(upbeat music) >> Hey everyone, welcome back to theCUBE's continuous coverage of AWS reinvent 2021, I'm Lisa Martin. This is day four for theCUBE. We have two live sets, I'm here with Dave Nicholson, Dave two live sets, 100 guests on theCUBE for AWS Re:Invent 2021. >> Not all at the same time. >> Not all-- That's a good, he brings up a good point, not all at the same time, we are pleased to welcome Gretchen Peri who's going to be sitting down and chatting with Dave with me next. She is from Slalom, at the US State Local and Education, SLED leader. We're going to be talking about Slalom and AWS digital innovation in the public sector. Gretchen, it's a pleasure to have you on the program. >> Thank you for having me. >> For the audience that might not be familiar with Slalom before we dig into AWS and SLED in particular, talk to us about Slalom and what it is that you guys do. >> I'd love to. So Slalom's a modern business and technology consulting firm. We're headquartered in Seattle Washington, we have about 11,000 employees across 40 markets globally. And what's different about Slalom is we're local model firm, so our consultants live and work in the same locale, which means we're personally invested in our client's outcomes because they impact us directly in the communities in which we live. >> And you've been in a leader in SLED for a long time, talk to us about what's going on on SLED these days. Obviously the last 18, 22 months have been quite dynamic, but what's going on in the market? >> Absolutely. What we're seeing is an extra emphasis on data data data, obviously, data is king and data is queen right now, right? So when the pandemic hit, we saw a ton of digital innovation, as our SLED clients needed to get their services online. That had been going on for a long time but it absolutely accelerated when then pandemic it and then it was a public health hazard, to ask people to come into the location. So what we saw was for constituents, we saw just absolute blast of omni-channel service delivery, so we saw the advent of SMS and chat bots and the more tech services, right? Leveraging AWS Lex and Transcribe and other services of AWS really helped our SLED clients react to the pandemic and respond to make sure that their constituents were receiving the digital services they needed, and their employees were able to be productive at home. >> Well, that was one of the keys the employee productivity, the student productivity, when everything's went remote overnight, one of the most challenging things was the demand for collaboration tools. Then of course, there's security challenges, there was concerns there, but talk to us about, and we've seen so much innovation out of AWS in the last, I mean always, but even what they announced the last couple of days, the innovation flywheel of AWS is probably stronger than ever enabling organizations like SLED, FED, private sector, public sector to be data-driven. >> Absolutely. One thing that's really exciting right now is to see the evolution of how our SLED customers are thinking about data. So we've been working on like integrated visions in SLED for a long time, integrated justice, integrated health care, integrated eligibility, how do we bring all this information together so that we can supply the right information to the right people at the right time to deliver the right outcomes? And AWS has been a huge part of that. It's not the journey to get to the cloud, it's the destination once you get there, right? Because then you can leverage all their AIML tools, IOT, edge, container, blockchain. And so our customers, who have already made that switch to AWS, they're able to take advantage of that. It's not what you can do in the cloud anymore is what you can't do without it really, right? So we're seeing tons of advances, intelligent document processing is one area I'm really excited about for our SLED clients, and working very closely with AWS to make sure that we see our clients adopt that and achieve the value out of it. >> AWS is dominating the IT space, although what five to 15% of IT is in the cloud, which means the vast majority is still on premises. So there's a huge potential for growth. In this sort of wild, wild west that we're in, there are all sorts of different kinds of services and consultancy partners, that are seeking to bridge the gap between the technology that AWS delivers and the outcomes that customers desire. >> Right. >> Now I've had a couple of experiences actually with Slalom folks, that were very, very positive. And what I saw was that the Slalom people were embedded in a way that you don't see some other consultancies embedded. You mentioned that something that piqued my interest, you talked about the local nature, is that your superpower? Because it sure seemed to be powerful to see this person where some of these very, very large global companies had no idea who Slalom was, until they realized that Sally was the one who had the best relationship with the customer. So Sally's a fictitious name that I just came up with, but I want to hear a little more about Slalom and your superpower and your differentiation. 