(upbeat music) >> Welcome back to theCUBE everyone Lisa Martin here. On the ground in Las Vegas at COUPA INSPIRE 2022. This is our second day of coverage here. There's been about 2,400 to 2,500 folks at the event. This year people are ready to come back. I've been happy to talk with lots Coupa folks, their partners, their customers and I've got both a customer and a partner here with me. Heidi Banks joins us, the Senior director of Global Procurement at Jabil. Heidi it's great to have you on the program. >> Thank you for having me give. >> Give the audience an overview of Jabil and what you guys do. >> So Jabil is a $30 billion manufacturing solutions partner that provides contract manufacturing services for 450 of the world's largest and most premier brands around the globe. Most people don't know our name but we're the wonderful face behind the name. >> Well you guys had, I was looking at some stats, over 260,000 employees across 100 locations. Very customer centric you guys are, as is Coupa, this good obviously synergy there but you had some objectives from a global procurement perspective. What were those? What were some of the challenges that you wanted to solve? >> So about seven years ago, Jabil went on a journey to identify what challenges we had out in the indirect procurement space. Being such a large global company, we had no idea what we were spending on indirect at the of time. After a little bit of digging, we found out that we had over 2 billion in spend that was untapped from a category management perspective. And so we knew that we needed to grow as a company and PaaS technology as a foundation, as our goal and our mission in the company is to be the most technologically advanced manufacturer solutions partner for our customers. >> Was there any sort of one thing or a compelling event seven years ago that caused you guys to go, "We need to be really getting our hands around this indirect spend?" >> So we started off by bringing in category managers and they were doing amazing job delivering savings in our contracts, but we had no way to deliver that out to the company. And the company being so big in so many different jurisdictions in countries around the world, you could negotiate the best contract in the world, but if you couldn't communicate it out to your users then it was a challenge to really capture that savings and make sure we were delivering bottom line savings to the company. >> And you guys are, we're talking about three different SAP ERP systems so a lot of technology in the environment. What were some of the core technology requirements that Jabil had when it came looking for a business plan management solution? >> Yeah, so we were looking for something that was very user friendly. Of course, Coupa takes that box very well. Also something that could drive governance and policy controls again challenging being such a global organization and making sure that things were going according to our policy into our global category managers to be sourced and negotiated for the company. We looked for one that was end to end from a business spend management platform perspective. We wanted something that was integrated and could cover three ERP systems from one pane of glass across the company. So we could get great analytics without having to search in so many different places. >> That is so key. I was talking with Rob, I was talking with Raja and they were all talking about how those silos still exist and how they're helping organizations like Jabil break those down and give them that single pane of glass, as you mentioned, to be able to see, to get that visibility into indirect spend, for example. Talk to me about the solutions that you implemented from Coupa. >> So we started off with Coupa's procure to pay system. Really our focus was to get off of our old system as quickly as we could and get everyone managing on the same policy controls approval flows. We then also had analytics, so we had Coupa AIC and brought in analytics and in the last year and a half I've also deployed strategic and tactical sourcing through Coupa as well, and spend guard from a audit control and compliance perspective. >> So then that the phrase "sweet synergy" that actually probably means a lot to you Coupa was talking about that during the keynote this morning. Your Jabil is living that sweet synergy kind of experience through Coupa >> That's right. As we source in Coupa and we can see, are there different behaviors that we need to look into maybe suppliers that are bidding at the last minute and winning or less than that desirable number of suppliers coming in or duplicate invoices and being able to really look through that and see spend patterns that we would never otherwise uncover is highly important to us from a compliance standpoint, we've gotten a great value out of that solution. >> And in terms of value, one of the things I know that was important to you when you were looking for the right technology partner, was you wanted to involve other folks within the organization across IT, other lines of business. Talk to me about how important that was to bring in that cross-functional team to help make the right decision. >> Yeah, that was one of the most critical things that we did. We needed to make sure, especially being an SAP shop right, we needed to make sure that we were standing back and really being impartial in our decision and driving a non-biased decision in that RFP process. And so we got our executives together, talked to them about the value drivers and the ROI that we could do if we had all of the right support from the right departments, so that we could avoid resistance as we tried to deploy in such a rapid way. So we brought IT, legal, users together, procurement and in advance did a balanced scorecard approach to say these were the important factors that we had whether it was IT infrastructure, whether it was capabilities to make sure that when we came out of that decision and we