>>from around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent 2020 sponsored by Intel, AWS and our community partners. >>Welcome to the cubes coverage of AWS reinvent 2020. The digital version. I'm Lisa Martin and I'm here with Todd Cary Thomas, the global head of the A. W s business group at Congressman Todd. It's great to have you on the program. >>Thanks. Great to be here. >>Unfortunately, we're not all cramped together in a massive space in Las Vegas, but it's great that we still get to come together virtually so. I want to just give our audience kind of an update on the Cognizant AWS strategic partnership. What's going on there? >>Sure. So a lot of exciting things. I mean, it's been a tough year, obviously, for for all of us in 2020. But one of the bright spots One of the exciting things for us is cognizant has been the announcement of the best business group and really a strategic relationship with AWS. It's just a great statement to the market that we're taking cloud seriously. We're taking a W s seriously, and it really is a core component of our go to market. It's a core component of how our customers right now are looking at what their plans are post pandemic, right? And how we survive 2020. If you look at the just the explosion of cloud, we all understand how critical now cloud computing is to all businesses, regardless of vertical, regardless of industry and what you're trying to accomplish. So for us it was it was really about putting a stake in the ground and saying, A W S is going to be a critical critical player for us and our go to market for 2020 and obviously beyond >>and beyond. I think we're all looking forward to that beyond talk to me a little bit about the core purpose, the mission and how you're going, how customers are reacting to this news about the strategic shift. >>Well, there's a couple of tracks. I mean, you know, if your ah large company looking at cloud, you're going down, the cost take out right, we're gonna go, and we're gonna be more efficient or or we're gonna go down the innovation track and for us, we really want to be able to serve our customers running both of those tracks in parallel. And so the role of the business group is to really be an innovation engine is to get into those those those deep, detailed layers of where clients are going through planning and assessment and trying to figure out how they want to leverage AWS. And on the other side, you know, there's a lot of legacy applications and appliances out that environments. And so how can the AWS business group that cognizant go in and help with that cost? Take out go accelerate the move from legacy applications and on Prem to Cloud. And so for us, it is much about the technology as it is about the outcome and is exactly how we're accomplishing gotten. So what I mean by that is that really being more creative, being an active player, an active investor and bringing A W. S and early in the solution ING cycle figuring out how we can drive ultimately the outcome for the customer? Because I think AWS will tell you as we we will tell you it's really not about technology. It's not about cognizant. It's not about a W s. It's about clients figuring out what they want how to get it and making sure that AWS and Cognizant can deliver that outcome together. >>It is all about outcomes, especially in these times when when businesses have pivoted multiple times in the last nine months probably will continue to do so and need toe have not just the right technology foundation, the right partners and the right culture to be able to get on board and continue to pivot. Talk to me, though, um, talked about, have your conversations within customer organizations change. Like knowing how much acceleration we're seeing of digital transformation. Is this a board level C suite conversation? Is that where you're starting? What's kind of that conversation like these days? >>Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's happening at all levels. What one of the main things that's happened about Cloud is that it's impacted literally every level of an organization. And and now, most of the time, though, we're seeing conversations enter at the business level. So whether that's a a new product to bring the market, or maybe it's cleaning up critical systems, maybe like policy administration or supply chain systems. Whatever the outcome in the business problem that they're trying to solve. That's really where the conversation starts. And and that really starts at the the See really see Exelon C suite all the way down to even the programming and application level. Those types of groups of really looking at A. W S and Cognizant has an enabler to solve those kinds of business issues, and and it's really driven out of really 2020. So obviously we exposed a lot of stuff with clients and and worker productivity with security, remote access to information. It's been a really tough year, but it's also exposed a lot of gaps and a lot of deficiencies. And those gaps and deficiencies didn't care if that was that the sea level or that was at a programming level or regional level or vertical. It just exposed everything. And so, and that's where we saw cloud consumption go up. But most companies weren't ready for that. They weren't prepared and were optimized and ready to take on that kind of kind of cloud consumption, you know, and and the overarching theme here of customer experience, employee experience, you know, how do we fix all those problems and also deliver really a limitless bandwidth experience to that individual user and ensure that while we're solving outcome, we're also gaining traction, saying with customer acquisitions or were quickly deploying. Applications were doing something good at every turn when we