>>live from Atlanta, Georgia. It's the Q covering answerable best 2019. Brought to you by Red hat. >>Hey, welcome back to the Cuban Live coverage in simple fest. Two days of coverage. Day one, wrapping up. I'm John forwards. Accused Too many men. My guest co host today, our next two guests at his van. Van Velzen. Okay, welcome to the Cube. You're an engineer at I n G Bank and Robert de Bock, product owner, engineer I n g. Bank. Hey, guys, Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Have the practitioner on. Well, first of all, we have a lot of great feedback from the practitioners here. And also people in deploying answerable and other other cool Dev ops Tools on automation is at the top of the list. Yes, More efficient. Getting things done. Focus. You got satisfaction in job because things go awaiting time savings. I'm saving security drives a conversation and re skilling opportunities. Love. These are cutting edge. Things you got to do is take a minute to explain what you guys do. What a night. What a night. Angie bank. >>Yeah. I work in a team that provides redhead images for other teams. in 90 to consume to use two insane she ate way. Also live from playbooks, amendable code and rolls to manage those things. And he's very scattered, which sort of decentralized, which is a good thing. In my opinion, it's ready for scaling. In that case, I used to work with Dennis are lots in the tower team, so take it away. >>Okay, so I still work at the answer, built our squad What we do, it's ah, We make sure that the instable tower service keeps running 24 7 and we also ensure that we, uh, provide updates next to all this. We also have unanswerable community where we basically support our end users, which are their love. So, uh, from some numbers, I heard we have 1200 applications teams that are using our service. Um, and they all have, like, answerable playbook, sensible rolls, questions, difficulties with, uh, with anything. And we're basically there to support them as well. >>So 1200 teams are using answerable, Yes, inside the bank. Yes. Yeah, like >>it's set up very decentralized. And I think what I hear from instable fest that is not very common. I still think it's very good thing to do. We try to basically give these teams all the tools they need to do their stuff on. What I hear hear mostly is that there's essential team off administrators pushing the buttons for them. Towers. Great answer was great in that case, I think, for our case is really it's a perfect fit. >>E guess help Explain. Is this do you provide? You know, he said it's not centralized, but is this you know, here's best practices here. Some play boat out. How do you end? You support them? Because they're a little bit those relationships. >>Okay. Okay. Um so what we do is we basically all the rules and get ah ah, good lap. So it's an own premise. Get environment. You can search in this. Get for rules. Uh, not like all rules are easily to be found when searching for them. So that's why there are these communities to share what you have made. Um, >>plus these teams, they can themselves pick and choose. Some will try to rewrite everything That's fine. Others can can benefit from existing coat, so it's just a good trick. Thio enable these team to participate on it really different. Some people make it all themselves another >>next to this. So we basically have these 12 on the teams do their own thing. But next to this, we also have a self service portal where they can choose, like from, uh, generic finks like us. But your machine at new disc. So New capacity Cp use memory. That's all being done through a portal s so they don't need to do anything on their own for this they can, but most of them choose the easy way off using this portal. This portal basically doesn't a vehicle to instable tower, which executes a sensible playbook and some other stuffs. Maybe some AP eyes. And this is one of the things you guys create A manage these books. So, um >>and if you go back in time so the alternative way, which we happily got rid off, is to do it ourselves. I think it was before we we work together. Way had batch weekends, for example, and it >>was no very different. No life. Oh, that's working on weekends, >>weekends and, for example, he used to patch machine some 10,000 or so, and we were not aware what was important. What? Not so you you'd stop the whole pitch. Oh, this machine has a problem. Let's stop everything in focus and that's >>not important. Was like a complete order. >>And the other way around Also this machine. I guess it's not that important. Let's just >>continue this >>Sunday morning. Oh, my God. Everything's broken. >>Can you give us a little flavor of kind of the spectrum of solutions that you leverage answerable on >>tap? Yeah. We, uh I think what we see Moses for Lennox machines, eso fetching is a big one. We got a second operation, so there's a few of them. The deployment also depends on and small. So if you order a new machine, answer was involved somewhere to do to make it happen on network on board and the Windows teams are very interested. I'm not sure if we notice on board yet. To >>be honest, I know we did some book in the boss so a couple of months ago, using wind around when you needed set on policies there, But you can see that the networking teams were getting more momentum. Uh, five. There's some suffer suffer to find switches Bob. I don't know. The, uh Never mind the name, but ah, you can see some momentum in the in the networking. Uh, it's not Morgan departments >>configuration network networking with the activists. So that's where the action is in the >>network. Um, there were some cool talks also here on five workshops. So you can see there is, um, that there is some attention on these modules and integrations as well. >>What's your guy's goal here for the show? What brought you here? I'll see Big user. >>Yeah. So what do you think was like sharing our own thing? We did. They talk this morning. Ah, regarding and programming A really cool we wanted to share. It is this behavioral thing, and and >>we'll talk about take a minute and programming. >>So, um, basically, it's, ah programming with the whole team and making sure that you get something done with all the knowledge in the team. So you don't have to align off the words or if some other if you're Kulik says from basically session, you can do better using this staying. It's all, um it's It's all done during the decision >>as basically a good way to get a team up to speed. So in a team that's probably a few few people that are very quick and understand the concept and few starters or so So >>you guys decentralized, which makes sense for scale. I get that. So this sounds like you can operate decentralized, but where danceable. You can still have that common a book Switch >>teams, for example. So it used to be very specific. H team would have their own type of coat. Now that more answers used people can switch a little easier to to another product of surface because the languages have lied, shared, steal it, steal. It's quite >>well happy with this, right? I am. I really, really have to work on the weekend. That's good. I think >>the good thing is that you have one generic way of working. So his playbook is readable by all engineers. And if you want to learn this thing, you just do the inevitable course. So you know what this thing is? A mosque and roll, and it's all like >>way. We do see horrible >>koto. Come on, don't throw your college under the bus. But here's the international tough question can see is what we have been here. I want you guys to test this. We hear that there's a lot of time savings involved. Yes, with answer. True or false. That's true order of magnitude. What? What kind of saving way talking about? I >>think it depends on the thing because we saw a huge I don't know, except numbers. But this this os patching that Really? Really Uh, >>yes. Now, especially waas. Two people working a full time basically collecting, who needs to do what? The win. And then for a weekend, 10 15 people or so. So, uh, that's reduced now to sort of nothing. Yes, some maintenance to that playbook and roll. But I mean, yeah, it's difficult to express what message? So >>no one's getting phone call? Hey, come in on the weekend. So 15 people on the weekend jam and then to Fulton will just managing it all Go away. >>Yeah, not needed, but not needed. But they basically they can do something else, so those people are still there. But now they're not doing Os patching and doing all the excel sheets and keeping order off. The systems are important, and this shall be the first, and then they because way are basically doing the thing they know better. This application team knows their dependency, so they know they. But first I need to patch the database machine and then there during the front end or Andi. It's difficult to do this so they do it themselves. >>That's Dev Ops. That's that's the way it's supposed to be, right? >>So you've matured this thes deployments over time. As you look back, What key learnings do you have that maybe you'd recommend to your peers toe? You know how things could run a little bit smoother >>next time, a good amount of time. So they're stools. That's not the problem, So answer is great, but there's others to their great Give it time to sink in with the people. So you start something and you have to have a pretty strong team to do the long the long stretch with it and give it some time, maybe a year or so before everyone's on board it. In our case, in the beginning, we spend lots of time on this community model where we basically organized small meet ups or get together, too, show things or to hear problems and try to express them. That really helped a lot. And by now it's starting to get normal, more normal. So all the teams do sensible, basically. And problem starts slowly disappearing. Also. So So >>one of the things, um, that will be better. Probably in our scenario. Housekeeping metrics. So what are the improvements over time? I don't know how to measure this. No, no, no aspect. But it will be better if you had, like, better numbers like we did hair Very good. Or this is something like, what did the community thing bring way indirectly what the results are Because the engineers are doing things really, really things. They're really patching the replication. And they're really, um, restarting their own machines, for example, when there is something wrong. Whatever. Um, but our days related to our community thing or all that's really related to Sensible Tower >>last. I think we we are very technical focus. So So we like it as a nerd, so to say, to do things but what the business value is, for example, I'm not so interested or less interested so way typically, like the technology, so it could be good to have some someone onboard and your team that says, Yeah, but this is the problem. It's crossed. This amount of money and that solved now are improved. >>Well, they assume the applications are doing a good job. So you guys helped those guys out. They get to do their own thing. They do the heavy lifting. They're doing the coding anyway for those guys that were coming in managing full time on the 15 or so on the weekend. What are they doing now? >>Most are spread across. All the application teams go back. But the other side there is now it's our team that was not there s. So that's the price you have to pay. And that's a serious team. I mean, it's far six people now 86 people and 100 machines or so. So it is a serious amount of time, but it makes it at least much more constant. So people are not surprised by machines being patched, and Monday they come back into the half broken or so. So it's a lot more control now, so I don't know if you can express it in price, but at least it's more stable >>more consistent. >>Well, one of the things that we hear here and I want to get your thoughts as we wrap up is as you go forward, you got answerable 1200 teams using it. You got a lot of collaboration. The work cultures change. Sounds like a shower. Team steps service everything else. So some scale building out what's next? Because as it becomes a platform. Okay, you have to enable something. There has value there. Okay, technical nerd value and then business value >>scaling, uh, because we continuously see this thing growing like more application teams are adapting answerable, invincible tower. So, um, right now we have, like, a cluster. We have different clusters running. Go into much detail, but we can see that the load is getting higher and higher, so we need to skill. Um, and this is sort of difficult, but red. That is really supporting in this because they're going to change some things at the application level two to allow scaling even better. Um, >>plus, also, for most teams, they're starting their configuration. Everything is coat process. They're not there yet. As soon as they discover the power of it, I'm sure that's being used a lot. A lot more. And plus, there's other countries that are going to be connected. So you have a lot of work >>because your engineering doing some getting down and dirty with the code, automating everything. >>Yeah. Yeah. So, um, what else do we >>Oh, what's the coolest thing you've done that you've automated? >>Uh >>uh, Pick your favorite. >>So but the child during Encircle Tower and with answerable, um, let me think about this. >>I I really like the patching that saved us so much work. And, uh, I think also one of the next goes to make much more simpler. So we as a company, we're complex and the people also like complexity. That's wrong. We should change >>that. Patching up our >>offense, Melissa Simplicity. So we should really use that. >>You don't want any open holes in the network housely and assistance >>about your previous question. Like I have sort of a finger and all these small things. So it's sort of what I did. It's more like an A team thing. We created the OS patch playbooks, the configure stuff, the second day offs. So we did this as a team >>like sports but the playbooks together run the play. Some defense on security >>and programming. So you're doing >>this as a team, which is very cool. Has a scoreboard look good? Winning? >>Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're looking at the graphite. Uh, it's girl. >>Final question. How you enjoying the show here? Having a good time? What's the vibe here? What's it like here? Share for the people who aren't here. What's going on? What's the vibe with >>a conversation? It's great. We went to some sessions yesterday really technical stuff with developers. And this was really amazing because you heard details that that are not in the India in the talks today and tomorrow. Um, yeah, it's great. It's great community. It's just I really I really enjoy it because you can. It's You can have, like one on one conversations go into depth. I was showing something I created, and this guy's we'll hold. This is really great in the It's cool. It's just if you it's really great. It's really >>cool. Really? Yeah, for me also, it feels like coming home, So I know these people and I think the first day, the collaboration day, what's it called and I'm not sure you community, that's it's great because it's been a bit rough and unpolished in today's more polished and more presented and prepared to, uh, both are great. >>Good. Give the hard feedback. >>Yeah, you meet all the people. So, for example, I used instable a lot, and then I'm getting up. I see all these names. Like, who would that be there walking here and shake hands like, Oh, that's >>why guys like your code looking good. Yeah. Looks good. A contributor. Summit contributed. Okay. Sorry. After it for >>anyone that goes to visit that day, too. That's just great. >>It's great to see people face to face that, you know, online for their digital identity or the code >>you can You can't complain about stuff out on. Do you know that you don't hurt them or something with just commenting on get like after this issue and this issue and this issue. Then you can see them in person. And then you >>him a high five assault, you know? Hey, >>it's really very cool. >>Guys. Great conversations were coming on cue. Thanks, Dennis. Appreciate Robert. Thanks for coming on. Skew coverage here Day one of two days of live coverage here inside the Cube here in Atlanta, Georgia for Ansel Fest is the cute I'm John 1st 2 minute. Thanks for watching.