picked a solution, we could all look at each other and have a handshake and say it was the right decision for us as a company, and so no departments had push back at that point because of that approach that we took. >> An objective approach that you took. >> That's right. >> Let's talk about some of the outcomes look at, actually let's not, let's talk about your deployment first, 'cause you guys started with probably your most challenging sites whereas other folks might go. Let's start with the low hanging fruit and kind of work our way up. Jabil said, "Nope, we're going to flip the script on that." >> That's right. So we, we went with what we call an east to west strategy. We are heavily concentrated in our Asia markets and so we were also wanted to deliver our ROI as quickly as possible and get our spend into the system as quickly as possible. So we we went live with 12 sites, 11 mega sites in China and our corporate headquarters in St. Petersburg in order to get that spend in as quickly as possible and get our ROI delivered. So we started in China and the US then in our second phase deployed the rest of Asia and then the US and North America and then over to Europe. So we went regional from a time zone perspective but also just I say, go bold. I hear a lot of people that start small and then grow but if you want to deliver that ROI and get your money out of that system as soon as possible go big or go home. >> I like that go big, go home. It's like Mick Ebeling was talking about this morning from not impossible labs commit and then figure it out. >> That's right. >> That's right. >> You know what? That's actually brilliant advice because it's probably the opposite that a lot of us want to be we want to be able to figure this out and then go, okay we can do that. And he said no >> Yeah >> To the opposite. >> To the opposite >> Did you have to get buy-in from those cross-functional folks to say we want to start with our most challenging sites first, was that a team decision? >> That was a decision that we did just basically to get that ROI delivered. And we also had a really strong team that still partners with our Coupa admins today that were really invested in getting onto a solution where they can automate and drive control and compliance. And so not only do we involve the team in the solution selection, but also in the global design. So we brought different cross-functional departments together into one location together, we made all of our decisions on how we were going to configure Coupa So that way again all of our divisions and departments had buy-in to how we were going to move forward and then we went from there. >> Well then, and in that case everybody feels like they have a stake >> That's right >> In the issue they have a vested interest >> That's right. >> Which is critical for these types of large projects to be successful. >> That's right. So they were involved in the RFP process so they knew why we were doing it and they were then involved and the design and how we were going to set it up so that they knew that they had a vested interest in how it was going to perform in the end. And then of course there were things that we had to tweak. So we needed to have a design committee that we could come back to and make changes as we needed to, make changes throughout the projects. You don't always get every single decision right. The first time, but you need to be nimble and make changes first and get consensus across the company. >> Right. Talk to me about some of the outcomes I know I've seen a lot of stats in your case study and I always love those numbers always jump out at me. Talk to me about some of those metrics based business outcomes that Jabil is achieving so far. >> Yeah. So in the last four years we've had a heavy focus on catalog. So actually in the last few months, we've gone from 20 to 30% by using Coupa analytics and drilling really into the details and putting really great category strategies in order to drive more catalog penetration. We've got great stats around electronic invoicing especially in certain countries where people think it's not possible. >> Right. >> There's a great change management story we have for what we've achieved in our Asian markets around electronic invoicing and from an ROI perspective, we were able to deliver 3X our ROI by the end of year two which we projected would take three years to do and 7X by year four. So we had a very conservative and achievable ROI that got the buy-in and then we were able to accelerate it by being aggressive, but also with a great solution it was easy to then get that done. >> Can you talk a little bit about the change management that you were able to achieve in the Asian market change management is the difficult thing to do. People are resistant to change, one of the things we've learned in the last two years is sometimes the change comes in there's nothing you can do about it but how did you affect that change management within that culture in the Asian market? >> Yeah. So with the executive buy-in that we had because they knew that there was high potential for us to deliver an ROI. We had executive sponsorship that helped us get through some of those barriers. So if we decided not to bring certain users into the system, for example and there was pushback that they needed to have access we had executive messaging as to why from a policy governance and control standpoint we couldn't break that. So we used our executives' voice and their support to do that. But also we brought in a great system that was user are friendly and so we didn't get a lot of resistance in, in that sense. So they actually embraced the change compared to the solution we had in place before. So by making the right selection from a user centric company we also didn't get as much resistance there as well. >> That's nice the path of least resistance is good especially if you're not exactly sure if you're going to find it, but verifying that and getting