 From around the globe, it's theCUBE. Covering HPE Discover Virtual Experience, brought to you by HPE. Everyone, welcome back to theCUBE's coverage from HPE Discover's virtual experience conference, HPE Discover physical event, a gathering that happens every year. This year, we're doing it virtually with HPE as everyone is kind of sheltering in place. And of course, we got the best guests, the executives from HPE, their customers, practitioners, developers. We're talking to them all. I'm John Furrier, the host of theCUBE. We're here with John Schultz, the chief legal and administrative officer for HPE. Thank you for joining me today. Great to have you. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. So you're in a unique position. Obviously, you obviously the legal and administrative office of HPE. You've been there when it was one big company and then two. You've seen some transformations over the years. And you've seen in many different use cases. Right now we're living in one that's pretty significantly historic, a lot of unrest of recent, but the pandemic itself is upon us. And the reality of what's happening cannot be ignored anymore. The disruption, that's happened, no one forecasted this. They forecasted hurricanes and tsunamis, but not pandemics. There's outages, there's issues. Now they have to come out of this, your customers have to come out of this with a restructuring, a reinvention and a growth strategy. This is truly a forced transformation. What's your thoughts? Yeah. No, clearly unprecedented times, but at the same time, I think our perspective is that this is only accelerating the underlying trends that were already in the market. It starts with the fact that more and more people were working from home and more and more data is going to live on the edge. And therefore you need systems that can essentially handle that data and make that data into actionable insights to fuel your business. And so clearly that trend, we think is only accelerating. Well, I think the trend is accelerating with respect to the fact that people want to get out of the business of buying and operating IT infrastructure in a traditional sense. They want to move to the consumption of IT as a service. They want to focus less on operations and again, more on taking the data and driving those insights for their business. So all of these trends that have been out there for the last 12, 24, 36 months, I think are just accelerating. And this confluence of events is therefore making what we're doing at HPE and the transformation that we're leading all the more critical. So I want to get your thoughts and I want to unpack the impact of how your role at HPE kind of reflects into the real marketplace with your customers. And I bring that up because we've been covering the DevOps movement for over a decade. And it's been always on the fringe and with the cloud native and all the app development's been great. But network operations, IT operations, security operations, these are operational functions that don't have the cavalier fast and loose kind of approach. And legal usually is involved, administration is involved, policies, and you know, some say blockers, but it's not anymore. You're the chief legal and administrative at HPE. Talk about what your role is and how that role relates to these transformational decisions that have to go faster, not slower. Well, the biggest part of my role right now that's touching on this is leading the transformation office that Antonio set up. And that is really focused on leading our transformation to being the edge to cloud as a platform company. And so I'm spending a tremendous amount of my time on that transformation. But in addition, IT has moved into my organization and I have a number of other administrative organizations. And so I see what is needed in terms of simplifying operations, whether it's IT ops or other parts of the organization and how we need to use data and insights. So combining my role now as head of the transformation office and moving this pivot to as a service focused on our own IT transformation and then looking at how it impacts all the other pieces of our operations has been incredibly valuable. We just launched our data office, the first ever data office inside HPE which is also part of my organization all intended to tie these pieces together because as companies continue to grow, develop and in fact try to become more agile and act with a greater sense of urgency, it really is that combination of transforming your own IT, understanding what those new services are that are out there that will allow you to do that and then putting data at the center of everything you do in terms of driving those actionable insights. And so that's where I've been focused and expect to spend a lot more of my time over the next year or two. I can only imagine, I love that mission. Also just for the folks watching, you guys did indicate that and Antonio said publicly that everything will be sold as a service by HPE by 2022. Certainly we'll be tracking that. I want to ask more about that later, but you mentioned data. And this is where I think you're starting to see the biggest impact. Data and data silos are the real blocker for this new operating model. And sometimes there's compliance involved. Certainly outside the United States regulations, privacy, all kinds of check boxes on apps. So if you're an app developer, never mind a business leader, you're dealing with the role of data and more data makes machine learning smarter. So we know that. So this is a challenge. Could you share your thoughts on that? Because you want to have a bottoms up organic growth of data availability, but yet manage some of the top down policies that might be needed in place from a protection, whether it's privacy or whatever. So it's really balancing that innovation formula of data everywhere, certainly at the edge for processing. This is now changing everything. This is a big deal. Could you share your thoughts on this? Yeah, I think there's certainly some challenges around privacy, although we're seeing efforts made in a lot of different forums to realize or