>>from around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of Dell Technologies. World Digital experience brought to you by Dell Technologies. Welcome to the cubes coverage of Dell Technologies World 2020 the digital edition. It wouldn't be a Dell Technologies world on the Cube without our next guest. Tim Crawford, CEO, Strategic Advisor from a boa. Tim, welcome back to the Cube. It's great to talk to you. >>Thanks, Lisa. Thanks for having me on the Cube today. >>A lot has changed since we last got to sit down with you in person. We think of the last Dell Technologies world is a year and a half ago. But we've seen dramatic changes in the enterprise the last 67 months. Talk to me about some of the things that you're seeing. >>Yeah. You know, Lisa, you couldn't put, um, or sustained way around what we've seen over the last 10 months or less. Even theater prices change for Monster Blue. You know, we've gone from having a pretty clear strategy of how we're going to move forward in the technology is we're gonna use to setting all that aside the strategies and plans that we had in the end of 2019 no longer apply the way we engage with customers, the way we run our business, the way who our customers are. The markets we go after all of that is now up for grabs. All of that has changed. And so, therefore, technology and the underpinnings of how we use data has to change accordingly. And so I think we'll talk a little more about that, too. >>I'd like to get your perspective on this acceleration of digital transformation that happened this year. We've seen that we've seen the companies that weren't ready. We've seen the companies that were pretty decently able to pivot quickly. What's your advice for those who are still struggling? Because here we are seven months in. One thing we know for sure is this uncertainty is going to continue for a while. >>Yeah, you're absolutely right. The uncertainty is going to continue for a while. We don't know what the new normal is gonna look like. We don't know how our customers are going to engage with us in the future. And so all the more reason why we need to be thinking very differently about how we operate our companies and how we remain flexible, how we stay in touch with our customers and how that translates into the choices we make in terms of the partners and technologies data that we use. You know, one of the great things about the coronavirus that has come out. If you can say that there is a great thing that's come out of it is it's really accelerated the need to transform companies. And I'm talking about business transformation, not digital transformation. Digital transformation is a downstream component of business transformation. And so a lot of the hurdles that companies were having that I T organizations were having to move to the cloud toe leverage, data toe leverage, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Ah, lot of those hurdles have since dropped by the wayside because companies are realizing if they don't start to adopt some of this new technology, it's available and has been available for some time. They will die, and it it really is that dramatic for companies. And so the Kobe 19 virus has really kind of thrown everything into into the muck, and we've had toe kind of sort things out, but at the same time, it's really given companies an opportunity to say we have. We have a single opportunity here to do something that we will probably never see again. What I mean by that is now we have the lowest level of risk that our company will will observe, probably over our career lifetimes. And what I mean by that is just imagine if you're a commercial airline, you have the lowest passenger loads right now, If >>you need >>to change core operational systems, now is the time to do it. Not when you're operating at Peak, and this is playing out right now across all of the different industries, and that's a huge opportunity. >>That's a great point. And you're right. There are opportunities. There are pluses that are coming out of this. If you think of the I love the opportunity that you just described it, there's the lowest risk right now for, say, an airline to be able to rapidly pivot. Of course, one of the things that you know what happened during that is the customers that consumers would. We react in many different ways. The customer experience is almost under on even higher resolution microscope. The last seven months talk to me about what some of the things you're seeing, how companies need to react to preserve customer relationships because brand is at stake. >>Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, Brand is at stake. The livelihood of your company is at stake, and at the core of that is technology and data. So all we have to do to answer that question is really look in the mirror. Look at how we have changed. Look at how our buying habits have changed. Now that's more of a B two C relationship. But even in the B two b space, those relationships have changed demonstrably. And so we have to think about how our customers air needing to change and how their business is changing, and then how we can accommodate that. And so what that means is we have to tap into data whether it's on the customer experience side or the business operation side of it. We have to tap into that data and use it in a more meaningful way than we ever have in the past. We have to remain more flexible. We have toe leverage it in ways