>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's The Cube, covering IBM Think 2018, brought to you by IBM. (lively music) >> Hello everyone, welcome back to The Cube. We're here live in Las Vegas for IBM Think 2018. It's where all the action's happening. Third day of three days, wall to wall coverage, I'm John Furrier, co-host of The Cube, we have two great guests here, Paul Papas, Global Leader of Digital Strategy at IBM's iX, new digital agency, and his cohort Matt Candy, European leader of IBM iX, a new agency within IBM specifically developed for expanding the digital services to their customers, to create the best experiences, using technology, data, and other analog and digital capabilities. Wimbledon and among others. Guys, welcome to The Cube. >> Thank you, thank you, and thanks for that great introduction. >> So Paul, so take a minute, this is a novel concept. When I think of agency I think ad agency, buy some keywords, PR firms, you know, more of an adjunct to a core organization, kind of a service provider. >> Yeah. >> You guys have it a little bit different agency focus, more like management consultants meets World Economic Forum, meets, you know, UX UI design, because you are building this company. Take a minute to explain what iX is, and what's different about it in context what people might think it is. >> Sure, and thanks, a great set up in there it's like you melded a lot in there of what we do. So you can think of us as a combination of strategy consultancy, digital agency, consulting systems integrator. So we do three things with our clients, we help them design, well we help them define, their digital strategies, really their business strategy in a digital world. We help them design world-class customer experiences. Experiences that are going to be personalized, and have an impact. And then lastly we help them implement the technology. Implement the customer platforms that they use to engage with their customers in a personalized, meaningful, omni-channel way, all of those things that we do help drive a measurable business impact so nothing we do is hypothetical, everything we do is real and drives a real business impact for our clients. So, where if you might look at an agency a lot of people think of agency as marketing communications agencies, and the world has changed so fast around digital, >> Or ad agencies. >> Or advertising agencies, you know, in that vein, we're on the more transformational side. In fact we consider ourselves a business design partner. So what we're trying to do with our clients around the world is help them redefine, redesign their businesses, so that they're fit for purpose, so that they can survive and thrive in this modern world. >> Yeah, I want to get your thoughts on this, because you know looking back as a historian if you will of evolution, technology used to be slower, so agencies added value on something complex, ad agencies would create ad campaigns and some glam, glamour around something. And we even saw it in some of the lead gen side of the business, where this beautiful micro-site and the graphics are amazing, it looked great but actually didn't scale there's no tech behind it. Now fast forward, you have the requirement for cool, relevant, and glamorous, but actually having tech involved. Cloud computing has really enabled this, and the role of data has really enabled it, so this is now the new normal, the new normal for these higher-end functionalities is actually having a tech stack, technology stack, combined with business engineering logic, >> Paul: Yeah. >> And real business outcome, like profit, money outcome objectives that people might want. How do you guys explain that story because, you know, I would just call a consultant up in the past, are you guys combining it to make it easier? What's the purpose that customers call you guys in for? What are they asking for from you guys? >> So I'll start off and then Matt, you can add color commentaries, so, the way we describe what you just, what you just brought to life there, was, we have multi-disciplinary teams, so we have a combination of business strategists right, so when our clients are engaging us, they could be working with a business strategist who's really comfortable showing up for work and wearing a suit and tie, and he could be sitting next to, in our studio, sitting next to one of our creative designers who's tattooed from his wrist to his neck. >> The hoodie guy building everything. >> The hoodie guy, right, sitting there building there, next to one of our data scientists who's popping open his Lenovo laptop, it's got the latest chip in it, and he's so pumped 'cause he's going to run some crazy data analytics on it, applying AI on top of it. And all of these people work together using Design Thinking so we have an approach we call IBM Design Thinking, they've all been trained, we've trained over 16 thousand people on Design Thinking, and they all work together and come together to solve our clients' ploblems. They work in a studio environment, and we've opened up 38 studios around the world. Studios are places where we co-create with our clients, or we invite our clients in to ideate, innovate and co-create >> So it's agile on the format, on the projects, not like Waterfall, hey now you pass the ball to the other guy, it's all integrated team. >> Yes, and what you end up having is, you end up having the view of understanding the business and the client's business challenge, which is where we start when we define the strategy, when we do the design work, it's underpinned with an understanding of the technology that's going to bring this to life. So we like to say that we don't do creative for creative's sake or creative just for the beauty of the art, we do creative that can actually be made real. >> Yeah, you guys put a relevant package together. So I got to ask you now, the beauty of cloud computing was, is that you don't have to provision a data center if you don't need it. Now you see people needing a data center for privacy reasons they store their data, hence the hybrid cloud strategy, et cetera et cetera, but if I want to do something like