 From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of Dell Technologies World, digital experience brought to you by Dell Technologies. Welcome to theCUBE's coverage of Dell Technologies World 2020, the digital edition. It wouldn't be a Dell Technologies World on theCUBE without our next guest, Tim Crawford, CIO strategic advisor from Aboi. Tim, welcome back to theCUBE, it's great to talk to you. Thanks, Lisa, and thanks for having me on theCUBE today. A lot has changed since we last got to sit down with you in person, we think of the last Dell Technologies World as a year and a half ago, but we've seen dramatic changes in the enterprise the last six, seven months. Talk to me about some of the things that you're seeing. Yeah, you know, Lisa, you couldn't put a more succinct way around what we've seen over the last 10 months or less even. The enterprise has changed demonstrably. You know, we've gone from having a pretty clear strategy of how we're gonna move forward and the technologies we're gonna use to setting all that aside. The strategies and plans that we had in the end of 2019, no longer apply. The way we engage with customers, the way we run our business, the way who our customers are, the markets we go after, all of that is now up for grabs, all of that has changed. And so therefore technology and the underpinnings of how we use data has to change accordingly. And so I think we'll talk a little more about that too. I'd love to get your perspective on this acceleration of digital transformation that's happened this year. We've seen the companies that weren't ready. We've seen the companies that were pretty decently able to pit it quickly. What's your advice for those who are still struggling because here we are seven months in. One thing we know for sure is this uncertainty is gonna continue for a while. Yeah, you're absolutely right. The uncertainty is gonna continue for a while. We don't know what the new normal it's gonna look like. We don't know how our customers are gonna engage with us in the future. And so all the more reason why we need to be thinking very differently about how we operate our companies and how we remain flexible, how we stay in touch with our customers and how that translates into the choices we make in terms of the partners and technologies and data that we use. One of the great things about the coronavirus that has come out, you can say that there's a great thing that's come out of it is it's really accelerated the need to transform companies. And I'm talking about business transformation, not digital transformation. Digital transformation is a downstream component of business transformation. And so a lot of the hurdles that companies were having that IT organizations were having to move to the cloud, to leverage data, to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning, a lot of those hurdles have since dropped by the wayside because companies are realizing if they don't start to adopt some of this new technology that's available and has been available for some time, they will die. And it really is that dramatic for companies. And so the COVID-19 virus has really kind of thrown everything into the mug and we've had to kind of sort things out but at the same time, it's really given companies an opportunity to say, we have a single opportunity here to do something that we will probably never see again. And what I mean by that is now we have the lowest level of risk that our company will observe probably over our career lifetimes. And what I mean by that is just imagine if you're a commercial airline, you have the lowest passenger loads right now. If you need to change core operational systems, now is the time to do it, not when you're operating in peak. And this is playing out right now across all of the different industries. And that's a huge opportunity. That's a great point. And you're right, there are opportunities, there are pluses that are coming out of this. If you think of though, I love the opportunity that you just described that there's the lowest risk right now for say an airline to be able to rapidly pivot. Of course, one of the things that you know would happen during that is the customers, the consumers would react in many different ways. The customer experience is almost under an even higher resolution microscope the last seven months. Talk to me about what some of the things you're seeing and how companies need to react to preserve customer relationships because brand is at stake. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, brand is at stake. The likelihood of your company is at stake. And at the core of that is technology and data. So all we have to do to answer that question is really look in the mirror. Look at how we have changed. Look at how our buying habits have changed. Now that's more of a B to C relationship, but even in the B to B space, those relationships have changed demonstrably. And so we have to think about how our customers are needing to change and how their business is changing and then how we can accommodate that. And so what that means is we have to tap into data whether it's on the customer experience side or the business operation side of it. We have to tap into that data and use it in a more meaningful way than we ever have in the past. We have to remain more flexible. We have to leverage it in ways that we can do things and change on a moment's notice. And that's something that we generally haven't architected our organizations for or our technology architectures for for that matter. But now is the time to do it. And we have to be in touch with our customers in order to do it. So again, comes back to data, comes back to technology and architectures. Flexibility is the key here. I think consumers are far more demanding in the last seven months, just because we had this expectation set for the last few years that we can go on Amazon and get anything we want anytime. We can go on Netflix and watch any movie from any number of years ago, anytime we want. And so when this happened and people were so used to that speed of delivery and things were delayed, I just started seeing much more uproar from the consumer. I thought, man, we've been conditioned for so long. But one of the things I'm curious about when you're talking to the C-suite is budget shifting. I mean, we know companies, some of them, those enterprises that are in good shape have DR plans, they have business continuity plans, probably nobody had a pandemic plan. So how do you help advise these enterprises to shift budget rapidly enough to be able to implement the technology that can harness insights from that data to drive a superior differentiated customer experience? Yeah, so let's kind of break that apart a bit and unpack it. So on the pandemic planning, companies did have pandemic planning. I mean, 15 years ago when I was leading IT at Stanford University, we had a pandemic response plan that went with our DR and BC plans. I think that most folks though, they struggle through that DR and BC process and they never get to the pandemic end of that spectrum. And that's a really hard problem to solve for. But kind of getting back to how