>> Announcer: Live from Orlando, Florida
it's theCUBE, covering Microsoft Ignite,
brought to you by Cohesity.
>> Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage
of Microsoft Ignite, here in Orlando.
I'm your host Rebecca Knight alongside
of my co-host Stu Miniman.
We are joined by Lani Phillips.
She is the vice president at US channel sales at Microsoft.
Thank you so much for coming on theCUBE.
>> Thank you so much for having me.
I'm really excited to have this conversation.
>> You are a Cube newbie,
so it's going to be great. >> I'm a Cube newbie.
>> It's going to be great.
So why don't you start by telling our viewers
a little bit about what you do at Microsoft.
You've been there for 22 years which is not,
we can hardly believe it.
But tell us about your job. >> I know.
I have been with Microsoft a very long time
but currently, I am responsible
for driving our digital transformation
in partnership with all of our partners,
for example, Cohesity is one of those partners,
where we actually take that to the customer
and make sure that we ensure their success.
We also have a co-selling partnership
with all of our partners.
We make sure that we can work on joint pursuits together
to ensure that we ultimately meet
our customers' goals together.
>> So you are in charge
of Microsoft's own digital transformation
as it is helping other customers
with their digital transformation.
>> That's right.
We're doing all of it.
>> So how are you taking what you're learning,
the successes and the mistakes along the way
to make sure that
you're putting together the best practices?
>> I think the biggest thing that we're trying to do
is just make sure that we create forums,
to make sure we bring our partners together
and bring our people together
and make sure that we have those sessions
where we can talk about what we're learning along way.
And it's not just us as a leadership team
but it's us collectively.
One of the things that I enjoy hosting
is I actually bring together a group of our partners
and we talk about what's actually happening
in the marketplace
and they kind of share the best practices
that we're learning as we go out
and we talk to different customers.
So it's really nice.
>> Lani, I love that and when we talk to customers
they're going through that transformation.
It's really about getting the data inside that environment
that's what differentiates between
before you've been transformed and after,
is you can drive that environment.
How does data and being customer obsessed
play into your world?
>> Oh my gosh, so talking about customer obsession,
22 years I've been with the company,
I want you to know of all those 22 years,
I've always been customer facing
or I led the teams that were customer facing.
So I have a tremendous amount of passion for it.
The thing I tell most people is
there's actually a Forrester Research study
that says when you have so much digital disruption,
the one competitive advantage you can have as a company
is to really deeply understand your customers,
what's important to them,
build those connections with them,
understand what problems they're solving
and be a part of that solution.
I actually wrote on this recently
and I talked about four key areas.
One, as you think about customer obsession,
it's really about engaging with your customers
to understand their industry and their business deeply
and what problems they're trying to solve.
And then it's really about advocating
for those customers and making sure that whatever problems
they're trying to solve, that you bring together
the right solutions to solve that problem.
Sometimes that's going to be partly Microsoft,
other times it's going to be partly
our partners coming together
to solve their problems from end to end.
Then I think it is so important.
Once you bring the solution to them,
you're really empowering them,
you're empowering your customer
to really be able to meet
the needs of their customers, right?
And then last but not least, you have to listen.
We have to listen to our customers
to make sure we're learning from them.
And I think that is going to be a competitive advantage
for anyone that really focuses on what does it really mean
to be customer obsessed.
>> One of the things that we heard
on the main stage this morning was trust
and how important trust is.
And this is at a time where there is a lot of mistrust
of big technology companies, a lot of some bad actors,
some in real and perceived problems
in the industry at large.
How do you make sure that you are transparent
and that you are perceived to be this trustworthy partner
for customers as they embark on this digital transformation?
>> Thank you for that question and I agree with you.
I think it's one of those things
where as you start to practice the four things
that I talked about,
you do find yourself being seen
as a trusted adviser at that point, right?
So they invite you to the table
but I think part of what you have to do
to build that trust with your customers
is you have to have a level of integrity
and you've got to be able to be forthright
with being able to say what you can do
and what you can't do, right?
