 From around the globe, it's theCUBE. Covering HPE Discover Virtual Experience, brought to you by HPE. Hi, everybody, welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of HPE Discover 2020, the virtual experience. Pradeep Kumar is here, he's the senior vice president and general manager of Point Next Services. Pradeep, how are things in Houston? Welcome. Very good, it's, as usual, it's warm and sunny. So I'm good, thank you, Dave. Thanks for having me. You're very welcome. So now let's set this up. So when HPE split into two companies, formed HPE and HPE, it did a spin merge with EDS, it's a large services business. And one of the things that came out of that was the Point Next Services brand and group within HPE. And this was very important. I wanted to share this with our audience because it really streamlined HPE's services messaging, it's offering, it opened up new partnering opportunities. And Pradeep, this is really the business that you run. So maybe add any color to my little narrative upfront and talk about your role there. No, absolutely. I think what HPE wanted to make sure is they have a wide portfolio of services. So we have advisory and professional services as well as operational services in the backend. So we just streamlined everything for the customer from a services point of view. And that's what Point Next stands for. You described it pretty well, Dave. Now, as you know, I mean, as you can imagine, a lot of these virtual events that we've been doing, the pandemic of course has been a topic of discussion, but really the discussion thus far has been on, okay, how are you handling it? What kinds of things are you doing to support clients? And I want to understand that from you, but now we're at a point where we're really talking about the post-isolation economy and what that all means. So what are you seeing, Pradeep, in your client base? Yeah, the point you made is a very critical one, right? During the pandemic, everybody was, hey, can I, business continuity plans, right? Can I manage my business? In that scenario, Dave, really preparation was everything. Things that we take it for granted, like remote working capabilities, parts having parts at the right places, right? Now we have more past as you described. It's more, what is the new normal? What is business going to look like in the future? And how can technology help you to achieve that, right? If I give an example of, you know, how many people were working from offices, including HPE, substantial portion of the team members or the workforce was working from an office, now probably about one third will be working from the office and about one third probably will work from home and there's another one third who will come to the office in a infrequent basis for collaboration purposes. So the whole landscape of the new normal has changed forever. So what I'd like to do, Pradeep, is if we could bring up some data that we have and to really just set the context and drill in a little bit in terms of what you guys are seeing. Now, you know, again, point next is critical. Now, you know, not only was it a business that Antonio Neary kind of ran in the services business, so he understands it well, but it really is the touch point to customers. And now when you talk to CIOs, this is data from our data partner, ETR, on a survey of 700 CIOs and IT pros as to what they see as the shape of the recovery. And you can see here, 44% expect a U shape recovery. Now you've got in the 16%, there's a tailwind businesses. You know, health supplies, video conferencing, work from home, remote workers, what you were talking about. These companies actually saw a tailwind of their business. And then of course you've got essential businesses and you've got, you know, businesses are just now coming back and then you've got businesses that are really struggling, airlines, hospitality, restaurants, malls. So it's really a very much fragmented recovery. So I'm wondering what you guys are specifically seeing because you are so close to so many of these customers. Yeah, so we see that mixed bag, right? So I feel like whether it's a we or whether it's a U shape recovery, it's sort of a mode point, right? Because it's not going to be the same as before, Dave, right? Things have changed even if you are in a particular business. Let me take just worship, right? How's a worship, right? So it could be a temple, a synagogue, a church, a mosque. It doesn't matter, right? They had a particular constituency that we had before who used to come, let's take a church, for example, who used to come to mass on a Sunday, right? And in my case, my family would get out and go out there to the mass at the last minute, right? I have two teenage boys and my wife wants to go on time to mass, but we will never make it. We'll be last minute worshipers going in there and then find a pew to sit on, right? Now, if you look at it, how it has changed for these worshipers, it's very different now, right? A set of worshipers who watch it live stream that comes from the church who will never go back or go back, very seldom. And then there's a set of worshipers who wanna go back, but now they gotta sign up a week early which particular mass they're going to and identify a pew to sit on. So the whole thing has changed for a company for its customers, the way people would consume in the future and people who are ready for this and have managed and be prepared, make use of that opportunity. And for my church, for example, in this case, I think to survival is the constituents donations on a weekly basis, right? So have they been very digital? You