 Hello everyone, welcome to our CUBE conversation. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE in the Palo Alto studio. Today we're discussing cloud computing in the Asia Pacific region, lots of challenges and opportunities and how the cloud is helping them in AWS. Got a great guest CUBE alumni down before Anna Green is the head of SME business of Asia Pacific in Japan for AWS and a great to see you. And thanks for coming in all the way across from Asia Pacific. I'm delighted to be here, John. I love watching theCUBE. You guys are always bringing us relevant content across the whole world, especially here in APJ. And congratulations to yourself too. I love the content you're putting out on LinkedIn, on Twitter and all around the web. You're really taking it direct, sharing stories. And I love the people stories of International Women's Day. You guys had a fantastic event, congratulations. And last year we had the big program again. We did it this year. Next year we'll definitely have you on for sure. But a lot going on there. First, give us an update. How did the International Women's Day go for you there over there in Asia Pacific? Yeah, look, as usual a huge amount of activity here at AWS, but really importantly things that we're trying to do with customers and partners as well to sort of amplify the message around our leadership principles, which is we are always driving to be Earth's best employer. And part of that is about being really intentional about driving a conversation around diversity and inclusion. So a bunch of really cool stuff happening across APJ, all of our countries getting involved, had some of our, in particular, we had an amazing International Women's Day event for our Japan team. What we see, John, in IWD is just making sure that we understand that not every country is at the same place, but we can all be part of a similar conversation, which is driving the right outcomes to help everyone be successful in a technology career. That's awesome, we miss you. We also missed Tanuja Randery, she was supposed to be on too. So next time we'll get that together. Let's get into the Asia Pacific conversation around the business and the landscape out there. There are major macroeconomic headwinds for 132 million SMEs and Bs in Asia Pacific region. That's about like 97% of all the enterprise in the region, and like 200 million plus people. Could you share more about what's going on there with the impact of the economic? Because with challenges comes opportunities. You have the tailwind one day, headwind the other, how do you shift it around? Can you give us some insight into what's going on in the digital transformation out there? Yeah, let's start with framing the segment, as you say. So SMEs, 132 million of them here at APJ, 97% of all enterprises, and importantly, 256 million people employed by SMEs. So a really massive cohort of people who are thinking differently about doing business. And what we're seeing and hearing from our customers, as you know, we are customer obsessed at AWS. So we're going out there and talking to these customers, what's going on for you. And what we're hearing from them is that SMEs in particular are really vulnerable to the macroeconomic headwinds that are happening. And again, John, like it's not rocket science. You think about these customers as they're starting their digital journey. They're going to have smaller cash reserves. They've got weaker supply chain capabilities. And obviously they're probably slower in the take up of digital tools, although that's not always the case. So what we hear from them is that, look, we're really still interested in what's going on. We've got to cut out costs, but we've kind of also got to be thinking about how we are innovating to grow. So we're seeing a lot of those conversations with our customers. You know, one of the things we're seeing out here in the Silicon Valley area, all across North America and around the world is surge in AI. And what people are seeing as an opportunity to use technology to refactor their businesses has been part of the big story for many, many, for the decade actually in cloud. But now more than ever, smaller businesses that could really have an edge up and do heavy lifting with data. And so I think it's motivating people who are either in the game or want to get in the game with technology to know this headroom. So if I'm an SMB or an SME, small, medium size enterprise, I see headroom when I see AI. I see maybe opportunities to change how my workflows are or leverage clouds. Can you talk about how that ties into some of the basic stuff like cost optimization, which is, you know, obviously you don't want to pay too much, I mean, building on the hyperscale is a benefit, but this is a new opportunity to look at today and have headroom. Yeah, you're absolutely right, John. And really we see a lot of, in particularly regionally, a lot of country businesses leaning into that. I would highlight India as a particular area where we see customers and partners helping to innovate for growth. So we've got a really amazing customer who's recently picked up our AWS program by the name of Talk. And they basically are an Indian electric motorcycle and power trade manufacturer, right? And they've started using the Lyft program that we built for SMEs to start experimenting. And that's what we want to see