>> Announcer: From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of AWS Public Sector Online. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Hi, I'm Stu Miniman and this is theCUBE's coverage of AWS Public Sector's Summit Online. We've done this show for many years, of course, this time it's online rather than in person in the District of Washington, D.C. Happy to welcome to the program first time guest, a very good partner of AWS's, from Salesforce, it's Casey Coleman. She is the Senior Vice President of Global Government Solutions, once again, with Salesforce. Casey, thanks so much for joining us. >> Stu, thank you, glad to be here. >> All right, so first of all maybe, if you could, give us a little bit of level set, your role at Salesforce and obviously a long partnership with Amazon. Tell us a little bit about that. >> Yes, my role at Salesforce is to work with our customers in the public sector, globally, and really help them map out their digital transformation. You know, it's an ongoing journey and we help them understand how to break that down into actionable steps and really transform what they're doing to server their constituents and citizens better. >> Excellent, so of course, at the Public Sector Show a lot about leverage of GovCloud and the other services, all of the compliance that goes into that. Ahead of this event, you had a new update at Salesforce in partnership with AWS. Talk to us about it's the Government Cloud Plus. So what's entailed there? And tell us how AWS and Salesforce work together to launch this solution. >> Yeah, thanks Stu. We are so excited to announce the launch of GovCloud Plus which is Salesforce's Customer 360 CRM platform that runs on Amazon Web Services in the GovCloud in their GovCloud environment and we've just received a provisional APO provisional authority to operate from the FedRAMP Program office at the high security level. So we are announcing GovCloud Plus is FedRamp High, ready to go, generally available and ready for customers. >> Excellent, maybe bring us inside. What's different about how government agencies leverage Salesforce. For most companies out there, Salesforce is a critical piece of how they manage not only their sales force but marketing and lots of other pieces, anything specific that we should understand about the public sector. >> Yeah, it's a great question because even our name, Salesforce, sounds like a commercial kind of thing to do. Governments don't think of themselves as selling, but if you break down to a level of detail about what governments actually do, it is the same kind of functions. It's case management, it's benefits delivery, it's communications and outreach, it's all the same kind of functions that are necessary for commercial organizations to thrive. And so that's what we do, we translate that into government-ready terms so that they can serve child welfare, health information delivery, patient records, farmer information, all kinds of services for constituents of the public sector. And they might call them customers, they might call them citizens, residents, constituents, but it's those they serve. >> Yeah, well one of the things about Salesforce is, as you said, it's not just a sales tool, there's so much. You've got a very broad and deep ecosystem there as well as people that know how to use it. They get underneath the covers. When I think of not only is Salesforce the first company that I probably thought of and heard about that it was SaaS, but if you talk about the API economy, if you talk about how things integrate, Salesforce does a lot for developers. So I know one of the other pieces you had that everybody knows Dreamforce, maybe not as many people know the TrailheaDX Show that Salesforce just had for developers, so bring us a little bit inside what Salesforce is doing for developers and of course, the government angle along those lines, too. >> Yeah, there's a lot going on in the developer world. We were glad to be able to host a virtual version of our Trailhead Developer Conference and announce a lot of exciting, new developments, including Salesforce Anywhere which his really bringing an immersive voice, video, and chat environment to collaborate in the developer environment and in the delivery environment. And you bring that into the public sector and the benefits are amazing because one of the key challenges with government is keeping up with the pace of the public expectations at a pace of change in the commercial world. All of us shop and bank, and live on our mobile devices, and governments are being faced with the same expectations from the public to do anytime, anywhere, personalized service delivery. It's the (audio distortion) rapid development environment that Salesforce offers gives the public sector IT teams the ability to quickly respond to changing conditions like the COVID-19 pandemic, and rollout applications that are not only fast to develop and deploy, but they also benefit from being in the GovCloud environment, and so the compliance is already built in. And that's another key challenge that often arises, the public sector (audio distortion) is not only fielding new applications but making sure they're secure, and so with Salesforce, it's all built in. >> Yeah, it sounds a lot of system similarity to what we hear in the private sector. Of course, the balance between what IT is doing and how we enable developers. Of course, security, you mentioned, is super important. Anything, specifically, from the government sector that you'd say might be different from what we see in the general enterprise world? >> You know, the security is top of mind for the public sector, always, because they're dealing with the most sensitive data. They're dealing with the public trust. And trust is really the currency of government. They're not dealing in profit and market share, but they are dealing in a public trust and protecting information like financial data, health data, personal data, and so it's essential