>> Announcer: Live from downtown San Francisco, it's theCUBE, covering IBM Chief Data Officers Strategy Summit 2018, brought to you by IBM. >> We're back in San Francisco, everybody. This is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage, and we're here covering exclusive coverage of IBM's Chief Data Officer Strategy Summit. This is the summit, as I said, they book in at each coast, San Francisco and Boston. Intimate, a lot of senior practitioners, chief data officers, data folks, people who love data. Caitlyn Halferty is back. She's the Client Engagement Executive and the Chief Data Officer office at IBM. Great. And, Allen Crane, Vice President at USAA. >> Thank you. >> Good to see you. Thanks for coming on. All right. >> Thanks for having us. >> You're welcome. Well, good day today, as I said, a very intimate crowd. You're here as a sort of defacto CDO, learning, sharing, connecting with peers. Set up your role, Allen. Tell us about that. >> At USA, we've got a distributed data and analytics organization where we have centralized functions in our hub, and then each of the lines of business have their own data offices. I happen to have responsibility for all the different ways that our members interact with us, so about 100 million phone calls a year, about a couple billion internet and digital sessions a year, most of that is on mobile, and always lookin' at the ways that we can give back time to our membership, as well as our customer service reps, who we call our member service reps, so that they can serve our members better. The faster and more predictive we can be with being able to understand our members better and prompt our MSRs with the right information to serve them, then the more they can get on to the actual value of that conversation. >> A lot of data. So, one of the things that Inderpal talked about the very first time I met him, in Boston, he talked about the Five Pillars, and the first one was you have to understand as a CDO, how your organization gets value out of data. You said that could be direct monetization or, I guess, increased revenue, cut costs. That's value. >> Right. >> That's right. >> That's the starting point. >> Right. >> So, how did you start? >> Well, actually, it was the internal monetization. So, first off, I want to say USA never sells any of our member data, so we don't think of monetization in that framework, but we do think of it terms of how do we give something that's even more precious than money back to our company and to our members and the MSRs? And, that is really that gift of time. By removing friction from the system, we've been able to reduce calls per member, through digitization activities, and reduced transfers and reduced misdirects by over 10% every year. We're doing work with AI and machine learning to be able to better anticipate what the member is calling about, so that we can get them to the right place at the right time to the right set member service representatives. And, so all these things have resulted in, not just time savings but, obviously, that translates directly to bottom line savings, but at the end of the day, it's about increasing that member service level, increasing your responsiveness, increasing the speed that you're answering the phone, and ultimately increasing that member satisfaction. >> Yeah, customer satisfaction, lowers churn rates, that's a form of monetization, >> Absolutely. >> so it's hard dollars to the CFO, right? >> Absolutely, yeah. >> All right, let's talk about the role of the CDO. This is something that we touched on earlier. >> Yes. >> We're bringing it home here. >> Yes. >> Last segment. Where are we at with the role of the CDO? It was sort of isolated for years in regulated industries, >> Correct. >> permeated to mainstream organizations. >> Correct. >> Many of those mainstream organizations can move faster, 'cause their not regulated, so have we sort of reached parody between the regulated and the unregulated, and what do you discern there in terms of patterns and states of innovation? >> Sure. I think when we kicked off these summits in 2014, many of our CDOs came from CIO type organizations, defensive posture, you know, king of the data warehouse that we joke about, and now annuls reports of that time were saying maybe 20% of large organizations were investing in the CDO or similar individual responsible for enterprise data, and now we see analysts reports coming out to say upwards of 85, even 90%, of organizations are investing in someone responsible for that role of the CDO type. In my opening remarks this morning, I polled the room to say who's here for the first time. It was interesting, 69, 70% of attendees were joining us for the first time, and I went back, okay, who's been here last year, year before, and I said who was here from the beginning, 2014 with us, and Allen is one of the individuals who's been with us. And, as much as the topics have changed and the role has grown and the purview and scope of responsibilities, some topics have remained, our attendees tell us, they're still important, top-of-mind, and data monetization is one of those. So, we always have a panel on data monetization, and we've had some good discussions recently, that the idea of it's just the external resell, or something to do with selling data externally is one view, but really driving that internal value, and the ways you drive out those efficiencies is another perspective on it. So, fortunate to have Allen here. >> Well, we've been able to, for that very reason, we've been able to grow our team from about six or seven people five years ago to well over a hundred people, that's focused on how we inefficiency out of the system. That mere 10%, when your call-per-member reduction, when you're taking 30 million calls in the bank, you know, that's real dollars, three million calls out of the system that you can monetize like that. So, it's real value that the company sees in us, and I think that, in a sense, is really how you want to be growing in a data organization, because people see value in you, are willing to give you more, and then you start getting into those interesting conversations, if I gave you more people, could you get me more results? >> Let's talk about digital transformation and how it relates to all this. Presumably, you've got a top down initiative, the CEO says, he or she says, okay, this is important. We got to do it. Boom, there's the North Star. Let's go. What's the right regime that you're seeing? Obviously, you've got to have the executive buy-in, you've got the Chief Data Officer, you have the Chief Digital Officer, the Chief Operating Officer, the CFO's always going to be there, making sure things are on track. How are you seeing that whole thing shake out, at least in your organization? >> Well, one thing that we've been seeing is digital digitization or the digital transformation is not about just going only digital. It's how does all this work together. It can't just be an additive function, where you're still taking just as many calls and so forth, but it's got to be something that that experience online has got to do something that's transformative in your organization. So, we really look at the member all the way through that whole ecosystem, and not just through the digital lens. And, that's really where teams like ours have really been able to stitch together the member experience across all their channels that they're interacting with us, whether that's the marketing channels or the digital channels or the call channel, so that we can better understand that experience. But, it's certainly a complementary one. It can't just be an additive one. >> I wonder if we could talk about complacency, in terms of digital transformation. I talk to a lot of companies and there's discussion about digital, but you talk to a lot of people who say, well, we're doing fine. Maybe not in our industry. Insurance is one that hasn't been highly disruptive, financial services, things like aerospace. I'll be retired by the time this all, I mean, that's true, right? And, probably accurate. So, are you seeing a sense of complacency or are you seeing a sense of urgency, or a mix or both? What are you seeing, Caitlyn? >> Well, it's interesting, and people may not be aware, but I'm constantly polling our attendees to ask what are top-of-mind topics, what are you struggling with, where are you seeing successes, and digital was one that came up for this particular session, which is why tomorrow's keynote, we have our Chief Digital Officer giving the morning keynote, to show how our data office and digital office are partnering to drive transformation internally. So, at least for our perspective, in the internal side of it, we have a priority initiative, a cognitive sales advisor, and it's essentially intended to bring in disparate part of customer data, obtained through many different channels, all the ways that they engage with us, online and other, and then, deliver it through sales advisor app that empowers our digital sellers to better meet their revenue targets and impact, and develop more of a quality client relationship and improve that customer experience. So, internally, at least, it's been interesting to see one of our strongest partnerships, in terms of business unit, has been our data and digital office. They say, look, the quality of the data is at the core, you then enable our digital sellers, and our clients benefit, for a better client experience. >> Well, about a year ago, we absolutely changed the organization to align the data office with the digital office, so that reports to our executive counsel level, so their peers, that reporting to the same organization, to ensure that those strategies are connected. >> Yeah, so as Caitlyn was saying, this Chief Data Officer kind of emerged from a defensive posture of compliance, governance, data quality. The Chief Digital Officer, kind of new, oftentimes associated with marketing, more of an external, perhaps, facing role, not always. And then, the CIO, we'll say, well, wait a minute, data is the CIO's job, but, of course, the CIO, she's too busy trying to keep the lights on and make everything work. So, where does the technology organization fit? >> Well, all that's together, so when we brought all those things together at the organizational level, digital, data, and technology were all together, and even design. So, you guys are all peers, reporting into the executive committee, essentially, is that right? Yes, our data, technology, and design, and digital office are all peers reporting to the same executive level. And then, one of the other pillars that Inderpal talks about is the relationship with the line of business. So, how is that connective tissue created? Well, being on the side that is responsible for how all of our members interact, my organization touches every product, every line of business, every channel that our members are interacting with, so our data is actually shared across the organization, so right now, really my focus is to make sure that that data is as accessible as it can be across our enterprise partners, it's as democratized as it can be, it's as high as quality. And then, things that we're doing around machine learning and AI, can be enabled and plugged into from all those different lines of business. >> What does success look like in your organization? How do you know you're doing well? I mean, obviously, dropping money to the bottom line, but how are you guys measuring yourselves and setting objectives? What's your North Star? >> I think success, for me, is when you're doing a good job, to the point that people say that question, could you do more if I gave you more? That, to me, is the ultimate validation. It's how we grew as an organization. You know, we don't have to play that justification game When people are already coming to the table saying, You're doing great work. How can you do more great work? >> So, what's next for these summits? Are you doing Boston again in the fall? Is that right? Are you planning >> We are, we are, >> on doing that? >> and you know, fall of last year, we released the blueprint, and the intent was to say, hey, here's the reflection of our 18 months, internal journey, as well as all our client interactions and their feedback, and we said, we're coming back in the spring and we're showing you the detail of how we really built out these internal platforms. So, we released our hybrid on-prem Cloud showcase today, which was great, and to the level of specificity that shows that the product solutions, what we're using, the Flash Storage, some of the AI components of machine learning models. >> The cognitive systems component? >> Exactly. And then, our vision, to your question to the fall, is coming back with the public Cloud showcases. So, we're already internally doing work on our public Cloud, in particular respect to our backup, some of our very sensitive client data, as well as some initial deep learning models, so those are the three pieces we're doing in public Cloud internally, and just as we made the commitment to come back and unveil and show those detail, we want to come back in the fall and show a variety of public Cloud showcases where we're doing this work. And then, hopefully, we'll continue to partner and say, hey, here's how we're doing it. We'd love to see how you're doing it. Let's share some best practices, accelerate, build these capabilities. And, I'll say to your business benefit question, what we've found is once we've built that platform, we call it, internally, a one IBM architecture, out our platform, we can then drive critical initiatives for the enterprise. So, for us, GVPR, you know, we own delivery of GVPR readiness across the IBM corporation, working with senior executives in all of our lines of business, to make sure we get there. But, now we've got the responsibility to drive out initiatives like that cross business unit, to your question on the partnerships. >> The evolution of this event seems to be, well, it's got a lot of evangelism early on, and now it's really practical, sort of sharing, like you say, the blueprint, how to apply it, a lot of people asking questions, you know, there's different levels of maturity. Now, you guys back tomorrow? You got to panel, you guys are doing a panel on data monetization? >> We're doing a panel on data monetization tomorrow. >> Okay, and then, you've got Bob Lord and Inderpal talking about that, so perfect juxtaposition and teamwork of those two major roles. >> And, this is the first time we've really showcased the data/digital partnership and connection, so I'm excited, want to appeal to the developer viewpoint of this. So, I think it'll be a great conversation about data at the core, driving digital transformation. And then, as you said, our data monetization panel, both external efforts, as well as a lot of the internal value that we're all driving, so I think that'll be a great session tomorrow. >> Well, and it's important, 'cause there's a lot of confusing, and still is a lot of confusion about those roles, and you made the point early today, is look, there's a big organizational issue you have to deal with, particularly around data silos, MyData. I presume you guys are attacking that challenge? >> Absolutely. >> Still, it's still a-- >> It's an ongoing-- >> Oh, absolutely. >> I think we're getting a lot better at it, but you've got to lean in, because if it's not internal, it's some of the external challenges around. Now