that that we can do things and change on a moments notice. And that's something that we generally haven't architected our organizations or or our technology architectures for, for that matter. But now is the time to do it, and we have to be in touch with our customers in order to do it so again comes back to data, comes back to technology and architectures. Flexibility is the key here. >>I think consumers are far more demanding in the last seven months just because we have this expectation set for the last few years that we could go on Amazon to get anything we want. Anytime we could go on Netflix and watch any movie from any number of years ago anytime we want. And so when this happened and people were so used thio that speed of delivery and things were delayed, I just started seeing much more uproar from the consumer. I thought, Man, we've been conditioned for so long, but one of things I'm curious about when you're talking to the C suite is budget shifting. I mean, we know companies, some of them those enterprises that are in good shape have d our plans. They have business continuity plans. Probably. Nobody had a pandemic plan. So how do you help advise these enterprises to shift budget rapidly enough to be able thio implement the technologies that can harness insights from that data to drive a stupid earlier differentiated customer experience? >>Yeah, so let's kind of break that a part of it and unpack it. So on the pandemic, planning companies did have pandemic planning. I mean, 15 years ago, when I was leading I t. At Stanford University, we had a pandemic response plan that went with R D. R and B C plans. I think that most folks, though, they they struggled through that D R and B C process, and they never get to the pandemic end of that spectrum. And that's a really hard problem to solve for but kind of getting back to how that customer has changed and how we can accommodate that. Changed your right. Budgets have changed, technology has changed, and so we have to think about how we do things differently. I think from a budgetary standpoint, one of the first things we saw is just extreme spending and productivity tools, right? More laptops, more screens, more webcams, Mawr lights. Who would have thought that I would have needed Ah, lighting system for my home, right? Maybe a laptop was enough. We have to think about how our processes air different. How do we push patches out to people's computers out at their home? You know, that may sound somewhat trivial, but the reality is it's really hard to do because you're dealing with all kinds of different bandwidth requirements. Andi. It's not just me in the house. I have my wife, who is an executive on on video all day. I've got two teenage kids when in high school, when a middle school there on video all day. So we're taxing these networks within people's homes as well, in ways that we never have. And so all of these pieces kind of come together and cause us to rethink how we allocate our budgets within the I T organization. So the first thing is there was a lot of productivity tools that were being purchased. There was a lot of preservation of cash that companies kind of went into. How do we start to control, spend and kind of pull back on the reins? But the smart ones started to look at the opportunities to accelerate their innovation programs. And those are the folks that are really doing well right now. How do I start to use this opportunity again, not trying to suggest that the code 19 or the coronavirus is a great thing for us. But how do we start toe leverage that in the best way possible, and take advantage of it in such a way that it could benefit us on the long run? And this is where innovation and accelerating some of those changes really comes into play. And as I mentioned things like cloud artificial intelligence machine learning, leveraging data to understand your customers more intimately, being flexible to change your company's your business operations, how you engage with your customers, you know, instead of just a website, maybe you need thio move Mawr to a focus on a mobile device or mobile application, or vice versa. All of those start to come into play, but at the heart of it is data and data is what ultimately will drive the decisions down the path. >>So you talked about the work from home thing, and I kept thinking of the proliferation of endpoint devices at the edge you're right. How many of us tried to get a webcam months ago and couldn't? Because suddenly that became a tool that was essential for folks to continue their operations and and maintain their productivity. How are enterprises, in your opinion this year addressing the edge and understanding how they need to be able to take advantage of that? But also understand where all those devices are, to your point, pushing out patches, ensuring that there's a secure environment? What's their view of the edge? >>Yeah, the the edges incredibly complicated, and it's important to differentiate a couple of pieces here. So when you talk about the productivity devices, whether it's the laptops, the Webcams, the lighting, all of those I p connected components that we interface with, that's one aspect. And you're right. I mean, I can remember I t leaders that were telling their staff. Goto every office supply store, every big box store by every laptop keyboard, mouse, webcam you can get your hands on. I don't care what brand it is. I don't care what specs