>> From Cambridge Massachusetts, it's the CUBE, covering MIT Chief Data Officer and Information Quality Symposium 2019. Brought to you by silicon angle media. >> Welcome back to Cambridge Massachusetts everybody you're watching the cube. The leader in live tech coverage. The cubes two day coverage of MIT's CDOIQ. The chief data officer information quality event. Thirteenth year we started here in 2013. I'm Dave Vallante with my co-host Paul Gillin. Veda Bawo. Bowo. Bawo. Sorry Veda Bawo is here. Did I get that right? >> That's close enough. >> The director of data governance at Raymond James and Althea Davis the former chief data officer of ING bank challengers and growth markets. Ladies welcome to the cube thanks so much for coming on. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hi Vita, talk about your role at Raymond James. Relatively new role for you? >> It is a relatively new role. So I recently left fifth third bank as their managing director of data governance and I've moved on to Raymond James in sunny Florida. And I am now the director of data governance for Raymond James. So it's a global financial services company they do asset wealth management, investment banking, retail banking. So I'm excited, I'm very excited about it. >> So we've been talking all day and actually several years about how the chief data officer role kind of emerged from the back office of the data governance. >> Mmm >> And the information quality and now its come you know front and center. And actually we've seen a full circle because now it's all about data quality again. So Althea as the former CDO right is that a fair assessment that it sort of came out of the ashes of the back room. >> Yeah, I mean its definitely a fair assessment. That's where we got started. That's how we got our budgets that's how we got our teams. However, now we have to serve many masters. We have to deal with all of the privacy, we have to deal with the multiple compliancies. We have to deal with the data operations and we have to deal with all of the new, sexy emerging technologies. So to do AI and data science you need a lot of data. You need data rich. You need it to be knowledge management, you need it to be information management. And it needs to be intelligent. So we need to actually raise the bar on what we do and at the same time get the credibility from our sea sweet peers. >> Well I think we no longer have the. We don't have the luxury of being just a cost center anymore . >> No. >> Right, we have to generate revenue. So it's about data monetization. It's about partnering with our businesses to make sure that we're helping to drive strategy and deliver results for the broader organization. >> So you got to hit the bottom line. >> Yeah. >> Either raise revenue or cut costs >> Yeah absolutely >> You know directly that can be tangibly monetized. >> Exactly keep them out of jail. Right. Save money >> That too. >> Save money, make money. (inaudible laughter) keep them out of jail. >> Like both CDO's you do not study for this career path because it didn't exist a few years ago. So talk about your backgrounds and how you came to come into this role Veda. >> Yeah absolutely so you know you talked about you know data kind of starting in the bowels of the back office. So I am that person right. So I am an accountant by training. So I am the person who is non legally entity controllership by book journal entries I've closed the books. I've done regulatory reporting so I know what it feels like to have to deal with dirty data every single month end, every single quarter end right. And I know the pain of having to cleanse it and having to deal with our business partners and having experienced that gave me the passion to want to do better. Right so I want to influence my partners upstream to do better as well as to take away some of the pain points that my teams experiencing over and over again it really was groundhog day. So that really made me feel passionate about going into the data discipline. Right and so you know the benefit is great it's not an easy journey but yeah out of accounting finance and that kind of back office operational support was boring right. A data evangelist and some passionate were about it. >> Which made sense because you have to have quality. >> Absolutely. >> Consistency. You have to have so called single version of the truth. >> Absolutely because you look regularly there's light for the financial reports to be accurate. All the time. (laughter) >> Exactly >> How about you? >> I came at it from a totally different angle. I was a marketeer so I was a business manager, a marketeer I was working with the big retail brands you know the Nikes and the Levi's strauss's of the world. So I came to it from a value chain perspective from marketing you know from rolling out retail chains across Europe. And I went from there as a line management position and all the pains of the different types of data we needed and then did quite a bit of consulting with some of the big consultancies accenture. And then rolled more into the data migration so dealing with those huge change projects and having teams from all of the world. And knowing the pains what all of the guys didn't want to work on. I got it all on my plate. But it put me in position to be a really solid chief data officer. >> Somebody it was called like data chicks or something like that (laughter) and I snuck in I was like the lone >> Data chicks >> I was like the lone data dude >> You can be a data chick. It's okay no judgement here. >> And so one of the things that one of the CDO's said there. She was a woman obviously. And she said you know I think that and the stat was there was a higher proportion of women as CDO's than there were across tech which is like I don't know fifty seventeen percent. And she's positive that the reason was because it's like a thankless job that nobody wants and so I just wonder as woman CDO your thoughts on that is that true. >> Well first of all we're the newest to the table right so you're the new kid on the block it doesn't matter if you're man or woman you're the new kid on the block so you know the CFO's got the four thousand year history behind him or her. The CIO or CTO they've got the fifty, sixty year up on us. So we're new. So you have to calve out your space and I do think that a lot of women by nature like to take on things big. To do things that other people don't want to do. So I can see how women kind of fell into that. But, at the same time you know data it's an asset and it is the newest asset. And it's definitely misunderstood. So I do think that you know women you know we kind of fell into it but it was actually something that happened good for women because there's a big future in data. >> Well let's just be realistic right. Woman have unique skillset. I may be a little bias but we have a unique skillset. We're able to solve problems creatively. Right there's no one size fits all solution for data. There's no accounting pronouncement that tells me how to handle and manage my data. Right I have to kind of figure it out as I go along and pivot when something doesn't work. I think that's something that is very natural to women. >> Yeah. >> I think that contributes to us kind of taking on these roles. >> Can I just do a little survey here (laughter) We hear that the chief data officer of function is defined differently at different organizations. Now you both are in financial services. You both have a chief data function. Are you doing the same thing? (laughter) >> Absolutely not! (laughter) >> You know this is data by design. I mean I'm getting lucky I've had teams that go the whole gammon right so. From the compliancy side through to the data operations through to all of the like I said the exotics, sexy you know emerging technologies stuff with the data scientists. So I've had the whole thing. I've also had my last position at ING bank I had to you know lead a team of chief data officers across three different continents Australia, Asia and also Eastern and Western Europe. So it's totally different than you know maybe another company that they've only got to chief data officer working on data quality and data governance. >> So again another challenge of being the new kid on the block right. Defining roles and responsibilities. There's no one globally, universally accepted definition of what a chief data officer should do. >> Right >> Right is data science in or out are analytics in or out. Right. >> Security sometimes. >> Security right sometimes privacy is it or out. Do you have operational responsibilities or are you truly just a second line governance function right? There's a mixed bag out there in the industry. I don't know that we have one answer that we know for sure is true. But I do know for sure is that data is not an IT function. >> Well okay. That's really important. >> It's not an IT asset. >> Yeah. >> I want to say that it's not an IT asset. It is an information asset or a data asset which is a different asset than an IT asset or a financial asset or a human asset. >> But and that's the other big change is that fifteen. Ten to fifteen years ago data was assumed to be a liability right. >> Mmm. >> Federal rules set up a civil procedure we got to get rid of the data or you know we're going to get sued. Number one and number two is that data because it's digital you know people say data is the new oil. I always say it's not. It's more important than oil. >> It's like blood. >> Oil you can only use in one use case. Data you can reuse over and over again. >> Reuse, reuse perpetual. It goes on and on and on. And every time you reuse it the value increases. So I would agree with you it is not the new oil. It is much bigger than that and it needs to I mean I know from some of my colleagues in the profession. We talk about borrowing from other more mature disciplines to make data management, information management and knowledge management much more robust and be much more professional. We also need to be more professional about it as the data leaders. >> So when you're a little panel today. One of the things that you guys addressed is what keeps the CDO up at night. >> Yes >> I presume it's data. (laughter) >> No, no, no. >> It's our payers that don't get it. (laughter) >> That's what keeps us up at night. >> Its the sponsors that keep us up at night. (laughter) So what was that discussion like? >> So yeah I mean it was a lively discussion. Um, great attendance at the panel so we appreciate everyone who came out and supported. >> Full house. >> Definitely a full house. Great reviews so far. >> Yep. >> Okay, so the thing that definitely keeps folks up at night and I'm going to start with my standard one which is quality. Right you can have all of the fancy tools, right you can have a million data scientists but if the quality is not good or sufficient. Then you're no where. So quality is fundamentally the thing that the CDO has to always pay attention to. And there's no magic you know pill or magic right potion that's going to make the quality right. It's something that the entire organization has a rally around. And it's not a one thing done right it has to be a sustainable approach to making sure the quality is good enough so that you can actually reap the benefits or derive the value right from your data. >> Absolutely and I would say you know following on from the quality and I consider that trustworthiness of the data. I would say as a chief data officer you're coming to the table. You're coming to the executive table you need to bring it all so you need to be impactful. You need to be absolutely relevant to your peers. You also need to be able to make their teams in a position to act. So it needs to be actionable. And if you don't have all of that combination with the trustworthiness you're dead in the water. So it is a hard act and that's why there is a high attrition for chief data officers. You know it's a hard job. But I think it's very much worthwhile because this particular asset this new asset we haven't been able to even scratch the surface of what it could mean for us a society and for commercial organizations or government organizations. >> To your point it's not a technology problem when Mark Ramsay who was surveying the audience this morning. He said you know why have we had so many failures and the first hand that went up said. It's because of relations with the database. >> And I wanted to say it's not a technology problem. >> It's a hearts, minds and haves >> Absolutely. Absolutely. You couldn't make an impact to your data landscape without changing your technology. >> You said at the outset how important it is for you to show a bottom line impact. >> Right >> What's one project you've worked on or that you've led in your tenure that did that. >> If we're talking about for example I can't say specifics but if we're looking at one of institutions I worked at in an insurance firm and we looked at the customer journey. So we worked with some of the different departments that traditionally did not get access to data for them to be able to be effective at their jobs. But they wanted to do in marketing was create actually new products to make you know increase the wallet from the existing customers other things they wanted to do was for example, when there were problems with the customers instead of customer you know leaving you know