>> Live from Las Vegas It's theCUBE covering the AWS Accenture Executive Summit. Brought to you by Accenture. >> Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage of the AWS Executive Summit here at the Venetian in Las Vegas. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. We have two guests for this segment. We have Mike Moore, Senior Principal at Accenture Research, and Andrew Wilson, Chief Information Officer at Accenture. Thank you both so much for returning to theCUBE. >> Good to see you as ever, Rebecca, and to be back in Las Vegas as well. >> Exactly, back in Sin City, right, here we are. So our topic is innovation. A buzzword that is so buzzy it's almost boring. Let's start the conversation with just defining innovation. What does innovation mean? >> An objective, a behavior, a way of working. To me, innovation is what we need to do with modern technology to enable the enterprise and the business world and be creative humans and to use disciplines which we didn't typically bring to work before. >> And is it creativity, or is there sort of logic and rationale too? >> I think there's logic and rationale. But there's also entertainment, fun, modern consumer-like experimentation, risk-taking, things of that nature. >> I think that a big key is actually striking a balance between creativity and logic and rationale and that's the really tricky bit, because you need to give your employees the license to be creative but within a certain set of boundaries as well. >> The rules of work have definitely changed, and behaviors that we encourage, even the clothes we wear, how we work, when we work, those are all characteristic of a more innovative, accepting diverse world, and a world that can keep up with the modern technology and the advancements and the announcements like we're hearing about here at re:Invent. >> It's the ultimate right brain, left brain behavior and activity. So Mike, you've done some research recently about the hallmarks of innovative companies, what they do differently from the ones that are not innovative, that are failing here, so tell our viewers a little bit about what you've found in your research. >> We surveyed 840 executives from a variety of different companies, different industries, different geographies, to understand their approach to innovation, and those who were doing it particularly well, and those maybe not so well. And around about 14 percent of our respondents were turning their investments in innovation into accelerated growth, and there were lots of different reasons for their success but three things really stood out. So first of all their outcome lacked in terms of the way they approach innovation, so they put a clear set of processes around their innovation activities, and then linked those to operational and financial performance metrics. They're also disruption minded, so they're not just pursuing incremental tweaks to their products and services, but their investing in disruptive technologies that could actually create entirely new markets. And then finally they're change orientated. They're not just using innovation to change their products and services, but also to fundamentally change the nature of their own organizations as a whole. >> So 14 percent are knocking it out of the park. Does that mean the rest of them are all laggards or are sort of some in the middle? What is the state of innovation in industry today, would you say, Andrew? >> I would say it's hugely variable by industry, geography, type of company, and individual instance of leader and culture, but I am sure that the most successful companies, those that are pivoting to the new, those that are imaginative, those that have recently arrived, all have that DNA that we're describing, all have that way of working, all have that ability to operate cleverly, intelligently, humorously, and at speed. I think innovation is very much characterized by something that can be fast-failed, do, step, move sideways, do again. The way of working has changed in modern enterprises. We as CIO's have to accept that. We have to speed up. We have to create the environment in where that productivity, where that creation can occur, and I think all of that's key. >> You keep mentioning this, the way of working has changed, and I think we all sort of know what you mean but explain a little bit what you're seeing. >> Experimentation, the ability to get more done with the resources that you have. So here we are at AWS re:Invent, cloud-based operations. Cloud gives you, gives me as a CIO the means to do more, more quickly, more rapidly, on a greater scale, in more places that I ever could have imagined in my old old-fashioned data senses. So the services we can consume, the data we can connect together, the artificial intelligence we can bring to it, the consumer-like experience. All of those things, which by the way, are drawing on innovative behaviors in their own right, are absolutely what the game is about now. >> How does AWS figure into your cloud transformation? >> Well for our cloud transformation at Accenture, AWS is one of the core cloud platform providers who power Accenture. We are nearly 95 percent in cloud. So as an organization that's very pronounced, and typically ahead of most organizations. But we sort of have to be, don't we? I mean, we have to be our own North Star. I can't sit here and explain the virtues of what Accenture can bring to a client's cloud transformation if we haven't already done it to ourselves. And by the way, that drew on innovative approaches, risk-taking approaches because over the last three years we've moved Accenture to the cloud. >> So I love how you said it, we are our own North Star, and other people would say we eat our own dog food, I mean that's just kind of more gross, but in terms of having experienced this transformation yourselves, how do you use what you've learned to help your companies transform as well? And make these moves, take these risks, what would you say to that? >> Well I think we keep an eye on the research with our colleagues there, they're our own North Star. I think we look at the ecosystem, we assess readiness for enterprise, security compliance, scale, availability, and then we also look and say, and what's ready for prime time in terms of Accenture scale, half a million people nearly. You bring all of those things together and it's a recipe, and that's why we consult our business, that's why we guide and educate and experiment and innovate together. And that's very much how we adopted cloud, it's very much how we