value to the equation. >> So you've got a new playbook, things are changing. >> That's right. >> How you got here is not how you're going to move forward. Whole new ball game. What kinds of mechanisms you guys going to put in place? 'Cause you guys had, Tranel has tried and trued programs. Soft dollars, training. You got to get the word out. >> That's right. >> You got to watch the journey, so you got to instrument that. >> That's right. >> What are some of the things you guys doing to be new and be fast and be relevant? >> It's a great question. I mean, a lot of it comes down to the evangelism, and I'd say frankly, doing a better job of listening to our partners. We've had the advantage through VMware Partner Connect, through our partner advisory boards and councils. Doing the listening along the way to say that this is a program that not only is VMware building, but this is the co-investment and co-building together with our partners. So, from inception to design and concept and, ultimately, to the announcement and rollout. We've had our partners hip-to-hip with us in this rollout. We'll certainly look to leverage opportunities, like VMworld, hopefully we'll see you guys there. >> We'll definitely be there. >> We'll see you guys there. To amplify that message. But the key piece, and this is what our partners tell us, is help me leverage the investments I've made in my VMware relationship today, but position me for the opportunities ahead. Give me a sense of, where do I need to invest. Sometimes ahead of the curve to make sure I'm taking advantage of the program. >> And are you guys funded for that right now? Is Pat getting behind this with actual cash to prime the pump here? What's the update there? >> This is from Pat and e-staff on down. A commitment for the organization. Brandon Sweeney, Maurizio Carli, everyone's really rallied around us. It's one of our top priorities. Pat wants to ensure that we've got that vibrant, committed partner ecosystem that is bringing incremental value to our customer relationships and we're putting the money behind the commitment. >> You got to get the community action going, got to get some content. Doing a great job right here. Question on the customer piece, I want to just shift gears, because end of the day you're, it's an indirect channel ultimately for VMware, but you've got to get deep in it and enable your partners to be successful. They, then, have to think about your customer, too. Their customer, the joint customer. How has that world changed? 'Cause we were talking before we came on camera that with the VMware Cloud Foundation and all the, now, bundling that going on and all the integration. You've got a tight relationship with Dell Technologies, as well as other partners. There's a lot of cross-wired programs. Who gets credit for what, there's some complexity there. But, ultimately, it's an opportunity for the partner, your customers and then their customer, to actually be a cloud-service provider. >> That's right. >> A whole new generation. Take away the system integration challenges that customers want to get rid of. >> That's right. For us, it really comes down to being disruptive by being radically simple, right? Really boiling it down. And you talk about the relationship. There's some great announcements this week around the Dell Technologies Partner Program, change and evolution. And one of our partners, as well as our customers, frankly, have been asking us is, make it easier for us to do business across the full Dell Technologies family, right? All of the strategically-aligned businesses. Whether you look at our VMware cloud, on Dell EMC, VXrail, any number of the engineered solutions that we're bringing to market. It's about adding value to the customer, simplifying the engagement and, really again, driving the profitability for our partners. >> I think being agile, Rich, is going to be key for success for you. And making sure that it's funded, and that the money's going into the partners, >> That's right. >> In the gas tank to get then go faster >> Clearly. And we feel like we have one of the richest programs in the industry that's really driving incremental value for our partners. And I think what you'll see us do is, again, a better job of differentiating of partners that are, certainly, co-investing in VMware. But most importantly, and this is what we hear from our customers, is invest in the partners that have demonstrated the ability to unlock value in this engagement. >> Well, thanks for sharing the insight. We love this topic. I know it's kind of like a channel thing, but it's becoming a very key part for creating value, and also delivering a simple solution for customers. Give a quick plug for what's going on at VMworld, you mentioned VMworld. How do you guys run your partner programs, events? What's on the schedule? Take a quick minute to give a quick plug. >> We've got a few opportunities ahead of us. We're really excited to continue the success around our VMware Empower events. Where we bring both sales and technical enablement conversations to our partners. Certainly, VMworld to be able to-- >> What is that event? The one... >> Empower coming up in Lisbon. We're really excited towards the end of May. VMworld in the U.S., as well as in Amia, >> Do you co-locate an event within VMworld? >> Yes. We also do our Distribution Advisory Board, our Partner Advisory Board. Trying to add as much value, but also, again, do a good job of listening to our partners. >> Great. Rich, thanks for coming on, appreciate it. We'll be following all, we'll be following the money. That's at the end of the day, success is where people exchange of value. You guys doing a great job. We're bringing you all theCUBE content here. Day three, wall-to-wall coverage. I'm John with Dave Vellante. Stay with us for more after this short break. (synth music)