that ROI is is probably a big, a big win. Talk to me a little bit about you guys liked Coupa so much you had such, you mentioned 3X ROI within, you said the first year? >> With after year two >> After year two >> Yeah. >> 3X ROI, you liked it so much you decided to become a Coupa partner. Talk to me about that. What does that mean? What are you guys doing as partner? >> Yeah, so this is a super exiting thing for us to adventure into. So we pride ourselves on our theme as built for practitioners by practitioners. We've run the system every single day. We've been running it for years. So my team members are deep in the knowledge and capabilities of Coupa it's functionality, how to manage it every day, how to get the most you out of it and we want to share that knowledge with other Coupa customers to get the most value out of their system as well. So whether that's optimization and helping them get more out of their system or whether it's roadmap or assessments in our perspective, or even doing net new implementations we're excited to venture into that area of services with Coupa as a partner. >> Or have you guys started doing that yet? >> Today is our first Coupa inspire as a partner, which is exciting. And we literally just got started in the last few months. So we are working on getting our first customer here hopefully very shortly and have had a lot of of really great conversations with customers at the show so far. >> That's one of the great things that Coupa took the risk to bring us all together because there's they have a phenomenal community of which you guys have been a part now you said I believe about seven years, but there's nothing that replaces the connections that you make in the community that is grown from doing events like this. I imagine that you've gotten to talk with a lot of prospect >> Yes. >> Prospective customers who, what, how did you do this? This seems like an impossible feat that you've gotten to share with them. This is doable, here's how we did it. >> That's right. So fortunately I've been at previous inspires as well. So I've gotten to talk to people that I haven't seen in a couple of years, which is always exciting. I've been able to talk to customers that I've done, referrals for with Coupa before that are now Coupa customers and we get to talk about that and also those perspective customers and helping them know that it is doable, it is achievable you can get consensus in a decentralized company where all the sites if you have lots, lots of sites and countries have their own autonomy, you can do it. You can do it fast. You can do it effective if you take the right approach. And so it's exciting to get here and share that opportunity and our adventure and our journey with Coupa and the journey is only just beginning. >> Right, what are some of the things that you are excited about in terms of the innovations that they've announced at the event? I know Coupa is very much symbiotic with its customers that the community very much generates a lot of the direction in which the technology goes. But what are some of the things that you've heard announced that you thought, yes, they're going they continue to go in the right direction. >> Yeah. So there's some actual foundational capabilities around things like payment agreements and group carts and things that actually we've contributed through either customer cabs or VP sessions with design, just doing collaboration together but I'm also excited to see some of their price benchmarking that they're doing so that we can know how well are we doing and from our pricing standpoint and also where they're going supply chain I'm excited to see where they're going with that. Being a big supply chain company ourselves, we're hoping that all turns out to be something that we can innovate with Coupa on and hopefully have in the future as well. >> Well, as they said, Rob said it to me just an hour ago, they're tip of the iceberg but what its seems that you've become Heidi yourself and Jabil is really kind of an influencer within the Coupa community. We appreciate you coming by theCUBE, sharing with us what you've accomplished and how you're expanding your Coupa partnership into helping other companies. >> Great. Thank you again for having me today. >> My pleasure. >> All right. >> For Heidi Banks, I'm Lisa Martin and you're watching theCUBE's coverage of COUPA INSPIRE 2022 from Las Vegas. Stick around my next guest joins me momentarily. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Hey guys and girls. Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Coupa Inspire 2022, from the Cosmopolitan, in bustling Las Vegas. Lisa Martin here, and as I mentioned, day two of our coverage and fresh from the main stage, Raja Hammoud joins me, the Executive Vice President of products at Coupa. Raja, welcome back to theCUBE and happy 10th anniversary at Coupa. >> Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, and welcome back to Inspire. >> Thank you. It's so great- >> We're so happy you're here. >> It's great to be here. So you're just about coming up on your 10 anniversary with Coupa. You showed some great photos of your time there but you've seen, you've lived the evolution that is this rocket ship that's Coupa. >> Raja: It's been incredible journey. I really couldn't believe at first it's been 10. This is the longest I've ever been anywhere. And I honestly feel more refreshed and excited than even when I joined back in the day 10 years ago. And so much has changed, but also so much has not. >> Lisa: Yeah. >> The size of course. We were like 60 people when I joined, the product development team was one person in, in a product, roughly 12 engineers, and fast forward to the scale that's today, it's phenomenal difference. But what has not changed is the, the core values, how, the hustle, how people love working with each other, how we support customers, how we keep stepping up our game how we believe none of us is as smart as all of us, and