the journey they were able to bring them back in by getting access to the data. So we either gave them insight like you know looking back to make sure that things didn't happen wrong the next time or we helped them giving them information so they could develop new products so this is all about going to market. So that's absolutely bottom line. It's not just all cost efficiency and products to begin . >> Yeah pipeline. (laughter) >> And that's really valid but you know. >> Absolutely so I'll give you one example where the data organization partnered with our data scientists. To try to figure out the best location for various branches. For that particular institution. And it was taking right trillions of data points right about current footprint as well as other information about geographic information that was out there publicly available. Taking that and using the analytics to figure out okay where should we have our branches, our ATM's etc... and then conslidating the footprint or expanding where appropriate. So that is bottom line impact for sure. >> I remember in the early part of the two thousands I remember reading a Harvard business review article about gut feel trumps data every time. But that's an example where no way. >> Nope. >> You could never do better with the gut than that example that you just gave. >> Absolutely. >> Veda. I want to ask you a question. I don't know if you've heard Mark Ramsays talk this morning but he sort of. He sort of declared that data governance was over. >> Mmm. >> And as the director of data governance >> Never! >> I wondered if you would disagree with that. >> Never! >> Look. >> Were you surprised? >> It's just like saying that I should stop brushing my teeth. Right I always will have to maintain a certain level of data hygiene. And I don't think that employees and executives and organizations have reached a level of maturity where I can trust them to maintain that level of hygiene independently. And therefore I need a governance function. I need to check to make sure you brush your teeth in the morning and in the evening. Right and I need you to go for your annual exam to make sure you don't have any cavities that weren't detected. Right so I think that there's still a role for governance to play. It will evolve over time for sure. Right as you know the landscape changes but I think there's still a role right for like governance. >> And that wasn't my takeaway part. I think he said that basically enterprise data warehouse fail massive data management fail. The single data model failed so we punted to governance and that's not going to solve the enterprise data problem. >> I think it's a one leg in the stool. It's one leg in the stool. ` >> Yeah I think I would really sum it up as a monolithic data storage approach failed. Like that. And then our attention went to data governance but that's not going to solve it either. Look, data management is about twelve different data capabilties it's a discipline so we give the title data governance but it means multiple things. And I think that if we're more educated and we have more confidence on what we're doing on those different areas. Plus information and knowledge management then we're way ahead of the game. I mean knowledge graphs and semantics. That puts companies you know at the top of that you know corporate inequality gap that we're looking at right now. Where you know companies are you know five and thousand times more valuable then their competition and the gap is just going to get bigger considering if some of those companies at the bottom of the gap are you know just keep on doing the same thing. >> I agree I was just trying to get you worked up. (laughter) >> Well you did. >> It's going to be a different kind of show. >> But that point you're making. Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Google, Facebook. Top five companies in terms of market cap. And they're all data companies. They surpass all the financial services, all the energy companies, all the manufacturers. >> And Alibaba same thing. >> Oh yeah. >> They're doing the same thing. >> They're coming right up there. With four or five hundred billion. >> They're all doing the knowledge approach. They're doing all of this stuff and that's a much more comprehensive approach to looking at it as a full spectrum and if we keep on in the financial industry or any industry keep on just kind of looking at little bits and pieces. It's not going to work. It's a lot of talk but there's no action. >> We are losing right. I know that Fintechs are right fringing upon are territory. Right if Amazon can provide a credit card or lend you money or extend you credit. They're now functioning as a traditional bank would. If we're not paying attention to them as real competitors. We've lost the battle. >> That's a really important point you're making because it's all digital now. >> Absolutely. >> You used to be you'd never see companies traverse industries and now you see it Apple pay and Amazon and healthcare. >> Yeah. >> And government organizations teaming up with corporations and individuals. Everything is free flowing so that means the knowledge and the data and the information also needs to flow freely but it needs to be managed. >> Now you're into a whole realm of privacy and security. >> And regulations right. Regulations for the non right traditional banks. So we're doing banking transactions. >> Do you think traditional banks will lose control over the payment systems? >> If they don't move with the time they will. If they don't. I mean it's not something that's going to happen tomorrow but you know there is a category of bank called Challenger banks so there's a reason. You know even within their own niche there's a group of banks. >> I mean not even just payments right. Think about cash transactions like if I do money transfer am I going to my traditional bank to do it or am I going to cashapp. >> I think it's interesting particularly in the retail banking business where you know one banking app looks pretty much like other and people don't go to branches anymore and so that brand affinity that used to exist is harder and harder to maintain and I wonder what role does data play in reestablishing that connection. >> Well for me right I get really excited and sometimes annoyed when I can open up my app for my bank and I can see the pie chart of my spending. They're using my data to inform me about my behaviors sometimes a good story, sometimes a bad story. But they're using it to inform me. That's making me more loyal to that particular institution right so I can also link all of my financial accounts in that one institutions app and I can see a full list of all of my credit cards, all of my loans, all of my investments in one stop shopping. That's making me go to their app more often versus the other options that are out there. So I think we can use the data in order to endear the customer source but we have to be smart about it. >> That's the accountant in you. I just refuse to not look. (laughter) >> You can afford to not look. I can't. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for riling us up. >> Alright thank you for watching everybody we'll be right back with our next guest right after this short break. You're watching the cube from MIT in Boston, Cambridge. Right back. (atmospheric music)

(bright upbeat music) >> Greetings, brilliant community and thank you so much for tuning in to theCUBE here for the last three days where we've been live from Detroit, Michigan. I've had the pleasure of spending this week with Lisa Martin and John Furrier. Thank you both so much for hanging out, for inviting me into the CUBE family. It's our first show together, it's been wonderful. >> Thank you. >> You nailed it. >> Oh thanks, sweetheart. >> Great job. Great job team, well done. Free wall to wall coverage, it's what we do. We stay till everyone else-- >> Savannah: 100 percent. >> Everyone else leaves, till they pull the plug. >> Lisa: Till they turn the lights out. We're still there. >> Literally. >> Literally last night. >> Still broadcasting. >> Whatever takes to get the stories and get 'em out there at scale. >> Yeah. >> Great time. >> 33. 33 different segments too. Very impressive. John, I'm curious, you're a trend watcher and you've been at every single KubeCon. >> Yep. >> What are the trends this year? Give us the breakdown. >> I think CNCF does this, it's a hard job to balance all the stakeholders. So one, congratulations to the CNCF for another great KubeCon and CloudNativeCon. It is really hard to balance bringing in the experts who, as time goes by, seven years we've been all of, as you said, you get experts, you get seniority, and people who can be mentors, 60% new people. You have vendors who are sponsoring and there's always people complaining and bitching and moaning. They want this, they want that. It's always hard and they always do a good job of balancing it. We're lucky that we get to scale the stories with CUBE and that's been great. We had some great stories here, but it's a great community and again, they're inclusive. As I've said before, we've talked about it. This year though is an inflection point in my opinion, because you're seeing the developer ecosystem growing so fast. It's global. You're seeing events pop up, you're seeing derivative events. CNCF is at the center point and they have to maintain the culture of developer experts, maintainers, while balancing the newbies. And that's going to be >> Savannah: Mm-hmm. really hard. And they've done a great job. We had a great conversation with them. So great job. And I think it's going to continue. I think the attendance metric is a little bit of a false positive. There's a lot of online people who didn't come to Detroit this year. And I think maybe the combination of the venue, the city, or just Covid preferences may not look good on paper, on the numbers 'cause it's not a major step up in attendance. It's still bigger, but the community, I think, is going to continue to grow. I'm bullish on it. >> Yeah, I mean at least we did see double the number of people that we had in Los Angeles. Very curious. I think Amsterdam, where we'll be next with CNCF in the spring, in April. I think that's actually going to be a better pulse check. We'll be in Europe, we'll see what's going on. >> John: Totally. >> I mean, who doesn't like Amsterdam in the springtime? Lisa, what have been some of your observations? >> Oh, so many observations. The evolution of the conference, the hallway track conversations really shifting towards adjusting to the enterprise. The enterprise momentum that we saw here as well. We had on the show, Ford. >> Savannah: Yes. We had MassMutual, we had ING, that was today. Home Depot is here. We are seeing all these big companies that we know and love, become software companies right before our eyes. >> Yeah. Well, and I think we forget that software powers our entire world. And so of course they're going to have to be here. So much running on Kubernetes. It's on-prem, it's at the edge, it's everywhere. It's exciting. Woo, I'm excited. John, what do you think is the number one story? This is your question. I love asking you this question. What is the number one story out KubeCon? >> Well, I think the top story is a combination of two things. One is the evolution of Cloud Native. We're starting to see web assembly. That's a big hyped up area. It got a lot of attention. >> Savannah: Yeah. That's kind of teething out the future. >> Savannah: Rightfully so. The future of this kind of lightweight. You got the heavy duty VMs, you got Kubernetes and containers, and now this web assembly, shows a trajectory of apps, server-like environment. And then the big story is security. Software supply chain is, to me, was the number one consistent theme. At almost all the interviews, in the containers, and the workflows, >> Savannah: Very hot. software supply chain is real. The CD Foundation mentioned >> Savannah: Mm-hmm. >> they had 16,000 vulnerabilities identified in their code base. They were going to automate that. So again, >> Savannah: That was wild. >> That's the top story. The growth of open source exposes potential vulnerabilities with security. So software supply chain gets my vote. >> Did you hear anything that surprised you? You guys did this great preview of what you thought we were going to hear and see and feel and touch at KubeCon, CloudNativeCon 2022. You talked about, for example, the, you know, healthcare financial services being early adopters of this. Anything surprise either one of you in terms of what you predicted versus what we saw? Savannah, let's start with you. >> You know what really surprised me, and this is ironic, so I'm a community gal by trade. But I was really just impressed by the energy that everyone brought here and the desire to help. The thing about the open source community that always strikes me is, I mean 187 different countries participating. You've got, I believe it's something like 175,000 people contributing to the 140 projects plus that CNCF is working on. But that culture of collaboration extends far beyond just the CNCF projects. Everyone here is keen to help each other. We had the conversation just before about the teaching and the learnings that are going on here. They brought in Detroit's students to come and learn, which is just the most heartwarming story out of