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- Hi, I'm Sue.
I'm here with Calvin.
We're here today to talk about how Microsoft and F5
are working together and using customer obsession
to make great value and benefits for our customers.
How are you doing, Calvin?
- I'm doing great.
It's a pleasure to be here.
- Good, thank you.
And thank you for the cup.
- [Calvin] You're welcome.
- So tell me what these symbols are.
- Well, it represents F5's values
or the behaviors that we're all supposed to follow.
There are five of them.
I'll reference a couple of them, though,
because we have them in common.
- [Sue] Okay.
- One is, you referenced it,
it's obsessing over customer need.
You know, we're in business to delight our customers,
provide value for them, if you will,
and so obsessing over their need is one of the things
that you need to do to be able to be successful with that.
And one of the other behaviors is standing
for diversity and inclusion.
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- Let's talk about being in someone's shoes.
I think our, we have to walk a mile in our customers' shoes
to know what they need. - That's for sure.
- And we've been collaborating together,
and I think the partnership is going well.
Love the meetings we're having
and the things we're talking about,
and I think that really, like I said,
came from customers telling us
that they needed to have help.
- That's why we're sitting here together.
- Exactly, exactly. - Yeah.
- So we're telling everyone to go to the cloud,
and they're like, "We can't get there from here."
- [Calvin] That's right.
- Let's slow down, let's talk about what we need to do,
and lo and behold, F5 has a great solution.
- That's right, that's right.
You know, we need to meet customers where and when
and how and with what they want to be met with
and as it relates to their access strategies,
what they're saying to us - Certainly.
- is, "Hey, look, I want something that covers
"all the bases, of course, I want it all,
"and I want it to be easy."
Okay, great, can you be a little more specific?
"Well, I need access for my applications
"that are in the cloud that are SASS apps,
"but also, I have a lot of applications
"that are still on-prem in the Data Center.
"Can you give us a solution that encompasses all of that?"
And working together, that's how we're doing it.
- Well, you know, you mentioned SaaS apps.
I think that that's an area where, as Microsoft,
we feel like customers are often confused,
and they think of Azure Active Directory
as just being for Microsoft products.
- Right.
- Like Office and Azure.
And we really want them to understand
that it's also available for all those SASS apps.
So we've come up with a new tagline for that
in saying that it's, our solution is from Microsoft,
not just for Microsoft.
- [Calvin] That's true.
- And you help us then create that ability
to have all apps under the protection
of Azure Active Directory.
- That's right, that's right, of course.
They want access for their SaaS apps, their cloud apps,
but also for their, you know, Oracle Business apps,
maybe it's J.D. Edwards, maybe it's CIBL,
maybe it's PeopleSoft, E-Business Suite or SAP HANA,
or ERP applications, you know, and so since F5 is
ubiquitously on-prem, sitting in front of applications
of that build, adding our APM solution
in concert with Azure Active Directory
gives them that full suite of access capability
they're looking for. - Exactly.
- Yeah. - Yeah, that's great.
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- Of course we obsess over customer need.
You know, everybody has a different way
of getting this feedback, this diversity of perspective
from the marketplace.
So F5, of course our primary source of customer feedback
is through our field.
They are the primary advocates for our customer.
They come back to headquarters and advocate on their behalf
as it relates to the sort of innovation they're looking for
for us to be able to lean in on their success more.
But we have found that we need to widen the aperture,
if you will.
And so we've created this bespoke experience for customers,
from all geos, of all different sizes,
different implementation constructs,
different technology needs, if you will.
And we bring them to Seattle, F5 headquarters,
for a three-week event we call Aspire.
We aspire to do a better job of satisfying their needs.
And so we bring them in for this bespoke experience,
and we get their unique perspective.
We hear their voice in a unique way.
And so we get a better, a more diverse perspective,
if you will.
- Sure, sure, like one of the things my team does
is works, you know, our job is to cut the distance
between engineering and our customers
so we can operate at cloud speed.
One of the things that we do is
what we call Customer Onsites.
