 Live from Berlin, Germany. It's theCUBE, covering NetApp Insight 2017. Brought to you by NetApp. Welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of NetApp Insight 2017. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, Peter Burris. We are joined by Jean English. She is the Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of NetApp. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Oh, thank you for having me. We're glad you're here with us to join us at Insight Berlin. We're always excited to be you, anything with NetApp. So talk a little bit about NetApp's digital transformation. You're now at a years-long transformation from storage, your legacy, to data. Talk a little bit about your positioning in the market. Sure. So I think people have previously thought of NetApp as storage. And what we are so focused on now is data. And why data, because that's what we hear from our customers, our partners, the analysts, is what is really topping their needs right now. And when we think about how companies are transforming, they're having to think about, digital transformation is topping the list. It's topping the most strategic agendas of most CEOs. But what happens is they have to think about the data and how does it become a lifeblood of their business? How does it seamlessly throw through that business? And what does it mean to either optimize their operations if they've got to increase their customer and touch points if they have to create new product services and even businesses? So we feel like right now that is our focus is on data and it's so much a part of our heritage that we look to the future as well. So one of the things that you're working on now is helping customers use data in new exciting, innovative, creative ways. Can you talk broadly about your approach to that and how you're drawing inspiration from customers and then empowering them? Absolutely. So we really try to think about what is our purpose? And our purpose can be true to our heritage from 25 years ago. We just celebrated our 25-year anniversary this past spring and it is to empower our customers to change the world with data. And just a few of those we see now, especially in hybrid cloud environments, customers have to think about how are they going to simplify and integrate data across on-prem cloud environments to accelerate digital transformation. One example of that is EDS Media. We love their story because they're talking about how to get new stories real time through a cloud platform into the hands of journalists that can publish real-time live insights, real-time journalism. And so when you think about the speed that has to happen with creating stories, getting them published, getting them out to news networks, that's data and it's a good data story. When you think about the data story though, a lot of people talk about how data is a fuel or data is. And we tend to think at least at Silicon Angle Wikibon that that's probably not the best analogy because data's different from other resources. Most resources share the economics of scarcity. You can do this or you can do that. But data's different because data could be copied, data could be shared, but data also could be appropriated inappropriately. Can you talk a little bit about the relationship or the direction that that's taken to on the one hand, facilitate the sharing of data strategically while at the same time ensuring that proper security and IP controls are placed on it? Absolutely. So I think people are looking to make sure that they can share freely data and seamlessly integrate data across multiple sources. I mean, right now what we find is that whether it's because you've had data that's been on-prem and maybe that's more structured. Now we're starting to see more in structured data. So data's becoming a lot more diverse. People are constantly looking for the latest source of truth of data, it's so dynamic. And because it's so distributed across environments, people are trying to figure out how do you integrate data? How do you share data? But it's all about simplicity because they need it to be efficient. They need to make sure that it's protected so security is top of mind, so data protection is the utmost of importance. They're looking for ways to embrace future technologies and whether that's thinking about different cloud environments, SaaS applications, and then how do they create the most open opportunities? A lot of people aren't just sitting putting their data in one cloud. What we're finding is it's a multi-cloud world and they're looking for a holistic solution to more easily and seamlessly manage their data through those environments. But the infrastructure has to move from, as you said, a storage orientation towards something that's going to facilitate the appropriate sharing and integration of data, like a fabric, can you talk a little bit about that? So we started the conversation around data fabric. It was one of the first people to really talk about data fabric in the market back in 2013, and this vision was about how do you seamlessly be able to share and integrate data across cloud and on-prem environments? That has become so true in how we've been building out that data fabric today. We just launched a few weeks ago that we are the first industry-leading storage data service in the Microsoft Azure console so that people can easily be able to complete storage capabilities in cloud storage in Microsoft. We've also been developing solutions to make sure that maybe if you're not wanting to do everything in Office 365 and Azure, you want to back it up to AWS. So how do you have better backup capabilities, sharing of data across clouds? We're also seeing that you may want to sync data. So maybe once you put data into the cloud and you run analytics or even machine learning, how do you then get data back? Because you want to make sure that you're constantly being able to look holistically at your customers. So this notion of one cloud to back to on-prem, multi-cloud environments has been critical as we've been thinking about customers and where they're going. One of the things we're also hearing about at this conference is that this is the day of the data visionary and this is where people who are thinking about how to store data, use data, extract data, find value in the data, the demands on them, the pressures on them are so intense. How is NetApp helping those people, sort of understanding where they are not only in their businesses, but also in their trajectories of their careers and then helping them move forward? Absolutely. We've been really thinking about who is really using data to disrupt and are this disruptive use of data to really drive business results? It's not just about having the data, it's about how are you going to have an impact on the business. So we started to think about this notion of who is a data thriver and who's thriving with data versus who's just surviving and in fact, some are even resisting. So we actually partnered with IDC to launch a study on data thrivers to look at who is truly looking at driving new revenue streams, attracting new customers, how are they able to use data as a core-listed part of their business? Not some one-off or side project to help through the digital transformation, but what was going to drive really good business results? Data as an asset, data across business and