talk about eight of us >>like that. And as I was thinking and speaking of doing something good, that what you were talking about with the new business group, opportunities that come out of, you know, they always say stuff for these mother of invention. But you saw those gaps and they were exposed by this particular time. But it's just an opportunity to be able to identify them, help them and help customers with this light switch moment of especially those that were kind of caught off guard. Oh my gosh, we can't operate. We can't get to our data centers. We've gotta be able to have a remote workforce and get accessibility. How did you help them from that cultural perspective of that light switch moment of adopting cloud? Knowing that it's maybe in the beginning was a survival mechanism. >>Sure, there's been a couple of light switch moments. I mean, one of them is certainly you hit on. It is people in process. You know, Cloud is certainly about technology, but the people in process the organizational change management, the impact that cloud hands on a development community on a company as a whole, the acceleration the the pace at which you have to change and be flexible and agile to embrace a cloud. Native architectures is unlike most companies have ever done before, and so it's a failed strategy to just simply focus on the tech. You have to look a change. Management people and culture and systems. And how these how these everything works together in unison. And the other light switch moment has been how hard cloud is. You know, we saw early adoption. I mean, we we jumped out of the gate and that 1st 10 2030% of workloads just flew to the cloud. This was simple. Everyone was giving some amazing public statements of of how much we were gonna embrace Cloud. But what's happened is that we've got to the hard stuff like the on Prem, the legacy, the work of the stuff that just is stuck. It doesn't want to move, and it really requires some deep dive systems analysis, business analysis cost analysis to trying to figure out you know what services and data and everything is connected. And how do we disconnect that move to the Kyle transform that optimize it, but then also manage the company in between? Because a lot of companies now, in fact, almost 90% of CXS will tell you they've had to embrace the hybrid architecture for this reason. So now how do we help our clients manage applications in different environments, moving a different paces and make sure that they were transformed and optimizing and getting to a digital state as fast as possible? And so there's a lot. There's a lot to unpack there, but that's really the purpose of the AWS business group is to focus on all of these things all at the same time being able to drive that outcome we talked about earlier, but also making sure that we're keeping you know, our clients lights on right. We're keeping the boat afloat, that they can be successful in a very complex environment, very challenging environment, but then also, from a technology standpoint, >>something that that we talked about a number of times in terms of the people in the processes and the culture. I'm curious. Are you having conversations with customers or helping them kind of bring? As you said, it's not. This is not just about the technology knowing the business drivers air leaving this are you? Are you helping customers have those conversations between business units and the I t folks to really understand? This is what we've done so far. This This is the complexity that we have, but we've got to get over here is quickly as possible. And we've gotta bring these two cultures together, >>right? Yeah, we talked about a little bit early. It's there's the conductivity problem that that companies have because there's again there's that tech track and then there's people tracks and you've got to be able to blend those two. And that really, when you when you boil down the role of the age of this business group, within cognizant and within our client environments, that's really what we're working on is how do we pull in all of these disparate pieces and I like Thio. You wanna grab the front seat when you're a teenager, everybody's driving called shotgun. Well, we want to bring our clients along in that shotgun position, right? Be able to see how an enterprise class deployment works, how apt transformation and modernization works. Ah, lot of our clients are very open and transparent. So, like I don't really know how all of this is going to work. I'd really love to see. I would love to see this in motion. And so for us, we're very transparent of these types of engagements. This is not a cognizant showing up and delivering in a output or an outcome for a customer. It's making our clients better. It's making them mawr aggressive and more interested in more excited about cloud and transformation. Because, you know, the first couple of steps like we talked about a cloud typically is easy. It gets more complex. But as we as we saw for these complexities, we open up new pockets of data and new applications and new groups and regions and things that could move. And as soon as we start to move some of those heavier pieces, new opportunities absolutely explode. And and that's really what we want to do is take that message to our clients internally, evangelized the opportunity they have with AWS to take advantage of that and really challenge the mindset through innovation. You know, through new products, new go to market initiatives. What do they want to accomplish? Because, really, we're in a time that's very rare. Assed faras. I've I've been technology a long time. This is the first time that I can remember that the client had come to us and come to a W s ask for an outcome, ask for something and