 Hi, and welcome to theCUBE. I'm Peter Burris. I'm with Wikibon Silicon Angle, and today we're on site, on the ground at Oracle Headquarters to ultimately have some conversations with some users and some consultants about some of the things that they're doing in the big data universe. And right now, we're starting with Tony Cassidy, who's the CEO of Retease. And Tony, you're doing some really interesting work with the Irish Post, which means you've come a long way to be here. So thanks very much for being on theCUBE. How you doing? I'm good, I'm good. A little bit jet lag, but I'm here today anyway, and I'm wide awake and bushy tailed, so let's talk a bit further about the on-post journey. So tell us about it. What is it? Basically, it's a journey that started about six years ago. We started with a BI project in there. Basically, every good BI project becomes a program, which effectively happened. Thereafter, we started delving a bit more into the data layers in on-post and working with the IT function and the business. And from there, we ended up in more of a journey in terms of BI into big data. So we're on the evolution path. We've covered off the BI piece. We've got into enterprise performance management as well. We've done all the integration in terms of a new data layer and exit data with the full stack, et cetera. So 12C multi-tenant database. We've moved into advanced analytics, and we've got advanced compression, which gives a core stack for the essence of big data on a contextual data layer. Because they do more than just the big data on that platform. They use it for wider consolidation as well. And then after that, we look at the BI side of the house. It's improved dramatically since we've put the new data layer in there and exit data. So the performance times and ETLs, the batch times, the new Golden Gate aspect on the change data capture. This has all enhanced the overall initial BI program. And it's now platformed us to move to big data. So we have a journey mapped out, and we're here to present on that. That's the reason we're at Biwa. So we presented on this a number of user group events, center oracle events in Europe and also in Open World recently. So it sounds like the essence of the journey is, and Post, which is the Irish Post, has a set of BI capabilities in place, and they're trying to extend that. Now, we know that there's, if we take a look at the analytic space, there's reporting, there's dashboarding, which is often associated with traditional data warehousing, and now there's these big data capabilities. From your perspective, where is that line between the dashboarding or the BI stuff and the big data? What is that journey going to do? I think the line is very much drawn, and we've delivered the dashboarding and the disseminated information through hierarchical structure and data governance in the organization. And that's delivered under what was known and what is still is known, even in this digital world, as a BI solution center, a BI company center. And it's few and far between that you find a very successful one. We're celebrating that we have that. So the line is drawn that we're moving towards self-service analytics, so more about getting the visualizations and infographics out to the end users and letting them, you know, define their own representations in terms of visualizations and reporting. Because they've got the mainstream KPIs, PIs throughout the organization. That's very structured. And now we need to move to the more self-service basis. Any journey involves a lot of parties, a lot of decisions, a lot of moments of success or failure. Tell us a little bit about the community that ended up being built between Vertice and and Post, from a business standpoint, technology standpoint, et cetera, to at least ensure that when you start it out, you are moving in the right direction. Okay, so I'm a simple guy, so I use simple things. So for me, it's quite easy. It's a Venn diagram. You need three people involved in that room, and it's the partner article. And first and foremost, the client. So with that, we put that in play from the outset when we joined with six years ago. We continue to do that and we will continue to do that in the future. We make sure Oracle is very much integrated into our future proofing, our architecture, and also that it's an amiable basis for for and post progress with both their business requirement and business need mapped to what the Oracle product set is. So that's very much about those three people having that Venn diagram relationship in the center point being the success for us and how we do everything with every customer base. So Oracle brings some of the technology expertise, you're bringing some of the process and methodology expertise, and the customer is bringing what they want the solution to be. Is that kind of how the roles are set up? Pretty much. That's a good way of putting it. But we actually do quite a bit of the tech hands on and the architecture as well. But we do need to go back to Oracle because we are a pure play Oracle partner. We only deliver Oracle. That's all we specialize in and never change. So that's why we need to make sure everything we put out there is as good bastions of Oracle technology, but more so for the customer to ensure that they get what they need and matches that business requirement, not just now, but also in the future when they come up with the new requirements like self service analytics, like big data, starting to look at the social media feeds, starting to work on externalization of the data. So a data exchange to their customer base, which we're actually working on at the minute. So these new digital innovations around the new digital marketplace are starting to come into what was a traditional BI CompSY center solution center. And now we have to make it work for the customer. Well, that suggests that there's going to be a lot more data flows, a lot more sources, many of which may not be as predicted. They will emerge. How are you establishing an overall framework