>> Announcer: From the SiliconANGLE Media Office in Boston, Massachusetts it's theCUBE. Now, here's your host, Stu Miniman. >> Hi, I'm Stu Miniman and after many travels around the globe with theCUBE, really happy to be back in the Boston area studio, and happy to welcome to the program first time guest and first time we've had OpenLink on the program, Rich Grossi who's the CEO. Coming up from Long Island, appreciate you joining me up here and looking forward to discussing with you. >> Understood. >> So, first OpenLink, as I said, company, first time we've had on theCUBE. Why don't you give the audience a little bit of background, how long the company's been existing and what the focus is. >> Well, we're celebrating this year our 25th anniversary. So we serve the energy, financial, trading and treasury markets. We're based in Long Island with offices around the world serving about 500 clients or so in those different markets. I'm happy to be here today to talk about some of the innovation that we have going on. >> Great. Before we get into the OpenLink, Rich, give us a little bit about your background. You've been with OpenLink for a good part of the journey. >> I have. I've been with the company for 21 years in a variety of different roles. I've spent some time in operations, in development. Prior to the CEO position I spent some time in operations and prior to this role I was the CTO of the company. >> Okay, well congrats on the new role, Rich. So tell me, what is OpenLink today? You talked about kind of the industries you focus on. How do you fit in the markets today? >> So we are the market leader for the categories I mentioned. So we'll play in the energy and the commodity space. I will plan the financial services, banking, treasury space. We're well-known for our risk management capabilities and we serve top-tier clients in all those markets around the globe. >> Yeah, Rich, it's interesting. I think there's not a single segment in the market that's not going through some significant change. Disruption is on everyone's mind. What's changing for your customers and how is OpenLink really kind of adjusting to meet those needs? >> Yeah, it's always been a high degree of sensitivity towards risk. That's been our strong point as a company for a long time, and we serve the clients through kind of advanced analytics that provide them with that capability. But more frequently, we're seeing total cost of ownership driving a lot of the decisions made by our clients, right. So in markets that have some head wounds coming in and just kind of steady-state markets, looking for how to use technology to benefit them but also reduce the total cost of ownership. >> Okay, and so explain what that means. You say things like risk, things like analytics, you know, data, super important to all customers. How do we make sure they have the right data, how do they make sure that they're not getting a tax on what they have. Where does OpenLink help their-- what do the products look like? >> Yes, I mean, so we have a pretty advanced trading and risk-management platform. We also provide treasury and cash management solutions. And in those spaces what we're doing is we're providing our clients with the ability to manage their risk, manage their positions, take a peek ahead to see what's coming in the markets. Do sensitivity analysis to ensure that as they trade and as they train dex, and to your point, as they manage to the logistics. It's all done with a system capture from front to back, and it's all done with a view towards the risk of the application and a risk of the markets that they're in. >> Okay, you had a recent launch that was OpenCloud. Maybe explain what that is, how that fits with the broader discussion of Cloud. >> Sure, OpenLink's been in the private Cloudspace now for about 11 years. So this was our hosting application. And through those years, we built up the technology to support more of the, kind of, online, so predominantly we're a perpetual-based company, on-prem. And now our clients are looking for a little bit more ownership. A little bit more security. And they're looking for that single vendor to manage their applications within the could. So there's a big transformation in our markets where many of our large tier one energy financial services clients are looking for that reduction of total cost, and they're looking for OpenLink to be the provider that can offer them that service within the could environments. >> Okay, so is this a SAS offering? Is it living on some of the public Clouds? Help us, kind of, get our weeds a little bit. You're a former CTO. >> Sure, so, I mean, it's a similar technology to what we've built over the years. So, we're still managing scaleability and performance. We still have created security in the application. Still managing a lot of the monitoring and logging in application security within that. But it is in the Microsoft Azure environment, so we're working with Microsoft, partnered with them to build up a Cloud environment for our customers, such as they can manage this remotely as you would in any Cloud environment, and then provide all the advantages of Microsoft Azure on top of the technology that OpenLinks built over time. >> Okay, so it sounds, you know, similar to what you were doing before, but a lot of changes. How organizationally do you have to change for this, and maybe walk us through a customer, why would they choose one versus the other? What are the big advantages of the new way? >> Sure, so organizationally, we do have Cloud-dedicated teams now, right? So a lot of knowledge required to take your product, not only Cloud-enable it, but make it feature functionality-rich for the clients within the could. So we've built Cloud operations teams, we built SOx and NOx. We leverage our employee