Everpure, Inc. (P) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. Next up, reimagining the business and the future of work, our signature panel here in this new post-pandemic idea, in fact, it's not a new idea, we've been working on the leading, reinventing, reimagining the customer journey now for about 3 years adding in there disruption and now throw in a pandemic, we really have a different world, a whole different environment, right, that we're in, all navigating -- looking to facilitate and enabling lead innovation. So first off, Marianne Bachynski. Marianne, welcome to the program. Good to see you.

Thanks. How are you?

It's been a while.

I know.

New role for you, CIO at AIG, congrats.

Thanks.

When you think of the pandemic and how it's impacted your organization and your leadership style, what are your challenges? And what are the big opportunities that you've been able to take advantage here?

Well, first off, I actually started at AIG in the pandemic. So it was an interesting maybe experiment, if you will, but it was amazing how seamless it was, and I think a lot of people say how difficult that must be, but I have actually found it an incredible opportunity because -- for a number of reasons there is really an instant connection, I think, when you speak to people in their homes without the formality of an office and people are available. They're not traveling or going to a client or on vacation or whatever. And so they're much more available. And I think because no one is in the room, everybody is very, very focused on being focused. So it actually has been very seamless and hats off to IT actually around the world who have allowed us all to do this. And it's really an incredible statement. We -- I think even a few years ago, I'm not sure we would have been able to have all businesses, offices globally working remotely. And we probably could have a lot of lessons from Sandy and certainly New York City and 9/11, but -- and planning is always key upfront. So we were fortunate enough that we had tested remote trading ahead of the crisis. I'm on the investment side, I'm not on the insurance side. So it's actually been really quite interesting. But I also think from a leadership perspective, I don't think my sort of core values on leadership have changed. I think that if anything has been proven that they are more than ever necessary, my mantra is really not what you can do for me, but what I can do for you and removing obstacles, et cetera. And certainly, we have a new challenge as a different way of working. But I do think that things like communication are so critical now. They're always critical. But having effective means of communication and clear objectives and being able to build a community amongst your team is really just uber-important right now. Really answering the question why? What we're doing? Why we're doing it? What's the impact to the business? What's the impact to our clients? And how -- and that why, I think, also can be very motivating for people. It really brings to the forefront purpose, frankly. And empowerment to act, again, we're not -- together, we're not in a room together. And so really having a culture enabling people to have enough information to act and get it done. And I think working on -- in cross-functional teams is also a core competency that we need to have, what I call creating the whole brain and bringing around the virtual table, all the people you need cross-discipline to make decisions. And again those types of efforts face-to-face are -- can be a challenge. So now we have to do it remotely. We just have to be better and better at it. And I think the communications as well is really critical to address uncertainty. We've all tried to become much better at managing change. And right now, we have just so much change that -- and it is -- it can be overwhelming at times for people. So we really have to really work at distilling that uncertainty and providing clarity about what we're doing and where we're going. And Hunter, you always say, every time I come to your -- some of your great conferences, like this is like an amazing time to be in technology, and you're right, it keeps getting better and better. But I think now it really is one of the most amazing times to be in technology because we've pulled off this incredible thing of allowing the world to work remotely. But also transformation, digitization, all these things, data collaboration, all of these things are just being accelerated by COVID. And we've all been working toward it, but it's really more than ever.

Thank you for the great, great comments, great thought leadership, and thank you for the complement. I actually think it's probably the most exciting time, probably the most scariest time as well. Hey, [ Emmy, Emmanuel Ricardo ], right? Did I get that?

Yes, you could have called me [ Emmy. Emmy ] is fine.

Thanks. That was a mouthful. That makes it a lot easier. Appreciate it. Global Head of Digital Transformation that [Globant]. [Globant's] an interesting company, right?

Yes, we certainly are. Yes. We've been -- it's not -- we've been around for like 15, 17 years. We are focusing on helping our clients to transform through a large scope from strategy design to full implementation. And I think...