know, my church unfortunately was very digital, 100% digital, therefore they didn't see a huge dip on their collections, which was survival for them. So if you equate that dive into different businesses, right? It's changed in many different ways. And as you pointed out in that chart, it's different from industry to industry, business to business, and how you cope up with it, how you prepare for it, how you use technology for your advantage would be the winners and losers. And that's a great, first of all, that's a great example of houses of worship. And there are many, you're seeing sports now, Major League Baseball struggling to figure out what to do. It seems like basketball's kind of figured out. A lot of people have invested in Pelotons. And so maybe yoga's not as good in a studio, but it's pretty good. A lot of people bought RVs. So there are going to be some permanent changes to your point. And we've been thinking about, okay, what's the framework for understanding that fragmentation in the recovery? It's, what is the feasibility of physical distancing? How digital are these businesses? How essential are these businesses? I mean, it's a complicated situation to figure out. So again, the key is point next has to be really close to its customers. You guys have to be digital in doing that, but are you seeing any specific patterns emerge? Yeah, I think what we are seeing is, people working out what the new normal is there, right? And then saying, how do I get to that new normal? How do I take the advantage? How do I make use of that opportunity to get better? This is where I think point next services is important to talk about what is, we have got 23,000 experts around the world, right? And there's a substantial portion of advisory folks, right? Who will come and work out with you what that new normal is and what is the answer? What is the strategy that you want? What is the North Star you want to achieve? And how do you transform your whole company, your environment into that new normal, right? And how do we take you on that journey, be there for you to taking you through that journey into the new normal to capitalize on those opportunities? Couple of things I would point out here, Dave, I think definitely, I think building a platform that's agile and resilient for the future, for any disruption is vital, right? I think what the pandemic taught us is, if you have a very agile platform and very resilient for any kind of disruption, you are going to be on a winner. So once you identified what that new normal for you, I think HB point next really can help you be your trusted partner to get there in the end. You know, pretty kind of BC before COVID, when theCUBE was doing a lot of live events, everybody was talking about digital transformation. And of course, there are a couple of memes floating around the internet. One is the big wrecking ball going into the building where the executor saying, eh, you know, not in my lifetime. And then you got COVID-19 and the wrecking ball coming in, there's another one that I want to share with our audience. If you guys have bring this up, it's the survey of, you know, who's leading the digital transformation in your company. Is it the CEO? Is it the CTO? Well, actually no, it's COVID-19. So this is kind of tongue in cheek. It's sort of a sad, stark reality here. But the truth is that if you're not digital now, you're going to really be in big trouble. And so there's a number of factors that we've seen are facets that we've seen in the marketplace. Clearly work from home, security. You know, it's not just video conferencing. It's SD-WAN and certainly cloud. So again, what are you seeing? Maybe really start with cloud. What are you seeing in terms of cloud adoption and acceleration? Yeah, so we, what we're seeing really is Dave, the same priorities for a company exist, right? To get to a very efficient model to more than what it is a cloud or not. I think what people are looking for is an asset service model, a variable cost model for their workloads. So people are really pushing for a hybrid environment because the same things exist. Some workloads are well, you know, suited for a public cloud. Some workloads are suited for an on-prem environment where you have latency issues, compliance issues, security issues, right? But what they want is when they have that on-prem environment, it should be asset service, a cloud-like environment that you can pay for what you use. So people are really wanting to get into that hybrid environment. What COVID has really triggered is to do, go on that transformation journey much quicker pace than what they had gone in the past. So the same logic exists, but people want to go through that journey quickly. So you are at the right place, ready for any future disruptions. I think that's what really happened in the marketplace. So we are working with lots of companies taking them through the journey, identifying which workloads should go there and giving a hybrid environment that satisfies their future needs. So I want to ask you about disruptions because I think it's a safe bet that while technology has always been a catalyst for disruption, it would appear pretty obvious that other external factors are going to create more disruptions in this decade than perhaps technology. Not that technology won't still be disruptive, but things like pandemics, natural disasters. We've seen social uprising over the past couple of weeks. These external factors are really, driving other agendas within organizations. And so where does technology fit? What are people who have data centers telling you guys in