what you guys are doing, it's going to cost me money to build it out. One, where are the people? Skills of the people, salaries of the people, tools for the people, all that is expensive to build out. So it's natural to go to someone who's already got it. So I want you guys to talk about that dynamic, of buy versus build, what stays in-house that's core competency, and what's the scale leverage that the clients get from working with you guys, 'cause you have that advantage. >> Yeah, and actually what I like to tee up is, this cost effective approach that we use to help our clients jumpstart the work that they're doing, we call it an innovation garage, and Matt and the team in the UK and in Europe have really been champions of this approach. Why don't you share some of the work we do around innovation garages. >> Yeah, so, I mean, one example is our client BP who we've been working with in this space, and helping them drive a lot of the digital reinvention of their business. And so, teams of data scientists, designers, developers, working hand in hand with product owners from the client side but ideating, finding new different digital products and services that help improve advocacy of customers drive loyalty, drive new revenue streams but very quickly taking those ideas and turning them into prototypes right, paper prototypes, actual MVPs, minimum viable products, launching them into market right, choosing some target markets, but putting very measurable KPIs around each of those things >> What's the timetable on that roughly, ballpark? >> Probably getting those MVPs out at eight to 10 weeks right >> So, fast. >> Oh yeah, fast. >> It's not months, not eight months. >> No, no, there's no Waterfall. And so a radically different approach to getting things out there, in the hands of real users. And then testing and learning, iterating, and then based on the data, actual fact and data backed against those KPIs and measurements then starting taking the decision around whether we're going to scale that into a global product. >> Yeah before we go to drill down on that, what's the alternative to doing that? How many months would it take if I want to do it from scratch in-house? >> Spinning up large transformation programs right, and >> John: A year. >> Yeah, at least, multi-years >> John: At minimum. >> Multi-years, and I think the other thing John, that's kind of key about this way of working, is that you're starting to infuse new ways of working and new ways of thinking into the client's organization right, and so Design Thinking: lean, agile, dev ops, right all of these approaches to get things done in a more rapid way and so, you're kind of driving change and transformation through making and creating and doing, not through some big change management program. And so we've been, if I took BP for example, training and certifying their people in IBM Design Thinking, certifying them as product owners and so, through the act of making and creating these services, it's changing their culture and changing how they get stuff done and it's a bit like a fire, kind of a little fire that burns and spreads within the organization as people see what's going on and want to become part of it. >> And one of the ways we do that we actually co-locate in these innovation garages. So you take a company like BP, if you go to our South Bank office, we have a dedicated floor where you have a hundred BP people with the IBM iX team, working in this innovation garage model, >> So they're learning too with you it's not like you're doing all the work and they're integrating in. No, no, we're learning together and they're building new skills and we're building new skills, and we're coming up with new ideas and innovations we're doing it in a cost-effective way, to your point before, in the past companies would spend a lot of money to try to go down a big path and try to in essence, boil an ocean sometimes. >> Yeah and your one guy quits, you got to replace, skill gaps, massive challenges. >> But also I find that from the client's perspective the thing that they're most proud of, some of the things they're most proud of, is the bin, what they call the bin. And so it's all of those ideas that we've killed as far to the left as possible right, and taking an idea that traditionally may have turned into some big program, multi-millions spent on doing it to find that it actually didn't deliver the outcome for the end consumer. >> So Matt, talk about the example with Wimbledon 'cause obviously everyone kind of can recognize that brand, you guys have been working at Wimbledon, you have a relationship with them so they've known IBM for years. What's the current state of the art with Wimbledon? What are some of the things you're doing for those guys and how is iX team, your integrated design team, working with those guys? >> So we've been partnering with Wimbledon now for about 28 years, so relationship goes back to 1990, I mean Wimbledon's been around back since the 1870s, you know, the home of kind of tennis, tennis in an English garden, so complete with rain and drizzle and gray clouds and everything else. And so, probably over the last seven years we've been working with them to drive their digital transformation, and so, how they engage with fans, and so how they use data and analytics to drive insights to put very personalized experiences in the hands of fans. So if you think about an event like Wimbledon, runs for 13 days, and about 500 thousand people get to physically experience Wimbledon in the grounds. And so their whole strategy from a digital perspective is taking the beauty of the grounds and the experience, and how they can manifest that digitally to millions of people around the world. >> And that's more than live streaming that's more than highlights, that's replicating the vibe the buzz, the experience of being there. >> Completely, so if you look at the web channel right when you go to that website, you don't actually see tennis players and stuff on there. What you might see is a beautiful flower just wafting in the breeze right, so a lot of the technology and the experience that we put together is trying