'Cause it's a crowded space, you've got global systems integrators, you got all kinds of people. What makes you special? >> It's really the breadth of professional services that we provide, combined with AWS's cloud technologies and services. What we do I think a little bit differently is whereas AWS works back from the customer, we work back from our customer's vision. And so what we do with our, especially with our SLED clients, but with all of our commercial clients, is we say, what is your business strategy and your business vision, and how do we design the technology solutions, working back from that. So you're able to answer the business questions through data-driven tech technology, that's really important to you. And when we look at that, it's not just generating data to create information to then garner insights, but let's go one step further. And how do we create knowledge and how do we create wisdom this space, right? Where we understand situational awareness, common operating pictures, that's really what we want to do. When we talk about criminal justice and public safety, I love how we're thinking about joining data in new and different ways. It's not necessarily applications anymore, right? How do we create data as a service? How do we create documents as a service? Where we're pulling out the exact information that we need from semi-structured, structured and unstructured data and providing it to the right people to make the right decisions. >> Talk to us about intelligent document processing, a lot of buzz going on with that. What is it? Where are public sector agencies in terms of embracing it, adopting it and having it be part of that vision? >> Yeah, the promise is huge for IDP. What IDP is basically is leveraging AWS AI services to create intelligent automation solutions that help extract information from printed documents, digital documents, paper documents, right? So leveraging AWS services like Amazon Textract, Comprehend, Augmented AI, things like, and Kendra. What that does in combination, is it helps our clients unlock the data from, you can imagine government, it's heavy, heavy documents, and in criminal justice and public safety in particular, these documents represent key milestones and processes, right? So we're never going to get rid of documents in SLED, they're going to be used in perpetuity, it's important for accessibility and practicality and everything else. But what this does is it lets us unlock the data from those kind of stale documents and create it into usable formats for so that people can make decisions. >> That's critical because there's, I mean, we talk about in Amazon, AWS been this week have been talking about it and Dave, we have too. Every company, public sector, private sector, it needs to be a data-driven company, but they need to be able to extract that value from the data and the data isn't just digital. And that's something that, to your point, that's going to be persistent within SLED, they have to be able to extract the value from it quickly. >> Yes. >> To be able to see what new products and services can we deliver? What directions should we be going? And what outcomes should we be driving based on that visibility? And that visibility is critical. >> Exactly. And right now we absolutely have to support our communities. And we have a lot of our slide clients who are talking about this is a time where we don't just respond in a way that helps people kind of navigate this pandemic, we have to build resiliency as well in our communities and we do that through helping people through these hard times and making sure that we're moving our services to places where people can access them, in any language from wherever they are, right? We're having to actually go into people's homes on their couches, to deliver government services. Where we used to bring them into a single location. >> Right. >> Typically public sector has often been seen as lagging behind the private sector in some ways, the pandemic, as I'm sure ignited a fire with, especially with federal acknowledgement of things that need to happen, budgets flowing, are you seeing even more of an awakening from a cloud perspective within public sector? >> We are, we are and we're seeing really interesting initiatives pop up like, behavioral health initiatives, that are meant to address some really serious concerns in our country like nationwide 988 suicide prevention projects, right? And the federal government is providing a lot of funding to states and local governments so that they can help take care of our communities and also make sure that we're moving our services online so everyone can access them. >> I'm curious about that point, the funding. >> Yeah. >> Do you find yourself almost in the position of prize patrol? Where were some of the state local governments aren't necessarily as aware as Slalom might be of programs that are coming down immediately. Is that part of the conversation? >> It is part of the conv-- That's a great point because what we do is we look at what's coming down from the federal government, how is it going to flow to the states? How is it going to land ultimately, and then helping governments come up with a strategy for how to spend that money in the right way is really important, right? And we saw with some of the funding that come out, that there were delays on getting like eviction prevention funding out to folks. And so making sure that we have the technology to support those outcomes. >> It's all about outcomes. >> Yes. >> Speaking of outcomes, something I want to congratulate Slalom on is winning the first ever National Essay Partner of the Year for the US. >> Yes. >> Nice. >> That's awesome, congratulations. >> What does that mean for Slalom and what direction can we expect the Slalom and AWS partnership to go? >> Up and up. >> To the right? >> Yes. For us it's about validating the relationship that we have, right? It's really, when we walk into a client conversation, what we want to do is develop trust that our clients know we're looking for their best interest and their best outcomes. We're not trying to