>> Man Voice: From around the globe,
it's theCUBE covering HPE Discover Virtual Experience
brought to you by HPE.
>> Welcome to theCUBE's coverage of HPE Discover 2020,
the virtual experience this year.
I'm Lisa Martin with theCUBE.
And I have a guest joining me from HPE Financial Services,
Doreen Voo, marketing and business development leader
in the APJ region.
Welcome Doreen.
>> Hi, Lisa.
Thank you for having me today.
>> I should say good morning, you're in Singapore.
Great to have you here.
So talk to us a little bit about your role
in financial services for HPE.
>> Yes, I lead the marketing and business development
for Asia Pacific, Japan, at HPE financial services.
Well, together with my team,
we look to create and execute business strategies
as well as go to market programs,
collaborating with our HPE
and high value relationship partners to jointly develop
revenue growth and profitability goals
that we all look to have.
>> For the last few months, massive disruption with COVID-19
disrupting business strategies,
disrupting go to market plans.
What are some of the things
that you have seen from the lines of helping customers
from a financial services perspective,
What did you see since COVID hit?
>> So from business perspective,
COVID-19 has really intensified what we really knew
in terms of the digital transformation
that is so imperative in order to compete
in today's very competitive role.
And, of course, in that dynamic situation,
we also see a lot of customers,
when the pandemic hit them,
they were trying to balance that with keeping
their operations on as well as trying to still
keep to their digital transformation initiatives.
So all of that was really taking away
some of what they see in terms
of the budgets where it's really quickly beating
some were actually delayed or simply just taking away.
So initially we saw many customers,
we needed to boost their IT requirement very quickly
in order to help their employees to work from home remotely
and to continue to support the business online.
So there were a lot of requirements in the initial phase.
At the same time,
we're also seeing that what customers was trying to do that,
a lot of this were unplanned
and so they had to look to how to do this,
all this initiatives,
as well as still keeping the cash to conserve
to weather through the storm whereby
they are also seeing decreasing revenue
because of some of the lockdown
and restrictions that they are facing.
>> So given how dynamic this whole thing
has been and how fast businesses in every industry,
pretty much country of the world had to massively pivot
or shut down.
What are some of the ways
in which HPE Financial Services is getting creative
to help your customers,
as you said, kind of navigate shrinking budgets
or budgets that are being quickly depleted,
well at the same time,
these businesses were financial agility
need to have a big mind on cashflow?
>> So we saw that coming through and then a lot of customers
was also looking to see
how they could continue both their operations
as well as still keep their initiatives going ahead.
So a lot of customers were trying
to figure out what's the best way they can do this.
While maintaining all of that
and keeping all the (mumbles) watch it.
So we have put together a 2 billion offer
to help customers in order to tie to the spirit.
And it was true there is list of initiatives
that we have including some flexible financing scheme
that will allow them to take advantage of the programs
that we have while keeping the lights on
as well as making sure that they still have the cash
to invest and actually adopt and go ahead with their
digital transformation strategy.
>> Tell me a little bit about
how your team actually helped to create
some of those flexible financing options so quickly,
given how fast everything changed.
What were some of the conversations within HPE
that you can share that led you to understand,
this is where we can deliver creativity to our customers?
>> So there were a lot of discussion going on.
I mean there're couple of very key areas where we feel
that customers have a very important needs, is one
where the supply chains have been disrupted
and yet they have to keep their operations,
or boost their operations,
because a lot of people were working from home
and so their connectivity needs to be in place,
their service needs to be upgraded.
So definitely they would need to upgrade their system.
And so that's where we have our solutions
able to help them bring in some of the pre-certified
pre-owned equipment to help them upgrade.
And that can be done very quickly in the matter of days
or even just weeks or days,
and so they can upgrade that very quickly.
So we have a solution to help them to do that
at the same time we know that cash
is going to be very important,
keeping their liquidity is very crucial for the business.
And so we have came together and put a few of what we call
the federal program as well as relieve program
will allow them to take advantage
where the pay is as little as nothing
for three two months or as little as 1%,
for the beginning of this year and defer most of the costs
to lay the path.
So we think these are the ones
that customers really need to
because these are where they see
some of the their constraints in terms of managing both
keeping their operations as well as the cash intact.
>> And of course customers have to plan
for what's happening right now,
which a lot of businesses and you and I are in this,
everyone work from home and then there'll be a next phase
where depending on the type of industry,
maybe certain job functions, we'll go back to the office.
And then maybe there will a third phase
where it's permanently some folks percentage,
a large part probably, I mean they're working from home.
So your customers have to be able to work
with HPE Financial Services to plan for those phases.
As you talked about, you've got a program
to help them swap out equipment
with a sort of planned program.
