>> Announcer: Live from Madrid, Spain it's theCUBE.
Covering HPE Discover Madrid 2017.
Brought to you by Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
>> We're back in Madrid everybody.
This is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage.
My name is Dave Vallante and I'm here with my co-host
Peter Burris.
This is day one of HPE Discover Madrid.
Parvesh Sethi is here, he's the Senior Vice President
and General Manager of the global client services
at HPE Point Next.
Parvesh thanks for very much for coming back on theCUBE.
>> Good to be here.
>> Dave: Last time we saw you,
you were 30 days into the job.
>> That's right.
>> Maybe 45 days.
So how's the first six, seven months been?
>> It's been busy.
It's actually been very good.
I administered the transformation change
that's taking place within the company.
It's actually been really good to also working
with the clients on the hybrid IT journey side of the house.
And since last we spoke, we also did the CTP acquisition,
which has been very well received as well.
>> Well I love it, when you guys go and talk
about transformations to customers.
We're experts.
>> Parvesh: Yes.
>> We live this.
>> Parvesh: Live this everyday.
>> Does that enter into the discussions with your customers?
It must right?
>> Yeah I think it gives us a lot of credibility.
Especially when you take a look at the journey they're on.
And we talk a lot about hybrid IT today, making it simple.
And one of the things we always talk to them about is that
hybrid IT is not just infrastructure cloud.
You really have to take a look at the full spectrum
of the services that had to be delivered.
It could be as a service providers,
could be subscribing to a platform,
and hosting it on-prem, off-prem,
private dedicated infrastructure, or public cloud.
Just a mix of those and being able to
decide as to what are the characteristics
that you should look at,
and what will decide as to what goes into public cloud,
private cloud, or where should those services come from.
>> What do you tell the skeptics?
You know the, why should I do hybrid cloud?
Why don't I just put everything in the cloud?
Do you get those questions,
or is it more customers saying hey,
help me with my hybrid problem?
What's the--
>> Almost every single client meeting that I've been in.
Everyone acknowledges the world is hybrid IT.
And I have not met a single client yet who says
all of their workloads are going into public cloud.
I think a lot of it depends on what they want to achieve.
If they want a lot of elasticity and if they need SLAs,
or if they want to bring the workload back in,
security compliance or organizational cultural
governance processes, performance characteristics.
A lot of those factors come into play
as to deciding what goes where.
And I think almost everyone says that
it's never going to be 100% this or that
just based on the characteristics that would really
dictate where the workload or the application says.
>> And that's the characteristics of the data.
Is that fair?
'Cause it used to be, oh security.
And you know public cloud, gives you fine security.
Maybe not exactly the way you want it done,
but is it more the realization about,
you just can't move all the data into the cloud?
Or you can't force your business into the cloud?
What are customers saying there?
>> I think part of it also comes into, for example,
governance as well.
If there's HIPAA compliance workloads as an example,
that may dictate your decision in a certain way.
But you're right though,
I mean security used to be one of the big concerns,
but it's more about now a person has decided
they want to move a certain workload over,
it's really more about how do you get them comfortable,
how do you de-risk that move?
And this is where thinking through the journey roadmap
really becomes critical.
But just because of that one aspect, it's not necessarily
stopping people from moving,
but it's really baking that into the design criteria
as to how you move it.
>> Well while we're on security, I mean,
in the last five years it's obviously
become a board level topic.
People have I think come to the recognition.
Maybe the recognition, maybe the spending hasn't shifted,
but the mindset's shifted that we can't just
create a moat, you know, they're gonna get in.
Once they get in we have to respond.
We need analytics and response mechanisms and so.
How are they coming to you for help?
What are they asking you for, and how are you helping?
>> So I think it certainly comes into more into place
can not be an afterthought.
It's really more about security in and the governance
has to be kind of baked in from the front end of it.
So everything that we do, whether it's any solution
that we're doing from IoT perspective
all the way to the hybrid IT,
from an architecture blueprint perspective
we have made sure the security's front and center
of everyone of those designs as well
as the discussion criteria with the client.
And so when you start looking at it's not about security
partial assessment.
It's also kind of looking at designing security
from a, you know, architecture blueprint perspective.
And making sure that if somebody's talking about
hybrid IT architecture or an IoT use case,
that security's front and center of the design criteria.
>> If you think about the challenges that your sales,
well let's step back.
If you think about the challenges that everybody has
at conceiving of how best to associate data, workload,
and cloud implementation.
Hybrid, on-premise, off-premise, wherever it is.
There are, you have to have a common framework,
what used to be called a computing model.
A way of thinking of how you address the problem.
