 Hey everyone, welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Coupa Inspire 2022. We are in Las Vegas at the beautiful Cosmopolitan Hotel. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. Brian McKillop joins me next, the managing director at Accenture. Brian, it's great to have you on the program. Thanks for having me, I'm glad to be here. So you have an interesting, you lead a lot of stuff at Accenture and I want to read this off so I get it right. You lead the Intelligent Platform Services Strategy and the Industry and Functions Platform Group. Talk to me about those responsibilities. Yeah, so the Intelligent Platform Services is the place in the business where we have kind of our large software partners, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Workday, Salesforce, and Adobe. And we kind of think of ourselves as kind of the engine that powers industry and functional solutions, right? And the way Accenture has gone to market over the last couple of years has been kind of bringing together our breadth of experience all the way strategy, all the way through operations, and these big technology transformations are at the core of that. So that's what we do in Intelligent Platform Services and we recently launched this, what we call the Industry and Functions Platforms Group, because we realized there's a lot of strategic partners that are critical for us to have a strong practice around Coupa being one of them in the supply chain and sourcing and procurement space so that we could create a home to be able to deliver these solutions globally in that scale. So I lead both kind of the strategy across all of IPS and then the new Industry and Functions Platform Group. Got it, all right, so you're here to talk to me about composable technology. First of all, define that for the audience and they understand what you're talking about. Yeah, you bet. So at Accenture, we're talking a lot about this is the age of compressed transformation, meaning change is only going to speed up and the need to change. And so our clients are really struggling with not only kind of moving fast, but that pressure around having to change as dynamics around the world change. So in the age of compressed transformation, we were really talking about how our clients should be kind of reorienting the way they think about their tech stack. And because historically a lot of us grew up in kind of monolithic implementations with one software provider. But today it's really about composing technology to create new industry, new ways to solve industry problems, functional processes, customer experiences, right? And so composable technology, we think about it in three parts. One is a cloud foundation that is, the hyperscalers are a critical part of that. Secondly, our digital core. And these are the kind of the historic software packages at the center of a lot of the industry and functional business processes. So you think about SAP and Oracle and Salesforce and things like that. But then around that digital core, you have composable elements to be able to plug in. And that could be things like other software packages, but it's also kind of industry IP or, you know, edge devices, you know, think IoT, think smart appliances, think, and when you pull all these things together, you need to be able to not only configure at once, but configure and reconfigure as the dynamics of the marketplace change. So composable technology isn't necessarily new, but has the pandemic been an accelerator of some of the things that you're seeing now in terms of why it's important? What's different about it now as being a foundation for competitive differentiation? Yeah, for sure. And it's, you know, anybody who's in technology say, you know, tell them about this idea. They're like, well, this isn't new. We've had service oriented architectures for 20 years. You know, we've been talking about integrating things forever. But the, you know, much like we all, five to seven years ago, we knew that we'd be using our phones to pay for pretty much everything, but the tech hadn't caught up, right? Not every restaurant or store that you went to had the point of sale set up, right? So we all kind of knew that was coming. And the same thing has kind of happened around this idea about composable technology. And the three things that are new are one is that the cloud foundation is here, right? Where, you know, you now have not only kind of hyper scale, high speed compute in at the core, but you actually have them at the edge as well. And the same thing with high speed network, you know, you have Starlink, you have 5G rolling out. So you have that cloud foundation that really wasn't there before. The second thing that's happening is the posture of a lot of the ecosystem, major ecosystem players has changed, right? And this started, you know, when Satya Nathala took over Microsoft, where Microsoft was very much a kind of a closed environment, where Satya under his leadership has really kind of changed the posture of being able to integrate into it. And we've seen that really pretty much across the entire landscape. And then lastly, it's become, you know, cheaper and quicker to be able to integrate with platforms like MuleSoft and others where they're kind of full scale integration platforms. So those are the kind of the things that are new that allows for composable technology to be here in the real world. So it's something that's tangible, it's real organizations need to be on this bandwagon, I imagine, or they're going to be left behind. Gartner