this entire thing. And I think it's just the authenticity of everyone in this community and their passion. Even though I know it's here, it still surprises me to see it in the flesh. Especially in a place like Detroit. >> It's nice. >> Yeah. >> It's so nice to see it. And you bring up a good point. It's very authentic. >> Savannah: It's super authentic. >> I mean, what surprised me is one, the Wasm, or web assembly. I didn't see that coming at the scale of the conversation. It sucked a lot of options out of the room in my opinion, still hyped up. But this looks like it's got a good trajectory. I like that. The other thing that surprised me that was a learning was my interview with Solo.io, Idit, and Brian Gracely, because he's a CUBE alumni and former host of theCUBE, and analyst at Wikibon, was how their go-to-market was an example of a modern company in Covid with a clean sheet of paper and smart people, they're just doing things different. They're in Slack with their customers. And I walked away with, "Wow that's like a playbook that's not, was never, in the go-to-market VC-backed company playbook." I thought that was, for me, a personal walk away saying that's important. I like how they did that. And there's a lot of companies I think could learn from that. Especially as the recession comes where partnering with customers has always been a top priority. And how they did that was very clever, very effective, very efficient. So I walked away with that saying, "I think that's going to be a standard." So that was a pleasant surprise. >> That was a great surprise. Also, that's a female-founded company, which is obviously not super common. And the growth that they've experienced, to your point, really being catalyzed by Covid, is incredibly impressive. I mean they have some massive brand name customers, Amex, BMW for example. >> Savannah: Yeah. >> Great point. >> And I interviewed her years ago and I remember saying to myself, "Wow, she's impressive." I liked her. She's a player. A player for sure. And she's got confidence. Even on the interview she said, "We're just better, we have better product." And I just like the point of view. Very customer-focused but confident. And I just took, that's again, a great company. And again, I'm not surprised that Brian Gracely left Red Hat to go work there. So yeah, great, great call there. And of course other things that weren't surprising that I predicted, Red Hat continued to invest. They continue to bring people on theCUBE, they support theCUBE but more importantly they have a good strategy. They're in that multicloud positioning. They're going to have an opportunity to get a bite at the apple. And I what I call the supercloud. As enterprises try to go and be mainstream, Cloud Native, they're going to need some help. And Red Hat is always has the large enterprise customers. >> Savannah: What surprised you, Lisa? >> Oh my gosh, so many things. I think some of the memorable conversations that we had. I love talking with some of the enterprises that we mentioned, ING Bank for example. You know, or institutions that have been around for 100 plus years. >> Savannah: Oh, yeah. To see not only how much they've innovated and stayed relevant to meet the demands of the consumer, which are only increasing, but they're doing so while fostering a culture of innovation and a culture that allows these technology leaders to really grow within the organization. That was a really refreshing conversation that I think we had. 'Cause you can kind of >> Savannah: Absolutely. think about these old stodgy companies. Nah, of course they're going to digitize. >> Thinking about working for the bank, I think it's boring. >> Right? >> Yeah. And they were talking about, in fact, those great t-shirts that they had on, >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. were all about getting more people to understand how fun it is to work in tech for ING Bank in different industries. You don't just have to work for the big tech companies to be doing really cool stuff in technology. >> What I really liked about this show is we had two female hosts. >> Savannah: Yeah. >> How about that? Come on. >> Hey, well done, well done on your recruitment there, champ. >> Yes, thank you boss. (John laughs) >> And not to mention we have a really all-star production team. I do just want to give them a little shout out. To all the wonderful folks behind the lines here. (people clapping) >> John: Brendan. Good job. >> Yeah. Without Brendan, Anderson, Noah, and Andrew, we would be-- >> Of course Frank Faye holding it back there too. >> Yeah, >> Of course, Frank. >> I mean, without the business development wheels on the ship we'd really be in an unfortunate spot. I almost just swore on television. We're not going to do that. >> It's okay. No one's regulating. >> Yeah. (all laugh) >> Elon Musk just took over Twitter. >> It was a close call. >> That's right! >> It's going to be a hellscape. >> Yeah, I mean it's, shit's on fire. So we'll just see what happens next. I do, I really want to talk about this because I think it's really special. It's an ethos and some magic has happened here. Let's talk about Detroit. Let's talk about what it means to be here. We saw so many, and I can't stress this enough, but I think it really matters. There was a commitment to celebrating place here. Lisa, did you notice this too? >> Absolutely. And it surprised me because we just don't see that at conferences. >> Yeah. We're so used to going to the same places. >> Right. >> Vegas. Vegas, Vegas. More Vegas. >> Your tone-- >> San Francisco >> (both laugh) sums up my feelings. Yes. >> Right? >> Yeah. And, well, it's almost robotic but, and the fact that we're like, oh Detroit, really? But there was so much love for this city and recognizing and supporting its residents that we just don't see at conferences. You uncovered a lot of that with your swag-savvy segments, >> Savannah: Yeah. >> And you got more of that to talk about today. >> Don't worry, it's coming. Yeah. (laughs) >> What about you? Have you enjoyed Detroit? I know you hadn't been here in a long time, when we did our intro session. >> I think it's a bold move for the CNCF to come here and celebrate. What they did, from teaching the kids in the city some tech, they had a session. I thought that was good. >> Savannah: Loved that. I think it was a risky move because a lot of people, like, weren't sure if they were going to fly to Detroit. So some say it might impact the attendance. I thought they did a good job. Their theme, Road Ahead. Nice tie in. >> Savannah: Yeah. And so I think I enjoyed Detroit. The weather was great. It didn't rain. Nice breeze outside. >> Yeah. >> The weather was great, the restaurants are phenomenal. So Detroit's a good city. I missed some hockey games. I'd love to see the Red Wings play. Missed that game. But we always come back. >> I think it's really special. I mean, every time I talked to a company about their swag, that had sourced it locally, there was a real reason for this story. I mean even with Kasten in that last segment when I noticed that they had done Carhartt beanies, Carhartt being a Michigan company. They said, "I'm so glad you noticed. That's why we did it." And I think that type of, the community commitment to place, it all comes back to community. One of the bigger themes of the show. But that passion and that support, we need more of that. >> Lisa: Yeah. >> And the thing about the guests we've had this past three days have been phenomenal. We had a diverse set of companies, individuals come on theCUBE, you know, from Scott Johnston at Docker. A really one on one. We had a great intense conversation. >> Savannah: Great way to kick it off. >> We shared a lot of inside baseball, about Docker, super important company. You know, impressed with companies like Platform9 it's been around since the OpenStack days who are now in a relevant position. Rafi Systems, hot startup, they don't have a lot of resources, a lot of guerilla marketing going on. So I love to see the mix of startups really contributing. The big players are here. So it's a real great mix of companies. And I thought the interviews were phenomenal, like you said, Ford. We had, Kubia launched on theCUBE. >> Savannah: Yes. >> That's-- >> We snooped the location for KubeCon North America. >> You did? >> Chicago, everyone. In case you missed it, Bianca was nice enough to share that with us. >> We had Sarbjeet Johal, CUBE analyst came on, Keith Townsend, yesterday with you guys. >> We had like analyst speed dating last night. (all laugh) >> How'd that go? (laughs) >> It was actually great. One of the things that they-- >> Did they hug and kiss at the end? >> Here's the funny thing is that they were debating the size of the CNC app. One thinks it's too big, one thinks it's too small. And I thought, is John Goldilocks? (John laughs) >> Savannah: Yeah. >> What is John going to think about that? >> Well I loved that segment. I thought, 'cause Keith and Sarbjeet argue with each other on Twitter all the time. And I heard Keith say before, he went, "Yeah let's have it out on theCUBE." So that was fun to watch. >> Thank you for creating this forum for us to have that kind of discourse. >> Lisa: Yes, thank you. >> Well, it wouldn't be possible without the sponsors. Want to thank the CNCF. >> Absolutely. >> And all the ecosystem partners and sponsors that make theCUBE possible. We love doing this. We love getting the stories. No story's too small for theCUBE. We'll go with it. Do whatever it takes. And if it wasn't for the sponsors, the community wouldn't get all the great knowledge. So, and thank you guys. >> Hey. Yeah, we're, we're happy to be here. Speaking of sponsors and vendors, should we talk a little swag? >> Yeah. >> What do you guys think? All right. Okay. So now this is becoming a tradition on theCUBE so I'm very delighted, the savvy swag segment. I do think it's interesting though. I mean, it's not, this isn't just me shouting out folks and showing off t-shirts and socks. It's about standing out from the noise. There's a lot of players in this space. We got a lot of CNCF projects and one of the ways to catch the attention of people walking the show floor is to have interesting swag. So we looked for the most unique swag on Wednesday and I hadn't found this yet, but I do just want to bring it up. Oops, I think I might have just dropped it. This is cute. Is, most random swag of the entire show goes to this toothbrush. I don't really have more in terms of the pitch there because this is just random. (Lisa laughs) >> But so, everyone needs that. >> John: So what's their tagline? >> And you forget these. >> Yeah, so the idea was to brush your cloud bills. So I think they're reducing the cost of-- >> Kind of a hygiene angle. >> Yeah, yeah. Very much a hygiene angle, which I found a little ironic in this crowd to be completely honest with you. >> John: Don't leave the lights on theCUBE. That's what they say. >> Yeah. >> I mean we are theCUBE so it would be unjust of me not to show you a Rubik's cube. This is actually one of those speed cubes. I'm not going to be able to solve this for you with one hand on camera, but apparently someone did it in 17 seconds at the booth. Knowing this audience, not surprising to me at all. Today we are, and yesterday, was the t-shirt contest. Best t-shirt contest. Today we really dove into the socks. So this is, I noticed this trend at KubeCon in Los Angeles last year. Lots of different socks, clouds obviously a theme for the cloud. I'm just going to lay these out. Lots of gamers in the house. Not surprising. Here on this one. >> John: Level up. >> Got to level up. I love these 'cause they say, "It's not a bug." And anyone who's coded has obviously had to deal with that. We've got, so Star Wars is a huge theme here. There's Lego sets. >> John: I think it's Star Trek. But. >> That's Star Trek? >> John: That's okay. >> Could be both. (Lisa laughs) >> John: Nevermind, I don't want to. >> You can flex your nerd and geek with us anytime you want, John. I don't mind getting corrected. I'm all about, I'm all about the truth. >> Star Trek. Star Wars. Okay, we're all the same. Okay, go ahead. >> Yeah, no, no, this is great. Slim.ai was nice enough to host us for dinner on Tuesday night. These are their lovely cloud socks. You can see Cloud Native, obviously Cloud Native Foundation, cloud socks, whole theme here. But if we're going to narrow it down to some champions, I love these little bee elephants from Raft. And when I went up to these guys, I actually probably would've called these my personal winner. They said, again, so community focused and humble here at CNCF, they said that Wiz was actually the champion according to the community. These unicorn socks are pretty excellent. And I have to say the branding is flawless. So we'll go ahead and give Wiz the win on the best sock contest. >> John: For the win. >> Yeah, Wiz for the win. However, the thing that I am probably going to use the most is this really dope Detroit snapback from Kasten. So I'm going to be rocking this from now on for the rest of the segment as well. And I feel great about this snapback. >> Looks great. Looks good on you. >> Yeah. >> Thanks John. (John laughs) >> So what are we expecting between now and KubeCon in Amsterdam? >> Well, I think it's going to be great to see how they, the European side, it's a chill show. It's