we could deliver it. And it's not gonna be a science project. We can actually commit to it, >>not not rocket science. So for those customers who would be able shotgun and gotten in the front with you guys put are some of the best practices that you've seen that you'd recommend our audience, pay attention to >>definitely assess. You see a lot of companies that they marked the finish line, and I always tell customers that were there is no finish line of digital. There is no finish line in cloud, and they've pretty much marked it. And this is what success looks like. I think success in cloud is absolutely a journey. It's a work in progress, always, and so you need to assess and look at where you want to be. Not in six months, not in 18 months. Where do you wanna be next month? Well, what's what are your immediate plans on immediate business pressures? Things that you need to solve right now, And that's what we focus on. But we we need to understand the environment. We need to understand the applications and work and what's in play and and really get a true assessment of the estate. And then we blend that with business outcomes, not technical, not a bunch of letters in acronyms and things like that. We don't wanna convoluted that, really. The effort is to try to figure out what you want to accomplish. And then, from an advisory standpoint, really put those hooks in and build a solid plan. And then we can execute. Now, whether we we execute that plan, it 100% pace or a 30% or 40% pace, it's about having that plan and at least the right direction, but a direction that's quickly attainable because, as we've seen, anything can happen. >>You're not kidding. We haven't seen that anything can happen. So as we look into going into calendar year 2021 hoping for a lot of great things. What are some of the key areas that cognizance a W s business group is gonna be focusing your investments >>on? Well, what we've seen from A clients and we hear them loud and players thio here from them about industry and vertical specific solutions. And so we are in in the emotions right now across the globe and my team building out vertical specific and I p based offerings on AWS things around S a P. Things about Amazon connect things that that really impacted clients business because it is hard. I mean, it's it just to be in total transparency. As a global systems integrator, it's hard to rise above a lot of noise And what? How you rise above that is really to be unique on AWS. And so, from a client standpoint, you know, one of the things they're going to get different from cognizant from saying some of our larger competitors and I will tell you one of the things obviously is complete commitment we have in a W s business group that gets up in the morning. Is Onley concerned about our client success in a W s. And so some of the things that we're gonna be born out of that direction are these vertical specific solutions or in in development of pipe. We've had amazing run with AWS and Cloud. I mean, we have over 600 projects deployed over almost 10,000 certified, uh, 10,000 certified. Uh, resource is on DSO for us. Super excited to bring that talent to market along with solutions. But again, it's not about what we have. It's really about what our clients need. >>But it's great advice that you're telling, You know, your clients look short term because we've got to be able to get just to hear and to hear. It's not necessarily about having this this 2020 vision. I don't think anybody wants that anymore about what's gonna happen in 12 months or 18 months. It's we've gotta be able t o get businesses to pivot quickly and leverage the technology to fuel those business outcomes. As you said in kind of shorter and faster time increments, because, as we all know, 2021 calendar changes and we're probably still going to be in quite a pickle, I guess for ah time longer. But I also from what you've said, it seems like you you're uncovering so many opportunities that what comes and kindle you do with a W s what you can deliver for businesses and how you can help the cultural shift so that these businesses thrive going forward, get out of that survival mode and actually be able to take advantage of those all those data sources that you talked about to deliver new products and new services, maybe even get into new markets. >>Yeah, most definitely. It is about time to market. And in the one of the things that we've seen to, his clients are getting away from this modernization first, then migration. And and that was really a big thing. When we started down this cloud journey, we saw the market reacted. Well, let me get my house in order. Let me start modernizing. Let me clean up some service layers and we saw some anti patterns. Let me let me figure all that out, and then I'm gonna go to cloud. And we've seen really the direct opposite of that, especially with cove it and during a pandemic, is Okay. How fast can I get these systems and data to the cloud? Alright. And then we'll worry about transformation. And so for us we've pivoted. I think very well is cognizant over overall is a company and the specific, innovative this business group to really maintain multiple work streams that that run on Prem right to be ableto fix and attack those workloads and make that on prime environment efficient. But move those applications while we're doing that. Move those a w s and then concurrently build a transformation plan around those applications and things that are now in the cloud around NWS. >>Excellent title. You've been busy, so I'm not let you get back to work. But great stuff that you guys are working on together with AWS, we look forward to seeing what's to come. >>Thank you, Lisa >>for Todd Kerry. Find Lisa Martin and you're watching the Cube