sell them something we're trying to solve their problems together. And it validates that for us, our partnership with AWS obviously is so important. And what we're doing in terms of making sure that we have a strong bench full of certifications and we can go to market together in the right way for our clients. This is a huge award and the recognition is very powerful for us. >> Well, congratulations. And so last question, you mentioned AWS and we always talk about when we talk with them at their event, we talk about their customer obsession, right? They work backwards, as you said, from the customer. And you guys from customer vision. Talk to me about when you go in jointly together, work with the customer, what does that alignment look like? >> Absolutely. So what we typically do is, Slalom will focus on what is the business outcome that we want to generate? And we will help design, how are we going to go about solving that problem? And how is AWS going to help support us with enabling technology? And so we will go into client conversations together, say, what is the outcome we want from this initiative together? And how are both partners going to get aligned to support the client in that conversation, in that product. >> That alignment is (indistinct). Gretchen, thank you for joining Dave and me today, talking about Slalom, what you guys are doing, how you're really helping organizations in SLED transform and not just survive challenging time but really thrive and be data-driven. We appreciate your insights and congratulations again on the National Essay Partner of The Year. >> Thank you so much. >> All right. For Dave Nicholson, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE, the global leader in live tech coverage. (lively music)

>> Narrator: From the cube studios in Palo Alto, in Boston connecting with thought leaders all around the world. This is a CUBE conversation. >> Hi, welcome to this CUBE conversation. I'm John Furrier, host of the cube here in Palo Alto studios for a great startup showcase preview Rakesh Narasimhan, president and CEO of Anitian, great company, hot startup really getting a great tailwind with COVID and their technology, Rakesh great to see you. Thanks for coming on theCUBE >> Thank you for the opportunity John, great to be here. >> So you guys have a very strong company, a lot of growth a lot of action happening around public private sector. Obviously with cloud scale, we've seen a lot of benefits but the COVID and now the growth plans coming out of COVID. As people start to think about post COVID recovery. Cloud is a big part of it. You guys have been taking a big success playbook out of cloud scale. Take a minute to explain, before I get into some of my questions around what you guys are doing and your value proposition. Talk about the company. What do you guys do? What's the purpose? Why do you exist? >> Wait, thanks again, good to be here. Talking about a mission as well as the story of growth here. Our primary value proposition as a company is really helping customers both in government, as well as commercial achieve compliance and security in the fastest time possible. Lots of companies are going through a digital transformation, but you know public sector, there's a lot of speed that they require in terms of moving their applications. People are trying to go to the cloud. And when I talk to customers I hear three things all the time. A they're trying to move to the cloud. B, they're trying to, you know, remote was always there, but COVID has dramatically compressed the time in which everybody has to provide the functionality right now. And lastly, securing the apps and data. Those are the three priorities we hear from customers all the time. Anitian as a company is able to dramatically get you time to market and time to value on both your compliance and security needs. That's really why the cabin was formed. This is a space where premiere really most of the people are manual time tasks and it's a classic software play to basically go transform that and automate that. >> Okay, great. Thanks for the overview. Get it, get it, get in and talk about the value proposition specifically that you guys offer. Are you guys targeting the enterprise? Is it public sector or is it both? What's the target audience, target customer that you're going after and why would they want to engage with you guys? >> Yeah, so I think it's a it's a timely space where there's a lot of commercials software as a service companies who are trying to expand into the larger government market. And to do that, you've got to be compliant on some sort of standard if you will. Right? And so let's take an example. It's FedRAMP. So we've taken a ton of essay in a SaaS companies, if you will we're trying get into the market and we get them within 60 to 90 days into a compliance. In the time of a quarter, a SaaS company can enter a federal market the ability to sell it on the cost of doing it is recouped in the first deal that they make. So time to speed and time to actually be able to go expand into a vertical market is one of the main value propositions on the SaaS side of house. Also, we have a lot of government agencies who are trying to move to the cloud. And so if you look at Amazon, they're trying to get a lot of customers who are going to adopt the cloud. We provide a pre-engineered solution that integrates all the, the, the value of partners along with Amazon and bring those applications from government agencies to the cloud. So on both sides, both getting public sector companies or agencies, we're trying to get to the cloud as well as SaaS companies who are