do a number of other things, and the creative services we have. >> In terms of, let's get back to the research. So how do you, I mean as you said, the research is, as Andrew said, it's something that executive leaders are looking at to figure out what's actually happening in the market as well as what's happening within the organization itself. So how do you set your research agenda in terms of figuring out where you want to focus your time and energy and resources. >> Well I think we do it in a very similar way to in which we consult with clients, we speak to them. We talk to them about some of the key issues that they're facing and we always interview a series of executives and also academics to get their perspective at the start of their project. And that's something that we did in this particular instance and what we heard from many executives was that, to the point that Andrew was making before, the speed and scale of innovation today is happening at a completely different pace than in the past. So product cycle times are just diminishing in every single industry and as a consequence, executives now need to build new innovation units to make sure that they can respond to that changing market. So that's we wanted to explore through the research. >> So in this research, with the 14 percent doing it well, the 86 percent sort of either, somewhere on the spectrum of doing terribly or figuring things out, getting better, what are their pain points, and what's your advice to those companies? >> Well I think, and we take the positive spin on it in terms of what the companies are doing well, one of the points that Andrew was making before was how Accenture works with other partners to become more innovative itself. And that's something that we saw many of the high performing companies doing. So many of them were what we call networks powers. Not just innovating using their own resources, their own people, but their drawing on a broader ecosystem of partners to bring the very best products and services to their customers, and their spending not just on R and D internally but also on accelerators, incubators, technology based M and A, and actually their spending as much on inorganic innovation as they are on organic innovation. >> At Accenture we actually help our clients look for trap value, and what we mean by that is if an organization with a history, with a set of business processes, a set of technologies, and a set of disciplines and employees that have been successful and worked possibly for decades in that model, then they're going to be in some pretty tight guide rails. How do you innovate out of that, to deal with all of the destruction that's now available, good healthy disruption, that actually reveals the next level of efficiency, customer satisfaction, product creativity, and innovation in it's own right, so that's innovation in action, if you like. >> I want to ask, here we are at AWS re:Invent, Andy Jassy on the main stage this morning announcing a dizzying number of new products, services, and AWS, this is Amazon, this is a huge company that really seems to know how to innovate, and do it constantly, but is that is that, can every company be Amazon? You know what I'm saying? I mean, is this really possible and attainable? >> Is such a thing as innovation fatigue perhaps? >> Well, exactly, right! >> My view is that you have to find a way to make innovation a constant and a norm. It doesn't mean that you always will have to operate with the same ridiculous pace, but creativity and pace do go hand in hand to a point, but to be ahead, to stay ahead, and to lead an organization of technologists, who can comprehend all of these announcements, so you have to innovate in both how you lead and operate as well. It's not just your product, it's your behaviors, because there's just so much coming all the time. >> Right, and we've seen a number of large companies, not necessarily technology companies, but I'm thinking of Sears and Toys-R-Us, that have really, you've seen what can happen, the cautionary tales. >> Look at the attrition in the Fortune 500, and you can see how companies have a, a half life now, which perhaps is very different to 20 or 30 years ago. >> Right, right, exactly. Well, Mike and Andrew, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. This was a really fascinating discussion. >> Thanks. >> Thank you, good to see you again. >> I'm Rebecca Knight, stay tuned for more of theCUBE's live coverage of the AWS Executive Summit. (techno music)

(upbeat music) >> Announcer: From the Fairmont Hotel, in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE. Covering, When IoT met AI: The Intelligence of Things. Brought to you by Western Digital. >> Welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're at Downtown San Jose at the Fairmont Hotel at a small little conference, very intimate affair, talking about IoT and AI, The Intelligence of Things. When IoT met AI. Now, they've got a cool little start up, kind of expo hall. We're excited to have our next guest here from that. It's Mike Wilson, he's the CEO of BriteThings. Mike, welcome. >> Good to be here, Jeff, how you doin'? >> Absolutely. So, BriteThings. What are BriteThings? >> BriteThings are intelligent plugs, power strips, wall sockets, anything that fits into the plug load space. It learns users behavior and then provides them an intelligent on-off schedule. The goal here is to turn stuff off when it's on and not being needed. >> Right. >> So wasted energy. Nights and weekends in the workspace, for example. >> It sounds like such a simple thing. >> Totally. >> But we were talking before we turned the cameras on, this actually has giant economic impact >> It does. >> in building maintenance, which is a huge category >> Yup. >> as you said, I'll let you kind of break down the numbers as to where >> Sure. >> that energy's being spent and the impact that you guys are having. >> Well our customers are building owners and operators, and they pay an electrical bill to run that building. It's a cost of running the building. About 27% of it goes to lighting, about 38% goes to heating and cooling, and all the rest goes to plug loads. And where we come to the market it, of course there's huge lighting companies, famous names, same with HVAC, but no one's doing anything about plug loads, and the reason is is because plug loads are distributed, they're hard to control. And so what we bring to the market is a product that is small, inexpensive, and can suddenly give owners and operators all the control that they