take into recognition what's actually happening in terms of the needs of companies and so forth. Honestly, in the position I'm in, I don't see regulation as being the primary stumbling block at the moment. The primary stumbling block inside companies like HPE is that siloed aspect with which we keep data. And ultimately we have to recognize that data isn't just sort of an asset. It is, in fact, the ultimately the key to unlocking the greatest insight inside the company and it has to be in movement. We need active data, not just a data lake that everyone else can sort of access, but we need data flows that allow us to drive that cross silo collaboration, and most importantly, to fuel AI and ML. That's certainly what we're focused on. That's why we launched our data office and obviously it ties in incredibly well to the transformation office and then what we're trying to do with our own IT. So the role of work is critical right now. The word work now has multiple meanings. Work force, people, workplace, offices, now home. Work flows and workloads clouded and supply chain or any kind of value chain. These things are upside down. It's where all the energy is being spent. And so you said earlier, take away that the burden and make it easier for businesses to focus on this. Could you share your observation of things that executives and business leaders or practitioners should pay attention to as they start to reimagine work? Cause it's not just the future of work and collaboration. That's one thing, but when I just laid out is across the board end to end challenge. What's your observation? Well, certainly you can think about it, across the three traditional directions of people, process and technology. And as you mentioned, look, the people element, especially by virtue of what's happened with COVID-19 is completely changed. And at HPE, we were focused on the workplace experience and in particular thinking about our sites and the like. And we've very quickly transformed into recognizing that the workplace experience now isn't just going to be in the office. And candidly may not just be in the home, but it's a more fluid and dynamic workplace experience and how you enable that, create the right amount of productivity, but also the right amount of collaboration and camaraderie is critically important. On the process side, the opportunity with ML and AI ops, the ability to use data and drive those actionable insights is really changing the game around processes. And folks have to rethink their end to end processes, many of which are manual or people who operate through intuition versus data-driven and actionable insight-driven sort of basis. So we're very focused on that piece as well. And I think everyone else is seeing the same thing on the technology side, which as I said, people want to get out of spending time and investing dollars in operations. They now expect that to be happening for them. And what they want is someone who's delivering them an outcome or a solution that they can then drive through their business. And so whether it's the work that Kumar's doing with the element, whether it's the work that we're doing with respect to our as-a-service solutions that we're going to be introducing here at Virtual Discover, their workflow focused, right? Their workload optimized and it's less around selling a particular piece of infrastructure. It's now selling a solution that's intended to solve a real customer problem. That's what everyone wants to hear us talk about. And that's obviously where we're putting our focus. And that's where everyone's energy is on. And also there's also the reinvention piece that I'd love to get your personal perspective on this, John, because of your background, your experience and your current position. You know, this kind of conversation I was just having with a CEO of a big company. We've been talking, we're like, well, the new stuff is either the old stuff or the same of the old stuff, or it's either a little bit better than the old way or it does something completely different and better than the old way. And so people are trying to figure out as they bring in this world and these new apps are going to be refactored and modernized, that it can't just be the same thing in a new box or a new solution. It has to be either significantly better lower cost or completely different and completely better. And so, you know, as we are embarking on a first time challenge globally around virtual first or remote first, whatever you want to call it, I call it virtual first. You're dealing with policies, legal precedents that aren't there, formulation of things have to be taken into account. All of this legacy business model value is going to be reshifted. And that's going to be an opportunity for someone to build software for HR, for an HR virtual, that environment. So all new things are going to be built around virtual first. As someone as an expert in that area, how do you think about that? And what advice would you give folks out there, whether it's a business or developers who's going to make, might build the best HR app for virtual companies that no one's ever done before. It's not work day for virtual users. Virtual first, it's coming. No, I agree. Look, I think, you know, one of the things that we often see in the technology world is people build technology out. They have a tech, they have a mindset around the technology. They think about what that technology can do. And then they take it to market in a way that's really kind of technology first. And look, having been in a technology company for the last dozen years, I certainly understand the power of technology and, you know, the fuel that it provides. But I think what's changing, and I think it happened really, when you think about sort of the mobile phone and then the apps and services that came with it is really that customer first focus. And that driving what happens on the technology side, whether it's a virtual HR delivery or whether it's something happening in the legal space or a supply chain or anywhere else. And that's really where we have changed our focus. It's not about being