that customer has changed and how we can accommodate that change, you're right. Budgets have changed, technology has changed. And so we have to think about how we do things differently. I think from a budgetary standpoint, one of the first things we saw is just extreme spending and productivity tools, right? More laptops, more screens, more webcams, more lights. Who would have thought that I would have needed a lighting system for my home, right? Maybe a laptop was enough. We have to think about how our processes are different. How do we push patches out to people's computers out at their home? That may sound somewhat trivial, but the reality is it's really hard to do because you're dealing with all kinds of different bandwidth requirements. And it's not just me in the house. I have my wife who's an executive on video all day. I've got two teenage kids, one in high school, one in middle school, they're on video all day. So we're taxing these networks within people's homes as well in ways that we never have. And so all of these pieces kind of come together and cause us to rethink how we allocate our budgets within the IT organization. So the first thing is there was a lot of productivity tools that were being purchased. There was a lot of preservation of cash that companies kind of went into. How do we start to control spend and kind of pull back on the reins? But the smart ones started to look at the opportunities to accelerate their innovation programs. And those are the folks that are really doing well right now. How do I start to use this opportunity? Again, not trying to suggest that COVID-19 or the coronavirus is a great thing for us, but how do we start to leverage that in the best way possible and take advantage of it in such a way that it can benefit us on the long run? And this is where innovation and accelerating some of those changes really comes into play. And as I mentioned, things like cloud, artificial intelligence, machine learning, leveraging data to understand your customers more intimately, being flexible to change your companies, your business operations, how you engage with your customers. Instead of just a website, maybe you need to move more to a focus on a mobile device or mobile application or vice versa. All of those start to come into play, but at the heart of it is data. And data is what ultimately will drive the decisions down the path. So you talked about the work from home thing and I kept thinking of the proliferation of endpoint devices at the edge. You're right. How many of us tried to get a webcam months ago and couldn't because suddenly that became a tool that was essential for folks to continue their operations and maintain their productivity. How are enterprises, in your opinion, this year addressing the edge and understanding how they need to be able to take advantage of that, but also understand where all those devices are to your point, pushing out patches, ensuring that there's a secure environment. But what's the view of the edge? Yeah, the edge is incredibly complicated and it's important to differentiate a couple of pieces here. So when you talk about the productivity devices, whether it's the laptops, the webcams, the lighting, all of those IP connected components that we interface with, that's one aspect. And you're right. I can remember IT leaders that were telling their staff, go to every office supply store, every big box store, buy every laptop, keyboard, mouse, webcam, you can get your hands on. I don't care what brand it is, I don't care what the specs are, just do it because they didn't have access to those resources for their entire employee base. And so that's one aspect and that's a whole nother consideration as we start to think about cybersecurity and now we're talking about non-traditional platforms that are in the environment, in the enterprise environment versus your standard image and standard product. But aside from that, we also have data coming from the edge whether it's from sensors and video cameras and other types of devices that we have to bring into the mix too. Understanding that Tim Crawford has now entered into a store and that Tim Crawford has now left a store but hasn't purchased. But we know that Tim Crawford is a loyal customer based on his loyalty app. How do we start to gauge that or how do we start to gauge the number of folks that are moving through a given area? And especially in light of coronavirus, I mean, there are some aspects that are coming up where companies are starting to look at how do we measure the number of people that are in a given room and do that in an automated way and maybe alert people to say, hey, you know, is there a way you can span out or remind people gently, you know, keep your distance, make sure you're wearing your mask, et cetera. There are a lot of ways that edge comes into play but at the core of this is data. And so that's where it becomes really important to understand that the amount of data, not just the sources of data but the amount of data that we're gonna have to deal with and we're dealing with today at the edge is just incredible and it's only going to grow exponentially. And so it's important to understand that your customer engagement pieces are going to be a source of data as well as a consumer of data. Let's not forget that people at the edge, they need to be able to consume data and not in a batch way. They need to be able to do it in real time which then gets back to flexibility and speed and algorithms at the edge. But understanding all of that data at the edge, being able to analyze it whether it's for business operations or customer engagement and then providing that through the continuum from edge to cloud is really, really critical. It's a very complicated problem to solve for but every single enterprise across the industries is already headed down this path. You're right, it is an incredibly complex problem to solve. So here we are virtually at Dell Technologies World 2020. Talk to me about Dell Technologies Landscape. How do you think it fits into addressing some of these challenges and the complexities that you just talked about? Yeah, you know, Dell has been on this path for a while. I mean, through the partnerships, through the ecosystem that Dell has as well as their portfolio of hardware and software. I think Dell has positioned really well to be able to address both the customer experience as well as the business operations. The key here is you have to think about edge to cloud. You have to think about data. You have to think about analytics. And then from an IT perspective, how do you start to layer in the management and the algorithms on top of that to be able to manage that landscape? Because that landscape is getting increasingly more complicated. And I think Dell's starting to come up with the software pieces that actually make the connection between those points on the continuum. And that's a really important piece here for IT organizations to understand. I think with the new announcements around APEX, I think that will shine really well for Dell. I think if you look at the partnerships and the ecosystem and the connections that they're