the community keeps getting stronger and stronger. It's been, it's been really exciting journey. >> The theme of none of us is as smarter as all of us, I'm not sure if I got that right, but the idea is you feel that when you're talking to Coupa partners, I've had the opportunity to talk with Coupa partners and customers and Coupa folks that, that is not just a value statement, people are living that. >> Raja: Yeah. It's, it's everywhere. In the, in the company walls, outside the company walls, you often see product people in different organizations where, they start living in an ivory tower, they think they know everything, I mean, back to what we were discussing earlier about Barbara, when she talked about, get out of your doors, right? A lot of people can tend to do that. We always, from the beginning, believed in the best ideas are out there and you collaborate with each other. And I truly, truly believe that the success that we have achieved today to our community is in a large, large part, because we believed in that. So like on Monday, we hosted, I can't keep track of the number now, so, so many in-parallel Community Advisory Board meetings, and just talking to the products managers and everybody is buzzing with new ideas. And when we go back, there's so much new innovation that has just been co-created here in this conference, and this keeps going on and on and on. >> Lisa: Yeah. I like how you call it, the Community Advisory Board. I'm still used to hearing CAB as Customer Advisory Board, but what Coupa has built, especially with the launch of the Moonshot, the, the community AI, is, is just that. >> Yes. >> It's a very collaborative community. One of the things that's around here, hashtags everywhere, but #United by the Power of Spend. >> Yes. >> What does that mean to you as the EVP of products, and what do you think that means to the community? >> When I think... What we are doing, we're building this platform that is powering all these businesses out there. And the reality of it is you can only, only do so much when you try to do things alone. When we are doing things together, we are way more successful, we are more profitable, we are more sustainable, we are more efficient. And community.ai from a technology standpoint, is making that happen, because what we are doing is taking AI, applying it to all this 3.3 trillion in data, and then bringing back prescriptions that we give back to each and every customer so that everybody can see where they are, how they up their games, and we connect them with other people like them. Now, people love coming to conferences like this, but even in conferences like this, if you think about it, the people you're going to meet, it's, some people are going to do matchmaking but you are also losing an opportunities of meeting the maximum number of people who've done exactly the thing that you did. But when you have the ability to look at all of that data and you can match make people. So we did that already with, for sourcing professionals. So if you are somebody who source a certain category, we can tell somebody else has done something like this in this geography and we offer you to connect to each other. >> Lisa: Wow. >> So this is incredibly powerful way where we are really uniting the whole community by spend, making everybody truly stronger together. >> Lisa: Matchmaker in, in a sense. >> It is matchmaking. >> But it's, but it's- >> It's Spend matchmaking. >> Spend matchmaking, but it's also the opportunity to unite professionals across sourcing, procurement- >> Raja: Yes. >> ... finance, treasury. >> Raja: Yes. >> To your point, and, and Rob said this in his keynote, and he said it here on theCUBE, you know, we've got to break down these silos. >> Raja: Yes. >> People and companies functioning in silos are not going to be successful. >> Raja: Yes. This has been one of the, probably one of the things that we were talking earlier, what has changed, what hasn't. This is one of the fundamental things that has never changed since I've joined. The vision has been very clear. The execution on it, of how we drive successful business spend management program is by breaking down the silos and this idea of sweet synergy, where in product, you start building these capabilities that helps these professionals in the different organizations to actually connect on the touch points, where, where things really matter. >> Lisa: Sweet synergy, was that thing from a concept perspective, did that come from the community, in terms of Coupa going, this is actually what's happening, this synergy across the BSM suite? >> Yes. So in the very beginning, it was early idea. I would say in the first two Inspires that we did, we hadn't given it actually the name itself, and we used to call it unified capabilities, and it started with the first silos we broke down. The first silos we broke down were procurement and AP. And they didn't even used to talk in the same room or even want to care about each other. So we started building so many capabilities that brought these teams together and little by little the community started to feel that and see the value of that. And then the community started to ask us to go break down more silos. So in the beginning, I would say the, the vision before I even joined, the company was on that trajectory. And the early customers saw that and they championed it and then they drove us to do more. So they came to us and said could you please do what you did here in contract? Could you please do what you did here in sourcing? And I was in a meeting last week, a leadership meeting, and one question was asked to leaders in the services team about what are they hearing about, from the customers, about a particular area. And it was music to our ears when we heard the customers are asking for more synergy, right? So, they even have the name for it and they're asking for more and more, and we have built hundreds of these already, but the reality is there is so