Or if you see them making a mistake,
in a respectful way, offer them that feedback.
I have found time and time again
our customers really appreciate that transparency
and that clarity around what we can do and what we can't do.
And when you practice that,
I think it is so important because what happens is,
the customer find themselves valuing that
and then what it allows you to do
is to be a part of conversations
where they share their articulated need
but then it also allows you,
I love when Satya says the "unarticulated need"
to really understand what problems they're solving
and how we might come together to solve them.
>> One of the real interesting things to watch
in this transformation journey has been the channel.
In the past, it was I'm selling you licenses,
I have a certain infrastructure fees
that I'm going to help you with
but you know today, I need a Microsoft practice.
I need to help you understand how to take, enable the cloud.
Bring us inside a little bit
of what's been changing in your organization,
how you're helping your partners move along this journey.
>> I think the biggest thing
in the co-selling part of things
is we're trying to do a better job of making sure
that we include partners from
as we identify opportunities within our customers,
bringing them in earlier in the sales cycle
so they can participate on the entire journey with us.
I think it is so important for them
to be able to really understand
what the customer is trying to solve for
and be at the table with Microsoft earlier.
I think it's also important to make sure that
we're listening to our partners as well.
They're spending a lot of time with our customers
that we don't actually have time with,
we don't actually sit at the table with them
and it's important that we create an environment
where we're both sitting at the table
and we're sharing with one another how things are going.
And when we start running into issues,
let's see what we can do to start removing those blockers
to ensure our customer success.
So we're just trying to include them
into the fabric of everything we do.
Internally, we refer to it as hardwiring partners
into every aspect of everything we do
because we can't be successful without them.
Another hot button issue in the technology industry
is diversity or the lack of it.
We know that there is a dearth of women leaders,
a dearth of people of color,
a dearth of people of different sexualities, LGBTQ.
How are you tackling these issues at Microsoft
and can you talk about inclusion initiatives
within Microsoft and at its partner ecosystem?
>> Absolutely.
So another topic near and dear to my heart
for obvious reasons,
and having been here for 22 years,
I can tell you that it is an area that
I can personally say at Microsoft
we've gotten so much better.
But we are definitely not at end of the job.
This is going to be a journey
and we still have a lot more to learn.
But I would say to you,
the biggest thing that I think we've done
is we've declared that this is going to be
a foundation of everything that we do
and we're now holding one another accountable.
Some of the initiatives that we're doing,
I love the fact that we did training
around unconscious and conscious bias.
That started a conversation that wasn't happening before
and it causes all to kind of pause and assess.
And all of this is rooted in,
you've heard about the growth mindset
to make sure we're constantly learning from one another.
But the biggest thing that I've really come to appreciate
in the famous quote we hear everybody talk about
is diversity is being invited to the party, right.
Inclusion is being asked to dance.
And then there's another element of that
which is even deeper and it's belonging.
And belonging is like dancing like nobody's watching.
And I would tell you that some of the initiatives
that we're trying to drive on the inclusion front
is to make sure that we create a space as leaders,
to make sure all voices are heard
and to create that forum for that,
also to make sure that we are just being intentional
about connecting with people,
understanding what their needs are
and doing everything we can to incorporate it.
Everybody's doing something a little bit different.
We have big initiatives but we're all held accountable
and I equally am just so excited about the changes.
And then the belonging aspect
which is so important to me and my organization,
is making people feel like they're valued for being here
and we have to create opportunities
to really allow them to be able to shape our direction
and make them feel like they really belong
and they're valued.
>> And how is it being built to the employees?
Is this something that will impact
the products and services that we as Microsoft deliver
to our customers and our customers are diverse?
Or is it something else?
I mean, is it sort of this is the right thing to do?
How would you describe how it's talked about?
>> I would tell you that it's talked about
in a couple of different ways and it's all the above.
I would tell you that when it comes to,
is it the right thing to do for business,
does it drive business outcomes and profitability?
Absolutely.
I think there's a lot of studies out there that support it.