making, both with public cloud providers, as well as with other partners in the ecosystem, I think that's a positive place. But the place that I would actually watch most closely with Dell is what is that software layer? They already have a really good hardware platform to build on top of in that portfolio. What is that software layer that connects or creates that connective tissue for them? And I think that's the big piece. And I think we're going to hear more of that here at Dell Technologies World. I'm also curious. I read your posts and listened to podcasts on the difference between a traditional CIO and a transformational CIO, if I think is such an important thing to discuss, because part of that is cultural, right? It's not just about a company being able to transform. It's got to be the person with the right mindset, with that flexible, agile mindset. What's your advice to businesses who are still pivoting or pivoting multiple times and trying to become not just a survivor, but a winner of tomorrow from a cultural perspective? You know, culture is the hardest thing to change. It really is. You know, the technology is easy. Relatively speaking, we can swap out one technology for another. It's relatively straightforward to do and it always has been. The real challenge here is, how do you create the underpinnings and the foundation for that culture? And what I mean by that is changing, like within the IT organization. And it starts with the CIO, but then also kind of branches out into the rest of the IT organization to the most junior levels of the IT staff. And what I mean by that is you have to look at how you become less tech-centric and more business-centric. And so my post about the change and the differentiation from the traditional CIO to transformational CIO is just about that. It's about how do you start to make that shift where you start focusing on business first and that ultimately becomes our context. Regardless of what organization you're in, IT, marketing, HR, engineering, product, it's support, it doesn't matter. You start with the business context and then you flow down from that. And so part of the move to being the transformational CIO or the transformational organization is really shifting to be more business-focused and using that as your North Star. And then from it, you start to understand how the different technology pieces fit into place. And so for example, a traditional CIO would typically focus on business operations, more of the backend pieces, right? The underlying technology, the backend systems, but the transformational CIO is going to be incredibly more customer-focused. They're actually going to be out with the customer. They're going to be doing ride-alongs, well, probably not right now in the advent of coronavirus, but they're going to be engaging firsthand with customers, understanding firsthand what they're dealing with, understanding what the business challenges are that they're having, and then being able to translate that into where does technology fit in and where does technology not fit in? Kind of going back to what I was saying earlier around the importance of customer experience. And so that's really where this transformational vent comes from is shifting from just being back-office-focused to moving toward understanding that front-office or that customer-focused. And that's the real differentiator for companies here is when you can start to think about how technology plays that central role in changing your business, that's gold. That's absolute gold. Gold, but hard to dig for that gold. One last question, Tim. You talked about a number of the opportunities that COVID-19 is bringing, and I completely agree with you, not that any of us loves being stuck at home and isolated in the same walls, but there are opportunities that are going to come. We're going to learn things from that if we're open-minded and flexible and agile in our thinking. But are there things that you think we haven't heard about yet that you see as kind of maybe some North stars to come? Yeah, there are a couple of things that I think we generally are missing. And I kind of touched on one of them earlier, which is how do you start to accelerate some of that innovation now? And so, you know, I use the airplane example of, you know, you've got the lowest passenger loads, now's the time to implement that innovative technology because if something does go wrong, if something does go wrong, the impact to your customers is relatively low. And quite frankly, a lot of folks are giving out hall passes to say, you know what, we understand coronavirus is hard for all of us, something went sideways here, fine, go fix it, go fix it, and then come back to us. And so I think customers are definitely more apt to hand out that hall pass now versus when we're at full capacity. And that kind of leads me to the second piece that I think people are missing is that companies are organized and built around operating efficiently at 80% utilization or 100% utilization. What I mean by that is they tend not to make money until they get to that level of utilization. But yet in the coronavirus era, what if we had a company that was organized in such a way that it could be profitable at 25% utilization? That would cause us to think very differently about how we use technology, how we're able to scale technology, how we leverage data, we're thinking in more meaningful ways about the customer. And so what that means is that it gives us the ability to scale our business up and down. God forbid if we ever run into another situation like this ever again in our lifetimes, but if we ever hit another patch of negativity around economic growth, it allows a company to be able to scale down and back up as needed for their customers. And that's another piece that I don't think people are thinking about. They're thinking about the big picture, they're thinking about how do we build for growth? But what they're not thinking about is, what if we need to scale this back? And I think a great example of where this touches in, we're here at Dell Technologies World is, look at the way that companies are starting to shift toward this as a service model, right? We're able to scale technology up, use it as we need it, give it back when we don't need it. And so when you start to move it into that more flexible mode, I talked about flexibility in other ways earlier, but as you start to get into a different consumption mode, it gives you a lot of opportunity to do a lot of different things in a lot of different ways. And that's ultimately what companies need to be thinking about today. Sounds like it's going to be some of the big differentiators between the winners and the losers of tomorrow. Well, Tim, thank you for joining us on theCUBE, virtually from your home. It's not a Dell Technologies World on theCUBE without talking to you, Tim, and I appreciate, we all appreciate your time and the insight that you shared today. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks for having me on theCUBE. Our pleasure. For Tim Crawford, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's coverage of Dell Technologies World 2020.