to bring to life the beauty of the grounds right, through those digital mediums. And also being very thoughtful and purposeful about the different channels, so when you think about the mobile app right people use that to get snack access to data they're on the move, they want to understand the scores, alerts, iPad, people tend to use that sat on the sofa in front of the telly, you know, second screen experience so there's a different set of use cases and demands. We launched the first Apple TV app for grand slam tennis tournaments. So again, people tend to be using that for catch up and replays and so, being very thoughtful and purposeful about the... >> And you got to keep track of the digital culture 'cause it's like fashion, you got to know what's state of the art, what's going to sell VR, AR, whole new creatives coming out >> You do but you also have to do it in a way that's authentic to the product. >> Tech fashion. (laughter) The latest and greatest. >> Hashtag new hashtag tech fashion But you also have to do it, what I was going to say, you have to do it in a way that's authentic to the brand that you're representing. >> John: And relevant. >> Correct, so we're expressing the brand of Wimbledon online through digital channels and mobile channels, it has to be consistent with the brand, the brand values, the brand purpose, the brand mission. >> And that goes in to the design side of it 'cause they're going to tell you look if we go off the brand, we're not... >> The beauty, the elegance, the elegance of the sport, the elegance of the All England Tennis Club, you have to capture all of that and represent it in a way that's genuine. >> Alright so this is where the melting pot between agency, creative, ad agency, where it's much more about experience, less about the tech, and tech come together. So I wanted to ask you, I did a panel this year at Sundance called the New Creative, with Intel and it was all about the emerging new creative artists that have tech behind it, and here's what we talked about, I want to get your reaction to it. Agile, which killed Waterfall development, made things less risky, the old days was, you build something, a lot of craftsmanship goes into it, but you ship it, you don't know if it's going to work, and you hope it works and sells. Then Agile de-risked that, but you're shipping code every day. But what we lost with Agile that's now coming back, and I think this is where you guys are hitting the mark, the idea of craftsmanship in the product is coming back. So you got Agile, that's good, but it felt boring, it felt, the products didn't feel great. Yeah, certainly they were successful and they used data to be agile and always be iterating, fail fast, et cetera, but now the users want craftsmanship, they want art, they want more experience in the tech product What's your reaction to that, what's your vision? Do you agree and, if you do, what's your opinion? >> Well I agree on the recommitment to craft, and the approach that we take to that is really starting with Design Thinking, and we view this a couple different ways. One, we think Design Thinking is a way to actually solve business problems in the modern world. Now design, we view as a craft. So we have very specific craftspeople that are pure designers, that's what they do every day for a living. Everyone in our organization practices Design Thinking. So I believe that the use of Design Thinking coupled with our design community and the world-class talent that we have there, has enabled to really get an underlying need, right. So when you're doing a design, you have to have the understanding of the underlying need of the customers that you're trying to serve. And that's what we really get at, so the craftsmanship that comes in through applying Design Thinking, applying your design principles to creating something that can then be made real and have an impact. If you ask our designers, in our 38 studios around the world what they love about being part of IBM iX and being part of IBM, it's the impact that they can have. That they can see their design scale, they can see it brought to life in a way that is far beyond anything they could've done at any agency >> Can't fake design, it's like security, you can't fake it, it either works or it doesn't. >> And the way we think about design right is about almost design with a capital D. And so it's not just about how things look and feel, it's about how they work, and so how you can apply design to help solve problems in a very different way right. And how you apply design to strategy because designers are problem solvers. And so actually having people apply a designer's mindset to problem solving, you end up with very different outcomes right, you end up with a lot more innovation driving into what you're building, and I think you end up with products and services that actually help make somebody's life a little bit easier right, you're taking friction out of their life you're delivering something meaningful and of value to them. >> You're doing empathy mapping, you're doing customer journey mapping, you're doing a persona development. I want to build on what Matt said though that designers are problem solvers. When we look at Design Thinking, we have a method called IBM Design Thinking, and the logo that we use for Design Thinking is actually an infinity loop. So what we do is we combine Design Thinking with Agile and I think of IBM Design Thinking as a 3-D printing of a solution to a problem. We're designing it, we're getting at an underlying need, we're prototyping something fitting a proof of concept, we're learning, we're now doing another iteration of Design Thinking and learning more about the underlying need, testing something, and as we keep testing and learning, we add more texture to the solution of the problem and it starts coming into focus for us. >> Yeah, and the key word's problem. I interviewed a Stanford professor on the cutting edge of innovation, design she said, "Don't fall in love with your product. Fall in love with solving problems." And I think that's kind of what you guys believe. >> And I think John, to the point that you