trying to get a, you know joining a market where it just enabling and accelerating the time to market. That's a huge ROI of right away >> As an amazing value proposition. You're on both sides of the fence. They are playing, you know kind of the in-between moving people around, back and forth helping people back and forth. If I get this right, let me just see if I get this right. So you guys, so almost say I'm a fast growing startup. born in the cloud. Amazon has a zillion of partners that are that are kicking butt. They're doing great. I say, Hey, I want to get into the public sector or the public sector or an agency wants to work with a startup. Then the old world was you got to go stand in line, get certified, do all those hoops to get certified FedRAMP or whatever, and then or hire staff to go, you know, be government sector. And then that was the old way. You guys essentially shortcut that by saying you provide a platform to allow me, the customer was enterprise customer who's a Saas get into the market faster. Is that right? >> That's right. I think that a big portion of that is, you know there's only two kinds, right? People who are trying to do it themselves or people who are trying to get consultants to tell them what to do our value proposition is why are you like you're in a business to do something very specific getting a secure and compliant. It's something we can do for you, but time, money quickly. But the most important thing is it's not a one and done thing, right? So this is, this is where we come in. And just like what the email security business used to be, right? People used to run their own email servers to run their email. Well, who does that anymore right? Well, most of them have actually gone out. We did a similar example of getting compliance for other companies and we actually do it through software and we have an ongoing relationship and make sure that that current compliance is maintained, but also other compliances you can see that come up we're able to help them upgrade cycle. >> Well, that's a great point. Well, you know, the cloud scales it's not one and done it's one and continue because you have iteration you have day two operations. You have all these kinds of cloud ops that require that kind of ongoing. I won't say maintenance. It's not maintenance anymore. It used to be maintenance. Now it's like, you know, it's operations it's a new feature. >> You're doing intervention, but it's, you're not done yet. You have to keep evolving as the market evolves. We've got customers not paying us for just one thing that would have been three years ago. We've got to keep that refreshed. And also more current and up to date which is one of the benefits of cloud, right? It can move quickly, but it can also bring new things to the market pretty quickly as well. So they benefit because of the inventions we're doing and the partner ecosystem around us. >> It's a classic case of software new marketplaces that exist new ways of doing business. It's a whole new wave. It's an old way. It's getting, getting trashed in my opinion in new ways, coming in fast >> When you have to evolve, right? Architectures evolve, time goes on and new things come up right? >> Hybrid, hybrid cloud too is forcing this big time because you have now environments and an organizations shifting now multiple clouds, multiple vendors integrating quickly huge challenge. >> I think it's a fair point, John. But one of the things I always remember is, you know you have to be effective first and then once you're effective, you can become efficient. In other words, it's good that customers have an option to have a software platform to go get their compliance and security needs done. If you could do that on one cloud, that it solves and then you're going to go to multiple clouds and you know, it has been a great partner to make sure that they are making everything available for us to be able to build a great solution on the platform and its ecosystem around it which helps us basically be the equivalent of, you know standing on the giants, giant shoulders, if you will to bring that value to the marketplace. >> So what do you guys do? That's unique for inside Amazon, for Amazon startups? Why are you guys successful in helping these companies do the fedRAMP thing? What's the big secret sauce? >> Yeah, so there's actually three separate parts to it. First is we actually have worked already with a fair amount of folks who actually provide functionality on Amazon. So for example, a FedRAMP solution might require us to work with a SIM vendor and endpoint protection as well as container security, if you will. So we've worked with vendors who already work on Amazon, AWS, and pre-integrated that into the environment so that when we go deploy, for the customer's application that's not something they have to worry about. It's already there. The licensing is there, the deployment is ready. They don't have to do any of that. So that's pre-integration you could think about it. Then there's the automation provided by our platform itself. We have a platform that we deploy into the account. And so all the innovations that we are doing about taking the integration and then automating all the requirements for the security controls that are part of standard such as FedRAMP, for example. So once you do the pre-integration and you have software innovation from us and the third part we provide is a actual SecOps service, which is based on the platform. We actually help the customer, not have to worry about the threat hunting, threat mitigation itself. It's a service available all the time. And so the combination