 Good afternoon from Vegas, guys and gals. We're so happy that you're with us. This is theCUBE live at AWS re-invent 22. This is our third day of coverage. We started Monday night, so we're counting that. Counting that as day one. Loads of conversations we've had already. We know that you know that because you've been watching. I'm here with Dave Vellante. Dave, great to be here with you with, between somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 people. And we're excited for our next conversation. We've got two folks joining us who are new to theCUBE, soon will be alumni. Milan Bat joins us, the president and head of cloud at Hexaware. And Nikhil Date, the director of engineering and application services at Domestic and General. Guys, welcome to the program. Thank you. Thanks for having us. So Domestic and General or DNG is a customer of Hexaware, but Milan, we want to start with you. Give the audience an overview of Hexaware. What do you do? What's the business model? Yeah, so Hexaware is a technology services company. We are a global partner of AWS and essentially we help customers like Domestic and General accelerate their digital transformation journeys. We like to think of ourselves as a billion dollar startup. And like Amazon, it is always day one at Hexaware. And I look forward to the conversation, but any company in the world that is looking at a cloud led digital transformation, they have to put Hexaware on the consideration list. Because not only do we work with a lot of customers, analysts like Gartner, they have rated us as a visionary in helping customers become digitally enabled, bring better customer experience to their end customers. Excellent. Well, we're glad to feature Hexaware on the program. Nikhil, let's bring you into the conversation. Talk to the audience about Domestic and General. What kind of business is it? What's the business model? Sure. Thank you. We are 110 year old business, right? I mean, we started ensuring sheep in Australia, if you believe it, which is quite an origin story. But at the moment, the primary business is keeping our customers world running. So what do I mean by that? We protect in warranty and out of warranty care for domestic appliances, TVs, boilers, refrigerators, washing machines, that kind of thing. But we are also a B2B company in the sense that you might think you're getting a warranty from some of our biggest customers, like Whirlpool or Bosch Siemens or Samsung, but actually it's D&G at the back trying to administer that for you. So we are in 13 countries, just launched in the US last year, but big plans. So is there really interesting because we all have appliances and we can relate, especially pre or post pandemic, how difficult it is to get service. So you're kind of like, in a way you've got to build a digital platform, like Uber connecting drivers and passengers, right? And so you've got the supply of individuals who know how to fix stuff, right? And you want to make it as easy as possible for the customer. So was that the genesis of this digital transformation? Can you talk about those business drivers? It was actually, and it's a fantastic point because trying to become a platform business is what this journey has been all about for us, right? I think we are a pioneer in what we consider the subscription model. So customers be a small amount per month as opposed to a big lump sum amount that they have to pay at the point you buy the appliance. And importantly, you can actually buy our product to pay in installments at the point something breaks down. So it's not just something that you buy at the point of sale or at the point you try to register. You can buy it at any time. And the goal really is to have warranty in a box that you can take anywhere in the world. So it's a great point. Digital transformation is what it's a lot of. And there is a real lack right now of qualified technicians. Is there anything within the platform to incent those individuals to participate in your business? So our, and this is what we consider a multi-tier approach. I think at the moment, the service that we offer is largely top tier, right? So we will get you an engineer that is certified by the manufacturer with parts that are with the manufacturer warranty. And it's a no fix, no fee model. So we guarantee either to repair or replace the appliance. So that's the model. But you're right. I think in the future stage would be, why wouldn't we want to have anybody who's got the right skills to come in and work off the platform? Absolutely right. Nikhil, talk about, you said this is a legacy business been around for quite some time. You've been there for not quite two years. What drew you to the organization and where were they in their digital transformation journey? Because I always think legacy companies, this is a big challenge. It's a cultural challenge to really transform but companies these days have no choice. Again, a fantastic point, right? I think some of the 110 year old business, right? And some of the tech you would be forgiven for thinking it's that old. But the assets that we had are our people, right? Who are really passionate about the business. And I think what we had to do is to find a partner that can upskill the tech, but also upskill the people at the same time and upskill the delivery model, right? So we were a very traditional left to right, waterfall, you know, plan it first, big upfront planning and then deliver kind of organization. And by working with a partner such as Hexaware and embracing cloud because our first now go-to will be a SaaS or a cloud provider. And doing that was the mess, massive agenda that drew me to the company. But I think what is also fair is digitization or digitalization is a misunderstood and often abused term, right? Because for the most part when companies start, and I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but for the most part when companies start on this journey, they take a journey that works in the brick-and-mortar world and we were a contact center business and just try to move it to the digital journey, right? And that's, it's not a great customer experience. I'll give you an example, right? Now, if you call our agent and say, I'm trying to register an appliance, they will tell you where to look for