 Welcome back to our event, Data-Driven Starts with Intelligent Infrastructure. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. In this segment, we're going to be talking about partnering for innovation in an uncertain market. As you know, in addition to solving for complexity and security and sustainability, IT leaders are also facing some pretty big economic pressures in a market that continues to evolve. In this segment, you're going to hear from two industry leaders on how they're partnering to help customers solve some of these problems. Please welcome my two guests, Kevin Purcellis here, Head of Global Strategic Partnerships at Hatachi Ventara and Giorgio Vanzini, VP Strategic Alliances and Partners at DXC Technology. Gentlemen, it's great to have you on the program. Thank you. Thank you. Great to be here, Lisa. Yeah. All right, Giorgio, we're going to start with you. Talk about some of the challenges, the biggest challenges that you're hearing about today from customers that are coming to you wanting to set up a data infrastructure. Yes. Well, as part of a systems integrator that works worldwide, we see the same challenges pretty much consistently across all the geographies, meaning the lack of resources and having the right delivery skillset on the customer side. But then also, going into kind of the cost-effective solutions that they want to deploy or modernize as well. And then obviously, the outcome-driven kind of commitments that they have, the ability to really drive to the bottom line there, which goes to the TCO and the return of investment. And basically, all of our customers are asked to do more with less. And so they're looking for efficiencies and they're looking for leverage points and also to reduce the overall technical depth. A lot of people are being asked to do more with less. Kevin, let's bring you into the conversation. Comment on some of the challenges that you're seeing from your standpoint in the market and then give us a little bit of backstory on how DXC and Hitachi Ventura are working together to help customers come out some of those challenges. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I think, you know, Lisa, Georgio spot on with many of those topics that he brought up. And I think, you know, I like to call it recession-proof solutions. You know, there is a tremendous impact from macroeconomic pressures, you know, all across the globe. You know, in some parts of the world, it's even worse than others. But I think the impact is causing a change in how, you know, many customers are dealing with not only purchasing solutions, but also how they address the challenges and how do they compete in their markets. So, you know, I think, at least from an Hitachi perspective and certainly working with Georgio and his team at DXC, we're looking at really developing joint solutions that are recession-proof ESG initiatives that I'm sure many have heard about in the, you know, in the media and across many of the businesses that we're working with, you know, we're looking to help drive more sustainable data centers through infrastructure that we provide that actually use less energy. So there's a lot of focus around green data centers, also, you know, from a joint perspective and what we're doing in the marketplace. And to be honest with you, it's so unique is that, you know, Atachi infrastructure has been really known for its uptime. And what was really interesting and real quick story when Georgio and I first met, you know, we talked about the fact that, you know, there isn't a lot of interaction with our senior executives. And one of the things that Georgio said to me was, look, probably the reason is because your stuff doesn't break, you know, and they don't hear about it. So one of the things that we're trying to do is really address some of the uptime challenges that maybe some of the banks are having in that marketplace, certainly in the automobile industry where we're focused on EV vehicles. And as you're probably aware, Atachi is an $80 billion conglomerate of companies that focus on many different industries, such as energy and rail and other parts of the industry. So yeah, there's a lot of uniqueness to our partnership. We're going to unpack that a little bit as well. Georgio, give us your perspective through your lens. How are DXC and Atachi Ventura working together? Specifically, Kevin mentioned the recession-proof solutions, but in a recession-like environment, what's that partnership like? Yes, no, you always try to differentiate yourself. So when you think about DXC and Atachi Ventura, so we're trying to go after cost-effective solutions, but not just in a generic term, but for a specific industry. So Kevin mentioned like banking and capital markets. So what can we do that differentiates our offerings and our solution in that specific market? And then also being cautious about the requirements that the customers have, specifically around the service offerings and being flexible around this, you see a lot of the shift in industry to as a service, pay for what you use and the usage-based kind of invoicing based on their infrastructure and their requirements and basically helping the customers move into that kind of direction, helping them finding out the competitive advantage and then addressing the macro-economic challenges. As you mentioned before, it's like doing more with less and customizing those solutions to their specific industry, be that automotive, be that banking and capital market or be that manufacturing to specifically go after those. I want to get both of your perspectives. You've talked about a uniqueness differentiation from a solution perspective. Kevin, question for you, Giorgio, same for you, is what's unique about the partnership and how you're working together with customers to combat those challenges? Yeah, as Kevin mentioned, is like when we started the road together with Atachi and DXC, it basically, it all boils down to trust and competency that we bring together. And so we have a multi-year engagement, they look on trust and transparency of focusing on our joint clients. And the success basically proves that kind of approach where the clients come back and say, we believe in both of your solution and there's nothing more compelling than showing up together at a customer so that the customer doesn't have to worry about, oh, you guys not just have lip service, you actually show up together to the customer and provide the solution as well. The other thing is, we have regular engagements on the product roadmaps. So we know exactly where Atachi Intara is going and how that aligns to our offering. So when we do joint development, it actually coincides and comes across nicely together because it's a joint kind of development and approach. And so the technology stacks makes a lot of sense. And if you combine that with the flexibility on the cost infrastructure for the customers as a service, then it really is a win-win from a technology and from a business perspective. That trust is key. Kevin, in our last minute or so here, can you comment on from Atachi Ventara's perspective through that lens, what's unique about the partnership and what you guys are doing together, showing up together, obviously as Georgie were talking about. Yeah, absolutely Lisa. So I think if you look at where we are today and where we came from, the uniqueness and the differentiation we bring into the marketplace is really specific. Many of the as a service offerings that Georgia was talking about actually requires no commitment upfront. And that's a really new way of doing business together. What we're looking to do is provide flexibility to our joint customers. So as they need more infrastructure, we provide it when they need less, we provide less. And I think it's really working well. We're very much looking forward to the future. And I think we'll see some really great things in the next year or so. Very collaborative, very responsive to the customer's environment. George, your last question is for you. Give us a look peak on the horizon for the rest of the year priorities for the business, maybe even in so 2024. Absolutely, perfect timing because we started our fiscal year DXC next month. So we clearly did a lot of planning around fiscal year 24. The focus is really gonna be on solutions and offerings for our customers and doing the right things, especially around mainstream modernization, but also in the verticals. And so we have kind of the approach of like, we believe in like constraints will set you free. So we'll do fewer things, but we'll focus really on those things and do them really well for our customers. So those are gonna be our focus areas. Excellent, guys, thank you so much for sharing what Hitachi Ventura and DXC technologies are doing together for customers. It sounds like a great collaborative relationship. We appreciate your insights. Thank you. We wanna thank you for watching Data Driven Starts with Intelligent Infrastructure. I'm Lisa Martin, thanks for watching.