we're picking Cloud vendors and so forth. Ten years ago, we had our own silos and our own warehouses, if we had a warehouse, and then, we were kind of moving into our own silos in our own databases, and then as we democratized that, we solved the one problem, but now our data's so big and compute needs are so large that we have no choice but to get more external into Cloud. So, you have to lean in, because everything is changing at such a rapid rate. >> And, it requires leadership. >> Yep. >> Absolutely. >> The whole digital data really requires excellent leadership, vision. IBM's catalyzing a lot of that conversation, so congratulations on getting this going. Last thoughts. >> Oh, I would just say, we were joking that 2014, the first couple of summits, small group, maybe 20-30 participants figuring out how to best organize from a structural perspective, you set up the office, what sort of outcomes, metrics, are we going to measure against, and those things, I think, will continue to be topics of discussion, but now we see we've got about 500 data leaders that are tracking our journey and that are involved and engaged with us. We've done a lot in North America, we're starting to do more outside the geographies, as well, which is great to see. So, I just have to say I think it's interesting to see the topics that continue to be of interest, the governance, the data monetization, and then, the new areas around AI, machine learning, data science, >> data science >> the empowering developers, the DevOps delivery, how we're going to deliver that type of training. So, it's been really exciting to see the community grow and all the best practices leveraged, and look forward to continuing to do more of that this year as well. >> Well, you obviously get a lot of value out of these events. You were here at the first one, you're here today. So, 2018. Your thoughts? >> I think the first one, we were all trying to figure out who we are, what's our role, and it varied from I'm a individual contributor, data evangelist in the organization to I'm king of the warehouse thing. >> Right. >> And, largely, from that defensive standpoint. I think, today, you see a lot more people that are leaning in, leading data science teams, leading the future of where the organizations are going to be going. This is really where the center of a lot of organizations are starting to pivot and look, and see, where is the future, and how does data become the leading edge of where the organization is going, so it's pretty cool to be a part of a community like this that's evolving that way, but then also being able to have that at a local level within your own organization. >> Well, another big take-away for me is the USAA example shows that this can pay for itself when you grow your own organization from a handful of people to a hundred plus individuals, driving value, so it makes it easier to justify, when you can demonstrate a business case. Well, guys, thanks very much for helping me wrap here. >> Absolutely. >> I appreciate you having us here. >> Thank you. >> It's been a great event. Always a pleasure, hopefully, we'll see you in the fall. >> Sounds good. Thank you so much. >> All right, thanks, everybody, for watching. We're out. This is theCUBE from IBM CDO Summit. Check out theCUBE.net for all of the videos, siliconangle.com for all the news summaries of this event, and wikibon.com for all the research. We'll see you next time. (techy music)

(orchestral music) (energetic music) >> Narrator: Live from Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. It's the Cube! Covering IBM Chief Data Officer Strategy Summit, Spring 2017. Brought to you by IBM. >> Hey, welcome back everybody! Jeff Frick here with the Cube. I am joined by Peter Burris, the Chief Research Officer at Wikibon. We are in downtown San Francisco at the IBM Chief Data Officer Strategy Summit 2017. It's a lot of practitioners. It's almost 200 CDOs here sharing best practices, learning from the IBM team and we're excited to be here and cover it. It's an ongoing series and this is just one of many of these summits. So, if you are a CDO get involved. But, the most important thing is to not just talk to the IBM folks but to talk to the practitioners. And, we are really excited for our next segment to be joined by Allen Crane. He is the assistant VP from USAA. Welcome! >> Thank you. >> Jeff: And also Glenn Finch. He is the Global Managing Partner Cognitive and Analytics at IBM. Welcome! >> Thank you, thank you both. >> It's kind of like the Serengeti of CDOs here, isn't it? >> It is. It's unbelievable! >> So, the overview Allen to just kind of, you know, this opportunity to come together with a bunch of your peers. What's kind of the vibe? What are you taking away? I know it's still pretty early on but it's a cool little event. It's not a big giant event in Vegas. You know, it's a smaller of an affair. >> That's right. I've been coming to this event for the last three years since they had it and started it when Glenn started this event. And, truly it's probably the best conference I come to every year because it's practitioners. You don't have a lot of different tracks to get lost in. This is really about understanding from your own peers what they are going through. Everything from how are you organizing the organization? What are you focused on? Where are you going? And all the way through talent discussions and where do you source these jobs? >> What is always a big discussion is organizational structure which on one hand side is kind of, you know, who really cares? But is vitally important as to how it is executed, how the strategy gets implemented in the business groups. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about how it works at USAA, your role specifically and how does a Chief Data Officer eat it, work his way into the business bugs trying to make better decisions. >> Absolutely, we are a 27 billion dollar 95 year old company that focuses on the military and their members and their families. And our members, we offer a full range of financial services. So, you can imagine we've got lots of data offices for all of our different lines of business. Because of that, we have elected to go with what we call a hub and spoke model where we centralize certain functions around governance, standards, core data assets, and we subscribe to those things from a standard standpoint so that we're in the spokes like I am. I run all of the data analytics for all of our channels and how our members interact with USAA. So, we can actually have standards that we can apply in our own area as does the bank, as does the insurance company, as does the investments company. And so, it enables the flexibility of business close to the business data and analytics while you also sort of maintain the governance layer on top of that. >> Well, USAA has been at the vanguard of customer experience for many years now. >> Yes >> And the channel world is now starting to apply some of the lessons learned elsewhere. Are you finding that USAA is teaching channels how to think about customer experience? And if so, what is your job as an individual who's, I presume, expected to get data about customer experience out to channel companies. How is that working? >> Well, it's almost like when you borrow a page back from history and in 1922 when we were founded the organization said service is the foundation of our industry. And, it's the foundation of what we do and how we message to our membership. So, take that forward 95 years and we are finding that with the explosion in digital, in mobile, and how does that interact with the phone call. And, when you get a document in the mail is it clear? Or do you have to call us, because of that? We find that there's a lot of interplay between our channels, that our channels had tended to be owned by different silo leaders that weren't really thinking laterally or horizontally across the experience that the member was facing. Now, the member is already multichannel. We all know this. We are all customers in our own right, getting things in the mail. It's not clear. Or getting things in an e-mail. >> Absolutely. >> Or a mobile notice or SMS text message. And, this is confusing. I need to talk to somebody about this. That type of thing. So, we're here to really make sure that we're providing as direct interaction and direct answers and direct access with our membership to make those as compelling experiences as we possibly can. >> So, how is data making that easier? >> We're bringing the data altogether is the first thing. We've got to be able to make sure that our phone data is in the same place as our digital data, is in the same place as our document data, is in the same place as our mobile data because when you are not able to see that path of how the member got here, you're kind of at a loss of what to fix. And so, what we're finding is the more data that we're stitching together, these are really just an extension of a conversation with the membership. If someone is calling you after being online within just a few minutes you kind of know that that's an extension of the same intent that they had before. >> Right. >> So, what was it upfront and upstream that caused them to call. What couldn't you answer for the member upstream that now required a phone call and possibly a couple of transfers to be able to answer that phone interaction. So, that's how we start with bringing all the data together. >> So, how are you working with other functions within USAA to ensure that the data that the channel organizations to ensure those conversations can persist over time with products and underwriters and others that are actually responsible for putting forward the commitments that are being made. >> Yeah. >> How is that coming together? >> I think, simply put it, it's a pull versus push. So, showing the value that we are providing back to our lines of business. So, for example, the bank line of business president looks to us to help them reduce the number of calls which affects their bottom line. And so, when we can do that and show that we are being more efficient with our member, getting them the right place to the right MSR the first time, that is a very material impact in their bottom line. So, connecting into the things that they care about is the pull factor that we often called, that gets us that seat at the table that says we need this channel analyst to come to me and be my advisor as I'm making these decisions. >> You know what, I was just going to say what Allen is describing is probably what I think is the most complicated piece of data analytics, cognitive, all that stuff. That last mile of getting someone whether it's a push or pull. >> Right. >> Fundamentally, you want somebody to do something different whether it's an end consumer, whether it's a research analyst, whether it's a COO or a CFO, you need to do something that causes them to make a different decision. You know, ten years ago as we were just at the dawn of a lot of this new analytical techniques, everybody was focused on amassing data and new machine learning and all that stuff. Now, quite honestly, a lot of that stuff is present and it's about how do we get someone who adapts something that feels completely wrong. That's probably the hardest. I mean, and I joke with people, but you know that thing when your spouse finds something in you and says something immediately about it. >> No, no. >> That's right. (laughs) That's the first thing and you guys are probably better men than I am. The first I want to do is say "prove them wrong". Right? That's the same thing when an artificial intelligence asset tries to tell a knowledge worker what to do. >> Right, right. >> Right? That's what I think the hardest thing is right now. >> So, is it an accumulative kind of knock down or eventually they kind of get it. Alright, I'll stop resisting. Or, is it a AHA moment where people come at 'cause usually for changing behavior, usually there's a carrot or a stick. Either you got to do it. >> Push or pull. >> And the analogy, right. Or save money versus now really trying to transform and reorganize things in new, innovative ways that A. Change the customer experience, but B. Add new revenue streams and unveil a new business opportunity. >> I think it's finding what's important to that business user and sometimes it's an insight that saves them money. In other cases, it's no one can explain to me what's happening. So, in the case of Call Centers for example, we do a lot of forecasting and routing work, getting the call to the right place at the right time. But often, a business leader may say " I want to change the routing rules". But, the contact center, think of it as a closed environment, and something that changes over here, actually ultimately has an effect over here. And, they may not understand the interplay between if I move more calls this way, well those calls that were going there have to go some place else now, right? So, they may not understand the interplay of these things. So, sometimes the analyst comes in in a time of crisis and sometimes it's that crisis, that sort of shared enemy if you will, the enemy of the situation, that is, not your customer. But, the enemy of the shared situation that sort of bonds people together and you sort of have that brothers in arms kind of moment and you build trust that way. It comes down to trust and it comes down to " you have my best interest in mind". And, sometimes it's repeating the message over and over again. Sometimes, it's story telling. Sometimes, it's having that seat at the table during those times of crisis, but we use all of those tools to help us earn that seat at the table with our business customer. >> So, let me build on something that you said (mumbles) 'Cause it's the trying to get many people in the service experience to change. Not just one. So, the end goal is to have the customer to have a great experience. >> Exactly. >> But, the business executive has to be part of that change. >> Exactly. >> The call center individual has to be part of that change. And, ultimately it's the data that ensures that that process of change or those changes are in fact equally manifest. >> Right. >> You need to be across the entire community that's responsible for making something happen. >> Right. >> Is that kind of where your job comes in. That you are making sure that that experience that's impacted by multiple things, that everybody gets a single version of the truth of the data necessary to act as a unit? >> Yeah, I think data, bringing it all together is the first thing so that people can understand where it's all coming from. We brought together dozens of systems that are the systems of record into a new system of record that we can all share and use as a collective resource. That is a great place to start when everyone is operating of the same fact base, if you will. Other disciplines like process disciplines, things that we call designed for measurability so that we're not just building things and seeing how it works when we roll it out as a release on mobile or a release on .com but truly making sure that we are instrumenting these new processes along the way. So, that we can develop these correlations and causal models for what's helping, what's working and what's not working. >> That's an interesting concept. So, you design the measurability in at the beginning. >> I have to. >> As opposed to kind of after the fact. Obviously, you need to measure-- >> Are you