But I imagine that's equipment ranging from laptops,
to printers to network and connectivity
and security technologies.
It really spans the whole gamut of what HPE delivers?
>> Yes, so for us we are looking across
the whole spectrum of IT.
We part ourselves as we aspire to be the leader
in IT SaaS economics.
And that's really where our strength is,
because we understand the value in each of these IT SaaS
and it's not just about conserving cash of any sort,
but is also about how do you acquire your whole,
IT SaaS with the best solutions whereby
you can use it and consumed it as well as
you are not tied to a particular set of products
and you get the chance to upgrade as when as you need it
so that it helps customers
in terms of enabling the strategies
to go hard with the various post COVID-19
plans that we might have.
So that's where we could help
with the various options for the customers.
>> Are you seeing as HPE seeing an increase
in e-waste because now there might be businesses
that, as you said earlier, we have to digitally
transformed to be complete.
That's no longer a nice to have.
What's going on from a sustainability perspective?
>> So as companies innovate, right?
A lot of times those are good innovations,
but at the same time, as you innovate,
there are also the downside of where you create
a different set of problems which is with e-waste.
And a lot of sometimes innovations might take place,
well sometimes, it's a little bit of trial
and it might not proceed with those innovation
and that's where you might have to wait
that extra IT SaaS, which is not for use.
And that is really a growing problem
because it always see 50 tons
of e-waste being created every year.
And so, a lot of customers are also telling us to say that,
how we can help them in this area.
And this is really where HP Financial Services
can do a lot to help because we strongly believe
in recycling, upcyling of our products,
and advocating the consumption
versus the honest mentality,
and that's where our various solutions
really can come to help to customers who are thinking
about innovations, who are thinking about getting
their business transformed.
We have different ways to help them to do that.
And a lot of times that's where if customers look to that.
It helps them to not just about
building up the strategy as well as building a strategy
that is committed to sustainability.
>> And continuing on this sustainability topic,
I imagine too one of the opportunities that customers
have to work with HPE
and Financial Services is to streamline
and simplify their environment.
I imagine I think of it,
a very simple analogy to spring cleaning, realizing,
"Oh, I haven't used this in a while, I don't need it."
Talk to me about some of the ways
that from a sustainability and moving forward
kind of future direction perspective,
where HPE might be helping customers simplify their IT
infrastructures to reduce
the amount of technologies and devices that they might need
to help them be more efficient
as their business strategies completely changed?
>> First of all when a company looks to innovate
and looks to adopt new technology,
and then one of the key things
that they probably will look to is,
how did it plan to use this?
How are they consuming it?
And think about are there better ways
that they can consume this IT.
It's not so much about having everything in-house
and owning it.
It's also about this is providing you
the level of service that you need
as well as is that what is required
in terms of the best way to manage
your financial agility
in order to meet those requirements,
and so that's probably for key for a lot of customers.
We need to look at both balancing
their financial requirements
as well as having the right strategy and contributing again
to the sustainability cost that you might have internally.
>> As we look at HPE Discover coming up,
you have probably a unique opportunity
with this event having to be completely virtual
of having customers in every industry,
in every region of the world now not have to travel.
So expenses saved there, talked about them being
cash constraint and budgets shrinking,
but you probably have the opportunity to talk
to maybe a wider audience
about what HPE Financial Services
can help customers achieve a normal times
and in these current times.
Talk to me about some of the things
that customers will have the opportunity to learn,
like maybe sessions that you're doing at Discover.
>> Absolutely in fact,
I think this is one of the great things
that's happening right now,
because everything is virtual,
anyone and everyone can go into Discover.
And in previous years maybe they're restricted by travels,
they're restricted by timings and so like even myself,
here in Singapore we can't go into Discover anytime
and really enjoy that.
So I really would now invite in all the attendees
to view our spotlight sessions,
which is reimagine your entire technology assets
that's delivered by our CEO Irv Rothman.
And also we have a feature session
that's in the women's leaders in technology
whereby our CO Osherik talks about leading
through the digital recovery.
And, of course, not to forget,
I know we still have two more business talks,
as well as our demo rooms in the showcase,
which I would recommend everyone to go visit.
>> Terrific Doreen, thank you for sharing
what's going on with HPE Financial Services
in the time of COVID, how you're helping customers
adjust their business strategies
and thanks for sharing the different sessions
that they can attend
and learn from at Discovery.
Appreciate your time.
>> Thank you, Lisa.
It was great to having to be on this sessions.
Yep, it's my pleasure.
>> Excellent, mine as well.
For Doreen Voo, I'm Lisa Martin.
You're watching theCUBE's coverage of HPE Discover 2020.
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