IT. And we see new roles are emerging from this. So we're seeing that, you know, chief data officers, chief digital officers, chief data scientists, chief transformation officers, all new roles that have been emerging over the last couple of years, but these data thrivers are seeing tremendous business impact. And so what is it that separates those people? I mean, I think that those really, those companies and those business models and what are sort of the worst case scenarios for those companies that are just surviving and not necessarily thriving in this new environment. It's interesting, we're seeing that companies that actually put data at the center of what they do, so we think of it as a data-centric organization, are seeing six X in what they're seeing in terms of being able to drive real customer acquisition. When we think about what it means to drive operational efficiency, when we think about two X times in terms of profitability, real bottom line results, compared to people that are simply just surviving with data. What's interesting is that when we started to think about what are the attributes of these people? So business and IT, working together in unison, these roles in fact that are emerging are starting to become those catalysts and change agents that are bringing IT and the business more together. We're also seeing that when you think of data as an asset, even to the bottom line, how does data become more critical in terms of what they see in terms of being a differentiated advantage for the company? Also, thinking through quality, quality, quality. So you've got to make sure that the data is of highest quality and it's constantly being cleansed. Then in terms of how do we think of it being used across the business? It's not just about holding data and locking it away behind a firewall. Data more to date is so dynamic, distributed and diverse that you have to let it be utilized and activated across the business. And then to think through, it starts not just in terms of what customers are using and seeing from data, but they can actually see in terms of customer touchpoints and having a better customer experience. But then how do you make sure it even comes back to development? To create new products, create new services, maybe even eliminate waste. Stop doing product lines based on what they're seeing from actual usage. So it's a pretty fascinating space right now, but the data thrivers, the new thought we're thinking in terms of getting that out in the market and really sharing that more so with our clients so that they can benchmark themselves as well. So you're a CMO. Yes. You're telling a story, but you also have operational responsibilities. How would you tell your peers to use data differently? Well, I think there's a couple of things. I mean, for me, data is the lifeblood of how we think about how we actually create a better customer experience. We're using data constantly to better understand what are our customers' needs. And those customers are evolving. Before, and the loyalist that we love with storage architects and admins, we're starting to see that people are thinking about how to use more hybrid cloud data services with CIOs. Like how are they going to look at a cloud strategy? The DevOps, how are they going to create deploy and applications at speed? How are they going to be able to help truly think through what are they going to do to drive more analytics and better workload usage and efficiencies? So our clients are evolving. And when we think about how do you reach those clients differently, we have to know who they are. We have to use data to understand them. We have to be more personalized. We just relaunched our entire digital experience so that when we try to look at how do you bring people into something that's more customized, more personalized? What does it mean to be a cloud architect that's thinking about a data backup and protection plan? What does it mean for someone in DevOps is thinking about how to actually create and deploy an application at speed? Like how do you think about someone that's going to look at the needs from a CIO so much differently than before? But using data, using customization, thinking about an engaging experience, bringing them through that experience so that we solve their business challenges. We use data and analytics every day. I think of us as being the new data scientists. People say, is it hard or is it science and marketing? And I'm like, well, it's a little bit of the storytelling. Absolutely, we have to leave the stories, but the data and the analytics is where we really understand our customers best. And so using analytic models, using predictive models, using more ways in which we can actually reach customers in new ways we've never had before through social, but bring them into a new conversation. So analytics, analytics, storytelling and understanding, getting closer to new clients like we've never had before, and then thinking through how do we use that full circle loop of learning to get better and better at how we engage our customers in ways they want to engage with us. I want to switch gears just a second, and I know that you've just been nominated as an international board member. You were a board member before of Athena of the Triangle, which is about supporting and inspiring women in the technology industry. As we know that this is the dearth of women technologists is a big problem in the U.S. and globally. Can you tell us a little bit more about the organization and what you're doing? Sure, so Athena International is really about how do you promote women's leadership? And it's across the world. In fact, we just launched some very exciting initiatives in China where I live for a year, and the president of Athena International is a friend of mine, and she was really looking at how do you foster growth, especially in emerging markets in countries where women's leadership can be so profound in terms of how do you impact the business, government and market and really overall global success. Athena is focused on its technology, but it's also women in many industries, but really how do you gain the powerful mentorships, how do you gain powerful access to programs, to having more access to expertise that can help them to think through business models, business cases, how do they grow their business? It might be from financial to career counseling to mentoring on marketing, but it's really thinking through women's leadership as a whole. And is NetApp also working on behalf of that cause too? We're really focused on, today in fact, we're going to be hosting the annual Women in Technology Summit, and so we're so focused on how do we think about developing women in technology, how to think about that across not only our employees, but our partners and our customers, and it's not just about women, this is men and women working together to determine how do we stop the fact that we've got to get more access to women and mentorships and sponsorships and really, really driving how we have leadership as we really grow into our careers and can drive more business impact. Great. Well Jean, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. It was really fun talking to you. Absolutely, thank you both. I'm Rebecca Knight for Peter Burris. We will have more from NetApp Insight here in Berlin, Germany in just a little bit.