much opportunity. >> Lisa: Right. >> The world is siloed, no technology has attempted to do that. And I think that's what's a exciting is to go and forge new grounds and do something very special to unite everyone together. >> You guys talked about the waves. Rob talked about the waves yesterday. You talked about it again this morning. And when I think of Inspired community, as that third wave, I see it on both sides. I see the Inspired community that is the Coupa community, but also what you just talked about, that flywheel of that sort of symbiotic relationship that you guys have with your customers as Coupa in and of itself being in a community inspired by the community that it has built. >> Raja: Yes, it's, it's very, very, it's a circular effect. Like it, we inspire one another, and we strengthen one another, and it's, it's just a beautiful, beautiful thing. One of the special things that we are starting to do is we want to take the whole product experience itself, to be a complete community experience. So anywhere you are going to Coupa, when it makes sense, of course, you are not only looking at your data, you are getting connected with people for that particular thing. So we've done that already for 15 different product areas and we're constantly doing more and more and more and more. You can imagine one day we can, where we can start within the product pages themselves, where we host community experts to talk via video and connect with others. So you bring that whole community experience alive in a product in enterprise software, which has not been done. >> Kind of like creating your own influencer network. >> Yes, yes, yes. And give people their voice and, and, and it becomes exciting. It is very different when you're just working on your own and driving goals, and you have no idea how good that can pass on the world. And then when right then and there, you get to learn that some people have hit that, some people have achieved these goals, you just get excited, "I want to hit that goal too. Who are these people? Connect me with these leaders. Let's have a conversation. How did they do it?" And they start creating best practices together. We even have started places where they collaborate on actual documents and templates, and they put them in the community exchange as a way for people to share with others, even taking templates from the product putting them back into a community exchange. So it is sharing, being enabled on the platform, platform itself. >> Lisa: How did you guys function during the pandemic, the last two years when we couldn't get together? >> Raja: Yeah. >> I know that your customers are really the lifeblood of Coupa and vice versa. >> Raja: Yes. >> But talk to me about some of the things that Coupa did with its customers, you know, by video conferencing, for example, that really helped the evolution and some of the innovations that you announced this morning. >> When we first... when the pandemic first hit I think like we all didn't believe what, what is going on. And there was this, I would call it a beautiful period in a way, despite how horrific that was, and that period was where everyone rose to the occasion, everybody wanted to help one another. Across Coupa everywhere, we started having documents of how can step up and help our customers, help our communities. We started to look at how we get PPE, and get it in the hands of our customers. We have access to suppliers. We started looking at helping suppliers with digital payments to speed things up. So, so many things we started doing as a community to just help each other. And then as we got to the next level, then we started, of course, starting to do things over, over zoom. And the big surprise, was we were incredibly productive. If anything, we were worried about people feeling burnt out. >> Yeah. >> Because they were just in it, completely in it. And it created a lot of new avenues for us because often you go and do these meetings in person. Now you could have a user experience session with a customer very easily, they're available more often than they used to. >> Lisa: Right. >> So we did not miss a beat with the community. We moved into virtual caps. We had the advantage of having them recorded as well, where we could have the global development teams learn and see exactly what the, what the customers are are co-creating together. And our goal lives accelerated, because a lot of these implementations, they used to happen in person, so schedules, they actually got accelerated- >> Lisa: Right. >> ...through that. Now of course, there is nothing that matches to this. You can do it, you can do a lot, but a ton of the collaboration comes from real life dialogue and kind of conversation. So it's that balance between the two that I think will be great. >> Lisa: What are some of the things that you've heard the last few days? You mentioned the Partners Summit and, and the Community Advisory Boards on Monday, yesterday, everything kicked off today. What are some of the things that you've heard in your meetings that really inspire you on say the next 10 years at Coupa? >> Raja: By far, by far, by far, it's a validation of, that what we are doing is, we're absolutely on target with it, and that, we just can do so much more. The silos are massive and there are so so many opportunities that you hear in every different areas that we could be doing this, we could be doing this together. So we can break down more and more silos. And using community.ai is just the tip of the iceberg of what we are, what we are doing. Yes, we created tens and tens of capabilities, helping, helping the community with all of that, but data drives everything. And when you look at that, every single process in every single silo can be informed by the power of data within your own company, and then even better, data across. And, and to the point where we're talking about concepts that customers are really excited about, even thinking about this