customers doing more. And what they're doing is experimenting with different use cases, like vehicle telemetry and analytics in particular, like you were saying. And what that's going to do for them is to provide greater experiences to their customers and build like the electrical vehicle technology of the future that's going to be happening in India. So like to your point, right? We are hearing about things not really happening or maybe a slowdown and cost optimization, obviously is key and we'll talk about that more. But really what's going on out there is that these new technologies are being taken up by smaller medium enterprises at scale. You mentioned AWS Lyft. I was reading about that on the news. I love the name Lyft because I think of an airplane coming off the runway and getting some altitude like a business would want. Lifting up, doing the heavy lifting. What is the AWS Lyft program that you guys announced? I got the sense it was like a kickstart of a program. It was a program, it was a technology. Could you tell us more about what AWS Lyft is? Yeah, look, what we go out with customer access, go out, ask the customers, what do you need? And for us in SME, you know, it's such a massive cohort of customers. But what we keep hearing from those customers is risk. We're worried about the move to the cloud because we're worried about costs. We're worried about experimenting. We're worried about, you know, BAU activities being somehow challenged by migration or by thinking differently about using cloud. So what we did was create AWS Lyft so that we could help our SME customers with that first step to the cloud. And are you right? It's basically a starter pack of cloud credits and it allows companies over a 12 month period to start digitizing. And what we've done is we've created a really, really low threshold for minimum billing, $1, that's it. And we have no locking periods. We have no hidden fees. And what we are trying to do is get SMBs to just feel comfortable to experiment. You know, even one work stream, come and join us and like learn about how this technology can help. And we've actually got the program up to $83,500 over 12 months. Now for any small business, that is a material win for them from a cost and expense management perspective. So what we're hearing and seeing is the program's getting legs is a real, like intentional enthusiasm from our customers and getting amongst them and using it with our partners, which is really cool. And actually. Go ahead. No, no, what I wanna do, because of course, John, I have to be leading into the conversation about diversity and inclusion while we have the conversation. So for me, we have an amazing partner in Malaysia. I just wanted to highlight the work they're doing. They've actually used Lyft. They're called Exabytes and they specialize in providing web hosting services to SMEs growing in Malaysia. And they've created a digital toolkit in conjunction with Lyft, which is gonna help women entrepreneurs to have free access to digital solutions, workshops, courses, a whole bunch of really great stuff. So Lyft is not just helping, you know, any entrepreneurs, we're also like leaning into how we can help entrepreneurs build and grow using these type of programs. And credit funding, as you know, is the way forward when you are starting on the cloud. It's not zero risk. Have you got a nice experiment work stream to work with getting in there, lifting it up there. Any other anecdotes in terms of who's signing up for the program, you mentioned Malaysia. Is there any other kind of early adopters jumping into the program? I know it's early days, but is there some anecdotes from customers who've joined and some trends around the makeup of the customers? Yeah, we've got really cool customers in the Philippines called the Manila Broadcasting Company. They've started to migrate using the Lyft program and they've managed to experience 35% improvement in overall performance for them and 50% increase in access speed for their users. So again, John, like what we're seeing is we know that moving to the cloud saves you money, but just know it. So if you're going to go from on-premises to the cloud, you're on average, you're gonna save about 30% in your operating costs. So what we're seeing when SMEs in particular start using this technology is that they're actually innovating at speed and at pace as well. And a customer like Manila Broadcasting Company is a really good example of that. Anna, can you share some examples of how some SMEs in Asia region have benefited from the cost optimization on the abuse and what impact has this had on their business? Yeah, I like to use examples of traditional companies when we're talking about SME because I love your show. We always talk about tech first and builders out there. But what I like to do is also reference the fact there's a bunch of companies out there who are not tech first, but they are using technology in really interesting ways. So we've got another customer like Baba in Malaysia, which was founded 40 years ago and they are a curry powder and spice brand from Malaysia. And they are basically, they create and sell products in retail grocery stores across the whole country. Now what they have done, which is really interesting is use one of our amazing APN partners, Cloud Comrade, who is our partner and they've been able to implement