of those three things it turns out is sort of the biggest headache for customers, whether you're in commercial SaaS vendor or if you're in the agency side, we are sort of a one-stop shop to get you there and compliance. Similarly, we have an offering called secure cloud. And what happened is a little story for you. We started doing this compliance automation and as we were doing them a lot of commercial companies looked at that and say you know what I like about what you folks are doing? You sort of standardize the way we deploy a secure environment. So, you know, we like the security guys in our organization and the like it, because it complies with the security controls, the business guys like it because you're doing it in a certain budget and time the dev guys like it because we're not telling them what to do. We have created a secure environment and they liked developing in it, but they have ops folks are the ones that really benefit from having to make sure that security guys like it, it's in budget and the developers can be productive. That aha moment actually came from customers to it. They said, I like what you did for compliance automation any that different other applications. And that's how we got under the secure cloud business as well. >> Yeah. It's, it's funny how these aha moments happen because you solve the need and people go, Hey, I want more of that. And I see why software vendors would want to turn to you to help sell into that huge federal market. It's just, it's so much faster and it takes the pain away. They get in market fast. It's a cloud value proposition get in quickly and then you know, get a position and keep solving value there. So I got the question, if that's, if that's happening which it is, who are you disrupting? What industries and business models are you changing or replacing? What's that, what's the big disruption? >> I see, you know, in the compliance side, there's there's really two, two sides there's compliance. And then the security, right? And the compliance side I see really people who are trying to do it themselves. You know, that's still is a large portion of the market that they haven't realized that, you know this is not a core competency of ours. We just need to have somebody else do this for us. I think that's generally, mostly we ran into and over time they don't get the FedRAMP or PCI compliance. And then they come to us. We got a lot of customers who come to us because they've tried and failed. And so they want to get on with us because of our growth in the marketplace. So that's one and second is a larger market is really in the compliance side. Historically has been a lot of consulting companies. They, they ship bodies to your company and that's what they do. And that's for a particular FedRAMP compliance regime. The next year, you want to do something else, guess what? We're going to go higher and more consultants to that market. So we basically provide a software approach to automating the need for the customer have basically started really disrupting that market against traditional competitors if you will. So that's compliance and the secure cloud, it's not very different. If you can imagine going back 15, 20 years if somebody told you, that the way you will buy compute storage and networking is you will go to a website and you'll sign up with an account and procure it. People would probably run you out of the room at that time, because they'd be like, Hey I'll buy from one of the vendors they'll ship. They'll come to my building the rack and stack them. Well, that changed dramatically over time because of the acceleration, we're doing something similar which is why do I need to assemble an endpoint solution or a firewall or something else? And by the way, by the time I do this next year there's a new vendor saying that they have something better, right? So we have done something similar to the journey we're on. If the pre integrate pre provide functionality from the best vendors out there. So the customer's applications can be in that environment benefiting from all that invention the ecosystem and the cloud provider themselves instead of having to worry about am I getting the right end point solution or firewall or STEM, and do I have it configured properly? And is this the best combination of things I have? Will you basically provide that functionality so that they don't have to think about that? And that reflects in the results we're having. >> It's amazing disruption. I think you brought up earlier devops efficiency and security applicant and your application in a way you got dev the DevOps, ethos, now dev sec ops is being applied to compliance. I mean basically, it's your compliance automation platform software but Devops and security ethos DevSecOps is just the enablement for you. It's just the playbook, right? Is that, is that kind of how it is? Because DevOps is applies to all verticals now and security is needed. >> I think, I think it's much more it's here present, right? Which is a, an issue for most organizations enterprise agencies and government or commercial vendors. If you will, the whole market, this market has gotten up because they learned you can get things into production is a big need out there. And you do that really well on effectively. You need a great DevOps organization. Think of us as sort of a DevSecOps in a box that we can deploy and that helps the customers get to market faster, right? So speed is important. So certainly the effectiveness of that is important, but at the same time, do you achieve the compliance? Do you achieve the securities even bigger bar, if you will