enjoy with lighting and HVAC over their plug loads. >> So it's kind of like Dest, in that it takes a relatively simple function, now because of the cloud, because of the internet, you can add a lot more intelligence into a relatively, I don't want to say dumb device, but the device itself doesn't have to have that much power 'cause you can put the application somewhere else. >> Exactly, so if you just imagine, you're sitting here with me right now. Probably at your workplace and at home there's a bunch of stuff turned on, you're not using it, >> Right >> but you're spending money to keep it powered up, and that's causing CO2 to be generated at power plant down the road. So that's bad for your pocket, it's bad for the environment. So if we can automatically turn that stuff off, then people don't have to worry about it. We can measure it, so here's where the money is. >> Right. >> Not only energy savings, but data. So I can tell you when you turned your stuff on and off, so that means human presence. When you're at work, there's a value to that. If you're going to put a floor of an office building out there and heat it or light it, we can tell you if people are there or not. So you can look at that and make, and save even more money. >> Jeff: Right. >> We've got one customer that uses our product for inventory management. If it plugs in, you can see it on our screen, and you can see if it's on or off, if it's connected and how it's running. So that kind of data ends up being valuable, not only for energy savings, because we turn stuff on and off, but human presence, inventory control, the list goes on and on. Our customers actually every year are coming up with new ways to use our device. >> Right. And just for the baseline savings, you just basically plug it in and turn it on, and you're reporting some huge savings just by just the basic operation of your strips versus a regular strip. >> Exactly. So just imagine, this device is learning your behavior, so that's part of our, you know, that's kind of our core competency here, is these devices measure the amount of energy you're using. When you're not using something, it goes into standby mode, or sleep mode. Then we turn that off to save you the money. But the way we're able to do that is using artificial intelligence to learn patterns, and take those patterns and you can basically guess the best optimized schedule for your devices to be turned and off. >> Right. >> On and off. So if you imagine you've got 100,000 employees, 100,000 different schedules, this thing has to be smart and it can't affect worker productivity. >> Right. >> So we have to be smart enough to know when to turn it on before you come into work, when to turn it off to save you the max amount of money, and be able to measure all of that so you can roll that up and see how much money you're saving. How much CO2 are you reducing? >> Right. >> You know, so sustainability officers love our product too. >> So do you integrate with other types of intelligent systems in that space? The lightings, and the HVAC? >> Yeah. Exactly. So one of the most important things is, I've got a portfolio, my office building is a portfolio of devices and systems, so just one of them is our plug load management, right? So I want to be able to see my plug load in my current control panel. So we've got APIs where our cloud technology is able to take that reporting and stick it into, for example, a Lucid control panel. We're working with Trane right now to integrate their BACnet solution for their building control management. >> Right, right. >> So that their customers are able to see lighting, HVAC, and plug load, >> Just what I was going to say. >> right off the same old screen and operating tools that they've always used. >> Right, right. What's kind of the typical ROI that you pitch people just for the straight-up money savings that they're going to get? >> We got our foot in the door by saying we can reduce your plug load cost a minimum of 30%, and what we're seeing on average is about 40 to 45%. >> Wow. >> It's a huge huge reduction. >> Now where do you go next? >> Well, conquer the world. (Jeff laughs) You know, so imagine this, anywhere in the commercial office space where there's a plug, so let your mind go, how many power strips are out there? >> Right, right. >> How many of those-- >> We're using about 20 of them right here. >> Yeah, so, just, you know, every person at every desk is a potential customer. Every time there's a coffeemaker or a break room, a fax machine, you know, any piece of equipment that's plugged in, we can save you money. Vending machines. We have a customer with these, you know, raise and lower desks. Crazy, they want to just see, they don't want to save energy, they want to know who's using that and how often. >> Jeff: Right, right. >> Our device can do that, too. >> Right. >> And that's that data I was telling you about. Once you start collecting data of how people use plugged-in devices, I'm collecting information about you, how you use your laptop, how you use your charger, how often. >> Because the signature on the draw is different depending on the activity of the device. >> You got it. Exactly. >> I love this. You know, it's so funny because the second-order impact of all these types of things is so much more significant than people give it credit, I think. >> It's about the data. >> Jeff: Yeah. >> And our customer's just love that, because the data gives them control, and when you have control, cost savings. >> And is it just commercial, or you sell them for regular retail customers as well? Or do you-- >> I imagine some day in the future that's a potential, but you know, our focus right now, 'cause the big problem out there is that buildings use 40% of all the energy generated in the United States, and commercial space is the big opportunity, because nights and weekends. >> Right. >> Stuff should be turned off, and we can do that right now. >> Right, right. >> We're the market doing it. >> Buildings with big, big POs. >> Yup. (Jeff laughs) >> Alright, Michael, sounds like exciting stuff, can't wait til I can get one at Best Buy or Office Depot, or something. >> Coming to a store near you, or www.britethings.com. >> Alright, thanks a lot, he's Mike Wilson. Save some energy, get one of these things when they're available, or at least tell the boss to get one at the office. (Michael laughs) >> Definitely. >> Alright, I'm Jeff Frick, you're watching theCUBE. When IoT meets AI in San Jose, California. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)