and architecture? What type of separation are you having between the various control data and other elements of this to ensure that you can plug new sources in, support new flows and ultimately deliver on the business results that Anthos is looking for? It's a very good question. In terms of particularly the client, we were fortunate that we did data discovery exercises a number of years back in relation to the different stakeholder elements. So we knew the finance and what their data sources were then. We knew what retail were, we knew what males were and operations were and HR were. So with that, we were able to identify the different data sources in the data landscape. So from that, with those early data discoveries that put us in good stead, we knew what was structured, what was semi-structured and what was unstructured. We knew where we were going to deliver the most value to the customer. And then we knew in some areas there was less value, but there were maybe some inherent value that could be used at a later stage. So we already kind of know what we're looking for in the data landscape in relation to the big data within the context of their organization. But we also know that what we're going to look out to in terms of the digital media and social media feeds as well. Now, Tony, you're either from Ireland or you're from Boston. That's a good one. I never had that one before. But how is, you know, every set of efforts involve a degree of complexity and a lot of skills. How is the local community within Ireland for both from an expertise standpoint, a knowledge of how to collaborate, how to deploy these methodologies? Are you able to find the talent you need locally and is that something that is likely to become a source of uncertainty for end post? No, it's a good question. I'm very glad you asked it, actually. So we started at the height of our session about seven years ago. That's when we started the organization. And I recognized that we didn't have enough architects of this ilk in the area to support what we needed in country. That was then, there's quite a few more now, obviously, since the market's grown and we've come out of our session, which brings with it new people have been in the marketplace. So what we did was form a kind of pan-European hub of resources. So we looked across Europe and we hired from Iberia and France and Germany and Italy. We brought it into Ireland. And that makes sense in the Irish context, because Dublin itself is pretty much a hub for IT. So it's like a mini Silicon Valley as such. And it's well recognized for that. So that let us get these people into the area to work in our area that already had a good set of skills. And since they joined us, we built in those. I always say somebody comes in good, they leave great. So we've built up the team as such to a sizable amount, which covers on post and all other customers. And we're actually in a sporadic period of growth and looking to multiple customers in both the big business analytics and big data area. So we're happy. I think on post, we're happy that we're delivering everything and looking forward to more. And they're bringing on more with their own innovations and change. On posters. Yes, it's a time of change for them as well. We very much welcome them. They've looked out to market as well. They went through deregulation a couple of years ago. And they look at the overall structure and organization, which is ongoing at the minute. But we already kind of have mapped out some technical innovations that we think can really assist them just by our own insights, not just the technical people, but people that have worked with a number of clients over the last 20 years to understand how change applies to a customer and how we can take them on that technical journey as well, that change journey. It's a chicken and egg kind of a question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Is end posts ability to acquire these new sources of data, driving some of those changes, or is end posts need for change, driving the adoption of some of these new data capabilities? It is a good question, chicken and egg one, but I think they go hand in hand. I can't separate the two, and I think it's just a balancing act, basically, because they have a lot of the data in that data landscape I mentioned earlier on. From a few years back, we did those exercises. So we know we've got a degree of confidence there, but also the new data sources are out there, and it's just a balancing act, and I think we're already quite mature in how we're going about that. Historically, and the reason I asked the question is historically, technology professionals tended to be engineers who executed based on somebody else's vision of what was going to happen. When we started moving to this big data world, now we're seeing, I think, and I think you would agree, now we're seeing technology people actually participating in the strategy process. What is possible as a consequence of what we can do with data? Is that happening both with you and your role, and your company's role, for TISA's role, as well as some of the technology people that you're working with at OnPost? Are they becoming more involved in the strategy of the overall organization? I really like that question, because the affirmation is there, that we're a third party, we're the consultants, we advise, and we do as best we can, and it seems to be working. In terms of the recognition internally, the need for people working in data, digital area, I think that's coming, I think it's on the cost of change, and I think that the guys have recognized they needed the changes in the IT function, which is the group technology area. And I think the guys have already planned for that, so I think it's a very pertinent question and a very apt one. So Tony, I want to thank you very much for being on theCUBE. You've come a long way to tell us about OnPost's journey to new analytics with Vertice. So Tony Cassidy, CEO of Vertice, thank you very much for being on theCUBE. Thank you, Peter.