Is it the right thing to do
because you have all of these diverse people
in the workplace?
Absolutely.
But we're also saying that
as you think about the future of technology,
it's going to be so important as you start to think about
some of those native behaviors
that are going to be built into AI.
And we think about the foundation of trust.
We got to be very sensitive to those biases
that will come out.
So we have to make sure that we're always being mindful
of diversity and inclusion there.
So we talk about all the above.
>> Lani, I'm just curious with your role in the channel.
Did they look to Microsoft for guidance in this space?
Is there education?
You talked about some of the bias
training and the like that technology and channel partners
can leverage and learn from what Microsoft
is doing out there when it comes
to diversity and inclusion? >> Absolutely.
Absolutely, they can learn from us.
So one of the things that we have done
is we kind of have like a little bit of a culture committee
at the global level
where they're actually working with our partners around DNI
and then in the US,
I actually signed up to kind of support that initiative
here in the US and we're just getting started.
But we are trying to make some of the things we're doing,
make sure it's available to the channel
so they can leverage it.
But you know what I would say?
We don't have all the answers.
So our partners, believe it or not,
some of them are extremely progressive in this area as well
and we want to make sure that
we're learning from them as well.
So we're going to start to do more blogs,
we're going to make sure we can do some form of videos
and we're going to start sharing two ways.
We want to make sure we can make with what resources
we have available to them
but we also want to learn from them as well.
>> I mean so much of this interview has focused on learning
and the collaboration that goes on
between Microsoft and its customers and its partners,
that it's collaborating. >> Absolutely.
>> So how, when you're here at Ignite.
>> Yeah.
>> And this is not your first Ignite.
(laughing) >> No, it's not.
>> So describe the community for us here
and what goes on here at this conference
for our viewers who don't have the luxury
of being here in Orlando.
>> Oh my gosh.
There's so much that goes on here.
I think one, it allows us to really add Ignite,
to really connect with more of the TDM
and the technical audience within our customer base.
But it also allows us to connect with our partners
and it allows us to really get embedded with our partners
around the solutions that they have to offer our customers
and we make sure that we create a forum
that brings those two together.
It's also an opportunity for you to understand
where we're trying to go from a technology direction,
from a vision, like everyone's talking
about the buzz around Satya Skeino.
I think that's really another reason why you come here
when you think about the amount of money
that our customers invest in our solutions,
it's important to understand that
that's a good investment
and you're not just thinking short-term
but you're thinking long-term.
So it's an opportunity to come here and learn a lot.
>> Yeah, so Lani just with your experience out there,
sometimes people have a hard time understanding
that the company that you see today
is different than the past.
>> Lani: Oh, yes, yes.
>> So I think back in the early days and you think Microsoft
and it was the Microsoft that is
you're going to use my OS and my business apps
and it's all Microsoft.
Talk a little bit about it,
especially as you're going to the channel,
how Microsoft, its ecosystem and its ISV partners
how those all interplay.
>> Oh my gosh, there's so much to tell you about that.
I would tell you that when we think about
how we're going to be successful today,
is we're the platform company
and we've got all of these technology companies,
our partners that sit on top of that.
Let me give you an example of that.
When I think about Cohesity, right,
Cohesity is actually this modern cloud-first architecture
that has a azure running natively.
So our customers have the ability to really be able to run
their data workloads in azure seamlessly with Cohesity.
That is what it means
when it says customer obsession, customer centric.
They keep that customer at the center
and make it seamless for them to transition.
It's because of those partnerships
that Microsoft's going to continue to be successful
and that's where we're going to continue to invest.
We want to make sure that we leverage our partner ecosystem
to meet our customers' needs from end to end.
So it's limitless, the opportunity that's out there for us.
>> Excellent.
Well, Lani, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE.
It was great having you on.
>> Thank you for having me,
I enjoyed it.
>> I'm Rebecca Knight with Stu Miniman.
Stay tuned for more of theCUBE's
live coverage of Microsoft Ignite.
(upbeat music)