that the government has the best in class commercial tools to make sure they are providing world class security for their constituents and their mission. And that's one reason we're so excited to be partnering with AWS on GovCloud Plus because Amazon AWS has already deployed the FedRAMP High version of their infrastructures and service, and so by riding on top of that, we inherit all of those existing controls, add our own FedRAMP High controls, and our customers benefit from the best in class security from two of the most trusted names in the Public Cloud. >> Great, you know, absolutely, GovCloud has been a real boon for the entire industry when it talks about how government agencies are leveraging Cloud. You talked about sitting on top of GovCloud, the Government Cloud Plus leverages some of the certifications and the like. Can you bring us inside a little bit? How long did this effort take to get? Anything specific in the integrations or functionality that you might be able to highlight about this joint effort? >> Yeah we've been working on it for some time now, because it's essential to really think from the ground, up. And this is really not just re-platforming our Cloud solutions on AWS, it is rethinking the whole architecture so that we really are organically taking advantage of infrastructure services that AWS provides. So it is a really deep integration. And it's not only a tech integration, it's a strategic partnership too, and you're going to see a lot more announcements coming from both of us about the integration, the capabilities we're bringing together. And a lot of the work we're going to be doing continue to bring innovation to our joint customers. >> Excellent. You made reference to the pandemic. What are you hearing from your customers? How does this new offering impact them and support them both, today, as they're reacting to what happens as well as going forward, as we progress? >> Yeah, Stu, you know, the COVID-19 pandemic really exposed a fault line in government programs that weren't scaled to meet this demand. We saw Websites crashing when people were going to them, and just overwhelming them with questions about the health situation. We saw benefits programs that only worked when people could come in and sign up and apply in person, and obviously, with government offices shut down, that wasn't an option. And a lot of government workers were sent home to tele-work without much notice, and their infrastructure just couldn't support it. And so just in general, there was a lot of breakdowns along the way. But the good news is that a lot of public sector organizations and programs are making that pivot quickly. For example, we worked with one state agency that experienced a 400% spike in demand for applications for unemployment benefits. It makes sense. People are out of work, they need unemployment benefits, but they just couldn't respond to that kind of surge in demand. So we worked with them along with AWS and in less than a week, stood up a virtual contact center with chatbot so they could meet the demand and provide those vital services for their residents at a time of real need. So there's a lot to be optimistic about in the middle of this crisis; there is a lot of transformation happening. This kind of forcing function is producing a lot of innovation and transformation and I think it's really going to make a fundamental shift in how we reimagine government in the future. >> Yeah, Casey, you're absolutely right. This pandemic has shown a real spotlight on what works and what doesn't. And I think about not only government, but a lot of how finances work. Oftentimes, you have your plans in place, you have your budgets in place, you have funding cycles, so what are Salesforce and Amazon doing to help those customers? You talk about they have to ramp things up. Oh wait, were they financially ready for this? Some companies, "Oh wait, I have to temporarily "dial things down that's not in my 12-month "or 36-month plan." So are there things that you're doing to help customers short-term and long-term? Are you seeing some change in how people think about their planning and how they can be ready for what change happens out there? >> Yeah, one of the big findings from this while experience, not just in the public sector, but across every industry, has been that digital transformation may, in the past, have been viewed as a nice-to-have. It is now really the only way to connect and serve both the customers and employees, and so digital first, digital transformation is rapidly becoming an urgent imperative because this situation is not going away overnight. And even when we get back to some state of normal, it's going to be different. And so digital first and being able to move quickly to rollout services rapidly, to be able to start small and then scale rapidly, these are things that benefit any organization, whether it's government or commercial. >> Excellent, well Casey, I'll let you have the final word what you want people to have as their takeaway of Salesforce's participation in the AWS Private Sector Online Event. >> We are just so excited to be here with AWS to jointly come to our customers with GovCloud Plus, the FedRAMP High authorized environment for the best in class CRM, and customer and employee services. Our partnership with AWS is one that we're excited about. You're going to see a lot more announcements coming soon. It's not only a technology integration, it's also a strategic partnership, and we think our customers are, jointly, just going to be really excited about the development. So thank you for the time and glad to be here. >> All right, well thank you so much, Casey. Congratulations on the Government Cloud Plus launch and absolutely look forward to hearing more about it in the future. >> Thank you, Stu. >> All right, be sure to stay tuned. Lots more coverage of theCUBE at AWS Public Sector Summit Online. I'm Stu Miniman and thank you for watching theCUBE. (soft electronic music)