had some interesting stats that your team sent over, and they were talking about these stats that were very compelling in terms of a seismic shift, which always here seismic, living in California, I think earthquakes, but something substantial. And they said, this seismic shift is going to happen by 2023. And I thought, hang on, that's less than a year away. And they talked about, by 2023, organizations that have adopted an intelligent composable approach will outpace competition 80% in the speed of new feature implementation. So if an organization hasn't started on that now, is it too late? I would say, not necessarily too late, but they need to look for ways to change their disposition. And one of the ways that we've been helping clients do this is through pre-integrated solutions. So in the past, the motion would be we would work with a client, they would work with our kind of strategists and consultants to say, what does the future of supply chain look like, for example? And if the client liked it, they would say, okay, I love it, what do I do next? Then there would be another consulting engagement, another consulting engagement, and then there would be a blueprint and architecture, and at some point there was an implementation and a run. We've actually said, we're investing heavily with our ecosystem partners to be able to pre-integrate solutions. So when that supply chain strategist says, this is what the post-COVID supply chain should look like, and the client says, I love it, what do I do next? That strategist can turn around and say, well, we've got a pre-integrated solution with SAP at the core, sitting on a Microsoft Azure stack, integrated with Koopa, wrapped with AI and machine learning, and we can drop that in and configure it for an environment. So that's how we're working with clients who are in that position that really need to kind of change their disposition is to bring these pre-integrated solutions and drop them in. Where are your conversations at the C-suite level? Because this is, I hear many things in what you just said, part of it's change management, which is very challenging. People are very resistant to that. One of the things that we've learned in the last two years is if it's going to come, it's going to come. But where are your conversations within that executive suite in terms of getting by and going, this is the direction we have to go in because our business needs to be, not just survive, but thrive. Yeah, yeah. These are, I mean, there are certainly, of course in kind of traditional channels of tech, whether it's the CIO or the CTO. But increasingly we're seeing, this is a CEO discussion and our CEO, Julie Sweet, is very, very market facing and is having top-to-top conversations, talking about compressed transformation, talking about composable technology, because it's no longer just a back office function as you know, right? I mean, this is really core to how companies change their business models, to make money, right? And it's a constant evolution. And that's why we talk about that kind of configuring and reconfiguring. It's not just coming in, implementing once, run it for five years, and then when it's time to upgrade, we come back. We really want to be the partner with our clients to basically move in and across the patch, whether it's specific industry processes, specific functional processes, specific customer experiences, we want to be the partner that is constantly tuning and configuring and reconfiguring and composing these solutions from across the ecosystem. And helping those businesses in any industry evolve as you talked about this compressed timeline, compressed transformation, such an interesting way of describing it, but it's really true. It's what we've been living the last couple of years. And so I want to get into Accenture's technology vision. You touched on this a little bit, but there was some stats that your team provided that I thought were really, really interesting survey that Accenture did, 77% of executives. And we were just talking about the C-suite. State that their tech architecture is becoming critical to the overall success of the organization. So that awareness is there for sure and mess. Another thing that was interesting was 90% of business and IT execs agree that to be agile, we always talk about agility, right? Be resilient. Organizations need to fast forward this digital transformation at the core. There's that compressed transformation. Those are very high numbers in terms of where organizations say we see where we need to be. What's the vision at Accenture to help organizations get there fast? Yeah. Well, I think it's, you know, the thing that came to mind as you were talking is that we have, you know, major clients that have had this, had in the, in the, you know, consumer package goods and apparel space that have had one way that they've done business is directly through retailers, you know, for pretty much their whole existence. Suddenly they need to shift to a direct consumer model, both in terms of marketing, in terms of commerce, and that's not, you know, you don't just flip a switch in the back office and, you know, call IT and say, hey, can you change around a few things? It's actually shifting the entire core. It touches everything. It touches point of sale. It touches the customer experience. It touches supply chain. It touches employee experience, even, right? And so that's why I think it's so important for, you know, technology leaders and business leaders to continue to kind of integrate