raised, about Agile, you know, we see many organizations driving kind of Agile transformation and shifting, and you know, I think our perspective is very much is you need this combination of design, of Agile and dev-ops together, because Agile allows you to pivot quickly, dev-ops allows you to kind of learn and get rapid feedback from production and putting things out there, and you've got to have this kind of design-led approach to doing stuff, because you've got to make sure that what you're building and putting out there serves a purpose and a real outcome for the end user. >> That's perfect, and most people think oh, we're Agile, check. No, whoa, hold on, stop, yeah it's not a silver bullet. >> You brought up a great point from a business leadership perspective that don't fall in love with your products, fall in love with the problems that you're solving, We are seeing that across every industry we work in, and I think this new digital age, with all these emerging technologies going mainstream so fast, AI, AR, VR, blockchain, it's allowing companies to, in some ways, reimagine their purpose, but in some ways, revisit their original purpose. So if you look at, Ford as an example, they've declared that they're going from pure car manufacturing, to mobility services. If you look at our clients in the life sciences industry, years ago they would've declared themselves as pharmaceutical manufacturers right? But now they would look at themselves as partners in health and partners in the health ecosystem. And every industry we're operating in, there's that re-imagining or revisit of the core mission. >> I think this is the only interview I haven't asked about blockchain, but I was just talking to Jesse Lund about blockchain and we talked about digital currencies, digital, and we observed, and we were talking about things are happening faster. So what's happening on digital it's a speed gain, across the board, with currency there's no clearing, it's digital, it moves instantly. So his banking side, that's his thesis, but here, your customers are challenged with looking down the barrel and being scared when, damn, this is going to be fast, what if I screw this up? I mean this is kind of how I see it happening, like it's accelerated in all aspects. >> And this is where I think, in terms of the business that we're in how we're different, and you've kind of raised the traditional agencies and stuff earlier, John. I think the difference for us is, you know when you think about the world of advertising, and companies driving their message out through shouting loudly and campaigns and building micro-sites, actually, our perspective very much is that these, most organizations need to look at how they digitally reinvent, right. And so therefore the scale of change needed as they look to reinvent their businesses, the business models, the skill pools within the organization, how they're going to use data and insights to drive different experiences you start to move to a very different level of change and transformation right, and one where these technology platforms, and becoming a platform business in these organizations, right, need a partner fundamentally who can help them scale and drive that change. >> And the data's critical, using data, using cloud, dev-ops, Agile, design, all rolled into a highly accelerated process, that's hard. >> It is hard but, >> You guys are doing it though. >> Well yeah, that's what we do for a living. It's what our clients are faced with right now. It's kind of a like a Dickensian-like challenge, right, it's A Tale of Two Cities. With all the emerging tech that we were talking about before there's never been a better time to create new innovations. To be innovative in some of the things that we're doing with BP was a great example of that. And some of the bigger things we're doing with some clients that are trying to reinvent their organization around a renewed purpose. But at the same time, there's never been a bigger threat to existing companies, in terms of there's never been more opportunity to be disrupted. So between these two poles of never been a better time to be in business, never been a tougher time to be disrupted, that's where our clients are operating. And this juxtaposition of core and new where our clients have mostly been in business for more than a few years. They have a core business that they need to grow and optimize, while they also need to expand into the new. And they can't do one or the other, they have to do both at the same time. >> And you know the customers I talk to in the industry, around this area, really look down, they look at three choices. Go for it, that's scary, need a partner to do that you guys are there for that. Don't do anything, put your head in the sand. Or three, create blockers and ban stuff. So you're seeing, you kind of walk in and you kind of figure out who's doing what. You see the blockers with all these excuses, no well we've got this other... And then the head, well we should be, they don't do anything, they're not moving. And then people who move. >> Yeah. >> I mean that's the reality right now. >> You know, what we see, we just published this research you know, a C-suite study, so we interviewed 12,000 C-suite executives, over 2,500 CEOs, and the title of this study's The Incumbents Strike Back, and that's what we're seeing now, so we're not seeing folks kind of sitting or putting their heads in the sand, they're looking at their legacy business, and the competitive advantage they have because of all the knowledge and incumbent advantage that they have, and now applying that. >> Well Paul and Matt, we don't have enough time to go into the impact of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, and initial coin offering's impact, to the token economics of how your business will change but we'll do that another time. >> Fantastic. >> Alright thanks for joining The Cube. I'm John Furrier here live in Las Vegas for IBM Think 2018. A lot of great conversations here in The Cube number one live tech coverage, extracting the signal from the noise. We'll be back with more after this short break. (techno music)