 Hello and welcome to this CUBE conversation. I'm Shelly Kramer, Managing Director and Principal Analyst here at the CUBE Research, and today I am thrilled to be joined again by Gretchen Tinnerin, who's the VP and GM of U.S. Telco Media and Technology for Kindral. Gretchen, welcome. It's great to see you again. Hi, Shelly. Great to see you again also. Always enjoy our conversations. So, and this is going to be a great one. So, to set the stage a little bit, you know, we're at a very interesting time today. We've got platform transitions. We've got the emergence of new platforms. We've got the outsized role that data plays from a business competitive advantage standpoint, a need to continue business transformation initiatives, costs, improve efficiencies, all of these things. And so much is happening across industries across the board. We know one thing for certain. They need help. I know you won't disagree. They do. Absolutely. So, we last spoke in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress, and as I mentioned, you oversee telco, media, and the technology sectors for Kindral, which are three very fast-growing, very rapidly evolving industries, all for different reasons. So, I would love it if you would tell us a little bit more about how you work across these industries and maybe share some insights on the market trends you're seeing across these sectors. Absolutely. You're right. Three really fast-growing and evolving industries. And these are our newer markets across Kindral, right? And so, the reason we really establish these distinct, three distinct markets, being telecommunications, media entertainment, and technology is because as we look as a systems integrator to solve our client's business challenges, it's really important for us to understand what those challenges are in those particular verticals, right? So, as businesses look to diversify revenue streams and reduce dependency on any single market segment, they're really aiming to move beyond traditional connectivity and traditional platform-based products. And so, our intention of being very focused on these three verticals is to bring those industry-subject-magic-matter experts to our clients. And we do so through our consulting organization as well as our managed services teams, right? And really aim to provide that advised design, build, and manage across the industries. Again, with each having their unique product sets, unique situations, unique challenges, but developing the use cases that solve those enabled by technology, right? It starts with the business challenge that they're all having. I think Shelley and I kind of reflect on MWC and all that we've heard and saw at MWC in particular. But I would say a trend that we're seeing across all of those three verticals is around sustainability, right? And I think coming off of MWC, we heard certainly everything was about data and AI and sustainability at MWC. And it does align with the trends that we're seeing in those three markets. Approaching them differently, right? Based on the relevance, but certainly I would say from a trending perspective, data, AI, and certainly sustainability top of mind. Okay, so as we saw at Mobile World Congress, there's a huge talk about and then focus on sustainability efforts. So I would love to know more about what you're seeing from Kindrel's Toco, media and entertainment and technology customers. And part of my question is really about, I truly believe that every business of every size is thinking about this, concerned about this in some ways, focused on this, but it's a little bit of a challenge too I think because as important as sustainability is for customers, there are also other business things that need to happen, right? So it's like, you know, one of the things that I like to think, you know, when you think about your own sustainability efforts just at home, right? I think about, okay, I'm composting and I'm doing this, I'm doing that, you know, but there's sometimes, you know, like sometimes it's like, oh my god, I'm just gonna have to go ahead and throw away this plastic container. So sometimes you have the best intentions and you really want to focus on all things sustainability, but there are other other business things that may get in the way. So I'd love to know more from you about what you're seeing from Kindrel's customers in terms of how much focus they're actually able to devote to accomplishing their sustainability objectives. Yeah, so you really hit the nail on the head there and really what we're seeing also, whereas sustainability is one of the highest, if not the highest priority for our clients, right, with their CEOs, with the board members. But we're also finding that and through our own global sustainability, parameter study found that 85% of organizations, although place a very high strategic level of an importance of achieving the sustainability goals, only 16% have actually integrated sustainability into their strategies and data. So, right, when I think about that, that tells me that to your point, Shelley, our clients have to continue to manage their current state of business at the same time, be very future forward thinking of what is that roadmap look like for my current state of business, what does transformation modernization look like, not tomorrow, but even 12, three years, five years down the road. And then how do I put sustainability at the center of that, right? And how do I execute with sustainability as the highest priority through my current state, but also transformations? And that comes whether our clients are, you know, as they look at their, continue to look at what their data center, you know, strategies are and looking at climate control and power consumption. This is where Kindrel really brings the skills of our people, of our tools, to be able to advise on the clients and how to integrate sustainability to actually show real results in current state, but then two, three, four years down the road. This is something that should always be at the forefront, but it's going to, it's evolving Shelley and it's evolving quickly, right? This being absolutely. And customers want to expect and as they should to see those results, right? Then those efforts. Well, I think that, you know, I started really getting immersed in the sustainability space in the last couple of years. And I