>> You're watching theCUBE.
Welcome to our continuous coverage of AWS re-Invent 2021.
I'm Dave Nicholson.
We've got an amazing event
that's been going on for the last four days
with two live sets, two studios, more than 100 guests,
and two very distinguished gentlemen here
on the set with us live in Las Vegas.
I'd like to welcome Krishna Mohan,
Vice President and Global Head of TCS's AWS Business Unit.
Welcome Krishna.
>> Thank you Dave.
>> Dave: And also with us Aditya Jagapal Nagarajan.
>> Thank you.
>> Dave: I hope I did your name justice.
>> Perfect. >> Right, I tried.
And Aditya is Head of Strategy and Business Operations
for the TCS AWS Business Unit.
Krishna, starting with you,
tell us about TCS and AWS over the last year.
What's been going on.
>> Yeah.
>> Thank you Dave for having me here.
It's great to be in person actually,
back in re-Invent, back in person, 25,000 people,
but still we have pretty good measures,
health measures that way.
So I'm very happy to be here.
TCS AWS business unit was formed three quarters back
and we actually had always AWS partnership,
but we actually felt that it's important
to kind of have a separate business unit,
which is the full stack, multi dimensional unit
providing cloud migration modernization
across applications, data, and infrastructure,
and also main focus on industry solutions.
So it has been a great three quarters,
and our partnership only enhanced significantly,
predominantly what we're actually seeing
in the last one year.
The cloud overall transformation,
I think it kind of taken a different shape.
It used to be cloud migration,
modernization, cloud native development,
but from there it has moved to enterprise transformation,
that's happening on cloud,
and specifically AWS majority of the time.
So with that, we actually see a lot of customers.
Broadly you can categorize them into three,
cloud for IT, cloud for business, and cloud for innovation.
And we're definitely seeing maximum traction there
with our customers across the three categories.
So I'm super excited to be here at the re-Invent,
you know, a couple of our customers were in the keynote,
Abort and Adam and Doug.
In the Western Union was the keynote,
Shelly covered at Western union transformation
in the partner keynote with Doug,
and very happy to see Linda Cower,
the transformation in the United Headlines with Adam.
So it's really great to see how we are helping the customers
on the transformation.
That's definitely, you know, the way that we see.
And we have made significant progress
on the overall in the last three quarters.
And these kinds of wins and business transformation
that has actually happened
is what resulted in TCS
getting the Raising Star GSA award for us.
So I'm pretty happy
to actually carry this little thing here.
>> Is that what this is?
>> Absolutely.
So it means a lot because our customer
in our kind of reinforcing the value,
the TCS, along with AWS is bringing to the customer.
>> So I wasn't going to say anything.
I just assumed that you were a 2001 Space Odyssey fan
and you just brought, you know,
a version of the monolith with you.
I wasn't sure.
Congratulations.
>> Thank you.
That's a quite an achievement
especially in the relatively short period of time.
And especially with the constraints
that have been placed upon all of us.
Did they give you like a schwag bag with a bunch of,
with, you know, like they do at the academy awards?
Are you familiar with that.
>> We had a great fun event on Monday afternoon.
>> Fantastic.
>> Yeah.
>> Aditya, talk about, you're a consultancy,
your organization is a consultancy.
Talk about how you engage with the customers
that you are helping to bridge the divide
between what their business requirements are,
and the technology that AWS is delivering.
Because I think we all agree that
everything we're seeing here from AWS is wonderful,
but without an organization like yours, actual end users,
actual customers, have a hard time driving benefits.
So, how do you approach that?
>> Gladly thank you, Dave,
and thank you for theCUBE for having us here.
And just borrowing from what Krishna talked about,
the three layers of value creation, the cloud for IT,
cloud for business and cloud for innovation.
We see the journeys clients take,
to start with how they look at IT modernization,
and go all the way to business transformation,
and look at ecosystem transformation as well.
For example, we just heard about Western Union
and we just came off of one with SWBC
where they have completely modernized the payment systems
on AWS and TCS has been the partner
for transforming that for them.