participating in that process? >> Absolutely. We have and my role is mainly more from and educational standpoint of knowing why it's important to do this. But, certainly everyone of our analysts is deeply engaged in project work, more upstream than ever. And now, we're doing more work with our design teams so that data is part of the design process. >> You know, this measurability concept, incredibly important in the consultancy as well. You know, for the longest time all the procurement officers said the best thing you can do to hold consults accountable is a fixed priced, milestone based thing, that program number 32 was it red or green? And if it's green, you'll get paid. If not, I am not paying you. You know, we in the cognitive analytics business have tried to move away from that because if we, if our work is not instrumented the same way as Allen's, if I am not looking at that same KPI, first of all I might have project 32 greener than grass, but that KPI isn't moving, right? Secondly, if I don't know that KPI then I am not going to be able to work across multiple levels in an organization, starting often times at the sea suite to make sure that there is a right sponsorship because often times somebody want to change routing and it seems like a great idea two or three levels below. But, when it gets out of whack when it feels uncomfortable and the sea suite needs to step in, that's when everybody's staring at the same set of KPIs and the same metrics. So, you say "No, no. We are going to go after this". We are willing to take these trade offs to go after this because everybody looks at the KPI and says " Wow. I want that KPI". Everybody always forgets that "Oh wait. To get this I got to give these two things up". And, nobody wants to give anything up to get it, right? It is probably the hardest thing that I work on in big transformational things. >> As a consultant? >> Yeah, as a consultant it's to get everybody aligned around. This is what needle we want to move, not what program we want to deliver. Very hard to get the line of business to define it. It's a great challenge. >> It's interesting because in the keynote they laid out exactly what is cognitive. And the 4 E's, I thought they were interesting. Expert. Expression. It's got to be a white box. It's got to be known. Education and Evolution. Those are not kind of traditional consulting benchmarks. You don't want them to evolve, right? >> Right. >> You want to deliver on what you wrote down in the SOW. >> Exactly. >> It doesn't necessarily have a white box element to it because sometimes a little hocus pocus, so just by its very definition, in cognitive and its evolutionary nature and its learning nature, it's this ongoing evolution of it or the processes. It's not a lock it down. You know, this is what I said I'd deliver. This is what we delivered 'cause you might find new things along the path. >> I think this concept of evolution and one of the things we try to be very careful with when you have a brand and a reputation, like USAA, right? It's impeccable, it's flawless, right? You want to make sure that a cognitive asset is trained appropriately and then allowed to learn appropriate things so it doesn't erode the brand. And, that can happen so quickly. So, if you train a cognitive asset with euphemisms, right? Often times the way we speak. And then, you let it surf the internet to get better at using euphemisms, pretty soon you've got a cognitive asset that's going to start to use slang, use racial slurs, all of those things (laughs) because-- No, I am serious. >> Hell you are. >> That's not good. >> Right, that's not bad so, you know, that's one of the things that Ginni has been really, really careful with us about is to make sure that we have a cognitive manifesto that says we'll start here, we'll stop here. We are not going to go in the Ex Machina territory where full cognition and humans are gone, right? That's not what we're going to do because we need to make sure that IBM is protecting the brand reputation of USAA. >> Human discretion still matters. >> Absolutely. >> It has to. >> Alright. Well, we are out of time. Allen, I wanted to give you the last word kind of what you look forward to 2017. We're already, I can't believe we're all the way through. What are some of your top priorities that you are working on? Some new exciting things that you can share. >> I think one of the things that we are very proud of is our work in the text analytics space and what I mean by that is we're ingesting about two years of speech data from our call center every day. And, we are mining that data for emergent trends. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know and it's those unknown unknowns that gets you. They are the things that creep up in your data and you don't really realize it until they are a big enough issue. And so, this really is helping us understand emerging trends, the emerging trend of millennials, the emerging trend of things like Apple Pay, and it also gives us insight as to how our own MSRs are interacting with our members in a very personal level. So, beyond words and language we're also getting into things like recognizing things like babies crying in the background, to be able to detect things like life events because a lot of your financial needs center around life events. >> Right, right. >> You know, getting a new home, having another child, getting a new car, those types of things. And so, that's really where we're trying to bring the computer more as an assistant to the human, as opposed to trying to replace the human. >> Right. >> But, it is a very exciting space for us and areas that we are actually able to scale about 100 times faster than we were fast before. >> Wow. That's awesome. We look forward to hearing more about that and thanks for taking a few minutes to stop by. Appreciated. >> Peter: Thanks, guys. >> Allen: Thank you. >> Alright. Thank you both. With Peter Burris, I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching the Cube from the IBM Chief Data Officer Strategy Summit, Spring 2017. Thanks for watching. We'll be back after the short break. (upbeat music)

>> It's the Cube covering IBM cheap Data Officer Strategy Summit brought to you by IBM. Now, here are your hosts Day villain day and still minimum. >> Welcome back to Boston, everybody. This is the Cube, the worldwide leader in live tech coverage. We here at the Chief Data Officers Summit that IBM is hosting in Boston. I'm joined by Courtney Abercrombie. According your your title's too long. I'm just gonna call you a cognitive rockstar on >> Alec Crane is >> here from Yusa. System by President, Vice President at that firm. Welcome to the Cube. Great to see you guys. Thank you. So this event I love it. I mean, we first met at the, uh, the mighty chief data officer conference. You were all over that networking with the CEO's helping him out and just really, I think identified early on the importance of this constituency. Why? How did you sort of realize and where have you taken it? >> It's more important than it's ever been. And we're so grateful every time that we see a new chief data officer coming in because you just can't govern and do data by committee. Um, if you really hope to be transformational in your company. All these huge, different technologies that are out there, All this amazing, rich data like weather data and the ability to leverage, you know, social media information, bringing that all together and really establishing an innovation platform for your company. You can't do that by committee. You really have to have a leader in charge of it. and that’s what chief data officers are here to do. And so every time we see one, we're so grateful >> that just so >> that we just heard from Inderpal Bhandari on his recommendation for how you get started. It was pretty precise and prescriptive. But I wonder, Alan. So tell us about the chief data officer role at USAA. Hasn't been around for a while. Of course, it's a regulated business. So probably Maur, data oriented are cognizant than most businesses. But tell us about your journey. >> We started probably about 4 or 5 years ago, and it was a combination of trying to consolidate data and analytics operations and then decentralized them, and we found that there was advantages and pros and cons of doing both. You'd get the efficiencies, but once you got the efficiencies, you'd lose the business expertise, and then we'd have to tow decentralize. So we ended up landing a couple of years ago. What we call a hub and spoke system where we have centralized governance and management of key data assets, uh, data modelling data science type work. And then we still allow the, uh, various lines of business to have their own data offices. And the one I run for USAA is our distribution channels office for all of the data and analytics. And we take about 100,000,000 phone calls a year. About 2,000,000,000 webb interactions. Mobile interactions. We take about 18,000 hours. That's really roughly two years of phone conversation data in per day. Uh, we take about 50,000,000 lines of, uh, Web analytic traffic per day as well. So trying to make sense of that to nurture remember, relationships, reinforce trust and remove obstacles >> for your supporting the agent systems. Is that right? >> I support the agent systems as well as the, um, digital >> systems. Okay. And so the objective is obviously toe to grow the business, keep it running, keep the customers happy. Very operate, agent Just efficient. Okay. Um and so when you that's really interesting. This sort of hub and spoke of decentralization gets you speed and closer to the business. Centralization get you that that efficiency. Do you feel like you found that right balance? I mean, if you think so. I >> think you know, early on, we it was mme or we had more cerebral alignment, you know, meaning that it seemed logical to us. But actually, once the last couple of years, we've had some growing pains with roles, responsibilities, overlaps, some redundancy, those types of things. But I think we've landed in a good place. And that's that's what I'm pretty proud of because we've been able to balance the agility with the governance necessary toe, have good governance and put in place, but then also be able to move at the speed the businessmen. >> So Courtney, one of things we heard one of the themes this morning within IBM it's of the role of the chief Data officer's office is to really empower the lines of business with data so that you can empower your customers is what Bob Tatiana was telling us, right? With data. So how are you doing? That is you have new services. You have processes or how is that all working >> right? We dio We have a lot of things, actually, because we've been working so much with people like Allen's group who have been leaders at, quite frankly, in establishing best practices on even how to set up these husbands votes. A lot of people are, you know, want to talk, Teo, um, the CDO and they've spun off even a lot of CEOs into other organizations, in fact, but I mean, they're really a leader in this area. So one of the things that we've noticed is you know, the thing that gives everybody the biggest grief is trying to figure out how to work with unstructured data. Um, and all this volume of data, it's just insane. And just like I was saying in the panel earlier, only about 5% of your actual internal data is enough to actually create a context around your customers. You really have to be able to go with all this exogenous data to understand what were the bigger ramifications that were going on in any customer event, whether it's a call in or whether it's, uh, you know, I'm not happy today with something that you tried to sell me or something that you didn't respond too fast enough, which I'm sure Alan could, you know, equate to. But so we have this new data as a service that we've put together based on the way the weather data has, the weather company has put their platform together. We're using a lot of the same kind of like micro services that you saw Bob put on the screen. You know, everything from, I mean, open source. As much open sources we can get, get it. And it's all cloud based. So and it's it's ways to digest and mix up both that internal data with all of that big, voluminous external data. >> So I'm interested in. So you get the organizational part down. Least you've settled on approach. What are some of the other big challenges that you face in terms of analytics and cognitive projects? Your organization? How are you dealing with those? >> Well, uh, >> to take a step back, use a We're, uh, financial services company that supports the military and their families. We now have 12 million members, and we're known for our service. And most of the time, those moments of truth, if you will, where our service really shines has been when someone talks to you, us on the phone when those member service reps are giving that incredible service that they're known for on the reason being is that the MSR is the aggregator of all that data. When you call in, it's all about you. There's two screens full of your information and the MSR is not interested in anything else but just serving you, our digital experiences more transactional in orientation. And it was It's more utilitarian, and we're trying to make it more personal, trying to make it more How do we know about you? And so one of the cues that were that were taking from the MSR community through cognitive learning is we like to say the only way to get into the call is to get into the call, and that is to truly get into the speech to text, Then do the text mining on that to see what are the other topics that are coming out that could surface that we're not actually capturing. And then how do we use those topics at a member level two then help inform the digital experience to make it more personal. How do I detect life events? Our MSR's are actually trained to listen for things like words like fiance, marriage moving, maybe even a baby crying in the background. How do we take that knowledge and turn that into something that machine learning can give us insights that can feedback into our digital transact actions. So >> this's what our group. >> It's a big task. So So how are >> you doing that? I mean, it's obviously we always talk about people processing technology. Yeah, break that down for us. I mean, how are you approaching that massive opportunity? >> Part of it is is, uh, you know, I look at it. It is like a set of those, you know, Russian nesting dolls. You know, every time you solve one problem, there's another problem inside of it. The first problem is getting access to the data. You know, where and where do you store? We're taking in two years of data per day of phone call data into a system where you put all that right and then you're where you put a week's worth a month's worth a quarter's worth of data like that. Then once you solve that problem, how do you read Act all that personal information So that that private information that you really don't need that data exhaust that would actually create a liability for you in our in our world so that you can really stay focused on what of the key themes that the member needs? And then the third thing is now had. Now that you've got access to the data, it's transcribed for you. It's been redacted from its P I I type work well, now you need the horse power and of analysts on, we're exploring partnerships with IBM, both locally and in in the States