themselves more tightly to be able to make these business model transformations not just, you know, the tech that supports things. It's essential. You know, we often, at so many shows, Brian, we talk about alignment of business and technology, but it's not trivial. It's absolutely fundamental to the success of every organization and they've got to do so. As you said, I'm going to use your word the compressed transformation, the compressed time frame. So talk to me about some customer examples where you really feel that Accenture and KUPA have helped this organization transform its supply chain to be able to be used composable technology to be a leader in its industry. Yeah, well, one example of that is a major industrial client that we have that has global operations across the world. And they're on a journey to kind of upgrade their digital core ERP that they've been on for a long time and that's a multi-year journey. But today they have needs for sourcing and procurement solutions in specific geographies around the world, like Japan, for example. So what we've been able to do, and it's a relatively simple example, but quickly work with the client and KUPA to identify the right KUPA solution that's born in the cloud, that has a great kind of user experience and implement that quickly as well as integrate it into the digital core, right? So they're not separate things and it becomes part of that architecture, right? Just starts to kind of show the flexibility of when you come with a kind of composable technology point of view, the way we can help our clients do that. And in some other cases, it's even more cutting edge. So think about a utilities client, for example, that has IoT sensors on their wires and when that wire swings too far, they say something's wrong. Automatically it goes back to the digital core, cuts a ticket and finds the closest worker to then dispatch. The worker can then put on their HoloLens, for example, and climb the pole and get directions on how to solve the problem right then and there, right? That's another example of multiple systems, edge devices, things coming together in order to create that. And it's only going to get faster, you know, with the metaverse, you know, with Web 3.0 coming, with blockchain becoming more and more mainstream, companies need to be thinking about in this age of compressed transformation how to do that composable technology that you configure and reconfigure. Do you think that we're in an age of compressed transformation or is that how it's going to be going forward given the global climate the last two years? It's definitely going to be that way going forward over the next, you know, probably for the large part of the remainder of our career. I mean, we're, our CTO, Paul Dordy talks about us being in a mega cycle, right? There's so many things changing. And even without these externalities of, you know, political issues and pandemics, you know, the introduction of AI and machine learning, a lot of these technologies I just mentioned, the change is happening in every industry, in every, you know, kind of area of the marketplace. And in a way that's, you know, that's really exciting, right? And we get to help our clients to be able to kind of solve those things, not just once, but continually. There's a tremendous amount of opportunity that's come from compressed transformation, right? A lot of opportunity, a lot of potential. What are some of the things that you're looking forward to say in the next year? We talked about some of those business and lines of business and IT folks understand we've got to move in this direction. What excites you about the potential that you have to help these organizations really transform? Yeah, well, I think, I mean, the, we just came out with our new tech vision, which is about the metaverse. And I think that the things that excite me are, there's brand new ways, like we've lived in a world where transactions take place in a very predictable way with local currencies through a single channel. And that's been sort of fixed for a long time. Fundamentals of the economy are actually in the marketplace are starting to change in terms of how do we transact with things like cryptocurrencies, things like non-fungible tokens, you know, all these things that we didn't, you know, they weren't even the metaverse. These were not mainline words, even six months ago, 12 months ago. Now, these things, you know, every, seems like every month there's something new that is, you know, seismic to use a word that you, that is shifting the fundamentals of the marketplace. And I think that's what's really exciting. I mean, that's where, I mean, it's, it's probably one of the most exciting times to be in business, be in the marketplace. It certainly has a lot of challenges. Yes. But, you know, we, I think we're really about using, you know, the promise of technology to unlock human ingenuity. And this is a great time to be able to unlock that human ingenuity. And that's such great alignment with Koopa. I was just in the keynote, and there was an Accenture video, Julie Sweet was talking to some other folks about that great alignment in the partnership. Brian, thank you for joining me, talking about composable technology. What's new, why, and the potential that organizations in every business have to, to use it to unlock competitive advantages. We appreciate your insights and your time. You bet, pleasure to be here. All right, we're Brian McKillips. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE from Koopa Inspire 2022.