was on the leading edge of all things digital transformation. I was actually working, you know, as a practitioner, you know, alongside customers who wanted to begin their digital transformation journeys in the early days, you know, a decade or so ago. And in the last couple of years, I really, I believe very deeply that as important as digital transformation is and has been and will continue to be to organizations, sustainability is right alongside that in terms of importance. And you're saying that as well. I think that the challenge though is that, you know, we talked earlier about some key customer challenges that everybody's wrestling with, right? Getting arms around data and, you know, managing this massive influx of data with sustainability in mind. And then when you add AI to the equation, that of course also has some massive effects on sustainability. And I believe, you know, AI and generative AI and all of the hoopla around that is driving a lot of conversation around sustainability, because you've got power and heating and cooling and data centers, privacy and other challenges that are really resource intensive. And so, you know, and, you know, one thing I'll also mention is that I've been involved in some sustainability research that Honeywell does on a quarterly basis. And I remember when we were in really is all about sort of measuring where organizations are on their sustainability journeys. And when we first launched this survey about a year ago, most of the survey respondents indicated that they were the efforts they were making to meet their sustainability goals were pretty slight and they were about things like changing your processes and not really adopting technology solutions. And we've seen over time, as we've continued to do this research, that that has changed and shifted a little bit. But I think really that's where a vendor, Mike Kindrell, as a partner can help because you can bring the guidance in terms of, you know, helping develop a strategy and how to execute it, implement and all that sort of thing. But there are also some very, very real technology solutions like you can't meet your sustainability goals. You cannot meet your sustainability goals by just changing your processes. You just can't. No, and nor can you meet it, Shelly, just by technology, implementing more AI into the environment. Right. Right. Right. You can certainly implement and take advantage of more AI into develop into your environment to help streamline and efficiencies and processes and et cetera. But you still have a whole lot of data sitting out there, right? In the data today. So what are we doing with that data in a way and how can we and how do we and this is what we do is advise our clients on that data that then is going to help them in the current state and in the future state tie that back to again sustainability by using certainly products like generative AI. But to me, that's a side benefit, right? You're using generative AI to help you with processes and streamline operations, but you have to look at that data and again, looking down at the data center, looking at the software, looking at the programs, integrating all of that data. How are you consuming it? How are you protecting it? How are you securing it? Right. Data is at the core of it. AI is a side benefits. And that's also I think why it's so important, you know, observability plays such an important role. You know, you can't monitor what you can't see. Right. I mean, I think that's a big part of this equation. And so I feel like it's a very interesting time. And, you know, I believe that just like with digital transformation, technology alone isn't the answer. Processes alone aren't the answer. The real answer is a combination of people, processes and technology and how we can all work together to identify, strategize, execute, implement, measure, monitor, all of those things. And I think that the other part of the equation, and I'm a big fan of this, you know, I've been talking about this for a long time, but, you know, strategic alliances and partnerships and relationships with trusted vendor partners, that is the path forward. It's not build it yourself. It's not start from ground zero. It's not all of those things. And I think that's really where we see, we see as analysts in the industry as customers who really, really do very well on the sustainability front. And a lot of it has to do with the relationships that they forge, the alliances that they forge, how they embrace this move towards sustainability. And I think that, you know, really, to me, that's where I see Kendra bringing deep value in terms of expertise. You know, the thing about working with a trusted vendor partner that you get as a customer, you get so much advantage because you get a partner who brings all of the experiences that they have had working with other clients, right? So they bring those, you know, they know what the challenges are. They know what the problems are. They know where the hiccups are. So I really see that as an important part of the process in terms of reaching and achieving and getting on the path that you need to be as it relates to sustainability. And I have a feeling you won't argue with that. No, I won't. I mean, it's certainly we have a lot of data and experience that we gain from our existing clients. We also have our own, right? We refer to ourselves as customer zero. I was just getting ready to ask you about that. And I think that what's so important here, I'll set the stage for you. We talked a little bit about this at Mobile World Congress. And what I really love about this is that, you know, Kendra is not just talking the talk, you're walking the walk and, you know, calling yourself customer zero on the sustainability front is a big deal. So talk with us a little bit about how you treat yourself as customer zero. Yeah, yeah. So Kendra, we have gone through a major transformation with all of our systems, processes and operations in the last two years, including sustainability. And so for sustainability, specifically, we have been very focused on our own environmental goals in setting those goals for ourselves, which were very open and transparent. And with and our commitment is really a fundamental part of not just how we're strengthening and changing our business operations. But again, customer zero share those