That your sales people has to have,
your support people have to have,
you have to have, your customer has to have.
Are there like two or three things
that you're telling your people to look forward,
or look for and working with their customers
to help provide those clues.
So crucial to getting everybody on the same page early
as to where workloads are gonna end up.
Where data is gonna end up.
>> That's a great question, and one of the things
that we're making sure that our folks
are not just talking about the hardware piece of it.
It's really more about before the
hardware discussion takes place,
making sure that we completely align
on the workload strategy.
As part of the workload strategy,
you know we will do workshops, and we'll make sure
that we totally understand in terms of
what is it they're trying to accomplish
in terms of the workload migrations.
And before we even get to the migration topic,
we really go through this criteria in terms of
assessing the workloads.
Which workloads are more suited to go into
cloud environment.
And in areas which we may need to re-architect
the application or re-write it.
We also kind of put those into a specific category
and take a look at making sure that
is the performance criteria more,
is it security is it more about the TCO,
and more and more you're starting to see
it's not really a brokerage discussion.
It's really more of strategic sourcing discussion
because you're more and more are starting to talk about
what is the best source to get the service from.
Because there's no shortage of choices that they have today
where they can provide these services from.
So it's really more of about understanding
what they're trying to achieve.
And then understanding the sourcing policy.
Understanding the alignment between the IT
and the governance piece of it,
the whole business side of it, and the IT side of it.
And then it's really more about the supply chain management.
You heard about One'Sphere today.
But it's really more about how do you take this complexity
out of the hybrid IT environment,
and making sure that you can provide the automation
and that capability to provide it as easy of environment
for them to have a single plane of glass.
So those are the key pieces of the framework
that we try to make sure everyone is on same page.
>> You mentioned cloud technology partners.
We heard about One'Sphere today,
that's obviously the CTP is part of that announcement.
Small company, but very high quality customer base.
It's very specialized.
Take us through the rationale for the acquisition,
kind of what the value is to your customers,
and where it's headed.
>> I think last time when we spoke we talked about
our overall strategy.
One of the key pillars is really around
making hybrid IT simple.
And we know when we talk about hybrid IT
it cannot be just the on-prem part of the storyboard.
You have to talk about the public cloud side of it as well.
And this is where the CTP acquisition comes into play
to really plug a hole.
I mean we had some capability in house,
but not to the extent of what CTP brings to the table.
I mean they are premiere partner to AWS,
premiere partner to Google,
silver partner to Microsoft Azure.
And so having that kind of credibility
and the recognition in the US and North America,
certainly gives us more credibility with our customers
talking about the hybrid IT story.
And then taking that skillset, assets, and the IP,
we want to take that and leverage of our channel community,
as well as our install base,
as well as of our capabilities in Europe as well Asia,
and help scale that globally is really a way
how we're gonna leverage this skillset and asset set.
>> So we're in beautiful Madrid, Spain
at the EMEA Discover.
Cloud is a global phenomenon, but it's not uniform.
From your perspective of providing services to customers
that have global needs as well as local needs,
take us through how Europe is different.
Start from the observation that we've got North American
cloud players, public cloud players,
we've got Asian cloud players,
we have not an obvious European cloud player.
How is it different on a global basis,
and what is HP doing to mass those differences,
HPE doing, to mass those differences
from your global and local customers.
>> So I think one of the things you are finding here
the need, and we talked about this earlier today,
the need for as a consumption models.
And you're seeing that the trend globally.
And more and more people, more and more customers
are talking about not wanting to necessarily own,
but how do they pay for what they use.
And so one of the things we do is
from a framework perspective we've really deployed
a very consistent framework,
uniformed transformational framework, UTF.
And we did apply for a patent for it as well.
But the idea there is to leverage a common methodology,
common framework to take a client through
in terms of how to go about this cloud journey.
Everyone is on a different place in terms
of the cloud adoption, their digital transformation journey.
But through the experiences that we have,
I mean we do well over 10,000 engagements a year.
Leveraging that IP, we have really built like
full interconnected journey roadmaps.
And so a client, you can take any client,
whether a service provider or enterprise,
they're somewhere on that journey roadmap.
And they may be in a different place,
but being able to talk to them,
leveraging that common IP and say look,
this is where you're at today,
here's the roadmap that you can take
to get to your desired end state.
And that has really resonated with the clients.
And if they truly don't want to own the infrastructure,
and they just want to pay as you go,
this is where the whole HPE, GreenLake announcements
have really come into play.
So I think those teams when you take a look at the
performance characteristics, organization governance issues.
Because one of the things that we find is 70% plus
of the clients that we talk to,
they have not been able to really maximize
the full potential of what hybrid IT gives them.
