>>From around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of IBM think 2021 brought to you by >>IBM. Welcome back to IBM Think 2021. This is the cubes ongoing coverage where we go out to the events, we extract the signal from the noise of course, virtually in this case now we're going to talk about ecosystems, partnerships in the flywheel, they deliver in the technology business and with me or Jason kelly, general manager, global strategic partnerships, IBM global business services and Mani Das Gupta, who is the vice president of marketing for IBM Global Business services folks. It's great to see you again in which we're face to face. But this will have to do >>good to see you Dave and uh same, I wish we were face to face but uh we'll we'll go with this >>soon. We're being patient, Jason. Let's start with you. You have a partner strategy. I wonder if you could sort of summarize that and tell us more about it. >>So it's interesting that we start with the strategy because you said we have a partner strategy dave and I'd say that the market has dictated back to us a partner strategy something that we it's not new and we didn't start it yesterday. It's something that we continue to evolve and build even stronger. This thought of a partner strategy is it nothing is better than the thought of a partner ship. And people say oh well you know you got to work together as one team and as a partner And it sounds almost as a 1-1 type relationship. Our strategies is much different than that. David our execution is even better and that that execution is focused on now. The requirement that the market our clients are showing to us and our strategic partners that one player can't deliver all their needs, they can't Design solution and deliver that from one place. It does take an ecosystem to the word that you called out. This thought of an ecosystem and our strategy and execution is focused on that. And the reason why I say it evolves is because the market will continue to evolve and this thought of being able to look at a client's let's call it a a workflow, let's call it a value chain from one end to the other, wherever they start their process to wherever it ultimately hits that end user. It's going to take many players to cover that. And then we, as IBM want to make sure that we are the general contractor of that capability with the ability to convene the right strategic partners, bring out the best value for that outcome, not just technology for technology's sake, but the outcome that the incline is looking for so that we bring value to our strategic partners and that in client. >>I think about when you talk about the value chain, you know, I'm imagining, you know, the business books years ago you see the conceptual value chain, you can certainly understand that you can put processes together to connect them and now you've got technology, I think of a P. I. S. It's it's really supports that everything gets accelerated and and uh money. I wonder if you could address some of the the go to market how this notion of of ecosystem which is so important, is impacting the way in which you go to market. >>Absolutely. So modern business, you know, demands a new approach to working the ecosystem. Thought that Jason was just alluding to, it's a mutual benefit of all these companies working together in the market, it's a mutual halo of the brands, so as responsible for the championship of the IBM and the global business services brand. I am very, very interested in this mutual working together. It should be a win win win, as we say in the market, it should be a win for our clients, first and foremost, it should be a win for our partners and it should be a win for IBM and we are working together right now on an approach to bring this, go to market strategy to life. >>So I wonder if we could maybe talk about how this actually works and and pull in some examples, uh you must have some favorites that that we can touch on. Uh is that, is that fair? Can we, can we name some names, >>sure names, always working debut, right. And it's always in context of reality that we can talk about, as I said, this execution and not just a strategy. And I'll start with probably what's right in the front of many people's minds as we're doing this virtually because of what because of an unfortunate pandemic, um, this disastrous loss of life and things that have taken us down a path. We go well, how do we, how do we address that? Well, any time there's a tough task, IBM raises its hand first. You know, whether it was putting a person on the moon and bringing them home safely or standing up a system behind the current Social Security Administration, you know, during the Depression, you pick it well here we are now. And why not start with that as an example? Because I think it calls out just what we mentioned here first day, this thought of a, of an ecosystem because the first challenge, how do we create uh and address the biggest data puzzle of our lives, which is how do we get this vaccine created in record time, which it was the fastest before that was four years. This was a matter of months. Visor created the first one out and then had to get it out to distribution. Behind. That is a wonderful partner of R. S. A. P. Trying to work with that. So us working with S. A. P. Along with Pfizer in order to figure out how to get that value chain. And some would say supply chain, but I'll address that in a second. But there's many players there. And so we were in the middle of that with fires are committed