and in today's industry and marketplace you can't talk about a digital transformation cycle and talk about a three-year project. If you will. I think it has to be shorter and they have to actually see the return pretty quickly. And that's primarily the reason why, if you think about Anitian's story, we're solving a business problem but the way we're doing it, this actually provided for the DevSecOps and DevOps folks, if you will but it solves a business problem for the companies whether you're a commercial or government that's the reason why I think it's much more interesting. >> Yeah and I think one of the things that's interesting with cloud is you need to have that automation and you're essentially taking care of the compliance problem that everyone has because once the SaaS vendor gets in value proposition where they're growing they start to get customers that say, Hey, do you have a pen test? Can I get a SOC report? I mean, all these little kind of things start emerging where they got to go build it and go, wait, we didn't get that. What are we going to do? I got to have that built in and deliver that every time not a one-off it used to be you do a pen test or you do some things and you're done and you lock the code down. Not anymore. >> Fair enough. I think it's a continuous thing, right? It's not just when I'm done but also it's not just one and done, but this is not static. It's very dynamic, but the apps are changing. The functionality is changing. The things they interact with are changing. That's the beauty of the cloud, right? You have all this ability to be able to move faster, but with it comes certain responsibilities, if you will. And so that we take our job seriously to ensure that while you're innovating with your application out there our job is to make sure that we're keeping up with you not just in securing you and making you compliant but also keeping you compliant so that you're not running a foul in terms of all these other standards, if you will that's one benefit of it, frankly, at the end of the day the customers benefit the most, right? Because you can better functionality faster. And frankly, it's driving pricing as well. And so that's got to be a larger issue for the industry in general, frankly. >> Awesome, great insight, Rakesh. I've got to ask a question. If I'm the customer, when do I know it's time to call you? Is there a markers or signs that are clear? I say, well, I need to call immediately. That's something's going down here. When, what's the tail sign >> Two tells are really one is you want to expand into the market. You want to grow your business revenue. If you want to add more revenue in a large market like federal government or public sector in general then we're the fastest way to get you there, just revenue, right? So if you want to make more money we can get you there faster, quicker than anybody else. And then keep you there by the way. The other tell is, if you want to stop time in terms of investment in trying to figure out how to assemble the best of breed, if you will you know, a lot of the, you know, Amazon sellers. In fact, they, they bring a lot of customers to us where they bring us saying here's the fastest way for you to get secure quickly so that your application can go out to the marketplace and scale and still be secure. So in both sides, both on the compliance side and automation, as well as the secure applied side, the clear tell is when people are trying to grow their business. And they're trying to secure while growing their business. Both of those are clear tells when we get brought in. >> Yeah. So on the business, logic is simple. I want to go into new market and the other side, I got my product ready. I got to get the products up to speed and standardized with all the compliance. >> Sure. Right. >> Awesome, well great conversation. Thanks for coming on and sharing the story and the value proposition and the business model and all the secret sauce. Final question. I'll just give you the last minute here to put a plug in for the company. What are you guys looking for? Are you guys hiring, state of the company? Any vitals you'd like to share in terms of status momentum take a minute to get the plug in. >> Great. Thank, thank you for the opportunity, John more than anything else. Happy to share the story and the growth at Anitian. If you are a customer that is contemplating doing any sort of compliance or you're trying to figure out how to get secure pretty quickly with a pre-engineered platform one of the best guys to be around in the, in the marketplace, we work on Amazon and AWS folks. Get in touch with the AWS rep or get in touch with us directly. I can, I'll give you my email. It's my first name dot last name@anitian.com. Go ahead and send the email and we'll help you with your compliance and security needs as well. Growing like crazy, you know, in the middle of a pandemic, we, you know, we, we're lucky we live in professions where we're able to move things remotely not everybody else is. But we are able to take care of our customers and secure them, keep them compliant, phenomenal growth. We're growing like crazy in terms of our business as well as people send me mail. If you're interested in joining the company or want to be a partner with us happy to help you with that. Okay. >> Rakesh Narasimhan president and CEO of Anitian. What a great business model, helping companies make money faster by getting into new markets. If you're a cloud-scale great, great success. Thanks for coming on. >> Thank you, John. Take care. >> Okay, This is the CUBE conversation. I'm John Furrier. Thanks for watching.