community, they're customers of each other. And when you are a customer of each other what are the different ways as a community, you can help one another more. So we're talking about community netting as new types of concepts. >> Lisa: Talk to me a little about that. You mentioned the community netting this morning but I didn't quite... Help me understand. >> Raja: It is very simple terms is if, if we are buying from each other and we have to do money movements every time I have to pay you, I have to incur fees and likewise, but since we are part of this community we can manage that relationship. So we just pay the Delta, we net it out. So it, it saves reconciliation times it saves money movement. And these are tip of the icebergs of these very cool things that we're doing together. >> Wow. That's fantastic. Last question for you, as you talk with prospects who are in the early stages, or, or still determining, do we go through like a supply chain digital transformation? I mean, I think of companies that probably haven't now or need to get on the bandwagon. >> Raja: Yeah. >> What are some of the things that you advise to those customers to be able to do what Mick Ebeling talked about this morning and that is, commit and then figure it out? >> Raja: Yes. The number one thing is just make sure you don't do the analysis paralysis. There are just so many opportunities so many opportunities start with a project, get going, and it creates incredible momentum, and then you can move on from one to another, to another, to another, instead of trying to just go for a year or two, trying to look at how the world has changed in that process. And so often you could see that projects pay for themselves within the first month of go life. You do that, you'll create another one. And it's not like you are coming in to do something so new nobody has done. Hundreds and hundreds and thousands as a matter of fact, of other community members have done that. It is proven. So get started with those and then continue. Other things I will be talking to them about is to make sure that they understand the way we work is all about partnerships spread. Often people who haven't worked with us in the enterprise software, they're used to working with vendors. We are not that. We never were that. Like the number one, if we're not going to be real partners, honest, transparent and work with each other, we don't waste each other's time. >> Lisa: Well, Raja, it's been great having you on the program. I've really enjoyed your keynote this morning. Congratulations on your 10 years at Coupa. >> Raja: Thank you. >> I'm excited to see what the next 10 years brings for you. We appreciate your insites and everything that Coupa is doing in partnership with its customers is very evident in an event like this. >> Raja: Thank you. And thank you for coming and covering us as well. We really appreciate it. >> Lisa: It's our pleasure to be here. >> Thank you. >> For Raja Hammoud, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's coverage, day two of Coupa Inspire 2022, from Las Vegas. (upbeat music)

>> Livefrom London, England, it's theCUBE, covering .Next Conference Europe 2018. Brought to you by Nutanix. >> Welcome back to London, England. This is theCUBE's exclusive coverage of Nutanix .Next 2018 Europe. My name's Stu Miniman. My cohost for these two days of coverage has been Joep Piscaer. And happy to welcome to the program, two first (mumbles). We're gonna talk about culture and people. To my right is Rukmini Sivaraman, who is the vice president of business operations and chief of staff to the CEO. And sitting next to her is Prabha Krishna, who is the senior vice president of people and places, both of them with Nutanix. Ladies, thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for having us. >> All right so, we've been covering Nutanix for a long time. I've been to every one of the shows. I start out, I guess... Dheeraj talked for a long time about the three Hs. It was humble, hungry, and honest, if I got those right. And more recently, it was with heart. Actually sitting not too far behind us, there's a big booth for heart. So, the culture of the company is something that is tied with the founders. We've watched that growth. I've watched the company go from about 35 people to over 3500 people. So, having those core principles is something that we look at in companies. Why don't we start? If you could both just give quick introduction, what brought you to Nutanix, and what your role is there. >> Sure, I've been at Nutanix a little over 18 months and I started out as an engineer, then went to finance and investment banking of all things, was at Goldman for almost a decade. And Nutanix is a client of Goldman's back form the IPO, and I had heard great things about the company, of course, but wasn't intending to leave Goldman Sachs. But when I got introduced to Dheeraj, there was so much that was compelling about the company, the disruption, the category-defining, category-creating kind of position that the company had. And more importantly, I think, where we were going, which was just phenomenal. it was ambitious, it was bold. And I think for me, it's always been about the people. We spend a lot of time at work and it's really important to feel that connection to the people. And that was really important 'cause I had to pick up and move from New York City to the Bay Area to make this move. And we can talk more about this, but to me the people were, like I said, ambitious, but they were also grounded. And I see it and after being at Nutanix now, it's phenomenal how truly humble the people are and that's always struck me as a great combination. You want ambition and challenging problems to solve, but you also want humility and people that you can relate to. So that's really what got me to Nutanix. >> Please. >> Yeah so, I've actually been following Nutanix for quite a while. It's a company that addresses a space that's very underserved and has