great. Brings in the European audience from the global perspective. I always love the EU shows because one, it's a great destination. Amsterdam's going to be a great location. >> Savannah: I'm pumped. >> The American crowd loves going over there. All the event cities that they choose are always awesome. I missed Valencia cause I got Covid. I'm really bummed about that. But I love the European shows. It's just a little bit, it's high intensity, but it's the European chill. They got a little bit more of that siesta vibe going on. >> Yeah. >> And it's just awesome. >> Yeah, >> And I think that the mojo that carried throughout this week, it's really challenging to not only have a show that's five days, >> but to go through all week, >> Savannah: Seriously. >> to a Friday at 4:00 PM Eastern Time, and still have the people here, the energy and all the collaboration. >> Savannah: Yeah. >> The conversations that are still happening. I think we're going to see a lot more innovation come spring 2023. >> Savannah: Mm-hmm. >> Yeah. >> So should we do a bet, somebody's got to buy dinner? Who, well, I guess the folks who lose this will buy dinner for the other one. How many attendees do you think we'll see in Amsterdam? So we had 4,000, >> Oh, I'm going to lose this one. >> roughly in Los Angeles. Priyanka was nice enough to share with us, there was 8,000 here in Detroit. And I'm talking in person, we're not going to meddle this with the online. >> 6500. >> Lisa: I was going to say six, six K. >> I'm going 12,000. >> Ooh! >> I'm going to go ahead and go big I'm going to go opposite Price Is Right. >> One dollar. >> Yeah. (all laugh) That's exactly where I was driving with it. I'm going, I'm going absolutely all in. I think the momentum here is building. I think if we look at the numbers from-- >> John: You could go Family Feud >> Yeah, yeah, exactly. And they mentioned that they had 11,000 people who have taken their Kubernetes course in that first year. If that's a benchmark and an indicator, we've got the veteran players here. But I do think that, I personally think that the hype of Kubernetes has actually preceded adoption. If you look at the data and now we're finally tipping over. I think the last two years we were on the fringe and right now we're there. It's great. (voice blares loudly on loudspeaker) >> Well, on that note (all laugh) On that note, actually, on that note, as we are talking, so I got to give cred to my cohosts. We deal with a lot of background noise here on theCUBE. It is a live show floor. There's literally someone on an e-scooter behind me. There's been Pong going on in the background. The sound will haunt the three of us for the rest of our lives, as well as the production crew. (Lisa laughs) And, and just as we're sitting here doing this segment last night, they turned the lights off on us, today they're letting everyone know that the event is over. So on that note, I just want to say, Lisa, thank you so much. Such a warm welcome to the team. >> Thank you. >> John, what would we do without you? >> You did an amazing job. First CUBE, three days. It's a big show. You got staying power, I got to say. >> Lisa: Absolutely. >> Look at that. Not bad. >> You said it on camera now. >> Not bad. >> So you all are stuck with me. (all laugh) >> A plus. Great job to the team. Again, we do so much flow here. Brandon, Team, Andrew, Noah, Anderson, Frank. >> They're doing our hair, they're touching up makeup. They're helping me clean my teeth, staying hydrated. >> We look good because of you. >> And the guests. Thanks for coming on and spending time with us. And of course the sponsors, again, we can't do it without the sponsors. If you're watching this and you're a sponsor, support theCUBE, it helps people get what they need. And also we're do a lot more segments around community and a lot more educational stuff. >> Savannah: Yeah. So we're going to do a lot more in the EU and beyond. So thank you. >> Yeah, thank you. And thank you to everyone. Thank you to the community, thank you to theCUBE community and thank you for tuning in, making it possible for us to have somebody to talk to on the other side of the camera. My name is Savannah Peterson for the last time in Detroit, Michigan. Thanks for tuning into theCUBE. >> Okay, we're done. (bright upbeat music)

>> From the cube studios in Palo Alto and Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world. This is a cube conversation. >> Hello everyone, welcome back to the cubes. Special presentation on the future of cloud. Three years ago, Alan Nance said to me that in order to really take advantage of cloud and drive billions of dollars of value, you have to change the operating model. I've never forgotten that statement and have explored it from many angles over the last three years. In fact it was one of the motivations for me actually running this program for our audience. Of course with me is Alan Nance. He is a change agent. He's led transformations at large organizations, including ING bank, Royal Phillips, Barclay's bank, and many others. He's also a co-founder of CitrusCollab. Alan, great to see you. Thanks for coming on the program. >> Thanks for having me again, Dave. >> All right, so when we were preparing for this interview, you shared with me the following, you said enterprise IT, often hasn't really tapped the true powers that are available to them to make real connections, to take advantage of that opportunity, connections to the business that is. What do you mean by that? >> Well I think we we've been saying for quite a long time that enterprise IT is certainly a big part of our past in technology. But just how much is it going to be in the future? And enterprise IT has had a difficult time under the cost pressures of being a centralized organization with large, expensive, large topics. While at the same time we see obviously the digital operations for growing oftentimes in separate reporting structures and closest to the business. And what I'm thinking right now is enterprise IT, if it has made this transition to a cloud operating models, whether they are proprietary or whether they are public cloud, there's a huge opportunity for enterprise IT to connect the dots in a way that no other part of the organization can do that. And when they connect those dots, working closely with the business, they unleash a huge amount of value that is beyond things like efficiency or things like just providing cloud computing to be flexible. It has to be much more about value generation. And I think that a lot of leaders of enterprise IT have not really grasped that. And I think that's the opportunity sitting right in front of them right now. >> You know what I've seen lately? I wonder if you could comment, is obviously we always talk about the stove pipes, but you've seen the CIO, the chief data officer that you just mentioned, the chief digital officer, the chief information security officer, they've largely been in their own silos of definitely seeing a move to bring those together. I'm seeing a lot of CDOs and CIO roles come together. And even the chief information or the head of security reporting up into that, where there seems to be as you're sort of suggesting just a lot more visibility across the entire organization. Is it an organizational issue? Is it a mindset? Go on if you could comment. >> Well I would say it's two or three different things. Certainly it's an organizational issue, but I think it starts off with a cultural issue. And I think what you're seeing, and if you look at the more progressive companies that you see, I think you are also seeing a new emergence of the enlightened technology leader. So with all respect to me and my generation our tenure as the owners of the large enterprise IT is coming to an end. And we grew up trying to master the complexity of the silos as you so deftly pointed out. Out we were battling this soaring technology, trying to get it under control, trying to get the costs down, trying to reduce CapEx. And a lot of that was focused on the partnerships that we had with technology suppliers. And so that mindset of being engineers struggling for control, having your most important part of being a technology company itself, I've got now, I think is giving way, giving way to a new generation of technology leaders who haven't grown up with that culture. And oftentimes what I see is that the new enlightened CIOs are female and they are coming into the role outside of the regular promotion chain, so they're coming to these roles through finance, HR, marketing, and they're bringing a different focus. And the focus is much more about how do we work together to create an amazing experience for our employees and for our customers and an experience that drives value. So I think there's a reset in the culture. And clearly when you start talking about creating a value chain to improve experience, you're also talking about bringing people together from different multidisciplinary backgrounds to make that happen. >> Well that's kind of, it makes me think about Amazon's mantra of working backwards, start with the experience. And then a lot of CIOs that I know would love to be more involved in the business, but they're just so busy trying to keep the lights on. Like you said, trying to manage vendors and in the like. I've had a discussion the other day with an individual, we were talking about how, you got to shift from a product mindset to a platform mindset, but you've said that the platform thinking you're always ahead of the game. Platform thinking it needs to make way for ecosystem thinking. Unless you're into that, it'd be giant scale business like Amazon or Spotify you said, you're going to be in a niche market if you really don't tap that ecosystem again . If you could explain what you mean by that? >> Well I think right now, if this movement to experience is fundamental. Right? So Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore wrote about the experience economy as far back in 1990, but the things that they predicted then are here now. And so what we're now seeing is that consumers have choice. Employees have choice. I think the pandemic has accelerated that. And so what happens when you put an enterprise under that type of external pressure, is that it fragments. And if it can fragment in two ways. It can fragment dysfunctionally so that every silo tries to go into a defensive mode, protective mode. That's obviously the wrong way to go. But the fragmentation that's exciting is when it fragments into ecosystems that are actually working together to solve and experience problem. And those are not platforms they're too big. When I was at Phillips, I was very enthusiastic about working on this connected healthcare platform. But I think what I started to realize was it takes too much time. It requires too much investment and you are bringing people who tune you based on your capability, whereas what the market needs is much more agile than that. So if we look in healthcare, for instance and you want to connect patients at home, with patients, with the doctors in the hospital. In the old model when you said, I'm going to build a platform for this, I'm going to have doctors with a certain competence, so they're going to be connecting into this. And so are the patients in some way. And so are the insurers. I think what you're going to see now is different. We're going to say let's get together a small team that understands its competence. So for instance, let's get an insurance provider, let's get a healthcare operator, let's get a healthcare tech company and let's pull their data in a way that helps us to create solutions now that can roll out in 30, 60 or 90 days. And the thing that makes that possible is the move to the public cloud. Because now there are so many specialized suppliers, specialized skillsets available that you can connect to through Amazon, through Google, through Azure, that these things that we used to think were very, very difficult, are now much easier. I don't want to minimize the effort, but these things are on the table right now to read value. >> So you're also technologist. And I want to ask you and everybody always says, technology is easy part of the people and the process. We can all agree on that. However sometimes technology can be a blocker. And the example that you just mentioned, I have a couple of takeaways from that. First of all the platform thinking is somewhat, sounds like it's more command and control and you're advocating for let's get the ecosystem who are closest to the problem to solve those problems. However they decide and they'll leverage the cloud. So my question is from a technology standpoint. Does that ecosystem have to be in the same cloud, with the state of today's technology? can it be across clouds? Can be there pieces on prem? What's your thinking on that? >> I think exactly the opposite. It cannot be monolithic and centralized. It's just not practical because that would cause you too much time on interoperability. And who owns what. You see the power behind experience is data. And so the most important technical part of this is dealing with data liquidity. So the data that, for instance somebody like Kaiser has or the Harvard Mental Healthcare have or the Phillips have, that's not going to be put into a central place for the ecosystem mobilization. There will be subsets of that data flowing