It sounds a little bit like your Aspire events.
And what we do is we bring customers together,
and we've done this now for four years,
about every six months.
And we create this agenda, and we have the ability
for customers to hear what's coming.
And we learned over time that it felt like we were just
in "tell mode" too much and not in "listen mode" enough.
- Yeah.
- And then when customers started talking more,
they started to tell us how much they really enjoyed
hearing from each other.
Then we got to the point where they started
bringing their own case studies, and so most of the agenda,
about three-fourths of the agenda is actually
customers talking rather than us talking.
And even our latest iteration,
what we do is we actually ask the customers
for what they want the agenda to be.
So they actually drive what it is
we're gonna be talking about.
And we're finding that those events
are just amazingly valuable for us.
It energizes the team to understand
what customers are really doing.
And as, like you said, the customers feel heard.
And they feel like they get more value than that,
than even say in an industry conference
or even our own Ignite, because they have that immersion
and an ability to really go deep,
and then for us to really understand their scenarios.
- And regarding listening in in Aspire,
something that we have learned that is super valuable is
you can't just listen to seek feedback from your fans.
It's as important, more important, to get feedback
from folks that are less happy with you.
Maybe they're not your fan,
not as aware of your solutions as possible.
They bring a unique perspective to the table as well.
- We do the same.
We have people, we have in-product feedback,
and we see whether people are dissatisfied.
And we get an opportunity to talk to them,
and we give them an opportunity
to really tell us what's missing,
tell us what they need more of.
- Right.
- And hopefully move them from being someone
who's dissatisfied, of course,
to someone who's satisfied. - You want to reward
their bad news. - Yes.
- It's not what I wanted to hear,
but it's what I needed to hear.
- Absolutely. - You know, so thank you.
- Absolutely.
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So the solution that we have is secure,
which is paramount for CISOs.
- Baseline.
- But then you have the users who have to have something
that's easy. - Right.
- So if it's not easy, then they'll try to go around it.
We all know that.
So we have to have security balanced by user experience.
So can you tell me a little bit,
how does that turn out in your hallways?
- Sure.
Well, you know, so starting out what got us here.
Customers were looking for modern authentication.
SSLO, multi-factoral authentication,
conditional access, et cetera.
And so we have the technology today to make that possible.
Okay, so now, customers are taking advantage of it.
What feedback are we getting from them now?
Well, okay, this is great.
Thank you, Microsoft, thank you F5.
Now we're looking for an easier implementation experience
because, you know, our application portfolio's
only gonna grow.
You know, my users have this sensational appetite
for more and more application,
which increases my attack surface.
And so can you make this as easy as possible to deploy?
And so working in concert (clapping) with Microsoft,
you are informing our customers,
and you are informing our roadmap
for working on simpler implementation scenarios.
Call it an easy button if you will.
- Yeah, well that thing about the roadmap,
that's like basically our customers are building the roadmap
for us. - Right, sure.
- And so that makes it much easier for us to know
that when we build it, it will be used.
- Right.
One of the primary on-premise applications
that we are highly likely to find our customers
wanting us to provide access for,
let's provide easy configuration out of the box
for those applications.
And so that's what we're striving to do.
- Yeah.
And Satya coming in and telling us and reminding us
that we ought to be partner-led, always,
that that was in our beginnings, and that's still our ethos,
I think that's really given us the wake-up call
to really be a good partner.
And we're really, really serious about doing that.
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So we've been talking about how we've been listening
to customers, and now let's talk a little bit
about how are we listening to our employees?
What are we doing to make sure that their voices are heard?
- Super important, it's super important
because if we're gonna get
the most informed portfolio of insight,
it's overwhelmingly gonna come from our employees.
Yes, we're talking directly to customers,
but our employees are our advocates, our informers,
if you will. - Yeah.
- [Calvin] So we have to do that.
- Well, if you want to create a solution
for a diverse world,
it's best if it comes from a diverse team.
- True, that's right,
and then we don't have any blind spots.
- Yeah. - Right?