base around the world. We put a lot of technology advantages into the new software that is Cloud enabled. So, things like performance is just a big topic for us. So, allowing our clients to drive greater performance through scaleability and dynamic scaleability within the could. That's a big advantage to our clients. >> Yeah, you think back a couple of years ago if you talked about Microsoft and Google, and the Amazons of the world, it's like, 'Well, I'm worried about the security, the government is challenging.' I was just at one of the bigger Cloud shows and they said security is actually opportunity. You get to kind of get a re-do on security. Government seems to be something that we're sort of doing-- what's your customer's experiences? Is there still hesitancy, or are people, you know, kind of jumping in the waters nice? >> Well, I think there's still the question, and I think it's changing very rapidly for our client base. So, a couple years ago our clients were interested in the could but not necessarily moving to the could. And I think you're absolutely right in the sense that some of them were concerned about the security of their trading data being out in something like Microsoft Azure. Many of them recognize today that the security benefits of a Microsoft Azure, as an example, could be far greater than what they're doing in-house today. And as you look at the technology of OpenLink we've built layers of security on top of everything we used to have within the core application, encryption and the like. And now using some of the key vault technologies and some of the scaleability technologies of Microsoft Azure, we feel like we're able to provide a higher level of security than they even have on-prem using the could up close. >> Yeah, one of the other big advantages if you plug into, kind of, that ecosystem and platform of the public Cloud, what opportunities there-- Microsoft, you think of, like, you know, active directory, all of the business functionality. What do you gain today and maybe give us a little roadmap as to what this looks like down the road? >> Yeah, so our clients are looking for a handful of things. So they're looking for that reductioning of ownership. We've been able to save them on average about 30 per cent, just coming from them their on-prem or their data centers today. They're also looking for that single source of support. So today, we're working with their network engineers and they're DBAs. In the could version we're able to provide them with those same services, coupled with our support applications so that we're providing single line of visibility into their overall trading and risk-management application. And they're also looking for performances, I mentioned before, and security. So with the could application, we're not only able to provide them with the feature functionality of our application, but also the could technology that sits around it. >> One of the other things if you look at, kind of managing the environment versus going to the public Cloud, usually the public Cloud, you know the joke I have is: What version of Azure are you running on? Well, Microsoft takes care of it. A similar thing in your environment? >> Very similar. So, the ability to upgrade, the ability to leverage the scaleability of Microsoft Azure, the new technology coming out in Microsoft Azure. All the could feature functionality, that all comes with it for free. And to your point, providing our clients with a manage service so that we can manage not only their day-to-day environment, but we can also manage the infrastructure and the business needs that they have in using our application. So, all that combined has provided our clients with a great leg up in terms of how they use our software and how they manage it moving forward. >> Yeah, I'm curious: do the customers have to choose one over the other? The on-prem or the could? Do you have some customers that may be migrating, being to the Hybrid Multi-Cloud is kind of a big issue for a lot of customers these days. >> Yeah. So we have a large number of clients today that are still on-prem, and they're probably staying on-prem for awhile. But the evolution of the could as it relates to our client-base is quite rapid. So, a couple years ago we would talk to our clients and they were interested. Last year we announced our proof of concept coming and what we were building. We launched our public Cloud just in quarter three of this year. And the feedback from our client-base was dramatic. So now they're all looking to migrate over. We respond to ROPs quite often and I would estimate maybe about nine per cent of those coming have some interest in the public cloud moving forward. >> Okay, Rich, what do you want your clients to really know about OpenLink? And, the two pieces, just kind of today, and if they knew OpenLink, say, five years ago. You know, what's the big change? >> Yeah, well I think, well we have a tagline that says we like to solve the complex, right? And make it simple. You'll see many of our clients, the bigger names, avengers that are out there using our software to solve really complicated problems, right? So our software is pretty configurable and also addresses some of the larger challenges that we have within the spaces that OpenLink sits in. So, our clients are well-known in that area, and OpenLink is well-known in there, and our ability to solve those problems. When you take that, and you take the total cost of ownership, and you take the public Cloud capabilities and you build all that technology that we've advanced over the past, you know, 25 years, it's a pretty compelling application and company that we work for. >> Alright, well, Rich, appreciate the updates on everything happening at OpenLink. Wish you the best of luck with the could offering. We'll be back with more coverage here. Always check out thecube.net for all the coverage, and thanks for watching this, theCUBE. (upbeat techno music)

>> Narrator: From the SiliconANGLE Media Office in Boston, Massachusetts, it's theCUBE. Now, here's your host, Stu Miniman. >> Hi, I'm Stu Miniman, and this is theCUBE's Boston area studio. Happy to welcome back to the program a guest we've had on a number of times but first time in the role, Nancy Pearson, now the CMO of Openlink. Nancy, thanks for joining us here in the office, and great to see you. >> Great to see you, Stu. >> Alright, so we've had you on in your previous role at a number of big events. Tell us, what led you to Openlink? >> Well, I was really attracted to Openlink because of the position that they hold in the market in terms of being the leader of trading treasury and risk management across multiple industries. And I also took a look at their clients, and they have a pretty impressive client roster, companies and businesses that are really instrumental to the industry, and I wanted to have an impact in that kind of environment, so that's why I looked at Openlink. >> Yeah, Nancy, your whole career, you've been looking at, there's so much change happening in the industry. Digital is more than just a buzzword. What are you seeing today in your clients here at Openlink? >> Yeah, what I see, and going from a large enterprise environment where people jumped on the digital bandwagon fairly early, in many other industries, it's been a little bit of a struggle to understand, what does that really mean for our business? And one of the first things I noticed about coming to Openlink is they really weren't on the digital network. They were doing events, very heavily into email, et cetera, that type of marketing, but it was really important to get them on the digital platform. So that's digital advertising, and to really think about a digital first data driven campaign type approach for demand generation as well. >> And what does digital mean for your customers? >> Well it's really important to them as well. They're modernizing their business. Digital is disrupting their business. So on the side of their health, they have to actually embrace it and understand, what does that mean for my business? What do I need to put in place to be more visible? To understand the new game of engaging the clients in a digital format? I mean, 70% of clients and prospects actually do the investigatory work to actually understand which vendors they're going to be partnering with before they ever actually reach out to that client. So it's really important that you have a very strong website, and that was one of the first things that we started with at Openlink. >> What kind of things do you change to the website to make it more modern, more digital? >> Well we completely redesigned the website from the bottom up. So a new content management system, a totally new designed website with engagement, everything from thought leadership down to rethinking how we actually presented our products, as well as adding personalization. So you're able to really find what you want by your role, by industry, and by even deeper subject matter expertise and areas of focus. >> What's the mindset of your customers? I think a couple years it ago, it was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to get Netflixed. "I'm going to get disrupted by digital." Is this now a weapon or an opportunity for them, or is it still a mix? >> No, it's definitely an opportunity, because digital levels the playing field for companies. So, it doesn't matter the size of the business, the complexity of the business. The winner is the person that at the end of the day can engage clients through their digital website, and also through Google, through LinkedIn, through all the different mechanisms today where you can engage with personalization. You can see and understand what your clients' needs are, and whoever serves that best is going to be the winner at the end of the day, which is why I say digital really helps create a level playing field. But you have to know how to use the tools. >> Love to hear more about what are your customers doing? How's Openlink helped them? >> So for example, one of the big questions right up front is usually, "How important is digital and social media?" And a lot of large enterprise clients struggle with that. The ones that have learned to use it as a tool really well and targeted can extend their reach triple-fold out in the market, and really get their story out in a way they couldn't previously. So digital and social media is one thing related to awareness and your share voice in the market. But your website, how you design that website through a client journey is really what makes all the difference. It turns opportunity into demand and leads and helps clients take action along the way. So a combination of being on the digital network, having a very strong website, and then modernizing the rest of your marketing tools for personalization. >> Any examples you can give kind of anonymized from your clients? I think most people know the big consumer brand, retail, how they interact. I know I travel a lot and see how the airlines are super responsive, but you've got some pretty specific industries. >> It's true, and we do some very highly targeted marketing. So, for example, knowing where our clients go to get their information. Knowing how to mirror that type of content through even third-party and how we build content on our own website to attract them and have them coming back for more is really the intricacies of how you actually build engagement and how you convert that engagement to leads, annuity. And then client references, story telling. So we really turned our content from pushing out content to telling stories. You'll see that everywhere. You'll see a lot of the very sophisticated players using storytelling. A lot of commercials today are storytelling mode, but we can do that within business, and it's the most powerful marketing you can create. >> Yeah, we in theCUBE, we always talk about extracting the signal from the noise, and you've got to be more personalized. You've got to tell those stories. Otherwise it just becomes noise, and it's tough for people to find something that captures them, and that they're going to want to glom on to. >> And learn from, frankly. >> That's great. Nancy, CMO role, have to imagine it's gone through a lot of changes recently. What are you seeing? Is there various types of roles as CMO? What are you seeing as some of the major changes there? >> I think the CMO role's changed a lot in the last five to seven years. And in particular, it's no longer a push mechanism of your message out into the market. It's establishing that relationship with clients, doing it through your website, doing it where they go on digital and social media. And the message is really important. What is your specific differentiation, and how does that help clients solve their business problems? So for Openlink, we did an effort right up front that really talked about understanding the purpose that we have within our client environments, defining three core messages, that we help clients establish and create a single source of the truth. For risk, and in their business for trading treasury and risk. We also help them solve complex business problems, and we bring expertise that they really can't get otherwise, because Openlink is a very unique solution. It's the leader. A platform that's really extensible across their enterprise for medium-sized businesses to large-sized businesses. So getting that message out and being very specific about it with detail is an important part of getting the value to your clients. >> There's a tough dynamic of, we have the data, but how do I make sure I'm securing that data? The governance risk. A lot of shows this year, GDPR's been a topic that's been popping to make sure that if I've got that data, I need to make sure, oh, if a customer comes to me I can make sure that that's being used in the right ways, not being used into. How's the changing landscape affecting your customers? >> Well, I think data is the new commodity, right. A new economy is being built from data and how you utilize it. So for Openlink, we have a platform that for, whether it's energy companies, airlines, these large enterprises that are data-rich, data-intensive environments, we have a huge opportunity to help them get more value from their data, and creating a single view of that data across the silos of their business gives them the visibility and insight to be able to innovate. And innovation is the name of the game for our clients. Things like getting into cloud, monetizing data and creating new services for different revenue streams. There's a tremendous amount of opportunity, and that's really in the sweet spot of this business. >> Openlink cloud is a new announcement that you had out. >> Nancy: It is. >> How does that impact how you reach your customers, how you market to your customers? >> Well, first of all, we've had a tremendous amount of uptake from the cork lines that we have to move to cloud, and so it's created a lot of opportunity for us. Everyone is needing to modernize and reduce their reliance on cost related to infrastructure, and cloud is in innovation platform. So in our business, this is our innovation platform, and they can build on top of that once they move to that type of an environment and realize some of those cost benefits. The future is innovation as it relates to our Openlink cloud, and we're really excited and really positive about the interest from our clients. And everyone needs to innovate today. Your point up front about disruption, you're either being disrupted or you're disrupting your industry. Those are the choices you have to make today. >> Yeah, right. Do you want to set the menu or be on the menu? (laughter) >> Nancy: Exactly. >> Nancy, you talked about the website. What other changes have you been making to Openlink so far? And love to hear what's on your plate for the next six to 12 months. >> Well, right up front the objective was to make marketing a strategic partner to the CEO and to the leadership. And so we're continuing on that journey. So we rebranded the business and really modernized our logo; as I mentioned, grounded back our message around differentiators from a client perspective, and really being in touch with that; created a foundational website that's best of breed and leading edge; and now what I want to do going into 2018 is really just build on top of that. So how do we create demand? How do we provide more thought leadership and build content in a way that's meaningful to the industry and to our clients to help them increase their own proficiency in the spaces that we serve? And be able to help make them successful as well. >> All right, talk about leveling the playing field, whether you're a hundred year old company, a 25 year old company or a six month old company, what does it mean in today's market? >> It means that you can compete. It means that you can have the same voice, and you don't have to have the same budget. You don't have to have the same sized business. But if you know how to use the tools today, and you know how to create incredible content, you can have an equal voice. >> Nancy Pearson, CMO of Openlink. Great to catch up with you. Thanks so much for sharing with us all the updates. We look forward to tracking the progress of you and Openlink. Thanks so much for watching. I'm Stu Miniman. You're watching theCUBE. (electronic music)