an SAP S4 HANA on AWS solution, which has allowed them to focus on cost optimization and DR strategies on implementation. And what we found is that that on-demand infrastructure has allowed them to achieve a faster time to value, John, which is for them, traditional company, reduce the order to cash cycle by 40%. Like that's a huge, if you're running a retail business, that makes such a difference to you. That's just by the use of different technology. So we keep seeing examples of how customers are, yes, we're saving money, now we're going to innovate. And to conclude this discussion, what advice would you have SMEs and SMBs looking to go to the cloud and the ones also trying to pursue the cost optimization for their organization? Yeah, I think what we needed to accept about SMEs is that they are, wherever they are on their cloud journey, there's an opportunity for them to start thinking differently about building their business models. What we found most when we talked to our customers and the partners that support them is that starting with a one-off project is really the right way to start thinking about experimenting with the business models. And we're seeing that that is the right approach to sort of scale into more of the cloud technology that you can use and the benefits of that using AWS. And as I said to you, I think really what has become a very apparent to us as we've built the segment is that that these customers are working with our partners. So for us, that AWS competency program that we've built with our partners, which allows those partners to show demonstrated technology expertise in specific areas and industry specific services is really making a difference to our SMBs because they're figuring out who are the partners that are relevant for me, what my vertical, my retail, my manufacturing, my supply chain. And we are connecting the dots for those customers, which and for our partners, which for us is such a great win. And in terms of pursuing cost optimization, that there's just so much opportunity to train your teams. The other thing that we know, John, is that SMBs of all of the customers out there are really challenged around digital skills. And here at AWS, we have over 200 free AWS training services online. And we encourage all of our customers to get amongst it and start learning and building those digital skills. Well, it's awesome. Congratulations on AWS Lift. This is a great program. Love the concept, love the names, helping women in business, underrepresented minorities as well as businesses. As small-medium businesses, they have the opportunity of these enterprises to be really differentiated with the cloud and AI coming. So really a big deal. I'd like to ask you what's going on in Asia Pacific and Japan. We did do a little experiment with theCUBE. SiliconANGLE.kr site is up in Korea. So we're testing, we had hoped to be out there, but COVID hit and we were hoping to have a CUBE team out in your area. Maybe this year we'll start getting back on the travel. But a lot going on out there. Could you share from your perspective, a lot of folks in the US, North America and other regions would love to know your travels. I know you travel a lot for your job. I see your endeavors on Facebook and LinkedIn and social media. You're talking to customers, meeting with employees all around the region. What's the vibe? What's it like to share your perspective? I love sharing a perspective of Asia Pacific with my US colleagues because the opportunity here is just exponential. And sometimes that can get lost in translation, but the reality is the macroeconomic indicators are that Asia is the place to be for growth. And I will tell you that in my current role. I will also tell you that, having run up in the CEO of a bank in Southeast Asia and I can tell you that those fundamentals of growth here remain the same. And so when we talk to our customers, we talk to our teams and our partners, people here are excited about the opportunity to scale and grow. Our teams across Southeast Asia would welcome you to come and talk to our customers on the ground who will tell you the same. That the macroeconomic demographics of this region are that one in three of the people here have more than two mobile phones. We have a whole bunch of data and statistics about a very young population that's growing. There's a lot of consumer positivity around the way in which digital technology is enabled and consumed here and the opportunity for tech businesses and for businesses just generally in Southeast Asia and in APJ just continues to build and grow. It's an exciting time here. Well, congratulations. We certainly are excited. We want to cover it. We want to know the stories. Dave Vellante and myself and our entire team want theCUBE to be global. We'd love to have a CUBE region out there soon. We might see you soon, but really appreciate it. We are interested in, again, keep the stories coming. Remotes are easy to do. We'd love to check in as much as possible. So Anna, thank you so much for sharing what's going on, the check-in. Really appreciate it and congratulations on your success and ride that tailwind. Thanks so much, John. Take care. Okay, I'm John for here the Palo Alto Studios Cloud Computing in Asia Pacific is a different kind of business. It means the enterprise is dominating a lot of growth. Thanks for watching.