to saying, how do we do that with S. A. P. So now you see players working together as one ecosystem. But then think about the ecosystem that that's happening where you have a federal government agency, a state, a local, you have healthcare, life science industry, you have consumer industry. Oh wait a second day. This is getting very complicated, Right? Well, this is the thought of convening an ecosystem and this is what I'm telling you is our execution and it has worked well. And so it's it's it's happening now. We still it's we see it's still developing and being, being, you know, very productive in real time. But then I said there was another example and that's with me, you mani whomever you pick the consumer. Ultimately we are that outcome of of the value chain. That's why I said, I don't want to just call it a supply chain because at the end is a someone consuming and in this case we need a shot. And so we partnered with Salesforce, IBM and Salesforce saying, wait a minute, that's not a small task. It's not just get the content there and put it in someone's arm instead they're scheduling that must be done. There's follow up an entire case management like system sells force is a master at this, so work dot com team with IBM, we sit now let's get that part done for the right type of UI UX capability that the user experience, user interaction interface and then also in bringing another player in the ecosystem, one of ours Watson health along with our block changing, we brought together something called a Digital Health pass. So I've just talked about two ecosystems work multiple ecosystems working together. So you think of an ecosystem of ecosystems. I called out Blockchain technology and obviously supply chain but there's also a I I O T. So you start to see where look this is truly an orchestration effort. It has to happen with very well designed capability and so of course we master and design and tying that that entire ecosystem together and convening it so that we get to the right outcome you me money all getting into shot being healthy. That's a real time example of us working with an ecosystem and teeming with key strategic partners, >>you know, money, I mean Jason you're right. I mean pandemics been horrible, I have to say. I'm really thankful it didn't happen 20 years ago because it would have been like okay here's some big pcs and a modem and go ahead and figure it out. So I mean the tech industry has saved business. I mean with not only we mentioned ai automation data, uh even things basic things like security at the end point. I mean so many things and you're right, I mean IBM in particular, other large companies you mentioned ASAP you have taken the lead and it's really I don't money, I don't think the tech industry gets enough credit, but I wonder if there's some of your favorite, you know, partnerships that you can talk about. >>Yeah, so I'm gonna I'm gonna build on what you just said. Dave IBM is in this unique position amongst this ecosystem. Not only the fact that we have the world leading most innovative technologies to bring to bear, but we also have the consulting capabilities that go with it now to make any of these technologies work towards the solution that Jason was referring to in this digital health pass, it could be any other solution you would need to connect these disparate systems, sometimes make them work towards a common outcome to provide value to the client. So I think our role as IBM within this ecosystem is pretty unique in that we are able to bring both of these capabilities to bear. In terms of you know, you asked about favorite there are this is really a coop petition market where everybody has products, everybody has service is the most important thing is how how are we bringing them all together to serve the need or the need of the hour in this case, I would say one important thing in this. As you observe how these stories are panning out in an ecosystem in in part in a partnership, it is about the value that we provide to our clients together. So it's almost like a cell with model from from a go to market perspective, there is also a question of our products and services being delivered through our partners. Right? So think about the span and scope of what we do here. And so that's the sell through. And then of course we have our products running within our partner companies and our partner products, for example. Salesforce running within IBM. So this is a very interesting and a new way of doing business. I would say it's almost like the modern way of doing business with modernity. >>Well. And you mentioned cooperation. I mean you're you're part of IBM that will work with anybody because your customer first, whether it's a W. S. Microsoft oracle is a is a is a really tough competitor. But your customers are using oracle and they're using IBM. So I mean as a those are some good examples. I think of your point about cooper Titian. >>Absolutely. If you pick on any other client, I'll mention in this case. Delta, Delta was working with us on moving, being more agile. Now this pandemic has impacted the airline sector particularly hard, right With travel stopping and anything. So they are trying to get to a model which will help them scale up, scale down, be more agile will be more secure, be closer to their customers, try and understand how they can provide value to their customers and customers better. So we are working with Delta on moving them to cloud on the journey to cloud. Now that public cloud could be