the serial number. But if you're on a digital channel, you don't know where to look. There's nobody who can help you. The model number. Who remembers the model number of the washing machine they bought, right? I mean, it's stuff like that, which would feel, for a digital native, my son, for example, would think, how can you even ask a customer for that? But it's that change in the model. That's what this is all about. Yeah, it's like when you get the, what's your account number? I have no idea what my account number is. So when did this whole project start? How was HexAware involved? And where did HexAware start? How did you sort of gauge what the requirement was? Take us through that little... Sure. So, you know, when Nikhil and the rest of the management team came in, they came up with a competitive process where, you know, and it is refreshing to remember, I think they've stuck true to their vision. They were very clear that they were not looking for someone who can just digitize their paper processes, but who can help them completely reimagine, you know, what the new process will look like, what the new experience would look like. And, you know, remember, they were running this process at the height of the pandemic. So we couldn't meet anybody in person. We did everything virtual. Yeah. And we were using cloud technology. But, you know, the way they ran the process, they wanted to make sure that a provider brings in a mix of experience and engineering expertise. And that's really hard to find. But equally importantly, you remember those culture sessions that we did? They figured out some very creative ways of making sure that there is a cultural fit. So for example, they did virtual breakout sessions where, you know, people were sort of asking each other, you know, if you want to have dinner with someone like a celebrity, who would it be? So, you know, there are these little things to make sure that there is a match and people can actually work. Relationship building, too. The relationship building. It's hard to do in a virtual environment, but it was a competitive process. They looked at us in terms of engineering, you know, experience, our ability to transcend, change, and run. And, you know, really focus and align to keep their objectives first, right? Work as a true partnership. Yeah. Do you agree? No, I would agree. And I think, you know, one of the biggest goals here was to make sure that this is not an arm's length, vendor relationship, right? This is an extension of our team. So these are our people, you know, for the people that work on DNG, you know, they work in the DNG way, you know, and that means that they can also challenge us, which is quite refreshing, right? People stopping and saying, why are you asking me to do this? It's, you know, it's very refreshing, I think, you know, to work with a partner that is sold on the vision and committed to helping you achieve success. Well, that synergy creates that flywheel. And like you said, at DNG, Hux where we're a team, we're working together. Nikhil, share with us some of the significant business outcomes that Hux Aware Services and AWS are helping the company to achieve, because there's some big numbers there. Indeed, yeah. So, you know, in the digital journey itself, like I said, we are also a B2B business. So one of the key challenges is every client wants their own stamp, right? So, you know, a journey for customer X has to look like the customer X brand. And a journey for customer Y will have to do the same. When you try to stretch this to a technology problem, though, it means that, you know, we were trying to be too many things for too many people and that slowed things down and increased complexity. So from our point of view, you know, when we started with the digital journey or in the middle of the digital journey, we thought we need to have a library of reusable components. We need white labeling, right? So there was a root and branch re-engineering of the digital proposition to allow us to serve multiple clients with the same underlying technology. And that has meant that, you know, in some cases we are going to market, you know, two, three times faster than what we were. Costs, obviously, you know, 50% cheaper. But, you know, I think the big thing here, and you know, this is the unstated benefit, is because now there is a common underlying technology, innovation that client X wants to do becomes available for client Y, you know, which means that, you know, there's a virtual circle of, you know, constant improvement. So, you know, that, from my point of view, that's the big benefit. And would you agree that you are still only in the first quarter of a football game? Absolutely. Right? I think a lot of ambitious plans, so, you know, this is just the beginning. And the way they have built the organization, the way they have driven the culture change, you know, I'm very hopeful for great things to come and really, you know. Paying a picture of the tech, I'm interested in the architecture, and I'm really interested in the data component and how that's affected your business. So, I mean, you know, multi-layered, multi-layered tech architecture, as you can imagine, and you know, we still have legacy, you know, legacy components running off our own pet mainframe, as we like to call it. But, you know, it's from a, you know, from a go forward point of view, what we really want is to allow clients to self serve, right? Not have to, you know, because at the moment the only service we can offer is what I call the white glove, right? Which means, you know, somebody has to sit down with us, have a discussion on the requirements, but people should be able to self serve, you know, look at the catalog of what it is we can do for them, and go for it. Data is a very interesting point, right? Because not only are there, you know, geography restrictions on where customer data can go to, obviously payments and PCI compliance is an issue. But last but not least, you know, some of this data is very unique to what the clients want to own and manage. And you know, if you are a typical homeowner, you will have appliance from all kinds of manufacturers, right? Many of whom would be our customers, but how much data we can share, because we recognize you as a person, but how much