insights with our clients, our clients in the market, how and why we have committed to achieve net zero by 2040, right? And share, I think this is really important also, Shelley, is to be able to share the education opportunities that we have created as a company to empower our own employees to drive sustainable outcomes. Driving sustainability in an organization is not at the executive level only place, right? It involves all of them. So if I'm a to your compost, you know, example, yeah, I'm a household of six. And only one of the six are composting. It's a problem. It's a problem, right? And so we really, I credit all credit due to to our ESG team for really creating educational programs to empower all of us as built business leaders and our employees to just make better informed sustainability decisions really so that we do reach those goals. And again, customer zero, right? We have these insights and the experience to share that and advise, advise with our existing clients and new clients on on what that process has has looked like experience where the bumps have been in the road. But that that to your point through our ecosystem also, we don't do this alone. Right. And so we have a broad ecosystem of partners ourselves that have helped us through this journey. The same partners are advising and helping us with their own clients. And then that's what we bring bring to the table. I think that transparency is so important. And to be able to share that, you know, even something as simple as we started down this path, we thought this was going to happen. But instead this happened. So we had to pivot. You know, those are the those are the those are the kind that happens to all of us. Right. And so when you can be transparent about that and when your customers can take advantage of the things that you've learned along the way, I think that's truly important. And I also really think that, you know, I am in charge of ESG at my corporate location, which is my home. And I'm constantly educating my team, my family on here's what you here's what you can come post here's what you don't do here's what you know, you know what I'm saying? And it's just like, or I'm the one going out digging out, you know, greasy pizza boxes out of the recycling bin and trying, you know, but I mean, that's a and I don't mean to be silly with these examples, but this same cut. And by the way, I have these conversations with my people here at home all the time. So if you're a kid, you know, have a small organization of 90,000 employees, like Kindral, or whatever the size of your organization, it is ongoing conversations and education and training and information. And I think that that's really the path to success, for sure. It is. And we'll take a village. It always does all of us as an industry. Right. So to make that change. But again, I think it's exciting for us to be able to share our history, our changes, our own sustainability report and goals, but the outcomes to the outcomes to show that now, you know, we want to help improve the number from 16%. Yeah, you know, to a much higher number and influence that to make simply make the world a better place for all of us. I'm down with that goal. So as we wrap this conversation, I know that Kindral has had a big year and we're really only a little bit into it. So where do you see Kindral heading as we move on through 2024 and maybe what are you most excited about? We have had a big year. I mean, just in the last month alone, while at Mobile World Congress, we announced two very two new additional announcements back to the partnership conversation right to expand upon our ecosystem. We launched a unified multi SIM service. This was developed and launched to expand connectivity private beyond the private connectivity that we have deployed across several industrial environments and mobile devices to give our clients more flexibility on the connectivity piece at the IOT level. So that that was a really exciting announcement. The other announcement that we happened to launch also Mobile World Congress was it was a renewed global alliance and a new private network service collaboration with Hewlett Packard. So this was this was a really exciting announcement for us at Mobile World Congress because last year Mobile World Congress, many saw our announcements with Nokia and our private solution that we've been deploying successfully to many of our clients. But again, we know that we need to expand our ecosystem as technology and technologies with partners changes. Our clients expect that of that of us. And so we've done that research and chose HPE as another as another partner. But certainly we're, you know, we're just continuing to get started. And we're going to continue to make progress in this TMT market space. I'm really excited about the opportunities that we have in all three industries. And I'm especially excited for me leading this market, the skill that my team has to bring again that industry knowledge. It does the conversations, but the clients don't start with technology. They start with understanding what their business challenges are. And I'm really proud that I've got a got a fantastic team having discussions about business challenges and have created and continue to develop more use cases that solve those challenges for our clients. Technology enables the use case, right? But the conversation starts at really understanding what are our clients business challenge. And that's what makes us unique as a system integrator. We are people first company. And as many have heard and heard Martin say, we are simply, we are the heart of progress. And our people sit in the center of who we are. And that we've got a lot of great things coming. Start by solving problems by listening. I mean, it makes perfect sense, right? And, you know, not selling, listening, listening. That's really, it's, and you know what? It's something that not every company does. So Gretchen Tinnerman, VP and GM for telco, media and entertainment and technology at Kindral. Thank you so much for spending time with me. It is always a great conversation. I enjoy it so much. This is the second of what I know will be many. And I look forward to talking with you again soon. Thanks, Shelly. I look forward to hearing how your comp hosting is going and how you set for some hip tips now also myself. All right.