(upbeat music) >> From the Corinium Chief Analytics Officer Conference, Spring, San Francisco. It's theCUBE! (computerized thrum) >> Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in downtown San Francisco at the Corinium Chief Analytics Officer event in Spring 2018. Really, a ton of practitioners for such a very small event. Super, super intimate, super, super customer stories and practitioners, so we're really excited to have our next guest. She's Kirtida Parikh, she's the Head of Enterprise Business Analytics for Silicon Valley Bank. Welcome. >> Thank you. Good to be here. >> So, what do you think of the show? It's kind of an interesting little event. >> I personally do think that they do an amazing job of organizing this particular event, and out of all the events throughout the year I try to choose and come to this event. >> Right, very good. So, you were just on a panel. >> Kirtida: Yes. >> With a bunch of practitioners. For the folks that didn't attend the panel, what were some of the interesting things that came out of it? Some surprises? >> I think one of the main surprises that I had as one of the panel members is the audience, and the audience actually did say that not 99% of the people have issues working with other virtual teams within the bank, or within their own organization. And many people have tried to figure out how to work together, and that was a very pleasant surprise to me. >> And they're working better together. >> Absolutely. >> From what you said before we turned on the cameras. >> It's a higher productivity when you try to work things out together. >> What's going to happen to shadow IT if the IT department is suddenly easier to work with? >> (laughing) Well, I don't think it is either the department or a person that is difficult to work with. It's, I think, more of a clash of cultures between the two groups. And IT does need, for their own right reasons, to have a process in place and go by the rules so that they can keep the company safe from compliance and regulation perspective. >> Right. >> Whereas analytics, by nature, needs to be creative and has to focus on time to market. And they have to be agile and work really fast enough, and so they can't have the bandwidth to follow the process. So it's more of a clash of two cultures. >> Jeff: Right. >> And I think we need to open up the boundaries and think about virtual efforts to be able to get something done. >> That's interesting, because we always talk about people, process, and tech. And they're called "tech conferences," they're not called "process tech conferences." >> Yeah. >> And so there's a lot of focus on the technology and the new shiny object. >> Mm-hmm (affirmative). >> Whether it's Hadoop, or big data, or Spark, or, you know, all this fun stuff. But as you just said, really, the harder part is the people and the process. >> People. >> And as you just said, culture really is derived from the processes and the responsibilities that you have under your jurisdiction, I guess, so. >> Absolutely. And I personally feel technology is not an end by itself. It's a means to an end. >> Right, right. >> And so the success of a company is how you embrace. How people embrace technology leads to results. >> Right. >> It's neither technology nor people on their own, it's how they embrace technology is what leads to success. >> So I wonder if you can share some insight from your experience at Silicon Valley Bank? You're the head of the analytics group. You know, banks are interesting to me because banks have been data-driven forever, right? >> They have to be. >> There isn't really any money in a room somewhere. It's numbers on a page and numbers on a database. >> Kirtida: Mm-hmm (affirmative). >> And all your products are pretty digital, so, when you start to bring more advanced analytics and you try to change the culture a little bit and run it through the, overused, "digital transformation." What are some of the things you're looking at? How are they transformational? What's kind of the acceptance in the broader team, as you said, when there can be some culture clash, and you have regulation and you're a regulated industry and there's real issues and barriers that you have to overcome? >> Right. So, barriers are always there in any organization, in any industry, particularly when you are introducing a totally new way of making decisions. And when the company is very successful based on making intuition-based decisions, it's hard for you to sell the idea that, no, I can give you information, and that will expedite your decision-making process. So, I think when I joined the bank, I didn't realize, but 99% of my job was to be the change agent. (laughing) >> (laughing) Not an easy job. >> And a storyteller. >> Right, right. >> Because unless you tell the story and sell the idea, you are not able to bring the change. >> Jeff: Right. >> So, yes, there are barriers, and there are always going to be barriers. But I personally like challenges, so I embrace the challenges and try to overcome. So what I ended up doing is, I started thinking about where can I have IT add value, and where are the opportunities where I can value them? So instead of me going to the business and talking to them about what we can do together, I brought that team member along with me. So that visibility and transparency made them feel valued, and they were more than willing to partner with me, and so that changed the landscape to work with IT. But on the other hand, from the business side, I personally think that unless you have one or two examples, and one of my first examples was a business process. And it used to take a number of hours, and I reduced it to leave it only 10% of that time. And they said, oh, wow, that does make sense. What can we do more? Can we partner on this? So initially, first quarter, I had 20 questions and requests, and the second quarter... First whole year we had only twenty questions and requests, and the following quarter we had 200 of them. >> Wow. So when you're looking for an opportunity to apply your skills, your knowledge to bring some change to your organization, how much of it is you kind of searching for inefficiencies, say in the internal business process, versus maybe a business stakeholder saying, wow, you know, if we could only do X. Or I have this problem, can you help me find the root cause? Silicon Valley Bank's such a unique institution, because it's got a couple of segments that it really focuses on. >> Kirtida: Mm-hmm (affirmative). >> Obviously in tech, a little-known wine business. I think you guys do a lot of investing there. >> Yes. >> Because tech guys like to open wineries. >> Tech banking. >> (laughing) So you've got some really small specialty segments. So how did you find some of those early opportunities? >> You see, when you do something and it's successful, it's a two-edged sword. Things keep coming, and the demand grows exponentially fast, it's an exponential growth rate. So what we had to do was really focus on what matters the most, and that came only from two-way