And so you have to take very specific actions.
This has been my experience, if you will,
and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.
You have to be deliberate in your actions
to make sure that other voices are heard,
that people feel comfortable speaking up,
that they feel included, because when they feel included,
they just give that much more.
They lean in on the project that much more.
The data's indisputable.
We know this now from social science.
- So that reminds me of one of the things we're doing now
at Microsoft are values conversations.
And that's really a way for us to make sure
that respect, integrity, and accountability
are a part of everything we do.
And it's really exciting to see.
People really respond to that ability
to see what they can do better, or what are we like
when we're at our best, what are we like
when we're not at our best,
in order to make the environment just more,
giving everyone a better sense of belonging.
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- So we're talking quite a bit about the values
and the practice of making people feel included
to get a diversity of opinion.
What are some specific actions people can take?
What sort of things have you seen that work,
or what sort of experiences have you had
on the other side of it?
- Oh, you know what they say,
you don't always remember what was said,
but you remember how they feel?
- [Calvin] Yes.
- Just even yesterday I was in a meeting
around a conference room table.
Everyone was introducing each other.
I was in between two men.
And I was skipped.
And I was thinking, "Seriously, in this day and age?"
So you know, it's still happening.
And I'm sure it was not intentional,
and that's the notion of unconscious bias.
- Right.
- But it does happen.
But what to do about it?
I think, I've always said start with yourself.
I know that I do those same things.
And so it's really important to become aware
when something happens,
think about how you could do it differently.
And if it is really egregious,
speak up and say something to someone else.
Or I think there's another, even a third one,
which is help someone else when something happens to them.
And that's what we call allyship.
So it's the ability to see something that happens
and then, or even to prevent something from happening,
be a person who can advocate for someone,
make sure that, you know, call on them,
make sure that they are being able to be contributing,
invited to the right meetings, all of those things
that help that person have a seat at the table.
- So model the right behavior,
but then also specifically have a positive impact on people.
- Yes, yes.
(upbeat instrumental music)
I'm a voracious reader.
I've most recently been reading this book,
it's called "The Four Paws of Spiritual Success"
by David Michie, and it's actually how to apply
the Buddhism concepts to daily life.
- Okay.
- You know, you can be any religion, really,
and apply these concepts of good living.
And so I was a first reader.
I actually had a chance to get an early copy,
and I wrote my first review on Amazon.
So I'm in print, I feel kind of like Navin Johnson
in "The Jerk." (both laughing)
- Free publicity.
- That's right, that's right.
So anyway, what are you reading these days
besides newspapers?
- Business book that I read recently, not once, but twice,
was Geoffrey Moore's "Zone to Win,"
the principles of which we're using at F5, actually.
- So I'm familiar with his "Crossing the Chasm."
So this is new print.
So tell me about it.
- Well, the point, the middle level with the time
that we've got here is companies historically miss
horizon two and horizon three opportunities
because they run the entire business
in what Geoffrey would call the performance zone.
And so you invest behind revenue.
And so in that kind of environment,
you starve incubation opportunities for horizon two
and horizon three from the blood and oxygen that you need
to get launch velocity, if you will.
- So tell me, what we're doing together,
where does that fit in this model?
- Well, actually, I would argue,
and I think Geoffrey would agree,
that my customer at F5 is our security business unit
who owns the APM on BIG- IP solution.
And so this is an integration that will help them
satisfy their business goals in 2020.
However, Geoffrey would say every zone
has its own quadrants, if you will,
and so we are incubating.
This is an incubation zone within the performance zone
of taking a solution as a result of feedback
from a few forward-leaning customers for the benefit
of the rest of our customers,
and we will be graduated into common implementation
scenarios for the rest of the customers.
But maybe you would say now, going back to another
Geoffrey Moore book, we've got to get 'em across a chasm.
- Oh, absolutely.
It's really been a pleasure talking to you today.
- Likewise.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
I'm looking forward to continuing to drive innovation
for our customers.
- Excellent.
Sounds great.
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