And one of the major hurdles we see,
and doesn't matter whether you talk to a client
in North America or EMEA or APJ.
It's really the lack of focus on management of change.
It's the organizational, the cultural barriers
that get in the way.
It's the competencies, the organizational processes
that get in the way.
So those are the pieces we want to make sure
as part of the UTF framework,
IT is just one of the principles.
And of the other domains, management of change
is one of the key elements that we see,
which is common across all the client base that we talk to.
>> When you go back to the early part of this decade,
and you observe sort of the big,
remember the big data meme it sort of exploded
in 2010, 2011, 2012.
It ended up being a very, complex of course,
but also very services led, engagements
because it was so complex.
IoT is somewhat similar,
it's very data oriented, it's very complex.
So talk about services and the relationship with IoT,
the opportunity for you and how you're helping
add value to customers.
>> Now that's a great question also Dave.
I think when you take a look at the IoT.
I think we're starting to get past that half cycle.
And a lot players will talk about
they got hundred plus proof of concepts
going in their lab, but they just have not been able
to bring it into the mainstream.
And so one of the things we're talking to clients about
is starting to move away from the terms
like proof of concept.
Focus on proof of value.
Because at the end of the day, if you cannot help
your line of business accelerate time to value,
no matter how great of a concept you have,
it's never going to see the day of light.
So this is where the point next services
really come into play with the whole advisory led motion
because it's still very much a services led motion today.
Working with the clients around
how they can really help shorten the time to value.
Accelerate time to value.
And if we can take even one or two use cases
they have in their labs today.
And show them how they can get to 50, 60 million dollars
of savings like one of the oil and gas customers
we were just talking to.
Same thing we see in the retail manufacturing.
Is just taking some of the spoof points,
and say this is how you can actually bring them
into the mainstream, and make sure they also
start to have the business alignment.
That's one of the common things we hear
from the CXOs here this week is the business alignment
between the IT and the OT side
if they're talking to the IoT use cases.
Because without the business alignment,
believe me you're not gonna be able to get the
management of change that you're seeking to derive.
>> So do you expect or are you seeing yet
new business models.
You were talking about the cost savings,
but what about sort of the new business models
emerging from those discussions and opportunities.
>> Definitely I mean if you take a look at whether
it's the hospitality suite,
you know Kathy talked about main stage about
even the retail experience that we're just starting
to be very different.
So when you look at the new value that's being created,
you know a lot of us who travel to get here,
when we check into the hotel,
a number of places now, you can check in digitally,
24 hours in advanced.
You never have to stand in line for a queue.
Don't have to flash up your credit card
because the hotel's have really now started to leverage
the digital transformation where 24 hours in advanced
you can check in online.
They'll give you a digital key so on your phone
when you walk into the hotel,
as soon as you're within a threshold you get onto
your wifi network and you see a personalized message.
And it has also the directions to your room.
And when you get to your room, you use the digital key
to get in.
Think about the possibilities it creates to launch
new services for not just the hotel,
but it's also affiliates, the partners for pushing
specific targeted advertising offers
while you're in Madrid here or some other place.
So you're starting to see these new value creations
even though behind the scenes you still have them
integrate a lot of their digital critical business systems
whether it's CRM, reservation systems,
or smart buildings.
You have to still make sure the security's in play.
And so it is really you checking in, not someone else.
As well as making sure the room is available.
But it's really more focused on the business outcome.
And this is one of the things that you're seeing
even in a portfolio shift,
it's no longer talking about some implementation services,
integration services.
When we sit down with a client
it's really more focused around what outcome
are we delivering.
It's not talking about,
look we can sell you x numbers of servers,
or we can sell you devices.
More about here's the business outcome
that we'll deliver for you.
And this is what you're gonna be able to do with that
additional value creation.
>> Do you mean I might be able to not have to
wait in line a half hour when I check into
a Las Vegas hotel in the future?
>> Parvesh: Absolutely.
>> Peter: No that will never happen.
(laughing)
>> No definitely, I mean you see improvements
every single year.
And hopefully, whether you walk into a retail shop,
be able to experience differently walking from home
into a branch store and what that experience will look like,
it'll be very very different than what some of the people
experience today.
>> Lots of changes coming.
All sort of based on the data, Parvesh thanks very much
for coming on theCUBE, it was great to see you.
>> Absolutely it's great to be here, thank you so much.
>> You're welcome alright keep it right there everybody
we'll be back with our next guest Dave Vallante
for Peter Burris.
This is theCUBE, we're live from HPE Discover Madrid 2017.
(electronic music)