terms of their priorities and how technology and some of these external factors are maybe blending together? Yeah, so sometimes I think during disruption, whether it's a pandemic or I'm based in Houston, we are so used to having floods, hurricanes. And I think sometimes what people forget is being prepared for a pandemic or a hurricane. Simply, hey, have your candles ready, have your water bottles ready. So when the floods arrive, you at least have something to rely on. And companies continuously want a preparedness business continuity plans, Dave, right? That is the number one priority to make sure that you have a business continuity plan that does not affect your business. Then secondly, okay, I want to preserve my cash and I want to make sure I am prepared and getting ready for the future where the future technology is different to what I had before. And I may not have the experts and the skills for that future technology. This is where HP Point Next really helps either give people that expertise skillset or augment with your teams to get you into that future technology. The third thing I would say is clearly, I think once you got onto that technology or a platform, how do you maintain that, right? How do you continuously optimize that? And you might need training for your people. It's a continuous management of chain and Point Next again is available to you either to continuously optimize your new platform or educate your people on how to manage their platform. So I think you'll need to look at it as a continuum. Do you have a business continuity plan? Did you transform into the new environment you wanted to? The third thing is, are you continuously optimizing and be ready for the next disruption around the point? You know, I think the points you were making about business continuance are very important. And I wonder if you could comment. I mean, a lot of CIOs have told us flat out. Just honestly, our business continuity plans were way too DR focused. And so now we're going to retool those. We are retooling those. It's work from home, which has this permanence to it and it's being able to kind of anticipate some of these changes. The network changes are pretty significant. And I have no doubt you guys are seeing that and are participating in that sort of, you know, revised or revitalized business continuity. Yeah, and you have to reimagine, right? As you pointed out correctly, Dave, it was all disaster recovery is all what you had. You didn't think about, hey, you know, maybe 50% of your workforce is not going to come back and you need a way to collaborate among that workforce, right? First, as you pointed out, connectivity is an issue. And, but you got to think it's not just connectivity. You need to be able to enable your workforce to be able to collaborate amongst each other, be positive and fanatical about your customers. That's crucial. People who are coming back, think about it, right? You know, keyless access is important. Do we measure their temperature is important? How the team members are, you know, going around in your facility, do you have contact tracing? All that becomes widely important, right? And they sound very basic, Dave, but they become mighty important because of the health of your employees that's so important, Dave. Yeah, a lot of learning's jammed into the last 90 days. Right, let me ask you if you could summarize for our audience, the point next advantage. I mean, why HPE point next? What do you guys bring that's unique and differentiable from all the other companies out there? Yeah, the breadth of point next is very important. Point next have got 23,000 employees, really dedicated and fanatical about customers and customers' well-being, customers' experience. So we are very outcome-based set of people who are here, who are different in a sense to find out what makes best sense for you and then take you through that transformation. And there will be bumps on the road, Dave. When you're working with a partner, is the partner really trusted that will stay with you when there are bumps on the road and make sure that your end goal is achieved? I think that's crucial. We are not like any other company. We are a very, very motivated workforce, very passionate workforce, who wants to make sure customers' end goals are achieved. So we are not, we look at it in a holistic way, Dave, compared to anybody else. And we are an extremely trusted partner who's there always with you. Pretty blast question for people watching this segment. Of course, we have the Discover Virtual Experience going on, any areas where they should focus and when they hit the site, where should they go? Any sessions that you would recommend? There are, because it's virtual, there are so many sessions, plenty of sessions, plenty of availability in many, many different areas. Definitely, if you're interested in what is the new normal connectivity for your employees, bringing back employees, you want to look at those areas. There's a lot of availability of sessions in the point next side of things that talks about how to cope up with the new normal. I would strongly recommend you look at those things because that gives you, allows you to build in a very agile platform that's resilient for the next disruption that's going to come in there. But Pradeep Kumar, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE and have a great Discover, stay safe, be well. Thank you, Dave. All right, and keep it right there, everybody. We'll be back with our next guest, theCUBE's continuous coverage of HPE Discover 2020, the virtual experience, right back right after this short break.