anything. The beauty of this model and a hybrid cloud approach is that you are able to put them on red hat open shift, you're able to do and package the services into a microservices kind of a model. You want to make sure all the applications are running on a portable, almost platform. Agnostic kind of a model. This is the beauty of this ecosystem that we are discussing is the ability to do what's right for the end customer at the end of the day, >>how about some of the like sass players, like some of the more prominent ones and we watched the ascendancy of service now and and, and work day, you mentioned Salesforce. How do you work with those guys? Obviously there's an Ai opportunity, but maybe you could add some, you know, color there. >>So I like the fact that you call out the different hyper scholars for example, uh whether it's a W. S, whether it's Microsoft, knowing that they have their own cloud instances, for example. And when you, when you mentioned, he had this happened a long time ago, you know, you start talking about the heft of the technology, I started thinking of all the truckloads of servers or whatever they have to pull up. We don't need that now because it can happen in the cloud and you don't have to pick one cloud or the other. And so when people say hybrid cloud, that's what comes out, you start to think of what I I call, you know, a hybrid of hybrids because I told you before, you know, these roles are changing. People aren't just buyers or suppliers, they're both. And then you start to say what we're different people supplying well in that ecosystem, we know there's not gonna be one player, there's gonna be multiple. So we partner by doing just what monty called out is this thought of integrating in hybrid environments on hybrid platforms with hybrid clouds, Multi clouds, maybe I want something on my premises, something somewhere else. So in giving that capability that flexibility we empower and this is what's doing that cooperation, we empower our partners are strategic partners, we want them to be better with us. And this is this thought of being able to actually bring more together and move faster which is almost counterintuitive. You're like wait a minute you're adding more players but you're moving faster. Exactly because we have the capability to integrate those those technologies and get that outcome that monty mentioned, >>I would add to this one. Jason you mentioned something very very interesting. I think if you want to go just fast you go alone but if you want to go further, you go together. And that is the core of our point of view in this case is that we want to go further and we want to create value that is long lasting. >>What about like so I get the technology players and there may be things that you do that others don't or vice versa. So the gap fillers etcetera. But what about how to maybe customers that they get involved? Perhaps government agencies, may they be they be customer or an N. G. O. As another example, Are they part of this value chain? Part of this ecosystem? >>Absolutely. I'll give you I'll stick with the same example when I mentioned a digital health past that Digital Health Pass is something that we have as IBM and it's a credential Think of it as a health credential not a vaccine passport because it could be used for a test for a negative test on Covid, it could be used for antibiotics. So if you have this credential, it's something that we, as IBM created years back and we were using it for learning. When you think of getting people uh certifications versus a four year diploma, how do we get people into the workforce? That was what was original. That was a jenny Rometty thought, let's focus on new collar workers. So we had this asset that we'd already created and then it's wait, there's a place for it to work with, with health, with validation verification on someone's option, it's optional. They choose it. Hey, I want to do it this way. Well, the state of new york said that they wanted to do it that way and they said, listen, we are going to have a digital health pass for all of our, all of our new york citizens and we want to make sure that it's equitable, it could be printed or on a screen and we want it to be designed in this way and we wanted to work on this platform and we want to be able to, to work with the strategic Partners, a Salesforce and ASAP and work. I mean, I can just keep and we said okay let's do this. And this is the start of collaboration and doing it by design. So we haven't lost that day but this only brings it to the forefront just as you said, yes, that is what we want. We want to make sure that in this ecosystem we have a way to ensure that we are bringing together convening not just point products or different service providers but taking them together and getting the best outcome so that that end user can have it configured in the way that they want it >>guys, we got to leave it there but it's clear you're helping your customers and your partners on this this digital transformation journey that we already we all talk about. You get this massive portfolio of capabilities, deep, deep expertise, I love the hybrid cloud and AI Focus, Jason and money really appreciate you coming back in the cubes. Great to see you both. >>Thank you so much. Dave Fantastic. All >>Right. And thank you for watching everybody's day Vigilante for the Cuban. Our continuous coverage of IBM, think 2021, the virtual edition. Keep it right there. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. >>Mhm.