And so innovating in context with this whole distance aspect, let's talk about that.

Yes. I was just listening to Marianne, and definitely, it's a wonderful time to be in technology because it has -- I think this moment has leveled the playing field for so many companies. Before maybe a few months ago, you could have the conversation of I don't know if these aspects of transformation, we can actually do it or we have a culture that does not allow that for sure. And now we have so leveled the playing field. And right now, in [Globant], we are so sure that it's coming. A new wave of innovation is coming because of this level playing field that we will be able to innovate deeper that there's a new wave of augmented -- what we're calling augmented collaboration, which is a lot of focus on how we work together and how technology help us work together not just using platforms, but really enhancing the behaviors that we have as teams and as communities. And we're so lucky to be part of basical system right now to be honest.

[ Emmy, ] did I hear you say authentic leadership and authentic communication?

Yes, we are actually calling it augmented collaboration, which we think as technologies like AI and different aspects of technology can really serve a human purpose. The other thing we were exploring some of these things. And for example, we've been -- right now, everybody is at home, and it feels like that the time in the beginning of the end of the day, they debate a little bit somebody can put a meeting for you right at the end of the day or at some point. Wouldn't it be amazing? And also the technology can help us to say, hey, regardless of this lot of time that's free for [ Emmy, ] he's been having back-to-back meetings. Why don't you just share this information in another way? Or why don't you choose a more human way to communicate with him? That aspect and a lot of different aspects to build trust between teams, which we truly believe that it's important to be productive and to be effective. It's something that we truly are working towards and using technology to really augment our capacities for sure.

[ Emmy, ] brilliant comments, stay with us here. I'll circle back here in a minute. Hey, Paul, welcome to the program. Paul Ferraro. He's the VP of worldwide go-to-market at Pure Storage. Great partner of HMG. Thanks for all your support, and thanks for being here.

Well, thank you for having me.

Hey, tell us a little bit about the usership economy and how the world has changed?

The usership economy has been evolving for many, many years. The ability, from a utility perspective to consume electricity, water, gas. And those plays were generally just volume based. But as the world continues to evolve, we find ourselves being able to retreat back into our homes when there's a pandemic or geopolitical unrest or a natural disaster or a manmade disaster. Technology and on-demand models essentially the usership economy, has allowed us to consume all of these things non-disruptively, regardless of what the circumstances may be. So the world has changed quite considerably. And if you look at the automotive industry, they're more interested in the experience, the total experience of the traveler. And at Pure, we're interested in the total experience in that modern data experience for the data as well as for the -- for our customer.

Well, data matters, right, Paul?

Data is the new oil. It's the new oil.

Yes. I saw that article, love it. When you think what Pure really does at the core, give us 30 seconds on what you actually do in the data center?

So we dramatically simplify the overall management. So the key to Pure is, we've transformed and we have rethought what data services, the common data services platform is. In the past, you would consume or acquire technology, and use it for a few years and that capability would become legacy or become tech-dead. And you'd have to then refresh and move your data again to the next destination. At Pure, we've completely changed the game. We provide a technology that's constantly innovating over 10 years. So there's no need to essentially migrate your data elsewhere. Our technology runs in the cloud, it runs in the colo, it runs on-prem. And our technology is a unified operating model. So our operating system and platform is all consistent from an API perspective. And further to the point of the usership economy, we offer subscription models that are unified. So the unification of the operating model, the user experience and the way that you consume and you pay for those services. So we dramatically rethought storage services, and we've simplified the overall day-to-day management. Most importantly, we derisked financial services to a very large degree. Because if you look at 55% to maybe 75% of all service disruptions that occur, are a result of a human interfacing with infrastructure and causing an outage. So we've greatly reduced the need for the human to interface with the technology, dramatically improving and increasing uptime of services. Because many financial services, they're always assessing risk, all of them are always assessing risks. And the risk of making a change, the risk of moving to the cloud, the risk of making a change during the transformational program, we dramatically reduced that risk as our technology is always available, and extremely simple to manage, and it's all API-driven.