data we can share, there are restrictions. But, you know, building our data abstraction layer allows us to, you know, take care of that. So, you know, but you're absolutely right in terms of, but again, the potential for where the data can be mined because, you know, the engineer also has to be local to where you live, you know, you can't come from a hundred miles away. So, you know, the ability to use data to, you know, not just transform our business, but our client's business is phenomenal, you know. Do you actually have a mainframe? Yes, we do. Yeah. Adam Salipsky wants to move it into the cloud. Yeah. Okay. They have every possible technology that you can think of. I mean, 100 year old business evolved over a period of time and, you know, if I could add, you know, what has been really impressive about the decision making at DNG is that they have adopted cloud in the right way, right? So, they are one of the few customers who have surely taken AWS well architected to heart. They have taken things like, you know, take the right workloads to the cloud and no way to do the right remediations before you take the rest of the workloads to the cloud. They've used native services available on AWS from an app's perspective as well as a data perspective. So, that's sort of a little bit more color on the technology and architecture. But you've essentially satisfied your business, you know, and you basically have DNG cloud that you're delivering to your customers for self-serve. Is that? That's the vision, yes. The idea is to get there and, you know, if we assemble what I call, you know, out of the box solutions in a clever way, then that becomes the platform that you can replicate success on. And at the moment, our business needs what I call boots on the ground. When we are a true platform business, you should be able to operate without having, you know, any presence in country if the partner is leveraging the, you know, leveraging the platform to do what's next. Gee, I'm curious. Milan, you said that one of the great things that DNG has done is really adopt a cloud in the right way. Do you, Nikhil, think of cloud-first or cloud-right approach? Because you've got a mainframe, so I'm just wondering if it's more what's right for cloud versus everything cloud-first. Correct, I mean, I actually, you know, or we actually tend to start even two steps before that, right? I think it's really whether we need to buy or whether we need to build, right? And if we need to buy, then, you know, how easily would that thing that has been bought fit into what is a very complex architecture? As Milan said, right, I mean, any technology you can imagine, we probably have it. But we want to simplify it, right? And this is a journey, so which means that, you know, we start with, can a SaaS product do it? And then, we also want to go wherever we are building, then it has to be on the cloud. It has to be designed for scaling. It has to be designed to be in multiple geographies, multiple countries, with the relevant data protection baked in. So, you know, that's the decision-thinking process, you know, that the goal is to not, I mean, we had a, you know, we had a project started 18 months ago that wanted to buy more tin, but we put a stop to that, right? And saying that, you know, come on, you can't have that, not in this day and age, you know, when the cloud can pretty much do everything that you need. Do you think of DNG, and this is a question for you, we're almost out of time, but I'm just curious, I'm looking at your website, DNG, the experts who repair and replace the household products everyone relies on. Do you think about it as a repair company? Do you think about it as a tech company that delivers these repair services? It's a, I mean, this is the conversation we have in our teams all the time, right? That when our vision is successful, we will become a tech business. At the moment, I don't think we are, you know, at the moment, I think we are on a journey, you know, because, you know, we are multi-channel, you know, we, and our customers love us, you know, touch wood, you know, so thank, but are we a true tech company? No, but we're getting there, I think, you know, that's the plan. You're on the journey. Yeah. Awesome stuff. Last question for each of you, a little bit different. Milan, question for you, you have a billboard or a bumper sticker, whichever, or maybe a sticker for your laptop, and it's about Hexaware, and you want to really convey in a compelling, but really short way, why are we so great? What would that sticker say? Awesome. Like I said, at the beginning, if you are thinking about a digital transformation, if you are a company that has been around for a long time, you've got to think of us, you know, as a partner. So that's what I would say, because, you know, the purpose of our company is creating smiles through a combination of great people and technology. So that's what we live for, and you know, brought a smile to me when Nikhil said that our customers love us, and somewhere we have a small role to play in that. I love that. Nikhil, I'm going to ask the same question, I'm going to ask you a different one, but I would love to, I mean, we talked a lot about DNG and the incredible business transformation that you've been on. What's that bumper sticker for DNG? What is that bumper sticker for DNG? Oh yeah, okay. We want to keep your world running, right? I mean, you know, from our point of view, you know, you rely on the appliances to keep your home running, and we want you to rely on us to make sure your world keeps running. You know, that's what this is all about. It has to be slick. Touch word, hopefully you never have a problem, but if you do, you want to be there, you know, for you to make sure that your world keeps running. I love it. Awesome, guys. Thank you, Milan, Nikhil. Thank you so much for joining Dave and me on the program. Thanks guys. Great partnership. Hex Aware's first time on theCUBE. Now you're an alumni, you're an alumni too. We appreciate your insights sharing the story. It's a really compelling story. Thank you. Thank you for all the support Nikhil. Of course. All right. Thank you. For our guest and for Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin. 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