And that not only just means the technology layers,
but also re imagining business processes in the cloud.
Moving on from the financial side,
if you look at the digital farming, for example,
we have been working with some of the leading,
the transmitter players in the healthcare industry
and in the manufacturing space
to look at helping farmers with AI.
Right?
And helping them look at how they can ensure
better analytics and drone capabilities for digital farming.
Drug trial development and acceleration for time to market
has been a front and center for all of us
in the last two years
where I've been helping pharmacy organizations
get better and will to bring up drug trials
and reach the end customers better with cloud.
See the way it examples here.
>> I want to poke on that a little bit.
>> Aditya: Yeah.
So when TCS is engaging a customer,
say in farming versus pharma,
how much of your interaction with them
is specialized by industry vertical
or specific area expertise versus the generic workings
that are going to be supporting that effort
in the background?
What does that look like?
Are you going in first with a pharma discussion,
first with the farm discussion,
as opposed to an overall discussion?
>> It's a great point you mentioned Dave
because that's the sort of essence of TCS.
Because the way we look at it,
we actually appeal to the industry specific.
So our domain and contextual knowledge
is very important to appeal to the customers
and to the various stakeholders,
no longer are the days where you talk about
technology as a means to an end.
We talk about how end customers can benefit
in that context of what they're going through
in that industry.
And how can then technology be part of that strategy, right?
So, hence, as you rightly said, domain and context first,
followed by technology powering the outcome.
>> Even though farm and pharma sound a lot alike.
>> Right, I showed you the very difference.
>> And they may share some things in common.
Yes, very, very different.
Krishna, talk about your go to market motion.
How are clients aware of TCS?
Do you have teams that engage clients directly
and then bring AWS into the conversation?
Or are you being brought in by AWS?
Is it a combination?
What does that look like?
>> So, very good relevant question.
So our GTM strategies
is TCS has been in the, you know,
serving the enterprise customers
and IT transformation for 52 years now.
So we have a huge base.
But specifically from an AWS BAU perspective,
we are focusing on selective verticals,
banking financial services and insurance is large,
life sciences, health care, and travel,
transportation and hospitality.
So these are the verticals that we're actually focusing on,
and given our presence in the enterprise sector,
we already have a direct sales teams
who are engaging with the customers directly
on enterprise transformation and business transformation.
And once we have that conversation,
we actually take all these solutions
that we have built on AWS and along with AWS.
There are few customers in the last three quarters,
after farming the AWS business unit,
one thing that we did is with AWS
we're proactively going and identifying the logos
and the customers.
And with the focus not on technology,
with the focus on how to solve their problems
on the business side
and how to create new business models.
So it's kind of both.
We bring in, AWS brings in logos as well,
so Greenfield accounts,
and as well as our contextual knowledge of the industry
is how the GTM is working out, and working out pretty good.
>> You mentioned, you've been at this for 52 years.
>> Aditya: Yeah.
>> You must've been very young when you started doing this.
Talk about the internal dynamics.
So think of TCS, the larger organization.
You represent the AWS business unit.
TCS has been doing this for a long time,
predating what we think now of as cloud.
I'm sure that you have long existing relationships
with customers, where you've been doing things for them
that aren't cloudy,
and those things keep the lights on at TCS, right?
Important sources of revenue.
Yet you're going in and you're consulting and saying,
hey, you know, it might be better for you, Mr. Customer,
to work with AWS and TCS,
as opposed to maybe being at a data center that TCS manages,
I mean, how do you manage that internal dynamic?
You've got to have people at TCS who are saying,
stay away, that's my revenue, don't move my cheese.
What does that look like?
>> Very valid question Dave.
So the way that TCS is actually looking at is,
twin engine strategy.
There's a cost and optimization strategy, which we have.
We sell the customers and operations,
running the BAU if you will, business as usual,
then you have something called growth and transformation.
So as a strategy that we are very clear
that the path of business transformation
is growth and transformation channel.