created a suite of products that's nothing short of amazing for our customers, entirely focused on our customer base. But for me, the most interesting thing was, it's a company that is as right-brained as it is left-brained. I've actually spent 19 years of my career in engineering and made a career switch into the people side. And it's one of the few companies where that fit is almost perfect. And once I met our founder and our CEO, Dheeraj, this became even more obvious. So. I'm actually very happy to be here. I've been here for about four months now, and it's already very clearly the beginning of a very, very exciting journey. >> Yeah, interesting, both of you kind of making those shifts. Talk a little bit about that, talk about... People from outside of Silicon Valley, always, it's like, "Oh, there's the one where they have the playground "and free meals and free drinks." And it's like, "Yeah, that's because you do the analysis "and if they'll work 18 hours a day, "if we can keep them there, "maybe even put a cot in the office, that's good." I haven't seen cots in the office when I go to Nutanix, but hey are really nice offices. And even on the east coast, we're tartin' to change and see some of those things there. Maybe give us a little bit of insight as to that culture. And Nutanix is much more than just Silicon Valley based now. >> That's right. So we are truly a global organization. And we decided very early on that we wanted to be a global organization, but we're also thinking local. All right, so we do have multiple offices within the US, in Durham and Seattle and other places, but we're also truly global. Our Bangalore office, in India we have a big presence. And so for us what that means is there's people from different perspectives and background. But ultimately, it's our sort of, like you said, the four values, but also our culture principles that we've qualified fairly recently that bind us. And that really help us move forward in the same direction and pointing that same direction, and growing the same way. So that has been a phenomenal to see and it's one that I think we've very deliberately qualified more recently. It's sort of the how, how do we behave that embodies those four values that you talked about. >> So Prabha, so you're a new hire, right? >> Yes. >> You haven't been with Nutanix as much. So while we're talking on the subject, what's your personal experience coming into Nutanix? Is it true what you're talking about? How does it work in real life, in practice? >> No, absolutely. All companies state a culture. All companies, I think, in this day and age at least and definitely in Silicon Valley, are very clear about having a specific culture. But the key, as far as I'm concerned, and the strength of a company is how they live and breathe their culture every single day, in every decision, and every action, right. In every difficult balance that they need to meet, that's where the culture really shows up. And at Nutanix, it is... How shall I put it? It's really the core of every single thing we do. It's the core of how we interact. It's the core of how we grow. It's the core of how we recruit, how we define our organizations. And frankly, I have to say, I have been in a lot of organizations and a lot of organizations over time, actually, and particularly as they reach our size... We're a bit at sort of an inflection point, if you will, in terms of size. Our growth has definitely been very, very quick and continues to accelerate. Having that culture being something that we really live is the most important thing. And it is what will allow us to continue to innovate and continue to succeed all over the globe as Rukmini just explained. For me, it's quite extraordinary to see it in action. >> Yeah, that's really interesting because, one, our industry has some challenges hiring. It's finding the right skillset there. If you match that with a culture, what challenge are there? What are you looking for? What is the fit from the outside to match what you're looking for? >> Yeah, I'm happy to address a little bit. So recruiting for us is everything. We want to bring in the best. We wanna bring in the brightest and we wanna bring in folks who really value our culture and our values, who really understand them. And again, are willing to live them every single day. So we do look for great talent all over the planet because great talent exists all over the planet. This is absolutely fundamental to our growth. We are an infrastructure company and we offer, actually, very interesting work for anyone who is interested in the engineering side, who is interested in the sales side, who's interested in market. And for me, the most interesting part in the roles we have, and frankly the most unusual piece if you will, is we offer opportunities to build things from scratch. So, the creative side, the creative mind is really what we encourage. And it shows up in every single aspect of the way we're structured. So, the diversity of thought, the diversity of background, the diversity of... Whether it's gender or location, philosophies, and all of that, is really what we want to bring in and what will allow us to continue to create these products that are quite unique. >> If I may add to that, we talk internally a lot about the founder's mentality. It's a concept, a framework that was developed by Bain & Company and the gist of it is as follows: When you think about great disruptive startups, they're on this rocket ship, accelerating growth. And then they get to a certain size, so they become a little bigger. And they get enjoy the benefits of scale, economies of scale, and that's a good thing. But the best companies take that and then they enjoy those benefits, but they then also don't lose what got them there in the first place, which is the innovation, the ability to disrupt and look around corners, and all of that. So we want the best of both worlds. And in this framework, it's called a scaled insurgent. So