between those parties. So the technical, the hardware. Is how do we manage data liquidity? How do we manage the security around data liquidity? And how do we also understand that what we're building is going to be ever changing and maybe temporary, because an idea may not work. And so you've got this idea that the timeliness is very very important. The duration is very uncertain. The mojo energy for this is data liquidity, data transfer, data sharing. But the vehicle is the combination of public cloud, in my mind. >> Somebody said to me, hey that data's like water. It'll go where it wants to go, where it needs to go and you can't try to control it. It's let it go. Now of course many organizations, particularly large incumbent organizations they have many many data pipelines. They have many processes, many roles, and they're struggling to actually kind of inject automation into those pipelines. Maybe that's machine intelligence really do more data sharing across that pipeline and ultimately compress the end and cycle time to go from raw data to insights that are actionable. What are you seeing there? And what's your advice? >> Well I think you make some really good points, but what I hear also a little bit in your observation is you're still observing enterprises. And the focus of the enterprise has been on optimizing the processes within the boundaries of its own system. That's why we have SAP and this why we have Salesforce. And to some degree even service now. It's all been about optimizing how we move data, how we create production services. And that's not the game now. That's not an important game. The important game right now is how do I connect to my employees? How do I connect to my customers in a way that provides them a memorable experience? And the realization is, I'm assuming it's already manufacturing for some years. I can't be all things to all people. So I have to understand this is where the first part of data comes in. I have to understand. Who this person is that I am trying to target? Who is the person that needs this memorable experience? And what is that memorable experience going to look like? And I'm going to need my data, but I'm also going to need the data of other actors in that ecosystem. And then I'm going to have to build that ecosystem really quickly to take advantage of the system. So this throws a monkey rage in traditional ideas of standardization. It throws a monkey rage in the idea that enterprise IT is about efficiency. If I may, I just want to come back to the AI because I think we're looking in the wrong places. Things like AI. And let me give you an example today, there are 2.2 million people working in call centers around the world. If we imagine that they work in three shifts, that means that anyone time there are 700,000 people on the phone to a customer, and that customer is calling that company because they're vested, they're calling them with advice. They're calling them with a question they're calling them with a complaint. It is the most important source of valuable data that any company has. And yet, what have we done with that? What we've done with that is we've attacked it with efficiency. So instead of saying, these are the most valuable sources of information, let's use AI to tag the sentiment in the recordings that we make with our most valuable stakeholders. And let's analyze them for trends, ideas things that needs to change. We don't do that. What we do is we're going to give every cool agent two minutes to get them off the phone. For God's sake, don't answer many important, difficult questions. Don't spend money talking to the customer, try to make them happy. So they get a score and say, they hire you at the end of the call, and then you're done. So where the AI automation needs to come in is not in improving your efficiency, but in mining value. And the real opportunity with AI is that Joe Pine says this. "If you are able to understand the customer, rather than interpret them, that is so valuable to the customer, that they will pay money for that". And I think that's where the whole focus needs to be in this new team in enterprise IT, and they're still in the business. >> That's a great observation. I think we can all relate to that in your call center example, or you've been a restaurant, and you're trying to turn the tables fast and get out of there. And it's the last time you ever go to that restaurant. And you're taking that notion of systems thinking and broadening it to ecosystems thinking. And you've said, ecosystems have a better chance of success when they're used to stage and experience for whether it's the employee for the brand. And of course the customer and the partners. >> That's it that's exactly it. So every technology leader should be asking themselves what contribution can I and my organization make to this movement, because the business understands the problem. They don't understand how to solve it, and we've chosen a different dialogue. So we've been talking a lot about what cloud can do and the functionality that cloud has and the potential that cloud has. And those are all good things, but it really comes together. Now when we work together and we as the technology group brings in the know how we know how to connect quickly through the public cloud, we know how to do that in a secure way. We know how to manage data liquidity at scale, and we can stand these things up through our new learning of agile and DevOps. We can stand these ecosystems up fairly quickly. Now there's still a whole bunch of culture between different businesses that have to work together. The idea that I have to protect my data rather than serve the customer. But once you get past that, there's a whole new conversation enterprise IT can have, that I think gives them a new lease of life, new value. And I just think it's a really really exciting time. >> (inaudible) The intersection of a lot of different things. You talk about cloud as an enabler for sure. And that's great. We can talk about that, but you've got this. What you were referring to before is maybe you're in a niche market, but you have your marketplace. And like you're saying, you can actually use that through an ecosystem to really leave a much, much broader available market. And then vector that into the experience economy. We talk about subscriptions, the API economy, that really is new thinking. >> It is and I think what you're seeing here it's not radical in as much as all of these ideas have been around. Some of them have been around since the nineties, but what's radical is the way in which we can now mix and match these technologies to make this happen. That's growing so quickly. And I would argue to you and I've argued this before. Scale, scale as a concept within an organization is dead. It doesn't give you enough value. It gives you enough efficiency and it gives you a cloud. And it doesn't give you the opportunity to target the niche experiences that you need to do. So if we start to think of an organization as a combination of known and unknown potential ecosystems, you start to build a different operating model, a different architectural idea. You start to look outside more than you start to look inside. Which is why the cultural change that we were talking about just now goes hand in hand with this because people have to be comfortable thinking in ecosystems that may not yet exist and partnering with people where they bring to the table. There 20, 30 years of experience in a new and different way. >> So let me make sure I understand that. So you basically, if I understand it, you're saying that if your sort of end goal is scale and efficiency at scale you're going to have a vanilla solution for your customers in your ecosystem. Whereas if you will allow this outside in thinking to come in, you're going to be able to actually customize those experience, experiences and get the value of scale and efficiency. >> Right, so I mean Rory Sutherland, who is a big thinker in the marketing world has always said, "ultimately scale standardization and best practice lead to mediocrity". Because you are not focused on the most important thing for your employee or your brand. You're focused on the efficiency factors and they create very little value. In fact we know that they subvert value. So yes we need to have a very big mindset change. >> Yeah you're a top line thinker Alan and always at the forefront. I really appreciate you coming on to the cube and participate in this program. Give us a last word. So if you're a change agent, I'm an organization and I want to inject this type of change. Where do I start? >> Well I think it starts by identifying. Are we going to work on the employee experience? Do we feel that we have a model where the employees that are on stage with customers are so important that the focus has to be employees. We go down that route and then we look at what's happened to the pandemic. What type of experiences are we going to bring to those employees around their ability to have flow in their work, to get return on energy, to excite the customers? Let's do that. Let's figure out what experience are we driving now? And what does that experience need to be? If we're the customer side. As I said let's look at all the sources of information that we already have. I know companies that spend hundreds of millions a year trying to figure out what consumers want. And yet if we look in their call sentences, you will call up and they will say to you, your call may be recorded for quality purposes and training. And it's not true, less than 10% of those calls are ever listened to. And if they listened to, it's compliance, that's driving that, not the burning desire to better understand the consumer. So if we change that, then we shall get to. What can we change? What is the experience we are now able to stage with all we know and with all we can do. And let's start there, let's start with, what is the experience you want to stage? What's the experience landscape look like now? And who do we bring together to make that happen? >> Alan fantastic. Having you back in the cube, it's always a pleasure and thanks so much for participating. >> Thank you, Dave. It's always a pleasure to speak with you. >> And thank you everybody. This is Dave Vellante the cube on cloud. We'll be right back right after this short break, stay with us. (soft music)

>> Narrator: At the DataWorks Summit, Europe 2017. Brought to you by Hortonworks. >> Hey, welcome back everyone. We're here live from Munich, Germany at DataWorks 2017, Hadoop Summit formerly, the conference name before it changed to DataWorks. I'm John Furrier with my cohost Dave Vellante. Our next guest, we're excited to have Alan Nance who flew in, just for the CUBE interview today. Executive Vice President with Virtual Clarity. Former star, I call practitioner of the Cloud, knows the Cloud business. Knows the operational aspects of how to use technology. Alan, it's great to see you. Thanks for coming on the CUBE. >> Thank you for having me again. >> Great to see you, you were in the US recently, we had a chance to catch up. And one of the motivations that we talked with you today was, a little bit about some of the things you're looking at, that are transformative. Before we do that, let's talk a little about your history. And what your role is at Virtual Clarity. >> So, as you guys have, basically, followed that career, I started out in the transformation time with ING Bank. And started out, basically, technology upwards. Looking at converged infrastructure, converged infrastructure into VDI. When you've got that, you start to look at Clouds. Then you start to experiment with Clouds. And I moved from ING, from earlier experimentation, into Phillips. So, while Phillips, at that time had both the health care and lighting group. And then you start to look at consumption based Cloud propositions. And you remember the big thing that we were doing at that time, when we identified that 80% of the IT spend was non differentiating. So the thing was, how do we get away from almost a 900 million a year spend on legacy? How do we turn that into something that's productive for the Enterprise? So we spent a lot of time creating the consumption based infrastructure operating platform. A lot of things we had to learn. Because let's be honest, Amazon was still trying to become the behemoth it is now. IBM still didn't get the transition, HP didn't get it. So there was a lot of experimentation on which of the operating model-- >> You're the first mover on the operating model, The Cloud, that has scaled to it. And really differentiated services for your business, for also, cost reductions. >> Cost reductions have been phenomenal. And we're talking about halving the budget over a three year period. We're talking about 500 million a year savings. So these are big, big savings. The thing I feel we still need to tackle, is that when we re-platform your business, it should leave to agile acceleration of your growth path. And I think that's something that we still haven't conquered. So I think we're getting better and better at using platforms to save money, to suppress the expenditure. What we now need to do is to convert that into growth platform business. >> So, how about the data component? Because you were CIO of infrastructure at Phillips. But lately, you've been really spending a lot of time thinking