are. Just do it because they didn't have access to those. Resource is for their entire employee base. And so That's one aspect. And that's a whole another, um, consideration as we start to think about cybersecurity, and now we're talking about non non traditional, um, platforms that are in the environment in the enterprise environment, versus your standard kind of image and standard product. But aside from that, we also have data coming from the edge, whether it's from sensors and video cameras and other types of devices that we have to bring into the mix, too. Right understanding that Tim Crawford has now entered into a store and that Tim Crawford has now left the store but hasn't purchased. But we know that Tim Crawford is a loyal customer based on his loyalty at how do we start to gauge that? Or how do we start to gauge the number of folks that are moving through a given area and especially in light of coronavirus? I mean, there there's some aspect that air coming up where companies are starting to look at. How do we measure the number of people that are in a given room and do that in an automated way, and maybe alert people to say, Hey, you know, is there a way you can stand out or reminds people gently, Um, you know, keep your distance, make sure you're wearing your mask, etcetera. There are a lot of ways that edge comes into play, but at the core of this is data. And so that's where it becomes really important to understand that the amount of data, not just the sources of data but the amount of data that we're gonna have to deal with and we're dealing with today at the edge is just incredible. And it's on Lee going to grow exponentially. And so it's important to understand that your customer engagement pieces are going to be a source of data as well as a consumer of data. Let's not forget that people with the edge they need to be able to consume data and not in a batch way, they need to be able to do it in real time, which then gets back to flexibility and speed and algorithms at the edge. But understanding all of that data at the edge, being able to analyze it, whether it's for business operations or customer engagement and then providing that through the continuum from edge to cloud is really, really critical. It's a very complicated problem to solve for, but every single enterprise across the industries is already heading down this path. >>You're right. It is an incredibly complex problem to solve. So here we are, virtually at Dell Technologies World 2020. Talk to me about Dell Technologies Landscape. How do you think it fits into addressing some of these challenges in the complexities that you just talked >>about? Yeah, you know, Dell has been on this path for a while. I mean, through the partnerships through the ecosystem that Don't has is well as their portfolio of hardware and software. I think Della's position really well to be able to address both the customer experience as well as the business operations. The key here is you have to think about edge to Klag. You have to think about data. You have to think about analytics and then, from a nightie perspective, how do you start toe layer in the management and the algorithms on top of that to be able to manage that landscape? Because that landscape is getting increasingly more complicated on I think Dell starting to come up with the software pieces that actually make the connection between back those points on the continuum, and that's a really important piece here for I t. Organizations to understand. I think, you know, with the new announcements around Apex, I think that will will shine really well for dealt. I think if you look at the partnerships and the ecosystem and the connections that they're making both with public cloud providers as well as with other partners in the ecosystem, I think that's, ah, positive place. But the place that I would actually watch most closely with Dell is what is that? Software Later, They already have a really good hardware platform to build on top of them that portfolio. What is that software layer that connects or create that connective tissue for them? And I think that's the big piece, and I think we're going to hear more of that. Here is Dell Technologies World. >>I'm also curious. I read your posts and and listen to podcasts on the difference between a traditional CEO and a transformational CEO. If I think is such an important thing to discuss because part of that is cultural right, it's it's got, too. It's not just about a company being able to transform It's got to be the person with the right mindset with that flexible, agile mindset. But your advice to businesses who are still pivoting or pivoting multiple times and trying to become not just a survivor but a winner of tomorrow. From a cultural perspective, >>you know, culture is the hardest thing to change. It really is. You know, the technology is easy. Relatively speaking. We can swap out one technology for another. It's relatively straightforward to dio, and it always has been, Um, the real challenge here is how do you create the underpinnings and the foundation for that culture? What I mean by that is changing, like within the I T organization, and it starts with the CEO, but then also kind of branches out into the rest of the I T organization to the most junior levels of the I T staff. What I mean by that is you have to look at how you become less text centric and more business centric. And so my post about the change in