communication with the business as well as with the executive team. So if the executive team, we realize that this is the revenue-generating opportunities, here is where we can make a difference, we focus on it and show them the value. Or, if it is a process that really needed some attention, and we could benefit from cost effectiveness, so there was kind of an RY framework where we focus on it. But, to be very honest, we didn't have to look far to look for opportunities, just because revenue is the main focus for business as well as executives. >> Right, right, right. >> So it was a two-way communication that helped us really identify, but I didn't have to hunt for opportunities because, you know, that's where your experience come into play. >> Right, right. So, I'm just curious on the revenue side, the question always comes up, how do I get started, how do we get started, how do we get early wins to build momentum in my company? So was it customer retention, was it cross-selling? I mean, what were some of the things that you saw that were revenue-tied, and everybody likes being tied to revenue, where you thought you could have some success? >> So, my idea of really making a difference is very simple. What does the business focus on? How does a bank operate? They have to get new clients, and increase the size of the cake, or the size of the clientele that they have. So, acquisition is one area. >> Jeff: Okay. >> The second is, once you have them, how can you have them deepen their relationship with you so that the switching cost to another bank is higher? >> Jeff: Right. >> And the third is, once they're with you, you also want to retain them in many different ways by increasing client satisfaction. And then, of course, cost effectiveness. How do you plan your staffing needs and capacity? So, I started in each of those areas at least taking up one or two business questions and showing them the value. And now it's covering all those spectrum of businesses. >> That's great. So now you've got more inbound opportunities for places to apply your analytics than you probably have people to apply them. (laughing) >> (laughing) Yes. That's a good problem to have. >> That's a good problem to have. Well, I'd just love to get your take, too, on kind of the higher level view of the democratization of the data. Of the data itself, of the tools to operate the data, and then, of course, hopefully if you've democratized the access and the tools, hopefully when somebody finds something, they actually have the power to implement it. So how have you seen that environment change, not specifically at Silicon Valley Bank, but generically over the last couple years within your career? >> Well, I personally think that, in my career, in different organizations, democratization is a necessity. It's no longer a topic of discussion. It is something you have to do. Because analytics in general is an enabler community, and you can have as many enablers as you have the people who are users. So, how do you really create analytic center of excellence by giving them the ropes and tools to fish for themselves, or to find their own insights and create their own stories. >> Jeff: Right. >> So what I did, and this worked really well, is create a virtual team of analytic center of excellence where it's not only my team members, but it's some other pockets of analytics teams, but at the same time, the users themselves. >> Jeff: Right. >> And they become the advocates of what you do, and as far as tools are concerned, you know, we used to have an era where you have IT control tools to be able to democratize and give the insights, and now it is user-driven tools. So we did move from one end of the spectrum to the other end of the spectrum, so that it becomes easy for the user to actually grasp the insights. >> Right, right. And still maintain control and governance and all that kind of stuff, yeah. >> Oh, yeah. Security, information security control is a big one, and we can maintain that. >> Right, right. >> And as far as the governance and the data, I mean, they're not pulling their own definitions and other things. It's based off of information foundation, which is solid and scalable. >> Which is solid. Okay, so, going to give you the last word. You've said the word "story" at least four times. >> Uh-huh. (laughing) >> Maybe more since we sat down, we'll have to check the transcript. I wonder if you could expand a little bit on how valuable storytelling is in this whole process. I think it gets left off a lot, right? >> Mm-hmm (affirmative). >> People want to focus on the math and focus on the technology, and focus on the wiz-bang and the flashing lights and the datacenter, but you keep saying "story." Why do you keep saying story? Why is story so important? >> You have multiple stakeholders. First thing is the executive team, they do not have the time. I mean, they are focusing on so many different aspects that they don't have the time enough for anybody to go through the whole textbook, or whole chapter. So if you can tell them story in 30 seconds in an elevator, or three minutes in a hallway, and then request for 30 minutes, you are bound to get some time with them. And in that short time, would you rather show them the value that you can bring to the table, or would you show them how the sausage is being made? >> Jeff: Right. >> And so that's where one type of storytelling is important, to sell the idea. The second is the working team, who we are working with. And I have seen that unless you tell your story and sell the story, you can't get their buy-in, and the virtual team effort that I was talking about fails miserably. So that's another area where you need to tell the story. >> Jeff: Right. >> And the third is, once you have an analytic product, then how do you get adopters? So to tell the adopter what is in there for them is a storytelling too. >> Right, right. Small detail. >> Yeah. >> Actually getting people to use it for their benefit. >> (laughing) >> All right, well I think this is so important, because as you mentioned a number of times, it's about people, and people working together, teams working together in this collaborative effort to make it happen. As somebody else said, it's a team sport. >> And you know, the interesting that I have seen is now that I come to these conferences, there are five people, at least, in different five companies, they said they've hired a journalist on their team because they realized the storytelling is so important. >> Jeff: Really? >> Yeah, so the hybrid function analytics, we say, requires data engineers, data scientists, statisticians, communicators, storyweavers and tellers, which is a journalist, and then a change agent and project manager. >> That's why they bring theCUBE. >> (laughing) >> Trying to tell the story. So, thank you for sharing your story. >> Thank you so much. >> We really appreciate the time. All right. >> Kirtida: Take care. >> You're watching theCUBE from the Corinium Chief Analytics Officer Summit in San Francisco. Thanks for watching. (computerized music)