as well as internationally to look at data science as a service and try to understand How can we tap into this huge volume of data that we've got to explore those types of themes that are coming up The biggest challenges in typical transaction logging systems. You have to know what your logging You have to know what you're looking for before you know what to put the date, where to put the data. And so it's almost like you kind of have to already know that it's there to know how much you're acquiring for it and what we need to do more as we pivot more towards machine learning is that we need the data to tell us what's important to look at. And that's really the vat on the value of working with these folks. >> So obviously, date is increasingly on structure we heard this morning and whatever, 80 90% is structured. So here you're no whatever. You're putting it into whatever data fake swamp, ocean, everything center everywhere, and you're using sort of machine learning toe both find signal, but also protected yourself from risk. Right. So you've got a T said you gotta redact private information. So much of that information could be and not not no schema? Absolutely. Okay, So you're where are you in terms of solving that problem in the first inning or you deeper than that, >> we're probably would say beyond the first inning, but we so we've kind of figured out what that process is to get the data and all the piece parts working together. We've made some incredible insights already. Things that people, you know, I had no idea that was there. Um, but, uh, I'd say we still have a long way to go. Is particularly terms of scaling scaling the process, scaling the thie analytics, scaling the partnerships, figuring out how do we get the most throughput? I would say it's It's one of those things. We're measuring it on, maybe having a couple of good wins this year. A couple of really good projects that have come across. We want to kind of take that tube out 10 projects next year in this space. And that's how we're kind of measuring the velocity and the success >> data divas. I walked away and >> there was one of them Was breakfast this morning. Data divas. You hold this every year. >> D'oh! It's growing. Now we got data, >> dudes. So I was one of the few data dudes way walked in >> one of the women chief date officers. I got no problem with people calling me a P. >> I No. Yeah, I just sell. Sit down. Really? Bath s o. But also, >> what's the intent of that? What learning is that you take out of those? >> I think it's >> more. It's You know, you could honestly say this isn't just a data Debo problem. This is also, you know, anybody who feels like they're not being heard. Um, it's really easy to get drowned out in a lot of voices when it comes to data and analytics. Um, everybody has an opinion. I think. Remember, Ursula is always saying, Ah, all's fair in love, war and data. Um and it feels like, you know, sometimes you go, I'll come to the table and whoever has the loudest voice and whoever bangs their test the loudest, um, kind of wins the game. But I think in this case, you know, a lot of women are taking these roles. In fact, we saw, you know, a while back from Gardner that number about 25% of chief data officers are actually women because the role is evolving out of the business lines as opposed Thio more lines. And so I mean, it makes sense that, you know, were natural collaborators. I mean, like the biggest struggle and data governance isn't setting up frameworks. It's getting people to actually cooperate and bring data to the table and talk about their business processes that support that. And that's something that women do really well. But we've got to find our voice and our strength and our resolve. And we've got to support each other in trying to bring more diverse thinking to the table, you know? So it's it's all those kinds of issues and how do you balance family? I mean, >> we're seeing >> more and more. You know, I don't know if you know this, but there's actual statistics around millennials and that males are actually starting to take on more more role of being the the caregiver in the family. So I mean as we see that it's an interesting turnabout because now all the sudden, it's no longer, you know, women having that traditional role of, you know, I gotta always be home. Now we're actually starting to see a flip of that, which is which is, >> You know, I think it's kind of welcome. My husband's definitely >> I say he's a better parent than me. >> Friday. It's >> honest he'll watch this and he >> can thank me later that it was >> a great discussion this morning. Alan, I want to get your feedback on this event and also you participate in a couple of sessions yesterday. Maybe you could share with our audience Some of the key takeaways in the event of general and specific ones that you worked on yesterday. >> Well, I've been fortunate to come to the event for a couple of years now. And when we were just what 50 or so of us that were showing up? So, you know, I see that the evolution just in a couple of years time conversations have really changed. First meeting that we had people were saying, Where do you report in the organization? Um, how many people do you have? What do you do for your job? They were very different answers to any of that everywhere. From I'm an independent contributor that's a data evangelist to I run legions of data analysts and reporting shops, you know, and so forth and everything in between. And so what I see what it's offers in first year was really kind of a coalescing of what it really means to be a data officer in the company that actually happened pretty quickly in my mind, Um, when by seeing it through through the lens of my peers here, the other thing was when you when you think about the topics the topics are getting a lot more pointed. They're getting more pointed around the monetization of data communicating data through visualization, storytelling, key insights that you, you know, using different technologies. And we talked a lot yesterday about storytelling and storytelling is not through visual days in storytelling is not just about like who has the most, you know, colors on on a slide or or ah you know, animation of your bubble charts and things like that. But sometimes the best stories are told with the most simple charts because they resonate with your customers. And so what I think is it's almost like kind of getting a back to the basics when it comes to taking data and making it meaningful. We're only going to grow our organizations and data and data scientists and analysts. If we can communicate to the rest of the organization, our value and the key to creating that value is they can see themselves in our data. >> Yeah, the visit is we like to call it sometimes is critical to that to that storytelling. Sometimes I worry and we go onto these conferences and you go into a booth and look what we can do with machine learning, and we would just be looking at just this data. So what do I do? What >> I do with all this? Yeah. >> I don't know how it would make sense of it. So So is there a special storyteller role within your organization or you all storytellers? Do you cross train on that? Or >> it's funny you'd ask that one of the gentlemen of my team. He actually came to me about six months ago, and he says I'm really good at at the analysis part, but I really have a passion for things like Photoshopped things like, uh uh, uh the various, uh, video and video editing type software. He says I want to be your storyteller. I want to be creating a team of data and analytics storytellers for the rest of the organization. So we pitched the idea to our central hub and spoke leadership group. They loved it. They loved the idea. And he is now, um, oversubscribed. You would say in terms of demand for how do you tell the data? How do you tell the data story and how it's moving the business forward? And that takes the form kind of everything from infographics tell you also about how do you make it personal when, when? Now 7,000 m s. Ours have access to their own data. You know, really telling that at a at a very personal level, almost like a vignette of animus are who's now able to manage themselves using the data that they were not able able tto have before we're in the past, only managers had access to their performance results. This video, actually, you know, pulls on the heartstrings. But it it not only does that, but it really tells the story of how doing these types of things and creating these different data assets for the rest of your organization can actually have a very meaningful benefit to how they view work and how they view autonomy and how they view their own personal growth. >> That's critical, especially in a decentralized organization. Leased a quasi decentralized organization, getting everybody on the same page and understand You know what the vision is and what the direction is. It s so often if you don't have that storytelling capability, you have thousands of stories, and a lot of times there's dissonance. I mean, I'm not saying there's not in your in your organization, but have you seen the organization because of that storytelling capability become Mohr? Yeah, Joe. At least Mohr sort of effective and efficient, moving forward to the objectives. Well, >> you know, as a as a data person, I'm always biased thatyou know data, you know, can win an argument if presented the right way. It's the The challenge is when you're trying to overcome or go into a direction. And in this case, it was. We wanted to give more autonomy. Toothy MSR community. Well, the management of that call center were 94 year old company. And so the management of that of that call center has been doing things a certain way for many, many, many, many years. And the manager's having access to the data. The reps not That was how we did things, you know. And so when you make a change like that, there's a lot of hesitation of what is this going to do to us? How is this going to change? And what we're able to show with data and with through these visualizations is you really don't have anything to worry about? You're only gonna have upside, you know, in this conversation because at the end of the day, what's going to empower people this having access and power of >> their own destiny? Yeah, access is really the key isn't because we've all been in the meetings where somebody stands up and they've got some data point in there pounding the table, >> right? Oftentimes it's a man, all right. It >> is a powerful pl leader on jamming data down your throats, and you don't necessarily know the poor sap that he's, you know, beating up. Doesn't think Target doesn't have access to the data. This concept of citizen data scientists begins to a level that playing field doesn't want you seeing that >> it does. And I want to actually >> come back to what you're saying because there's a larger thought there, which is that we don't often address, and that's this change banishment concept. I mean, we we look at all these. I mean, everybody looks at all these technologies and all this information, and how much data can you possibly get your >> hands on? But at the end of >> the day, it's all about trying to create an outcome. A some joint outcome for the business and it could be threatening. It could be threatening to the C suite people who are actually deploying the use of these data driven tools because >> it may go >> against their gut. And, you >> know, oftentimes the poor messenger of that, >> When when you have to be the one that stands up and go against that, that senior vice presidents got it, the one who's pounding and saying No, but I know better >> That could be a >> tough position to be in without having some sort of change management philosophy going on with the introduction of data and analytics and with the introduction of tools, because there's a whole reframing that, Hey, my gut instinct that got me here all the way to the top doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to continue to scale in this new world with all of all of our competitors and all these, you know, massive changes going on in the market place right now. My guts not going to get me there anymore. So it's hard, it's hard, and I think a lot of executives don't really know to invest in that change management, if you know that goes with it that you need to change philosophies and mindsets and slowly introduced visualizations and things that get people slowly onboard, as opposed to just throwing it at him and saying here, believe it. >> Think I mean, it wasn't that >> long ago. Certainly this this millennium, where you know, publications like Harvard Business Review had, uh, cover stories on why gut feel, you know, beats, you know, analysis by paralysis. >> That seems to be changing. And >> the data purists would say the data doesn't lie. It was long as you could interpret it correctly. Let the data tell us what to do, as opposed to trying to push an agenda. But they're still politics. >> There's just things out >> there that you can't even perceive of that air coming your way. I mean, like, Blockbuster Netflix, Alibaba versus standard retailers. I mean, >> there's just things out >> there that without the use of things like machine learning and being comfortable with the use, the things like mission learning a lot of people think of that kind of stuff is >> Well, don't get your >> hoodoo voodoo into my business. You know, I don't know what that algorithm stuff does. It's >> going Yeah, I mean, e. I mean to say, What the hell is this? And now, yeah, it's coming and >> you need to get ready. >> There's an >> important role, though I think instinct, you know, you don't want to dismiss a 20 year leader in a particular operations because they've they've they've getting themselves where they're at because in large part, maybe they didn't have all the data. But they learned through a lot of those things, and I think it's when you marry those things up. And if you kenbrell in a kind of humble way to that kind of leader and win them over and show how it may be validating some of their, um uh yeah, that some of their points Or maybe how it explains it in a different way. Maybe it's not exactly what they want to see, but it's helping to inform their business, and you come into him as a partner, as opposed to gotcha, you know. Then then you know you can really change the business that way. And >> what is it? Was Linda Limbic brain is it just doesn't feel right. Is that the part of the brain that informs you that? And so It's hard to sometimes put, but you're right. Uh, there there is a component of this which is gut feel instinct and probably relates to to experience. So it's It's like, uh, when, when, uh, Deep blue beat Garry Kasparov. We talk about this all the time. It turns out that the best chess player in the world isn't a machine. It's a It's a human in the machine. >> That's right. That's exactly right. It's always the training that people training these things, that's where it gets its information. So at the end of the day, you're right. It's always still instinct to some >> level. I could We gotta go. All right. Last word on the event. You know what's next? >> Don't love my team. Data officer. Miss, you guys. It is good >> to be here. We appreciate it. All right, We'll leave it there. Thank you, guys. Thank you. All right, keep right. Everybody, this is Cuba. Live from IBM Chief Data Officer, Summit in Boston Right back. My name is Dave Volante.

>> Announcer: TheCUBE presents Dell Technologies World brought to you by Dell. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage, day one, Dell Technologies World live from Las Vegas at the Venetian. Lisa Martin here with Dave Vellante and John Furrier. Guys let's talk, first of all, first time back in person since Dell Tech World 2019. Lots going on, lots of news today. I'm going to start with you, Dave, since you're closest to me. What are some of the things that have impressed you at this first in-person event in three years? >> Well, the first thing I want to say is, so John and I, we started theCUBE in 2010, John, right? In Boston, EMC World. Now of course, Dell owns EMC, so wow. It's good to be back here. Dell's built this beautiful set. I'd say the number one thing that's surprised me was how many people were here. Airport was packed, cab lines, the line at the Palazzo, the hotel, to get in was, you know, probably an hour long. And there's, I thought there'd be maybe 5,000 people here. I would say it's closer to eight. So the hall was packed today and everybody was pumped. Michael Dell was so happy to be up on stage. He talked, I dunno if you guys saw his keynote. He basically talked, obviously how great it is to be back, but he talked about their mission, building technologies that enable that better human condition. There was a big, you know, chewy words, right? And then they got into, you know, all the cool stuff they're doing so we can get into it. But they had CVS up on stage, they had USAA on stage. A big theme was trust. Which of course, if you're Dell, you know, you want people to trust you. I guess the other thing is this is the first live event they've had since the VMware spin. >> Right. >> So in 2019 they owned VMware. VMware's no longer a part of the income statement. Dell had a ton of debt back then. Now Dell's balance sheet looks actually better than VMware's because they restructured everything. And so it's a world without VMware where now with VMware their gross margins were in the 30-plus percent range. Now they're down to 20%. So we're now asking what's next for Dell? And they stood up on stage, we can talk about it some more, but a lot of multi-cloud, a lot of cyber resilience, obviously big themes around APEX, you know, hybrid work, John. So, well let's get into that. >> What are some of the key things that you heard today? >> Well, first of all, the customers on stage are always great. Dell's Technologies, 10 years for theCUBE and their history. I saw something back here, 25 years with celebrating precision, the history of Michael Dell's journey and the current Dell Technologies with EMC folded in and a little bit of VMware DNA still in there even though they're separated out. Just has a loyal set of customers. And you roam the hallways here, you see a lot of people know Dell, love Dell. Michael Dell himself was proud to talk before the event about he's number one, Dave, in PC market share. That's been his goal to beat HP for years. (laughing) And so he's got that done. But they're transforming their business cause they have to, the data center is now cloud. Cloud is now the distributed computing. Dell has all the piece parts today. We've covered this three years ago. Now it's turned into multi-cloud, which is multi-vendor, as a service is how the consumers consume, innovate with data, that's kind of the raw material. Future of work, and obviously the partners that they have. So I think Dell is going to continue to maintain the news of being the great in the front lines as a data-center-slash-enterprise, now cloud, Edge player. So, you know, I'm impressed with their constant reinvention of the company and the news hits all the cards: Snowflake partnership, cutting edge company in the cloud, partnership with Snowflake, APEX, their product that's innovating at the Edge, this new kind of product that's going to bring it together. Unifying, all those themes, Dave, are all hitting the marks. >> Chuck Whitten up on stage, obviously he was the multicloud, you know, conversation. And I think the vision that they they're laying out and Jeff Clarke talked about it as well, is a term that John and I coined. We can't remember who coined it, John or me, "supercloud." >> Yeah. (laughing) >> And they're talking about building an abstraction layer, building on top of the clouds, connecting on-prem to the clouds, across clouds, out to the Edge, hiding the underlying complexity, Dell managing all that. That's their vision. It's aspirational today but that really is supercloud. And it's more than multi-cloud. >> You coined the term supercloud. >> Did I? >> We riffed together. I called it sub-cloud. >> Oh, that's right. And then I said, no, it's got to float over. Super! Superman flies. (John laughs) Right, that's right. >> Sub-cloud, not really a good name. Nobody wants to be sub of anything. >> I think my kid gave it to me, John, actually. (laughing) >> Well if we do know that Michael Dell watches theCUBE, he's been on theCUBE many times. He watches theCUBE, clearly he's paying attention! >> Yeah, well I hope so. I mean, we write a lot about this and we talk to a lot of customers and talk to a lot of people. But let's talk about the announcements if we can. So... The APEX cyber recovery service, you know, ransomware recovery. They're now also running that on AWS and Azure. So that's big. We heard Presidio, they was super thrilled about that. So they're... The thing I'd say about that is, you know, Dell used to be really defensive about cloud. Now I think they're leaning in. They're saying, "Hey we're not going to spend, you know, Charles Fitzgerald, the snarky guy, does some good work on CAPEX. I mean, you look at how much the cloud guys are spending on CAPEX a year, $30, $40 billion. >> They can't compete. >> On cloud CAPEX. Dell doesn't want compete. >> John: You can't compete. >> Build on top of that, so that's a gift. So that's cool. You mentioned the Snowflake announcement. I thought that was big. What that is... It's very interesting, so Frank Slootman has always said, "We're not doing a half-way house, we're in the cloud." Okay, so square that circle for me. Now Snowflake's coming on-prem. Well, yeah, what they're doing is allowing customers to keep data in a Dell object store, ECS or other object stores. But use Snowflake. So non-native Snowflake data on-prem. So that expands Snowflake cloud. What it also does is give Dell a little sizzle, a little better partner and there's a path to cloud migration if that's where the customers want to go. >> Well, I mean, I would say that that's a dangerous game because we've seen that movie before, VMware and AWS. >> Yeah but that we've talked about this. Don't you think that was the right move for VMware? >> At the time, but if you don't nurture the relationship AWS will take all those customers, ultimately, from VMware. >> But that product's still doing very well. We'll see with NetApp is another one. NetApp on AWS. I forget what they call it, but yeah, file and AWS. So that was, go ahead. >> I was just going to say, what's the impact of Snowflake? Why do you think Snowflake chose Dell? >> Because Dell's a $101 billion company and they have a huge distribution channel and a lot of common customers. >> They own storage on the premise. >> Yep. And so Snowflake's looking for, you know, storage options on which they can, you know, bring data into their cloud. Snowflake wants the data to go from on-prem into the cloud. There's no question about that. >> And I would add another thing, is that Snowflake can't do what Dell Technologies does on-premises with storage and Dell can't do what Snowflake's doing. So I think it's a mutual short-term and medium-term benefit to say, "Hey you want to run on Snowflake? You need some services there? Great, but come back and use Dell." So that to me, I think that's a win-win for Snowflake. Just the dangerous game is, whoever can develop the higher-level services in the cloud will ultimately be the winner. >> But I think the thing I would say there is, as I said, Snowflake would love for the migration to occur, but they realize it's not always going to happen. And so why not partner with a company like Dell, you know, start that pipeline. And for Dell, hey, you know, why fight fashion, as Jeremy Burton would say. The other thing was Project Alpine, which is file, block and object across cloud. That's again setting up this supercloud. And then APEX. I mean, APEX is the discussion. We had a one-on-one session, a bunch of analysts with Jeff Woodrow who runs ISG. We were supposed to be talking about ISG, all we talked about is APEX. Then we had another session with APEX and all we talked about, of course, is APEX. So, they're still figuring that out, I would say, at this point. They don't quite have product market fit and I think they'd admit that, but they're working hard on scaling engineering, trying to figure out the channel model, the compensation. You know, taking their time even, but moving fast if you know what I mean. >> I mean, Dave, I think the big trend that's jumping out of me here is that, something that we've been covering, the headless cloud, meaning if you can do as a service, which is one of Dell's major points today, that to me, everyone is a PaaS layer. I think everyone that's building digital transformation apps has to be their own SaaS. So they either do that with somebody, a man in service, which fits beautifully into that trend, or do it own. Now e-commerce has this nailed down. Shopify or build your own on top of the cloud. So headless retail's a hot trend. You're going to start to see that come into the enterprise where the enterprise can have their cake and eat it too and take advantage of managed services where they don't have expertise. So those two things right there I think is going to drive a lot of growth for Dell. >> So essentially Lisa, what Dell is doing is saying, "Okay, the timing's good with the VMware spin." They say, "Now we're going to build our own cloud as a service, APEX." And they're starting with infrastructure as a service, you know, storage as a service. Obviously cyber recovery is a service. So you're going to get compute and storage and data protection. Eventually they'll move into other areas. And it's really important for them to do that to have their own cloud, but they've got to build up the ecosystem. Snowflake is a small example. My view, they need hundreds and hundreds of Snowflakes to fill the gaps, you know, move up the stack in middleware and database and DevOps. I mean, they should be partnering with HashiCorp. They should be partnering with all these companies that do DevOps stuff. They should be... I'd like to see them, frankly, partner with competitors to their data protection group. Why, you know, sounds crazy, but if you're going to build a cloud, look at AWS. They partner with everybody, right? And so that's what a true cloud experience looks like. You've got this huge menu. And so I think Dell's going to have to try to differentiate from HP. HPE was first, right, and they're all in. Dell's saying we're going to let the customers tell us where to go. And so they, I think one differentiation is their ecosystem, their ability to build that ecosystem. Yeah, but HP's got a good distribution channel too. Just not as big as Dell's. >> They all got the assets in it, but they're transforming. So I think at the end of the day, as Dell and even HPE transforms, they got to solve the customer problems and reduce the complexity. So again, the managed services piece with APEX is huge. I think having the building blocks for multi hybrid cloud at the Edge, just, you can't go wrong with that. If the customers can deploy it and consume it. >> What were some of the messages that you heard from, you mentioned CVS on stage, USAA on stage. Dell's always been very, very customer-focused. They've got some great brands. What did you hear from that customer's voice that shows you they're going in the right direction? >> Well first of all, the customers are longstanding customers of Dell Technologies, so that's one recognition of the ongoing partnerships. But they're also messaged up with Dell's messaging, right? They're telling the Dell story. And what I heard from the Dell story was moving fast and reducing complexity is their number one goal. They see the cloud option has to be there. Cloud native, Edge came up a little bit and the role of data. So I think all the new application development today that's relevant has a data as code kind of concept. Data engineering is the hottest skillset on the planet right now. And data engineering is not data science. So you start to see top-level CSOs and CIOs saying the new modern applications have to have data embedded in. It's just too hard. It's too hard to find that engineering team. So I heard the customer saying, we love the direction, we love the managed services. And by the way, we want to have that supply chain and cyber risk reduced. So yeah, big endorsement for Dell. >> You know, the biggest transformation in Dell, the two biggest transformations. One was the financials. You know, the income statement is totaled at a $101 billion company, growing at 17% a year. That's actually quite remarkable. But the flip side of that, the other big transformation was the customer. And with the acquisition of EMC but specifically VMware, it changed the whole conversation for Dell with customers. I think pre-2015, you wouldn't have had that type of narrative up on stage with customers. Cause it was, you know, compellant and it was equal logic and it was small businesses. Now you're talking about really deep strategic relationships that were enabled by that transformation. So my point is, to answer your question, it's going to be really interesting to see what happens post-VMware because when VMware came together with Dell, the industry didn't like it. The VMware ecosystem was like (growls) Dell. Okay, but customers loved it, right? And that's one of the things I heard on stage today. They didn't say, oh, well we love the VMware. But he mentioned VMware, the CTO from USAA. So Dell configured this commercial agreement with VMware, Michael Dell's the chairman of both companies. So that was part of the incentive. The other incentive is Dell is the number one distribution channel for VMware. So I think they now have that muscle memory in place where they've earned that trust. And I think that will continue on past the spin. It was actually quite brilliant the way they've orchestrated that. >> Yeah, Lisa, one more thing I want to add to that