the differentiation from the traditional CEO to transformational CEO is just about that. It's about how do you start to make that shift where you start focusing on business first and that ultimately becomes our context regardless of what organization you're in. I t marketing HR engineering product support. It doesn't matter. You start with the business context and then you flow down from that. And so part of that move to being the transformational CEO or the transformational organization is really shifting to be more business focused. And using that is your North Star and then from it, you start to understand how the different technology pieces fit into place. And so, for example, a traditional CEO would typically focus on business operations. More of the back end pieces, right? The underlying technology, the back end systems. But the transformational CEO is going to be incredibly more customer focused. They're actually gonna be out with the customer they're going to be doing right alongs will probably not right now in the absence of Corona virus, but they're going to be engaging firsthand with customers, understanding firsthand what they're dealing with, understanding what the business challenges are that they're having and then being able to translate that into where does technology fit in? And where does technology not fit in kind of going back to what I was saying earlier around the importance of customer experience. And so that's really where this transformational bent comes from. Is shifting from just being back office focused to moving toward understanding that front office or that customer focus. And that's the rial differentiator for companies. Here is when you can start to think about how tech enology plays. That's central role in changing your business. That's gold. That's absolute gold. >>Gold, but hard, hard Thio Dig for that gold. One last question, Tim, You talked about a number of the opportunities that Cove in 19 is bringing. And I completely agree with you. Not that any of us loves being stuck at home and isolated in the same walls, but there are opportunities that are going to come. We're gonna learn things from that if we're open minded and and flexible and agile in our thinking. But other things that that you think we haven't heard about yet that you see as a kind of maybe some north stars to come. >>Yeah, there there are a couple things that I think we generally are missing, and I kind of touched on one of from earlier, which is how do you start, Thio, accelerate some of that innovation now. And so you know, I used the airplane example of you know you've got the lowest passenger loads. Now is the time to implement that innovative technology. Because if something does go wrong, if something does go wrong, the impact to your customers is relatively low. And quite frankly, a lot of folks Aer giving out hall passes to say, You know what we understand Coronaviruses. Hard for all of us. Something went sideways here. Fine, go fix it, go fix it and then come back to us. And so I think customers are definitely more apt to hand out that whole past now versus when, where it full capacity. And that kind of leads me to. The second piece that I think people are missing is that companies are organized and built around operating efficiently at 80% utilization or 100% utilization. What I mean by that is they tend not to make money until they get to that level of utilization. But yet in the coronavirus era, what if we had a company that was organized in such a way that it could be profitable at 25% utilization that would cause us to think very differently about how we use technology, how we're able to scale technology, how we leverage data were thinking in more meaningful ways about the customer. And so what that means is that it gives us the ability to scale our business up and down. God forbid, if we ever run into another situation like this ever again in our lifetimes. But if we ever hit another patch of negativity around economic growth, it allows a company to be able to scale down and back up as needed for their customers. And that's another piece. I don't think people are thinking about their thinking about the big picture they're thinking about. How do we build for growth? But what they're not thinking about is what if we need to scale this back, and I think a great example of where this touches in we're here. A Dell Technologies world is Look at the way that companies are starting to shift towards this as a service model, right? We're able to scale technology up use it is, we need it, give it back when we don't need it. And so when you start to move into that more flexible mode. I talked about flexibility in other ways earlier, but as you start to get into a different consumption boat, it gives you a lot of opportunity to do a lot of different things in a lot of different ways. And that's ultimately what companies need to be thinking about today. >>Sounds like it's going to be some of the big differentiators between the winners and the losers of tomorrow. Will Tim, Thank you for joining us on the Cube virtually from your home. It's not a Dell Technologies world on the Cube without talking to you, Tim. And I appreciate we all appreciate your time and the insight that you shared today. >>Thanks, Lisa. Thanks for having me on the Cube. >>Our pleasure for Tim Crawford. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the cubes. Coverage of Dell Technologies, World 2020