customer friendly. It's about being customer experience oriented. And that really starts to drill in on what are the solutions, excuse me, what are the problems our customers are trying to solve? How are we going to solve them? And how are we going to do that better than everyone else? And that is a full shift in terms of how we develop our technology, how we go to market with our technology. And it really requires you to have a broader understanding of what your customers are really trying to achieve, whether that's through an application, whether that's through the infrastructure services that's across the board. It sounds very simple and on one level it is, but in terms of trying to change an entire organization to become customer experience-led is more difficult and more challenging. And like I said, I think many companies are trying to do the same thing right now and they realize that is a challenge. The good news is you have a technology scale that's helping. Got a tailwind on the technology scale side. Data planes or however that's going to evolve is rapidly changing as well. That's an opportunity and the environment's forcing everyone to have new ways of doing things. So I think if you're going to make a change, it's a good time now. We also have, you know, the thing about HPE is we have some tremendously deep and rich customer relationships. And there's no substitute for that. And the second thing is we have a phenomenal partner ecosystem. And our partners have been a key to the success of HPE for a long time. It's not just the ability to service customers, but it's the insight we get about customers through our partner network. And so I think we've got some real advantages there in terms of driving the right kind of customer experience. It's that deep relationships that we already have, whether it's through Pointnext, which has an unbelievable net promoter score because of the quality of what they do and the deepness of that relationship. And again, the phenomenal partner ecosystem that we have, which really just fuels the customer focus of our organization. I can't up and point out, but also you're also offering HPE as financial services as well that's now front and center. That's now not just a bolt-on option. It's fundamental now. Could you just comment quickly? It's such a differentiator. It's such a differentiator for us. Clearly it fuels our as a service and our consumption offerings. But when you get into life cycle management and especially sort of the upcycling capacity of HPFS with two of the world's largest upcycling facilities, one in Scotland, one here in the U.S. We're able to provide a set of services to customers that really are unique. And what's great about it is it's changing the game around sustainability and the circular economy. Most of the equipment we take back and run through our upcycling service centers either get refurbished and put back into use or get recycled. I mean, that is what people want to talk about today. Not just, hey, what's the newest thing in your technology? But are you being responsible from a climate perspective? And we can say absolutely we are a leader in that space and HPFS is a huge part of that solution. So it continues to be a differentiator for us. And we see the opportunities on the HPFS side only growing. Yeah, and not just for the large enterprise either for the SMEs, for instance, that are dealing with COVID. They have to make their dollars work for the return on investment. And with the consumption model, which is proven in the cloud model, you get the value faster. You don't want to take on that front end cost. And that's not just an option. That's part of the value that people need right now. It's absolutely part of the value. And it comes up in big ways with respect to a green light deal or the like, but it comes up in other ways. We've had companies reach out who needed laptops to service their work from home workers. And HPFS has a inventory of refurbished PCs that they were able to deploy in a very short period of time to a customer. As you can imagine, the goodwill that that engenders in a situation like this with crisis is tremendous. So we do have a tremendous asset in HPFS. It's not just about financing. It's about the entire array of services that they provide that really sort of sync well with the rest of our business. And I think again, gives us the ability to deliver a customer experience that is unlike any other company in the market. And I'm going to say now, go out on a limb and say this, but I think business value right now post COVID is a social impact initiative. Business is needed now more than ever to get back to work. It's not just impact investing. There's societal benefits, although there's a lot to do there. The business issues is impact. So I think that's very good for you guys to do that. Appreciate that. Okay, closing it out, John, we'll catch a final question. I've been asking everyone to finish this sentence. HPE's competitive advantage to our clients is blank. How would you answer that question? I think it's our ability to provide a genuine cloud experience on-premise at the edge, in a colo. We really sort of pioneered, I think the concept of hybrid cloud. Now, if you want to talk about it in the context of distributed cloud or multi-cloud, I think we're the leader there, the thought leader there, but we're also aiming to be the execution leader there in delivering those solutions that will drive the next wave of innovation inside HPE and continue to establish us as the edge-to-cloud platform, as a service company. So super excited about it and thanks for the opportunity to talk about it. Well, thank you for spending your valuable time and congratulations on the transformation initiative that you're heading up. And I agree with all the things you said I would add, the data piece is going to be a super valuable component. I think you're right on the money on that point. Thanks for your time. John Schultz, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer, HPE, joining me here inside the CUBE Studio's Palo Alto. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching.