Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / DEX Done Right: Making it Work 🛠️ w/ Seth White

Transcript

DEX Done Right: Making it Work 🛠️ w/ Seth White · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome item change Makers to the Deck show with Tim
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGrath.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Let's get into it.
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: Hello, change Makers. Tim Flower is back home, everybody, For
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: anybody who's been listening to a show and following his
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: root around the world, He's been in many different destinations.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: And how long has it been?
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: How are you away? Tim? I left my house in February.
• 0:24
  Speaker 4: I was out on the road for seven weeks. When
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: I left, my driveway was frozen solid. Wow.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's amazing. And we we're back in situ. I'm
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: back in London, You're back in the US, and we
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: welcome a very special guest somebody we both used to
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: work with a few years ago now, and that's the
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: founder of Ellipses, Seph White.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Hi, Seth, how you doing? Hi? Hey, it's a pleasure
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: to be with you both. Friends. Friends are from past,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: present and future as far as I'm concerned.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Lovely, lovely, and I was ELLIPSI is the name of
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: your newish company. How how old is ellips isn't it?
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Ellipsus has been going for about exactly one year
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: as of a couple of days ago, exactly one year.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, happy birthday Ellipses and I just assumed that
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: you know that the the name alluded to the dot
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: dot dot you sometimes get at the end of the sentence.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: But when I googled it, it was like a medical term.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Or is it is this the dot dot dot?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: It is?
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: It is the actually yes, excellent, excellent, and you know,
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: actually from from when when I first joined Next Thing,
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: sep and I don't I don't say it with any false,
• 1:33
  Speaker 5: false flattery or.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Exaggeration, like a literally legendary reputation in the organization. How's
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: it been since you left Next think? And I guess
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: how's year one of ellipses been as well as part
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: of that?
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's actually been amazing. So I mean,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: if I rewind a bit to being at Next Thing,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: which was of course an incredible experience with great people
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: onboarding large enterprises across the globe with this technology and
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: enabling them to be successful, and then noticing that in
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: this space there is a real there is a natural
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: and it's natural with emerging technologies, there's always a natural
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: lack of availability, you know, perhaps attitude and also aptitude
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: right three a's when it comes to utilizing those technologies.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: And so that's where we said, look, there is no
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: one out there, respectfully, right, no one out there who
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: is laser focused on this. But we know the opportunity
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: of value is absolutely staggering with decks in general, and
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: we thought, goodness me, there needs to be someone, something's
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: got to give. So yes, we launched Ellipsis with the
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: idea of hand picking I guess veterans and also experts
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: in the deck space to enable enterprises to maximize the
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: value of those technologies. And in the past year we're
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: now at about thirteen or fourteen customers right net new
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: decks wrapping them with our services. And the actual amazing
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: thing is is that the people we've hired, of course,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: the people at the core of everything, but yes, we've
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: managed to handpick and attract some world class talent, those
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: who've ran some of the largest enterprises with next think
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: from the lights of Visa to All States Insurance to Starbucks,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: and these guys are coming in and making sure our
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: customers were just kind of blowing their minds with what
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: we can do with the technology above and beyond it
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: as well. So yeah, it's been a really good journey
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: so far. Thank you.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Sounds amazing and by my measurement. Your departure SETH coincided
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: approximately with what was perhaps you know, the most significant,
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: maybe transformative period in the history of the space.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: So I never got the chance to ask you about it,
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: I guess, But how would you have you perceived those
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: key shifts in the market over the last couple of
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: years and the other major challenges that have come with
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: that in your view?
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, great question. So oddly enough, you know, timing is everything.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: We always knew there would be some sort of shift
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: at some point. We've been talking about it for years
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: at next thing, right, that the market's going to shift,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: and finally it kind of has, and it kind of
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: by luck, to be fair, the timing of Ellipses, It
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: was more just the idea and the concept, and it
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: was bubbling for a good year or two before we launched.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: But in terms of the market itself, what really became
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: There are some widespread trends that were occurring from the
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: pandemic which kind of really started to put this on
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: the map. Of course, the challenges of a distributed workforce,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: the rising costs in IT operations, right, the challenges of
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: user productivity and satisfaction, and then the advent of the
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: clouds and the constant variation of SaaS and web based applications,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: and in other words, it is just getting really really complicated, right,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: It's getting really hard to keep your hand around it,
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: to get your arms around it. Sorry, and so launch
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: and here is I guess one of the major challenges
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: that I see out there very much for enterprises, which
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: actually is something that we are looking to help enterprises
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: with their ellipsis, is to actually help them understand what
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: DEX is. Right, the term DEX Digital Employee Experience is
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: actually quite all encompassing, and if you're not careful, it's
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: quite hard to understand what it is, but also what
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: it's not. And whilst it's attractive, I think one of
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: the big challenges out there is to enterprises and it
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: leaders to really understand, you know, what's the value of
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: it and how do I understand where it starts, stops
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: and continues. And so what we've been doing is is
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: seeing that as an issue. So a lot of people
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: come to us and say, yes, sir, we're doing decks
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: and a lot of this is happening and they're not
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: doing decks. But what's happened is a lot of vendors
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: out there. Of course, there are some technology companies where
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: they suddenly see spend on the term dex and they
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: quickly update their website and say they do decks, and
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: they don't, and it's quite sad to some enterprises then
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: have these new expectations of reactive to proactive it and
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: they're like, they're using a technology which is completely backwards
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: and it's completely incompatible with even the idea of deck.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: And that's one of the things. So it's in a
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: sad way enterprise to getting bombarded with messaging. But most
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: of the people out there talking about decks, respectfully, don't
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: really know what they're talking about when it comes to
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: it's what it is, what it's not, how to use it,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: how to get value from it, you know, the pitfalls,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: the opportunities, the value, et cetera, et cetera. So that's
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: what we see.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: So let's explore that a little bit.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Seth.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: So this venture that you're growing, it's not a light switch, right,
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: and you didn't wake up one day and say, hey,
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: suddenly Ellipses is alive. Right. It goes back to you
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: really thinking of the need to do something big or
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: something more impactful from a personal standpoint as well as
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: for the market, and I think it's a great parallel
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: for it in general. Today, what we've been doing for decades,
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: we've been doing it the same way, and there's time
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: for something new, right, and it changes, It changes every day,
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: especially with these two technologies. Automation has been around forever.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: AI has blown up over the last couple of years.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: What AI has done for automation, it's becoming so advanced
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: and so impactful. These two elements are increasingly integrated into it.
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: How do you see these two technologies AI and automation
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: influencing the future of desk strategies?
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, so you're absolutely corrupt. So AI is again
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: a very it's a fascinating topic in the in the
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: world of debts because there is there are those who
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: say AI is going to make debts amazing, and then
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: there are those kind of saying it's going to help,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: but be careful not to rely too much on AI, right,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: so that we're still in this very early sort of
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: excitement phase around AI. And for me though, AI, I
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: think there are three fundamental areas where AI is going
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: to impact decks and enable it even further. The first
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: one is sort of proactive issue resolution. So obviously AI
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: driven monitoring, it sort of enables it to detect and
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: resolve friction points within the enterprise, right, so latency, app
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: crashes and login failures, et cetera, especially well before the
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: user reports them. So this transforms it from sort of
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: a break fixed model into a silence enabler of productivity.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: So that's one side, so it's really bringing out the
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: pushing the envelope of proactive. Two it's actually the personalization
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: of decks. So right now dex technology need the fantastic
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: at understanding the consumption of it across complex computing environments,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: across a wide enterprise. But where there is a real
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: big opportunity in AI, and what we're seeing at Telipsis
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: and what we're delving into is how you can kind
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: of take behavior analytics and the machine learning and then
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: debt platforms can tailor those experience right down to the
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: individual level. Right, So there's addressing the enterprise decks, then
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: there's the individual decks, and that's the piece where actually, yes,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: we want to resolve enterprise wide, but you know, trying