about the data, how data adds value. So talk about your data journey. >> Well if I look at the data journey, the journey started for me, with, basically, a meeting with Tom Ritz in 2013. And he came with a very, very simple proposition. "You guys need to learn how to create "and store, and reason over data, "for the benefit of the Enterprise." And I think, "Well that's cool." Because up until that point, nobody had really been talking about data. Everyone was talking about the underlying technologies of the Cloud, but not really of the data element. And then we had a session with JP Rangaswami, who was at Salesforce, who basically, also said, "Well don't just think "about data lakes, but think also "about data streams and data rivers. "Because the other thing that's "going to happen here is that data's "not going to be stagnant in a company like yours." So we took that, and what happened, I think, in Phillips, which I think you see in a lot of companies, is an explosion across the Enterprise. So you've got people in social doing stuff. You got CDO's appearing. You've got the IOT. You've got the old, legacy systems, the systems of record. And so you end up with this enormous fragmentation of data. And with that you get a Wild West of what I call data stewardship. So you have a CDO who says, "Well I'm in charge of data." And you got a CMO who says, "Well I'm in charge of marketing data." Or you've got a CSO, says, "Yeah, "but I'm the security data guy." And there's no coherence, in terms of moving the Enterprise forward. Because everybody's focused on their own functionality around that data and not connecting it. So where are we now? I think right now we have a huge proliferation of data that's not connected, in many organizations. And I think we're going to hybrid but I don't think that's a future proof thing for most organizations. >> John: What do you mean by that? >> Well, if I look at what a lot of those suppliers are saying, they're really saying, "The solution "that you need, is to have a hybrid solution "between the public Cloud and your own Cloud." I thought, "But that's not the problem "that we need to solve." The problem that we need to solve is first of all, data gravity. So if I look at all the transformations that are running into trouble, what do they forget? When we go out and do IOT, when we go out and do social media analysis, it all has to flow back into those legacy systems. And those legacy systems are all going to be in the old world. And so you get latency issues, you get formatting issues. And so, we have to solve the data gravity issue. And we have to also solve this proliferation of stewardship. Somebody has to be in charge of making this work. And it's not going to be, just putting in a hybrid solution. Because that won't change the operating model. >> So let me ask the question, because on one of the things you're kind of dancing around, Dave brought up the data question. Something that I see as a problem in the industry, that hasn't yet been solved, and I'm just going to throw it out there. The CIO has always been the guy managing IT. And then he would report to the CFO, get the budget, blah, blah, blah. We know that's kind of played out its course. But there's no operational playbook to take the Cloud, mobile data at scale, that's going to drive the transformative impact. And I think there's some people doing stuff here and there, pockets. And maybe there's some organizations that have a cadence of managers, that are doing compliance, security, blah, blah, blah. But you have a vision on this. And some information that you're tracking around. An architecture that would bring it to scale. Could you share your thoughts on this operational model of Cloud, at a management level? >> Well, part of this is also based on your own analyst, Peter Boris. When he says, "The problem with data "is that its value is inverse to its half life." So, what the Enterprise has to do is it has to get to analyzing and making this data valuable, much, much faster then it is right now. And Chris Sellender of Unifi recently said, "You know, the problem's not big data. "The problem's fast data." So, now, who is best positioned in the organization to do this? And I believe it's the COO. >> John: Chief Operating Officer? >> Chief Operating Officer. I don't think it's going to be the CIO. Because I'm trying to figure out who's got the problem. Who's got the problem of connecting the dots to improving the operation of the company? Who is in charge of actually creating an operating platform that the business can feed off of? It's the C Tower. >> John: Why not the CFO? >> No, I think the CFO is going to be a diminishing value, over time. Because a couple of reasons. First of all, we see it in Phillips. There's always going to be a fiduciary role for the CFO. But we're out of the world of capex. We're out of the world of balancing assets. Everything is now virtual. So really, the value of a CFO, as sitting on the tee, if I use the racquetball, the CFO standing on the tee is not going to bring value to the Enterprise. >> And the CIO doesn't have the business juice, is your argument? Is that right? >> It depends on the CIO. There are some CIO's out there-- >> Dave: But in general, we're generalizing. >> Generally not. Because they've come through the ranks of building applications, which now has to be thrown away. They've come through the ranks of technology, which is now less relevant. And they've come through the ranks of having huge budgets and huge people to deploy certain projects. All of that's going away. And so what are you left with? Now you're left with somebody who absolutely has to understand how to communicate with the business. And that's what they haven't done for 30 years. >> John: And stream line business process. >> Well, at least get involved in the conversation. At least get involved in the conversation. Now if I talk to business people today, and you probably do too, most of them will still say there's this huge communication gulf. Between what we're trying to achieve and what the technology people are doing with our goals. I mean, I was talking to somebody the other day. And this lady heads up the sales for a global financial institution. She's sitting on the business side of this. And she's like, "The conversation should be "about, if our company wants to improve "our cost income ratio, and they ask me, "as sales to do it, I have to sell 10 times "more to make a difference. "Then if IT would save money. "So for every Euro they save. "And give me an agile platform, "is straight to the bottom line. "Every time I sell, because of our "cost income ratio, I just can't sell against that. "But I can't find on the IT side, "anybody who, sort of, gets my problem. "And is trying to help me with it." And then you look at her and what? You think a hybrid solution's going to help her? (laughs) I have no idea what you're talking about. >> Right, so the business person here then says, "I don't really care where it runs." But to your point, you care about the operational model? >> Alan: Absolutely. >> And that's really what Cloud should be, right? >> I think everybody who's going to achieve anything from an investment in Cloud, will achieve it in the operating world. They won't just achieve it on the cost savings side. Or on making costs more transparent, or more commoditized. Where it has to happen is in the operating model. In fact, we actually have data of a very large, transportation, logistics company, who moved everything that they had, in an attempt to be in a zero Cloud. And on the benchmark, saved zero. And they saved zero because they weren't changing the operating model. So they were still-- >> They lifted and shifted, but didn't change the operational mindset. >> Not at all. >> But there could have been business value there. Maybe things went faster? >> There could have been. >> Maybe simpler? >> But I'm not seeing it. >> Not game changing. >> Not game changing, certainly yes. >> Not as meaningful, it was a stretch. >> Give an example of a game changing scenario. >> Well for me, and I think this is the next most exciting thing. Is this idea of platforms. There's been an early adoption of this in Telco. Where we've seen people coming in and saying, "If you stock all of this IT, as we've known it, "and you leverage the ideas of Cloud computing, "to have scalable, invisible, infrastructure. "And you put a single platform on top of it "to run your business, you can save money." Now, I've seen business cases where people who are about to embark on this program are taking a billion a year out of their cost base. And in this company, it's 1/7th of their total profit. That's a game changer, for me. But now, who's going to help them do that? Who's going to help them-- >> What's the platform look like? >> And a million's a lot of money. >> Let's go, grab a sheet of paper how we-- >> So not everybody will even have a billion-- >> But that gets the attention of certainly, the CEO, the COO, CFO says, "Tell me more." >> You're alluding to it, Dave. You need to build a layer to punch, to doing that. So you need to fix the data stewardship problem. You have to create the invisible infrastructure that enables that platform. And you have to have a platform player who is prepared to disrupt the industry. And for me-- >> Dave: A Cloud player. >> A Cloud player, I think it's a born in the Cloud player. I think, you know, we've talked about it privately. >> So who are the forces to attract? You got Microsoft, you got AWS, Google, maybe IBM, maybe Oracle. >> See, I think it's Google. >> Dave: Why, why do you think it's Google? >> I think it's because, the platforms that I'm thinking of, and if I look in retail, if I look in financial services, it's all about data. Because that's the battle, right. We all agree, the battle's on data. So it's got to be somebody who understands data at scale, understands search at scale, understands deep learning at scale. And understands technology enough to build that platform and make it available in a consumption model. And for me, Google would be the ideal player, if they would make that step. Amazon's going to have a different problem because their strategy's not going down that route. And I think, for people like IBM or Oracle, it would require cannibalizing too much of their existing business. But they may dally with it. And they may do it in a territory where they have no install base. But they're not going to be disrupting the industry. I just don't think it's going to be possible for them. >> And you think Google has the Enterprise chops to pull it off? >> I think Google has the platform. I would agree with Alan on this. Something, I've been very critical on Google. Dave brings this up because he wants me to say it now, and I will. Google is well positioned to be the platform. I am very bullish on Google Cloud with respect to their ability to moon shot or slingshot to the future faster, than, potentially others. Or as they say in football, move the goal posts and change the game. That being said, where I've been critical of Google, and this is where, I'll be critical, is their dogma is very academic, very, "We're the technology leader, "therefore you should use Google G Suite." I think that they have to change their mindset, to be more Enterprise focused, in the sense of understand not the best product will always win, but the B chip they have to develop, have to think about the Enterprise. And that's a lot of white glove service. That's a lot of listening. That's not being too arrogant. I mean, there's a borderline between confidence and arrogance. And I think Google crosses it a little bit too much, Dave. And I think that's where Google recognizes, some people in Google recognize that they don't have the Enterprise track record, for sure on the sales side. You could add 1,000 sales reps tomorrow but do they have experience? So there's a huge translation issue going on between Google's capability and potential energy. And then the reality of them translating that into an operational footprint. So for them to meet the mark of folks like you, you can't be speaking Russian and English. You got to speak the same language. So, the language barrier, so to speak, the linguistics is different. That's my only point. >> I sense in your statements, there's a frustration here. Because we know that the key to some really innovative, disruption is with Google. And I think what we'd all like to do, even while I was addressing the camera. I'd love to see Diane, who does understand Enterprise, who's built a whole career servicing Enterprises extremely well, I'd like to see a little bit of a glimpse of, "We are up for this." And I understand when you're part of the bigger Google, the numbers are a little bit skewered against you to make a big impact and carry the firm with you. But I do believe there's an enormous opportunity in the Enterprise space. And people are just waiting for this. >> Well Diane Greene knows the Enterprise. So she came in, she's got to change the culture. And I know she's doing it. Because I have folks at Google, that I know that work there, that tell me privately, that it's happening, maybe not fast enough. But here's the thing. If you walked in the front door at Google, Alan Nance, this is my point, and he said, "I have experience and I have a plan "to build a platform, to knock a billion "dollars off seven companies, that I know, personally. "That I can walk in and win. "And move a billion dollars to their "bottom line with your platform." They might not understand what that means. >> I don't know, you know I was at Google Next a few weeks ago, last month. And I thought they were more, to your point, open to listening. Maybe not as arrogant as you might be presenting. And somewhat more humble. Still pretty ballsy. But I think Google recognizes that it needs help in the Enterprise. And here's why. Something that we've talked about in the past, is, you've got top down initiatives. You've got bottom up initiatives. And you've got middle out. What frequently happens, and I'd love for you to describe your experiences. The leaders say, the top CXO's say, "Okay we're going." And they take off and the organization doesn't follow them. If it's bottoms up, you don't have the top down in premature. So how do you address that? What are you seeing and how do you address that problem? >> So I think that's a really, really good observation. I mean, what I see in a lot of the big transformations that I've been involved in, is that speed is of the essence. And I think when CEO's, because usually it's the CEO. CEO comes in and they think they've got more time than they actually have to make the impact in the Enterprise. And it doesn't matter if they're coming in from the outside or they've grown up. They always underestimate their ability to do change, in time. And now what's changed over the past few years, is the average tenure of a CEO is six years. You know, I mean, Jack Welch was 20 years at GE. You can do a lot of damage in 20 years. And he did a lot of great things at GE over a 20 year period. You've only got six years now. And what I see in these big transformation programs is they start with a really good vision. I mean Mackenzie, Bain, Boston. They know the essence of what needs to happen. >> Dave: They can sell the dream. >> They can sell the dream. And the CEO sort of buys into it. And then immediately you get into the first layer, "Okay, okay, so we've got to change the organization." And so you bring in a lot of these companies that will run 13 work streams over three years, with hundreds of people. And at the end of that time, you're almost halfway through your tenure. And all you've got is a new design. Or a new set of job descriptions or strategies. You haven't actually achieved anything. And then the layer down is going to run into real problems. One of the problems that we had at the company I worked at before, was in order to support these platforms you needed really good master data management. And we suddenly realized that. And so we had to really put in an accelerated program to achieve that, with Impatica. We did it, but it cost us a year and 1/2. At a bank I know, they can't move forward because they're looking at 700 million of technology debt, they can't get past. So they end up going down a route of, "Maybe one of these big suppliers "can buy our old stuff. "And we can tag on some transformational "deal at the back end of that." None of those are working. And then what happens is, in my mind, if the CEO, from what I see, has not achieved escape velocity at the end of year three. So he's showing the growth, or she's showing the digital transformation, it's kind of game over. The Enterprise has already figured out they've stalled it long enough, not intentionally. And then we go back into an austerity program. Because you got to justify the millions you've spent in the last three years. And you've got nothing to show for it. >> And you're preparing three envelopes. >> So you got to accelerate those layers. You got to take layers out and you've got to have a really, I would say almost like, 90 day iteration plans that show business outcomes. >> But the technology layer, you can put in an abstraction layer, use APIs and infrastructure as code, all that cool stuff. But you're saying it's the organizational challenges. >> I think that's the real problem. It is the real problem, is the organization. And also, because what you're really doing in terms of the Enterprise, is you're moving from a more traditional supply chain that you own. And you've matriculated with SAP or with Oracle. Now you're talking about creating a digital value chain. A digital value chain that's much more based on a more mobile ecosystem, where you would have thin text in one area or insurance text, that have to now fit into an agile supply chain. It's all about the operating model. If you don't have people who know how to drive that, the technology's not going to help you. So you've got to have people on the business side and the technology side coming together to make this work. >> Alan, I have a question for you. What's you're prediction, okay, knowing what you know. And kind of, obviously, you have some frustrations in platforms with trying to get the big players to listen. And I think they should listen to you. But this is going to happen. So I would believe that what you're saying with the COO, operational things radically changing differently. Obviously, the signs are all there. Data centers are moving into the Cloud. I mean this is radical stuff, in a good way. And so, what's your prediction for how this plays out vis a vis Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform Azure, IBM Cloud SoftLayer. >> Well here's my concern a little bit. I think if Google enters the fray I think everybody will reconfigure. Because if we'd assume that Google plays to its strengths and goes out there and finds the right partners. It's going to reconfigure the industry. If they don't do that, then what the industry's going to do is what it's done. Which means that the platforms are going to be hybrid platforms that are dominated by the traditional players. By the SOPs, by the Oracles, by the IBMs. And what I fear is that there may actually be a disillusionment. Because they will not bring the digital transformation and all the wonderful things that we all know, are out there to be gained. So you may get, "We've invested all this money." You see it a little bit with big data. "I've got this huge layer. "I've got petabytes. "Why am I not smarter? "Why is my business not going so much better? "I've put everything in there." I think we've got to address the operating problem. And we have to find a dialogue at the C Suite. >> Well to your point, and we talked about this. You know, you look at the core of Enterprise apps, the Oracle stuff is not moving in droves, to the Cloud. Oracle's freezing the market right now. Betting that it can get there before the industry gets there. And if it does-- >> Alan: It's not. >> And it might, but if it does, it's not going to be that radical transformation you're prescribing. >> They have too much to lose. Let's be honest, right. So Oracle is a victim of it's own success, pretty much like SAP. It has to go to the Cloud as a defensive play. Because the last thing either of those want is to be disintermediated by Amazon. Which may or may not happen anyway. Because a lot of companies will disintermediate if they can. Because the licensing is such a painful element for most enterprises, when they deal with these companies. So they have to believe that the platform is not going to look like that. >> And they're still trying to figure out the pricing models, and the margin models, and Amazon's clearly-- >> You know what's driving the pricing models is not the growth on the consumer side. >> Right, absolutely. >> That's not what's driving it. So I think we need another player. I really think we need another player. If it's not Google, somebody else. I can't think who would have the scale, the money to-- >> The only guys who have the scale, you got 10 cents, maybe a couple China Clouds, maybe one Japan Cloud and that's it. >> To be honest, you raise a good point. I haven't really looked at the Ali Baba's and the other people like that who may pick up that mantle. I haven't looked at them. Ali Baba's interesting, because just like Amazon, they have their own business that runs on platforms. And a very diverse business, which is growing faster than Amazon and is more profitable than Amazon. So they could be interesting. But I'm still hopeful. We should figure this out. >> Google should figure it out. You're absolutely right. They're investing, and I thought they put forth a pretty good messaging at the Google Next. You covered it remotely but I think they understand the opportunity. And I think they have the stomach for it. >> We had reporters there as well, at the event. We just did, they came to our studio. Google is self aware that they need to work on the Enterprise. I think the bigger thing that you're highlighting is the operational model is shifting to a scale point where it's going to change stewardship and COO meaning to be, I like that. The other thing I want to get your reaction to is something I heard this morning, on the CUBE from Sean Connelly. Which that goes with some of the things that we're seeing where you're seeing Cloud becoming a more centralized view. Where IOT is an Edge case. So you have now, issues around architectural things. Your thoughts and reaction to this balance between Edge and Cloud. >> Well I think this is where you're also going to have your data gravity challenge. So, Dave McCrory has written a lot about the concept of data gravity. And in my mind, too many people in the Enterprise don't understand it. Which is basically, that data attracts more data. And more data you have, it'll attract more. And then you create all these latency issues when you start going out to the Edge. Because when we first went out to the Edge I think, even at Phillips, we didn't realize how much interaction needed to come back. And that's going to vary from company to company. So some company's are going to want to have that data really quickly because they need to react to it immediately. Others may not have that. But what you do have is you have this balancing act. About, "What do I keep central? "And what do I put at the Edge?" I think Edge Technology is amazing. And when we first looked at it, four years ago, I mean, it's come such a long way. And what I am encouraged by is that, that data layer, so the layer that Sean talks about, there's a lot of exciting things happening. But again, my problem is what's the Enterprise going to do with that? Because it requires a different operating model. If I take an example of a manufacturing company, I know a manufacturing company right now that does work in China. And it takes all the data back to its central mainframes for processing. Well if you've got the Edge, you want to be changing the way you process. Which means that the decision makers on the business need to be insitu. They need to be in China. And we need to be bringing, systems of record data and combining it with local social data and age data, so we get better decisions. So we can drive growth in those areas. If I just enable it with technology but don't change the business model the business is not going to grow. >> So Alan, we always loved having you on. Great practitioner, but now you've kind of gone over to the dark side. We've heard of a company called Virtual Clarity. Tell us about what you're doing there. >> So what we're vested in, what I am very much vested in, with my team at Virtual Clarity, is creating this concept of precision guided transformation. Where you work on the business, on what are the outcomes we really need to get from this? And then we've combined, I would say it's like a data nerve center. So we can quickly analyze, within a matter of weeks, where we are with the company, and what routes to value we can create. And then we'll go and do it. So we do it in 90 day increments. So the business now starts to believe that something's really going to happen. None of these big, insert miracle here after three year programs. But actually going out and doing it. The second thing that I think that we're doing that I'm excited about is bringing in enlightened people who represent the Enterprise. So, one of my colleagues, former COO of Unilever, we just brought on a very smart lady, Dessa Grassa, who was the CDO at JP Morgan Chase. And the idea is to combine the insights that we have on the demand side, the buy side, with the insights that we have on the technology side to create better operating models. So that combination of creating a new view that is acceptable to the C Suite. Because these people understand how you talk to them. But at the same time, runs on this concept of doing everything quickly. That's what we're about right now. >> That's awesome, we should get you hooked up with our new analyst we just hired, James Corbelius, from IBM. Was focusing on exactly that. The intersections of developers, Cloud, AI machine learning and data, all coming together. And IOT is going to be a key application that we're going to see coming out of that. So, congratulations. Alan thank you for spending the time to come in. >> Thanks for allowing me. >> To see us in the CUBE. It's the CUBE, bringing you more action. Here from DataWorks 2017. I'm John Furrier with my cohost Dave Vallante, here on the CUBE, SiliconANGLE Media's flagship program. Where we've got the events, straight from SiliconANGLE. Stay with us for more great coverage. Day one of two days of coverage at DataWorks 2017. We'll be right back.