is that what I heard also was, you got the classic "here's how you be a leader in the modern era." It's a big leadership message. But then when you heard some of the notes, software-defined, multi-cloud with an emphasis on operations, Dave. So, okay, if you're a good leader, stay with Dell in operations. So you see strategy and operations kind of coming together around cloud. But big software defined multi-cloud data operational story. And I think those customers are kind of on that. You know, you got to maintain your operations. DevOps is operations, DevSecOps is operations. So big, like, don't get too greedy on the modern, shiny new toy, you know, in the cloud. >> Yeah, it's a safe bet, right? For infrastructure. I mean, HPE is a good bet too, but I mean Dell's got a way broader portfolio, bigger supply chain. It's got the end-to-end with the desktop, laptop, you know, the client side business, you know, a bigger services organization. And now the big challenge in my mind for Dell is okay, what's next? And I think they got to get into data management, obviously build up as a service, build up their cloud. They need software in their portfolio. I mean, you know, 20% gross margin company, it just, Wall Street's not as interested. You know, if they want to build more value, which they do, they've got to get more into software and I think you're going to see that. Again, I think you're going to see more M&A. I'd love to see more organic R&D instead of stock buybacks but I get why they have to do that. >> Well one of the things I'm looking at, Dave, in terms of what I think the future impact's going to be is the generational shift with the gen-Z and millennials running IT in the modern era. Not your old school rack-and-stack data center mentality. And then ultimately the scoreboard will determine, in my mind, the winner in their race is, where are the workloads running? Right? The workloads, and then also what's the application development scene look like? What do the apps look like? What are they building on? What's scaling them, what's running them? And the Edge is going to be a big part of that. So to me, operations, Edge, workloads and the development and then the workforce shift. >> And I do think Edge, I'm glad you brought up Edge. Edge is, you know, so fragmented but I think there's going to be a massive opportunity in Edge. There's going to be so much compute at the Edge. Dell talked about it, so much data. It's unclear to me right now how they go after that other than in pockets, like we heard from Gill. I believe they're going to do really well in retail. No question there. >> Yeah. >> But there's so much other industrial aisle IT- >> The telco space of towers, Edge. >> And Dell's, you know, Dell's server business, eh okay, it's got Intel and AMD inside, okay great. Their high margins come from storage, not from compute. Not the case with AWS. AWS had 35% operating margins last quarter. Oracle and Microsoft, that's the level that they're at. And I'd love to see Dell figure out a way to get paid more for their compute expertise. And that's going to take some R&D. >> John: Yeah, yeah. >> Last question guys, as we wrap up our wrap of day one. Given everything that we've all been through the last couple of years, what is your overall summary of what Dell announced today? The vibe of the show? How well have they fared the last two years? >> Well, I mean, they had a remarkable last two years. In a large part thanks to the client business. I think today you're seeing, you know, them lift the veil on what's next. And I think their story is coherent. There's, again, financially, they're a much more sound company, much better balance sheet. Not the most attractive income statement from a margin standpoint and they got work to do there. But wow, as far as driving revenue, they know how to sell. >> Yeah, I mean to me, I think looking back to before the pandemic, when we were here on the stage last, we were talking end-to-end, Dell leadership. And I say the biggest thing is Dell's catching up fast, faster than I thought. And I think they got, they're skating to where the puck is going, Dave, and I'll tell you why. The end-to-end I thought wouldn't be a total flyer if the Edge got too dynamic, but the fact that the Edge is growing so fast, it's more complex, that's actually given Dell more time. So to me, what I see happening is Dell having that extra time to nail the Edge piece, cause if they get there, if they get there, then they'll have their core competency. And why do I say that? Cause hardware is back. Server god boxes are going to be back. You're going to see servers at the Edge. And look at the failure of Amazon's Outpost, okay? Amazon's Outpost was essentially hardware. That's Dell's business. So you talk about like compute as a cloud but they really didn't do well with deploying compute like Dell does with servers. EKS is kicking ass at the Edge. So serverless with hardware, I think, is going to be the killer solution at the Edge. A combination of cloud and Edge hardware. And the Edge looks more like a data center than the cloud looks like the data center, so- >> So you're saying hardware matters? >> HardwareMatters.com. >> I think that's what I heard. >> HardwareMatters.com, check out that site, coming soon. (all laughing) >> I think it matters more than ever, you know- >> Blockchain, silicon advances. >> I think reason hardware matters is cause it's barbelling. It's going from the box to the silicon and it's going, you know, upstream into software defined. >> Horizontally, scalability means good silicon at the Edge, under the cover, scaling all the stuff and machine learning and AI in the application. So we've said this on theCUBE now, what, five years now? >> Dave: Yeah, yep. >> Guys, we've got an action packed night tonight. Two days tomorrow and Wednesday. Michael Dell is on tomorrow. Chuck Whitten is on, Jeff Clarke, et cetera, et cetera. Caitlin Gordon is on Wednesday. >> All the heavy hitters are coming on. >> They're coming on, they're going to be... >> Dave: Allison Dew's coming on. >> Allison Dew's coming on. >> We're going to talk about the Matthew McConaughey interview, which was, I thought, fantastic. J.J. Davis is coming on. So we're going to have a great channel discussion, as well, with Cheryl Cook. >> That's right. >> A lot of the product people are coming on. We're going to be talking APEX, it's going to be good. With cyber recovery, the Storage Alchemist is coming on, John! (all laughing) >> Boy, I can't wait to see that one. >> Well stick around guys for our coverage all day tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday. Lisa Martin with Dave Vellante and John Furrier coming to you live from the Venetian in Las Vegas. This is Dell Technologies World 2022. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow and the next day. (bouncy, upbeat music)

(techno music) >> From Cambridge, Massachusetts, it's theCUBE. Covering MIT Chief Data Officer and Information Quality Symposium 2019, brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media. >> Welcome back to MIT CDOIQ. The CDO Information Quality Conference. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. My name is Dave Vellante. I'm here with my co-host, Paul Gillin. This is our day two of our two day coverage. Jean Ross is here. She's the principle research scientist at MIT CISR, Jean good to see you again. >> Nice to be here! >> Welcome back. Okay, what do all these acronyms stand for, I forget. MIT CISR. >> CISR which we pronounce scissor, is the Center for Information Systems Research. It's a research center that's been at MIT since 1974, studying how big companies use technology effectively. >> So and, what's your role as a research scientist? >> As a research scientist, I work with both researchers and with company leaders to understand what's going on out there, and try to present some simple succinct ideas about how companies can generate greater value from information technology. >> Well, I guess not much has changed in information technology since 1974. (laughing) So let's fast forward to the big, hot trend, digital transformation, digital business. What's the difference between a business and a digital business? >> Right now, you're hoping there's no difference for you and your business. >> (chuckling) Yeah, for sure. >> The main thing about a digital business is it's being inspired by technology. So in the past, we would establish a strategy, and then we would check out technology and say, okay, how can technology make us more effective with that strategy? Today, and this has been driven a lot by start-ups, we have to stop and say, well wait a minute, what is technology making possible? Because if we're not thinking about it, there sure are a lot of students at MIT who are, and we're going to miss the boat. We're going to get Ubered if you will, somebody's going to think of a value proposition that we should be offering and aren't, and we'll be left in the dust. So, our digital businesses are those that are recognizing the opportunities that digital technologies make possible. >> Now, and what about data? In terms of the role of digital business, it seems like that's an underpinning of a digital business. Is it not? >> Yeah, the single biggest capability that digital technologies provide, is ubiquitous data that's readily accessible anytime. So when we think about being inspired by technology, we could reframe that as inspired by the availability of ubiquitous data that's readily accessible. >> Your premise about the difference between digitization and digital business is interesting. It's more than just a sematic debate. Do companies now, when companies talk about digital transformation these days, in fact, are most of them of thinking of digitization rather than really transformative business change? >> Yeah, this is so interesting to me. In 2006, we wrote a book that said, you need to become more agile, and you need to rely on information technology to get you there. And these are basic things like SAP and salesforce.com and things like that. Just making sure that your core processes are disciplined and reliable and predictable. We said this in 2006. What we didn't know is that we were explaining digitization, which is very effective use of technology in your underlying process. Today, when somebody says to me, we're going digital, I'm thinking about the new value propositions, the implications of the data, right? And they're often actually saying they're finally doing what we thought they should do in 2006. The problem is, in 2006, we said get going on this, it's a long journey. This could take you six, 10 years to accomplish. And then we gave examples of companies that took six to 10 years. LEGO, and USAA and really great companies. And now, companies are going, "Ah, you know, we really ought to do that". They don't have six to 10 years. They get this done now, or they're in trouble, and it's still a really big deal. >> So how realistic is it? I mean, you've got big established companies that have got all these information silos, as we've been hearing for the last two days, just pulling their information together, knowing what they've got is a huge challenge for them. Meanwhile, you're competing with born on the web, digitally native start-ups that don't have any of that legacy, is it really feasible for these companies to reinvent themselves in the way you're talking about? Or should they just be buying the companies that have already done it? >> Well good luck with buying, because what happens is that when a company starts up, they can do anything, but they can't do it to scale. So most of these start-ups are going to have to sell themselves because they don't know anything about scale. And the problem is, the companies that want to buy them up know about the scale of big global companies but they don't know how to do this seamlessly because they didn't do the basic digitization. They relied on basically, a lot of heroes in their company to pull of the scale. So now they have to rely more on technology than they did in the past, but they still have a leg up if you will, on the start-up that doesn't want to worry about the discipline of scaling up a good idea. They'd rather just go off and have another good idea, right? They're perpetual entrepreneurs if you will. So if we look at the start-ups, they're not really your concern. Your concern is the very well run company, that's been around, knows how to be inspired by technology and now says, "Oh I see what you're capable of doing, "or should be capable of doing. "I think I'll move into your space". So this, the Amazon's, and the USAA's and the LEGO's who say "We're good at what we do, "and we could be doing more". We're watching Schneider Electric, Phillips's, Ferovial. These are big ole companies who get digital, and they are going to start moving into a lot of people's territory. >> So let's take the example of those incumbents that you've used as examples of companies that are leaning into digital, and presumably doing a good job of it, they've got a lot of legacy debt, as you know people call it technical debt. The question I have is how they're using machine intelligence. So if you think about Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, they own horizontal technologies around machine intelligence. The incumbents that you mentioned, do not. Now do they close the gap? They're not going to build their own A.I. They're going to buy it, and then apply it. It's how they apply it that's going to be the difference. So do you agree with that premise, and where are they getting it, do they have the skill sets to do it, how are they closing that gap? >> They're definitely partnering. When you say they're not going to build any of it, that's actually not quite true. They're going to build a lot around the edges. They'll rely on partners like Microsoft and Google to provide some of the core, >> Yes, right. >> But they are bringing in their own experts to take it to the, basically to the customer level. How do I take, let me just take Schneider Electric for an example. They have gone from being an electrical equipment manufacturer, to a purveyor of energy management solutions. It's quite a different value proposition. To do that, they need a lot of intelligence. Some of it is data analytics of old, and some of it is just better representation on dashboards and things like that. But there is a layer of intelligence that is new, and it is absolutely essential to them by relying on partners and their own expertise in what they do for customers, and then co-creating a fair amount with customers, they can do things that other companies cannot. >> And they're developing a software presumably, a SAS revenue stream as part of that, right? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> How about the innovators dilemma though, the problem that these companies often have grown up, they're very big, they're very profitable, they see disruption coming, but they are unable to make the change, their shareholders won't let them make the change, they know what they have to do, but they're simply not able to do it, and then they become paralyzed. Is there a -- I mean, looking at some of the companies you just mentioned, how did they get over that mindset? >> This is real leadership from CEO's, who basically explain to their boards and to their investors, this is our future, we are... we're either going this direction or we're going down. And they sell it. It's brilliant salesmanship, and it's why when we go out to study great companies, we don't have that many to choose from. I mean, they are hard to find, right? So you are at such a competitive advantage right now. If you understand, if your own internal processes are cleaned up and you know how to rely on the E.R.P's and the C.R.M's, to get that done, and on the other hand, you're using the intelligence to provide value propositions, that new technologies and data make possible, that is an incredibly powerful combination, but you have to invest. You have to convince your boards and your investors that it's a good idea, you have to change your talent internally, and the biggest surprise is, you have to convince your customers that they want something from you that they never wanted before. So you got a lot of work to do to pull this off. >> Right now, in today's economy, the economy is sort of lifting all boats. But as we saw when the .com implosion happened in 2001, often these breakdown gives birth to great, new companies. Do you see that the next recession, which is inevitably coming, will be sort of the turning point for some of these companies that can't change? >> It's a really good question. I do expect that there are going to be companies that don't make it. And I think that they will fail at different rates based on their, not just the economy, but their industry, and what competitors do, and things like that. But I do think we're going to see some companies fail. We're going to see many other companies understand that they are too complex. They are simply too complex. They cannot do things end to end and seamlessly and present a great customer experience, because they're doing everything. So we're going to see some pretty dramatic changes, we're going to see failure, it's a fair assumption that when we see the economy crash, it's also going to contribute, but that's, it's not the whole story. >> But when the .com blew up, you had the internet guys that actually had a business model to make money, and the guys that didn't, the guys that didn't went away, and then you also had the incumbents that embrace the internet, so when we came out of that .com downturn, you had the survivors, who was Google and eBay, and obviously Amazon, and then you had incumbent companies who had online retailing, and e-tailing and e-commerce etc, who thrived. I would suspect you're going to see something similar, but I wonder what you guys think. The street today is rewarding growth. And we got another near record high today after the rate cut yesterday. And so, but companies that aren't making money are getting rewarded, 'cause they're growing. Well when the recession comes, those guys are going to get crushed. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> And you're going to have these other companies emerge, and you'll see the winners, are going to be those ones who have truly digitized, not just talking the talk, or transformed really, to use your definition. That's what I would expect. I don't know, what do you think about that? >> I totally agree. And, I mean, we look at industries like retail, and they have been fundamentally transformed. There's still lots of opportunities for innovation, and we're going to see some winners that have kind of struggled early but not given up, and they're kind of finding their footing. But we're losing some. We're losing a lot, right? I think the surprise is that we thought digital was going to replace what we did. We'd stop going to stores, we'd stop reading books, we wouldn't have newspapers anymore. And it hasn't done that. Its only added, it hasn't taken anything away. >> It could-- >> I don't think the newspaper industry has been unscathed by digital. >> No, nor has retail. >> Nor has retail, right. >> No, no no, not unscathed, but here's the big challenge. Is if I could substitute, If I could move from newspaper to online, I'm fine. You don't get to do that. You add online to what you've got, right? And I think this right now is the big challenge. Is that nothing's gone away, at least yet. So we have to sustain the business we are, so that it can feed the business we want to be. And we have to make that transition into new capabilities. I would argue that established companies need to become very binary, that there are people that do nothing but sustain and make better and better and better, who they are. While others, are creating the new reality. You see this in auto companies by the way. They're creating not just the autonomous automobiles, but the mobility services, the whole new value propositions, that will become a bigger and bigger part of their revenue stream, but right now are tiny. >> So, here's the scary thing to me. And again, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. And I've been an outspoken critic of Liz Warren's attack on big tech. >> Absolutely. >> I just think if they're breaking the law, and they're really acting like monopolies, the D.O.J and F.T.C should do something, but to me, you don't just break up big tech because they're good capitalists. Having said that, one of the things that scares me is, when you see Apple getting into payment systems, Amazon getting into grocery and logistics. Digital allows you to do something that's never happened before which is, you can traverse industries. >> Yep. >> Yeah, absolutely >> You used to have this stack of industries, and if you were in that industry, you're stuck in healthcare, you're stuck in financial services or whatever it was. And today, digital allows you to traverse those. >> It absolutely does. And so in theory, Amazon and Apple and Facebook and Google, they can attack virtually any industry and they kind of are. >> Yeah they kind are. I would certainly not break up anything. I would really look hard though at acquisitions, because I think that's where some of this is coming from. They can stop the overwhelming growth, but I do think you're right. That you get these opportunities from digital that are just so much easier because they're basically sharing information and technology, not building buildings and equipment and all that kind of thing. But I think there all limits to all this. I do not fear these companies. I think there, we need some law, we need some regulations, they're fine. They are adding a lot of value and the great companies, I mean, you look at the Schneider's and the Phillips, yeah they fear what some of them can do, but they're looking forward to what they provide underneath. >> Doesn't Cloud change the equation here? I mean, when you think of something like Amazon getting into the payments business, or Google in the payments business, you know it used to be that the creating of global payments processing network, just going global was a huge barrier to entry. Now, you don't have nearly that same level of impediment right? I mean the cloud eliminates much of the traditional barrier. >> Yeah, but I'll tell you what limits it, is complexity. Every company we've studied gets a little over anxious and becomes too complex, and they cannot run themselves effectively anymore. It happens to everyone. I mean, remember when we were terrified about what Microsoft was going to become? But then it got competition because it's trying to do so many things, and somebody else is offering, Sales Force and others, something simpler. And this will happen to every company that gets overly ambitious. Something simpler will come along, and everybody will go "Oh thank goodness". Something simpler. >> Well with Microsoft, I would argue two things. One is the D.O.J put some handcuffs on them , and two, with Steve Ballmer, I wouldn't get his nose out of Windows, and then finally stuck on a (mumbles) (laughter) >> Well it's they had a platform shift. >> Well this is exactly it. They will make those kind of calls . >> Sure, and I think that talks to their legacy, that they won't end up like Digital Equipment Corp or Wang and D.G, who just ignored the future and held onto the past. But I think, a colleague of ours, David Moschella wrote a book, it's called "Seeing Digital". And his premise was we're moving from a world of remote cloud services, to one where you have to, to use your word, ubiquitous digital services that you can access upon which you can build your business and new business models. I mean, the simplest example is Waves, you mentioned Uber. They're using Cloud, they're using OAuth.in with Google, Facebook or LinkedIn and they've got a security layer, there's an A.I layer, there's all your BlockChain, mobile, cognitive, it's all these sets of services that are now ubiquitous on which you're building, so you're leveraging, he calls it the matrix, to the extent that these companies that you're studying, these incumbents can leverage that matrix, they should be fine. >> Yes. >> The part of the problem is, they say "No, we're going to invent everything ourselves, we're going to build it all ourselves". To use Andy Jassy's term, it's non-differentiated heavy lifting, slows them down, but there's no reason why they can't tap that matrix, >> Absolutely >> And take advantage of it. Where I do get scared is, the Facebooks, Apples, Googles, Amazons, they're matrix companies, their data is at their core, and they get this. It's not like they're putting data around the core, data is the core. So your thoughts on that? I mean, it looks like your slide about disruption, it's coming. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. >> No industry is safe. >> Yeah, well I'll go back to the complexity argument. We studied complexity at length, and complexity is a killer. And as we get too ambitious, and we're constantly looking for growth, we start doing things that create more and more tensions in our various lines of business, causes to create silos, that then we have to coordinate. I just think every single company that, no cloud is going to save us from this. It, complexity will kill us. And we have to keep reminding ourselves to limit that complexity, and we've just not seen the example of the company that got that right. Sooner or later, they just kind of chop them, you know, create problems for themselves. >> Well isn't that inherent though in growth? >> Absolutely! >> It's just like, big companies slow down. >> That's right. >> They can't make decisions as quickly. >> That's right. >> I haven't seen a big company yet that moves nimbly. >> Exactly, and that's the complexity thing-- >> Well wait a minute, what about AWS? They're a 40 billion dollar company. >> Oh yeah, yeah, yeah >> They're like the agile gorilla. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> I mean, I think they're breaking the rule, and my argument would be, because they have data at their core, and they've got that, its a bromide, but that common data model, that they can apply now to virtually any business. You know, we're been expecting, a lot of people have been expecting that growth to attenuate. I mean it hasn't yet, we'll see. But they're like a 40 billion dollar firm-- >> No that's a good example yeah. >> So we'll see. And Microsoft, is the other one. Microsoft is demonstrating double digit growth. For such a large company, it's astounding. I wonder, if the law of large numbers is being challenged, so. >> Yeah, well it's interesting. I do think that what now constitutes "so big" that you're really going to struggle with the complexity. I think that has definitely been elevated a lot. But I still think there will be a point at which human beings can't handle-- >> They're getting away. >> Whatever level of complexity we reach, yeah. >> Well sure, right because even though this great new, it's your point. Cloud technology, you know, there's going to be something better that comes along. Even, I think Jassy might have said, If we had to do it all over again, we would have built the whole thing on lambda functions >> Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. >> Not on, you know so there you go. >> So maybe someone else does that-- >> Yeah, there you go. >> So now they've got their hybrid. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> You know maybe it'll take another ten years, but well Jean, thanks so much for coming to theCUBE, >> it was great to have you. >> My pleasure! >> Appreciate you coming back. >> Really fun to talk. >> All right, keep right there everybody, Paul Gillin and Dave Villante, we'll be right back from MIT CDOIQ, you're watching theCUBE. (chuckles) (techno music)

>> Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering Dell Technology's World 2019. Brought to you by Dell Technologies and it's ecosystem partners. >> Hi, welcome to theCUBE Lisa Martin with Stu Miniman and we are live at Dell Technologies World 2019 in Las Vegas with about 15,000 or so other people. There's about 4,000 of the Dell Technologies community of partners here as well. Day one as I mentioned, we're very pleased to welcome back one of our cube alumni, Karen Quintos, EVP and Chief Customer Officer from Dell Technologies, Karen, welcome back to theCUBE. >> Thank you, thank you. Always great to be with you all. >> So one of the things you walk down on stage this morning with Michael Dell and and the whole gang and you started to share a story that I'd love for you to share with our audience about this darling little girl, Phoebe from Manchester, England that has to do with this Dell Technologies partnership with Deloitte Detroit and 3D prosthetics. Can you share this story and what it meant about this partnership. >> Well we wanted to tell this story about Phoebe because we really wanted the audience to understand the innovation and all of what's done it with social good is really about the individual, You know, technology plays a key role but the face behind the technology and the innovation are people and you know, as you mention Phoebe is from Manchester, U.K. Her father wrote this blog about Phoebe's experience. Phoebe's aunt, Claire works for Deloitte. She had access to a lot of what they could do in terms of 3D printing and basically came to Dell and we were able to take it and scale it and accelerate it and speed it up with a engineer by the name of Seamus who saw what the precision workstation could do. So it was this small idea to help an amazing little girl like this that has now turned into this movement around how do we more rapidly, quickly scale 3D prosthetics so these children and adults can have a chance at a normal life so. >> What kind of prosthetics did you guys build for her? >> It's an arm, so the very first arm that we built for her when she was about five years old had the frozen Disney theme painted on it. I asked her father Keith what is the one that she's wearing now because she's now this like really super cool seven-year-old that goes to school and all of her classmates and friends around her see her as this rock star and the one that she has today is printed with unicorns and rainbows. So if you know anything about seven-year-old girls, it's all about unicorns and rainbows and she's done an amazing thing and she's inspired so many other people around the world, individuals, customers, partners like Deloitte and others that we're working with to really take this to a whole new level. >> Karen, I think back to Dell you know, if you think back a couple of decades ago you know, drove a lot of the some of the waves of technology change you know, think back to the PC, but in the early days it was you know supply chain and simple ordering in all these environments and when I've watched Dell move into the enterprise, a lot of that is, I need to be listening to my customer, I need to be much closer to them because it's not just ordering your SKU and having it faster and at a reasonable price but there's a lot more customization. Can you talk about how you're kind of putting that center, that customer in the center of the discussion and that feedback loops that you have with them, how that's changed in Dell. >> Yeah sure, so all of the basic fundamentals around you got to order, deliver, make the supply chain work to deliver for our customers still matters but it's gone beyond that to your point and probably the best way to talk about it is these six customer award winners that we recognized last night. I've gotten to know all six of those over the last year and while they are doing amazing things from a digital transformation using technology in the travel business, the automotive business, banking, financial services, insurance, kind of across the board, the thing that they say consistently is look, we didn't always have the answer in terms of what we needed but you came in, you listened, you rolled up your sleeves to try to figure out how you could design a solution that would meet the needs that we have and they said, that's why you're one of the most strategic partners that we have. Now you can do all those other things, right? You can supply chain ride and build and produce and all that but it's the design of a solution that helps us do the things that will allow us to be differentiated and you look at that list of six customers and brands that they represent, right, Carnival Cruise Lines, USAA, Bradesco, McLaren I mean, the list kind of goes on, they are the differentiators out there and we're really honored to be able to be working with them. >> So we're only a day one and it's only just after lunchtime but one of the things I think somatically that I heard this morning in the keynote with Michael and Pat and Jeff and Satya and yourself is, it's all about people. A couple interviews I did earlier today, same sort of thing, it's like we had the city of Las Vegas on. This is all driven by the people in for the people so that sense of community is really strong. I also noticed this year's theme of real transformation, parlays off last year's theme of make it real, it being digital transformation, IT, security, workforce transformation, what are some of the things that were like at Dell Technologies. Cloud this morning for example, VMware Cloud on Dell EMC that you guys specifically heard say from last year's attendees that are manifesting in some of the announcements today and some of the great things the 15 or so thousand people here are going to get to see and feel and touch at this year's event? >> Well, Lisa you nailed it. What you heard on stage today is what customers have been telling us over the last year. We unveiled about a month ago with a very small group of CIOs in Amia, our cloud strategy, our portfolio, the things that we're going to be able to do and one customer in particular immediately chimed in and said, we need you in the cloud and we need you in there now because you offer choice, you offer open, you offer simplicity, you offer integration and they're like, there's just too many choices and a lot of them are expensive. So what you heard on stage is absolutely a manifestation of what they told us. The other pieces, look, I think I think the industry and CIOs are very quickly realizing their workforce matters, making them happy and productive matters having them enabled that they can work flexibly wherever they want to really, really matters and you know, our Unified Workspace ONE solution is all about how we help them simplify, automate, streamline that experience with their workforce so their employees stick around. I mean, there's a war on talent and everybody's dealing with it and that experience is really, really important in particular to the gensies and the millennials. >> Karen, I love that point. Actually, I was really impressed this morning. In the press and analyst session this morning, there was a discussion of diversity and inclusion and the thing that I heard is, it's a business imperative, it's not, okay it's nice to do it or we should do it but no, this is actually critical to the business. Can you talk about what that means and what you hear from your customers and partners. >> Yes, yes, well, we're seeing it in spades and all of these technology jobs that are open, right. So look, all the research has shown that if you build a diverse team, you'll get to a more innovative solution and people generally get that but what they really get today is here in the U.S. alone, there's 1.1 million open technology jobs by the year 2024, half of them, half of them are going to be filled by the existing workforce. So there is this war in talent that is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and I think that's what really has given a wake-up call to corporations around why this matters. I think the other piece that we're starting to see, not just around diversity but in our other social impact priorities around the environment as well as how we use our technology for good, look, customers want to do business with a corporation that has a soul and they stand for something and they're doing something, not just a bunch of talking heads but where it's really turning into action and they're being transparent about the journeys and where they're at with it. So it matters now to the current generation, the next generation, it matters to business leaders, matters to the financial services community, which you start to see you know, some of the momentum around you know, the black stones and state street. So it's really exciting that we're part of it and we're leading the way in a lot of number of areas. >> And it's something to that we talked about a lot on theCUBE, diversity and inclusion from many different levels, one of them being the business imperative that you talked about, the workforce needing to compete for this talent, but also how much different products and technologies and apps and APS and things can be with just thought diversity in and of itself and I think it's refreshing to what Stu was saying, hey, we're hearing this is a business imperative but you're also seeing proof in the pudding. This isn't just, we've got an imperative and we're going to do things nominally, you're seeing the efforts manifest. One of the, Draper Labs who was one of the customer award winners. That video that was shown this morning struck probably everyone's heart with the campfire in Paradise California. >> Tragic. >> I grew up close to there and that was something that only maybe, I get goosebumps, six months ago, so massively devastating and we think you know, that was 2018 but seeing how Dell Technologies is enabling this laboratory to investigate the potential toxins coming from all of this chart debris and how they're working to understand the social impact to all of us as they rebuild, I just thought it was a really nice manifestation of a social impact but also the technology breadth and differentiation that Dell has enabling. >> That was also why this story today was so great about Phoebe, right because it's where you can connect the human spirit with technology and scale and have an even bigger impact and there's so much that technology can help with today. You know, that that story about Phoebe. From the time that her aunt from Deloitte identified, you know, what we could do, all the way to the time that Phoebe got her first arm was less than seven months, seven months and you think about you know, some of the other prototypes that were out there, times would take years to be able to do it. So I love that you know, connection of human need with the human spirit and connecting and inspiring and motivating so many children and adults around the world. >> And what what are some of the next, speaking of Phoebe and the Deloitte digital 3D prosthetics partnership, what are some of the other areas we're going to see this technology that this little five-year-old from Manchester spurned. >> Well, I'll give you another example. So we, there was an individual in India, actually an employee of ours that designed an application to help figure out how to deploy healthcare monitoring in some of the remote villages in India where they don't have access to basic things that we take for granted. Monitoring your blood pressure, right, checking your cholesterol level and he created this application that a year later now, we have given kind of the full range of the Dell portfolio technology suite. So it is you know our application plus Pivotal plus VMware plus Dell EMC combined with the partnering that we've done with Tata Trust and the State of India, we've now deployed this healthcare solution called Life Care Solution to nearly 37 million rural residents, citizens in India. >> Wow 37 million. >> 37 million, so a small idea, you take from a really passionate individual, a person, a human being and figure out how you can really leverage that across the full gamut of what Dell can do, I think the results are incredible. >> Awesome, you guys also have a Women in Technology Executive Summit that you're hosting later this week. Let's talk about that in conjunction of what we talked a minute ago about, it's a business imperative as Stu pointed out, there are tangible, measurable results, tell us about this. >> Well, I'm kind of done honestly with a lot of the negativity around, oh, we're not making any progress, oh, we need to be moving fast and if you look at the amount of effort, energy and focus that is going into this space by so many companies and the public sector, it's remarkable and I've met a number of these CIOs over the last year or two, so we basically said let's invite 20 of them, let's share our passion, have made progress, care about solving this across their organization. A lot of us are working on the same things so if we simply got in a room and figured out, are their power in numbers and if we worked collectively together, could we accelerate progress. So that's what it's all about. So we have about 15 or 20 CEOs, both men and women and we'll be spending you know, six or seven hours together and we want to walk away with one or two recommendations on some things that we could collaborate on and have a faster, bigger impact. >> And I heard that, you mentioned collaboration, that's one of the vibes I also got from the keynote this morning when you saw Michael up there with Pat and Jeff and Satya, the collaboration within Dell Technologies, I think even talking with Stu and some of the things that have come out and that I've read, it seems to be more symbiosis with VMware but even some the, like I said, we're only in, I wouldn't even say halfway through day one and that is the spirit around here. We talk about people influence, but this spirit of collaboration is very authentic here. You are the first chief customer officer for Dell, if you look back at your tenure in this role, could you have envisioned where you are now? >> No, because it was like the first ever chief customer officer at Dell and you know, it really gave me a unique opportunity to build something from scratch and you know, there's been a number of other competitors as well as other companies that have announced in the last year or so the need to have a chief customer officer, the need to figure out how, which is a big remit of mine across Dell Technologies, how do we how do we eliminate the silos and connect the seams because that's where the value is going to be unlocked for our customers. That's what you saw on stage today. You saw the value of that with Jeff, with Pat, with Satya, some you know, one of our most important partners out there. Our customers don't want point solutions, they want them to be integrated, they want it to be streamlined, they don't be automated, they want us to speed time to value, they want us to streamline a lot of the back-office kind of mundane things that they're like, I don't want my people spending their time anymore and doing that and that's where we see Dell Technologies being so much more differentiated from other choices in the market. >> Yep, I agree with you. Well Karen, thank you so much for joining Stu and me on theCUBE this afternoon, sharing some of the stories, look forward to hearing next year what comes out of this year's as Women in Tech Exec Summit. Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you very much, thank you. >> with Stu Miniman, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching theCUBE, live day one of Dell Technology World from Las Vegas, thanks for watching. (light electronic music)