you're scaled, but you're still an insurgency. And that is important to us. Folks that can sort of balance the two, really make sure that we are benefiting from one, but also not losing sight of the other. And it's a paradox in many ways and we believe in embracing those paradoxes. And folks who can sort of balance those two would be really a great fit. >> And so, if you're growing that fast, I can imagine that keeping the balance between culture and engineering, and you're growing, that's difficult. How does Nutanix handle that paradox? >> I think it goes back to what Prabha was saying. And for us, culture and the way we behave is like oxygen. So it almost fuels the fire as opposed to the other way around or having to do two things at once. And that's how we've thought about it. And the principles, when we thought about them and conceived them, it was the same idea, which is how can this just be the way we conduct ourselves we treat our customers, we treat each other, we treat our partners? How can it just become the way we do business? And so far, that's worked well for us. >> So one of my favorite culture principles, actually, is comfortable being uncomfortable. And there's a real reason that because given our scale, given the way we wanna grow, and given the fact that we want to preserve that innovative seed at every step, for us, every single day is about balancing opposing forces. Do we invest in the short term? Do we invest in the long term? Do we manage locally? Do we manage more globally? Do we centralize things, do we not? Do we distribute, right? Every single day is about balancing those kinds of things and it's that balance that encourages the creativity in every single one of us. So, the very fact that we've sort of embodied that in a culture principle, really is a very strong indication of what we look for and what we wanna be. >> Right, with the time that we have left, I wondering if you could talk about both at the show and beyond the show, what things Nutanix is doing. Think tech for good, think about the charitable things. Some of speakers I've seen at these shows... Mick Ebeling is one that stood out from a previous show. On talking about tech for good, Dr. Jane Goodall, who I know spoke at a women's lunch event and in the keynote here today, is just so inspiring. As someone that loves science and animals, it was very powerful. You've got the .heart initiatives here. Maybe help for those that don't know here and what else you're doing around the globe and around the year. >> Did you wanna go first? >> Yeah, so giving back is very important for us. It's very fundamental. Gratitude, understanding where we all came from, where we are, and where we wanna go, and not losing ourselves, that's really the key of, I think, any type of success, frankly. So we have an organization around that. It's a very active organization, we all participate. And the company is very much involved in as many different types of charities as possible. It also feeds into the kinds of sourcing that we do when every bring people in. We look for folks who care. We care very much about our people. The amount of attention and the amount of just knowledge and thought that goes into structuring our organization is very much reflective of that sense of giving back and gratitude as well. Our employees are everything and the folks around us who are in need are also everything. It sort of goes together, if you will. So basically to us, it's a hugely, hugely important effort and we'll continue investing in those kinds of things as we go forward. >> I think one thing I would add is as you saw at the end of the closing keynote, I think we announced or shared that thanks to everyone here, really all the folks here, our customers, partners, all of our participants, we were able to collect over 10,000 pounds for .heart and that is phenomenal. We're forever grateful to our community to be able to do things like that. We also partner with organizations like Girls in Tech, which is doing great work on making sure that we are bringing all kinds of talent, as Prabha said, to the table. We believe there's great people everywhere. And so, how do we harness the power of all of those initiatives? >> All right, those are some great examples. And Prabha, to your point, I think that that individual touch to your employees, that also translates to the customer side. Something I hear from Nutanix customers is despite the fact how large you've grown and how many customers you have, they feel that they get that individual attention. So thank you so much for sharing all of the updates. Wish you both the best of luck in your continued journey. And we wanna thank our community, of course, for tuning in to our coverage. It is truly our pleasure to help document what's happening out in the industry, hopefully be a surrogate for you, to ask the questions that you wanna hear and help you along your journeys. My name's Stu Miniman. My first European cohost who also did a segment in Dutch, Joep Piscaer, Can you goodbye in Dutch for us, Joep? >> (Dutch). >> All right, I'll have to learn that one some time because, unfortunately, my english and speaking numbers in a couple of different languages is where I'm a little bit limited. But once again, thanks for watching. Turn to thecube.net to catch all of the replays from this show as well as all the shows that we will be at. Including, next year, Nutanix will be at Anaheim and the spring and Copenhagen in the fall. And our team look forward to bringing you coverage from both of those. So once again, thank you for watching theCUBE. >> Thank you. (slick electronic music) >> Hi, I'm John Wallis. I've been with theCUBE for a couple years serving as a host here on our broadcast, our flagship broadcast on SiliconANGLE TV. I like to think about the hows and the whys, and the whats of technology. How's it work? Why does it matter? What is it doing for end users? 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