Excellent. Paul, thanks for being on the program. Well, we'll circle back here in a minute. [ Sigal, ] welcome back. [ Sigal, ] in these challenging times, what does winning look like for your team and your company?

Well, I think it's the same. It's really serving our customers and clients, if they're internal clients or external clients. We also work with some external clients. Our team working with them directly. I think it's engaging our employees. [ Emmy ] was talking about building trust, I actually think that this all environment of working from home is helping us building trust. It kind of been binding everybody into our house. And we see the kids and the pets and the bedrooms and the kitchens of everybody. And I think that is building trust. And the focus on building trust and keeping the engagement of employees is winning as well. Of course, keeping everybody healthy and finding the right, I would say, protocols and procedures to get people safely back to work in the office. So the whole return to work has been more challenging than actually going remotely. Because we went remotely kind of overnight, but we are going to bring people back in stages and making sure that we do that in the right way, safe way and people feeling comfortable that we are listening to them and their personal need at this time is important and continuing delivering all the goals. Every year, we have the goals from our Chairman, the goals for technology and operations, the goals for the business and just delivering on those goals.

It's great -- well said, [ Sigal. ] It's often said in order to really get true innovation, you need to starve off resources. So really change a model or cut back resources because then the creativity is really accentuated and you come up with a new idea, that new idea of jumping off that burning platform. Do you believe in that as well?

I think it's more than just starving resources. I think it's more about enforcing change. So by starving resources, you are kind of introducing change into the system and you say, you have right resources, let's think about something else, creatively. I think the same happens here, you're introducing the change of people working from home and this does -- that does create new ideas and new discussions. And from that, we'll see innovation. I agree with what was said earlier, we are at the brink of seeing a ton of innovation around the way we work, the way we interact with each other, the way we travel, the way we deliver the goals of the company. You see a lot of companies are standing up, not just for being profitable and delivering for shareholders, they are standing up for diversity and inclusion. They're standing up for safety of their employees. A lot of companies have also said they are not going to lay off people. They are really thinking about their place in the social fabric of world. And I think it's just amazing to see that. So there is going to be a lot of innovation. And there are never enough resources to do everything we want to do. I mean, that's just a given. I think the human mind is so incredible, it always has so many ideas and so many new things that they want to -- that we can all think and dream about, and there are never enough resources. So getting the most out of the resources and automating as much as possible so you can free up people to think about creative ways to do their job, I think that we will see that going forward.

Thank you, [ Sigal. ] Excellent points. Marianne, I know tech leaders have said, we've put in all of the collaboration tools. We've put in all the video platforms. We beg people to use them, people for years, still hop on planes, they flew from in-person meetings. Pandemic hits, now all of a sudden, we're at 90%, 100% utilization. What was your experience? What do you see in your current environment?

I think it's been a real learning experience for everybody because they're realizing -- I don't think we'll go back. I really don't. I don't -- I think they'll -- we're realizing how effective you can be in being in multiple locations. Certainly, it's not going to -- never be face-to-face. But I think -- and I think ironically, we're probably more electronically face-to-face than sometimes we are in the office, where you don't necessarily go down the hall, you don't necessarily go to another building in New York, you do it over the phone. You're a global company, so you're different time zones, et cetera. So people are used to working that way in a sense. But I think the discipline that has been learned by everybody being remote at the same time around focus and running effective meetings I think will stick. And I don't -- I just haven't found it as difficult as people expected because I think we kind of -- so maybe it's IT people, but more than business, but we've been working that way for a long time. And I think in the old days, when people start working remote, and you were the only one not in the room, that's a totally different dynamic. And I also think video. Video was one of the slowest things and now video is capable of supporting. So the assumption should be, there's always going to be people on video.