So we as a company are very comfortable
cannibalizing our C and O in a business
because we want to be relevant to the market,
relevant to the customer,
and relevant to the partner ecosystem.
So the only way you are relevant
is actually to challenge yourself,
cannibalize your own business,
and for the long, you know,
strategy of looking at how to grow.
And that's how our twin engine strategy is working.
And there are a lot of customers
where we have developer with contextual knowledge
serving 20 years, 25 years of the customers.
We know how they work,
what their business is actually, you know,
what's going to be the future of the business.
So we are in a better position to actually transform them.
And as a company, we already took cannibalize our revenue.
>> So Adi, give us an example of working with a customer
and give us an idea of what that customer's perspective is
in terms of their place on the spectrum of,
I don't want to move anything if I don't have to
versus, hey, you guys can't move fast enough
to deliver what I want.
Where are you seeing that spectrum of customer requirements
at this point?
Do you feel like you're having to lead people
to water still?
Where are we with that?
>> Well, if you asked me this question a couple of years ago,
it would be about,
hey, look, here's a beautiful water and the lake looks good,
why don't we spend by the side and see what it tastes like?
Now the question is, how much water to drink?
Right?
So the point being that customers have fast realized
that cloud is not just an IT decision,
it's a business transformation decision.
So if I may just call it back what Krishna talked about,
the dual engine strategy.
A clear Testament to that is some of our relationships,
most of our relationships are the matter
has been over two decades with our clients.
And that's a perfect indication
of being constantly relevant for them
because as their models change, as their markets change,
customer expectations change,
we need to constantly innovate ourselves.
>> You're innovating your business just like that.
>> Absolutely.
>> Correct.
>> So you know, as we say, you're in the boat with them
and you're going through the same changes.
>> And so coming back to the question which you asked,
the point was we give them a point of what experience
they can have with cloud by each stakeholder.
The CIO wants to look at how we can look at
better sustainability of their operations,
keep the lights on as you said,
enhance stability with more automatable capabilities,
looking at DevOps,
the business is completely looking at
how can cloud fundamentally change my business model.
And you have both these stakeholders coexisting
with the same outcome towards enterprise transformation.
And that's the experience which we work with them to shape.
To say what the starting point is?
Where would they like to go?
And how can we go to them in the journey?
What's interesting here is, nobody has all the answers.
Neither is AWS nor customer the TCS,
but we are here to create a culture of discovering
the right goal and the right answers.
It's very important.
That's the approach to getting it working.
>> Krishna and our last minute together.
You've just received the Rising Star Award,
2022 is rapidly approaching,
this doesn't put any pressure on you at all for 2022
because people are going to ask,
what are those rising stars do again in 2022?
What's on the horizon,
what are the two of you excited about for next year?
>> I think we are super excited with how AWS, you know,
definitely in Adam's keynote,
if I had to take a couple of points that I'm taking away
is in addition to enhancing their core cloud capabilities,
but if there's pivoted on industry solutions, you know,
the fin space that they have announced,
and the industrial solutions that they have announced.
So that is where it very clearly aligns
to our strategy of TCS,
helping customers look for change their business models,
implement new business models, create ecosystem play.
And that's basically where we are really super excited.
And another point which I took from Adam
is the, they're focused on Edge with IOT and private 5G.
And that's very, very important
especially when you look at it both IT,
as well as the IOT transformation.
So we are super excited with the potential,
all the new bells and whistles AWS is rolled out
in last four days,
And looking forward for few more of this.
>> Congratulations again.
It's a fantastic acknowledgement
of what you've been able to do
over the last, just three quarters as you mentioned,
closing out 2021 in a very, very good way.
Looking forward to 2022.
Thank you gentlemen for joining us today
here on theCUBE, and thank all of you for joining us,
for continuing continuous Cube coverage
of AWS re-Invent 2021.
We are the leader in hybrid technology event coverage.
I'm Dave Nicholson stay tuned for more from theCUBE.