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: to personalize at a bringing decks almost to feel like
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: someone is dex is outside in the hallway or the
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: corridor of your enterprise is a really exciting concept as well.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: And then there is the third one I would say
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: is sort of sort of reinventing self service, right, reinventing
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: the way in which users themselves are able to utilize
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: AI technologies, l LMS methodologies and insights to improve to
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: take control of their own personal experience at times, right,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: and to make it just really easy. Right. So and
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: when you have when you combine that with real intelligent automation,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: it's going to obviously help resolve issue use instantly right
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: with self healed workflows or and you know, little to
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: maybe less human intervention than was a regely the case.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: So and of course that will reduce your ticket volume
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its the operation
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: as a whole. So those are the three ones. So yeah,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: i'd say proactive resolution, yes, personalization and then sort of
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: reinventing self service. Cool.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: Yeahs the lots to consider there. You and I working
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: together over the years, we've talked a lot, especially in
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: the on the purchasing side of decks. We talk a
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: lot about not just what you outline the why to
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: do it, but also how so thinking about ROI and
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: the value that doing everything that you just outlined, the
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: value of doing that, what real steps can teams take
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: to move beyond justification and deployment and onto successfully operationalizing
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: their decks, visibility and realizing all of those benefits.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's a great question, and I'll do my
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: best not to labor on it for too long. So
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: what we've done at Ellipses is and you're right, Tim,
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: back to your point earlier. Ellipses really was a culmination
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: of years of working with large enterprises, on seeing them
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: on their dex journeys, and working with the leaders who
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: bring these technologies in and are ultimately on the hook
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: of getting the value. So at a fairly high level,
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: one of the things that a lot of enterprises do
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: is they first and foremost right, they evaluate the technology
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: at a technical level, which is great, right, what's the
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: art of the possible, what are the features, what are
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: the benefits, what can we do now that we couldn't
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: do before? And then of course that when they make
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: their purchase, they'll go in sort of a business justification, right,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: how do we justify this purchase? And so they'll put
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: together a comprehensive business case. But then what's happening is
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: is they'll make the purchase and then they will go
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: back to technical mode as part of an implementation, and
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: they'll live there, and they'll remain there, and they'll die
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: there because they don't ever they think they're making progress
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: with various tasks and activities, right. So they think progress
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: is doing things, but they don't think about what they're
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: doing in the context of the business outcomes, right. And
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: that's the hardest thing to stitch together. So the question
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: is how do you do that? Well. One the first
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: thing is at the earlier stages, what we saw over
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: the years before launching Ellipses was when a lot of
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: enterprises would deploy, they'd go into what I call the
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: use case frenzy mode. Right, they list out fifteen use
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: cases and everyone's excited. And it's fine to have those
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: desires to make progress. The problem is when you don't
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: know how to first and foremost understand the data that
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: you're looking at, right, to truly interpret the data, but
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: not only interpret the data, interpret the data in the
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: context of your environment. That's your a bigger job than
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: you think. It's not as simple as up a few
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: dashboards and saying, yes, this application has a seventy percent
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: crash rate, let's go do something about it. Right, So
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: data interpretation is one. The second one is actually aligning
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: your business priorities. Now, most enterprises are actually pretty good
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: at saying here's what we want to achieve in the
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: first twelve months or twenty four months, but they often
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: are business and their business informed, right, They're interested in
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: the business side, but oftentimes they overlook the actual data
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: and what the deck solution is telling them they should
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: be doing. Right. So marrying those two business priorities and
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: data outputs in the context of that environment is really key.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And then the third one we're actually just in daye.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: One of our service delivery directors did a keynote presentation
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: on this in Boston at Next Things annual event last year.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Governance and discovery. Right, you don't just do things for
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: the sake of doing them. You have to before you
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: put a use case in or you want to make
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: a change to the environment, you have to understand what's
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: the impact. You know, should we do it, why are
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: we doing it? Is there another way to do it better?
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: So governance and an intake process for the items you're
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: trying to take care of. And then the other one
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: is discovery, and discovery I have to find is actually
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: one of the biggest issues that we saw before launching
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Lipses was a lot of enterprises right when major incidents occur,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: or unexpected projects, or suddenly the immediate announcement of a
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: divestitur or an acquisition, they rarely are actually prepared to
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: utilize debts to get the value from those unexpected but
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: always likely to happen scenarios. So discovery means understanding before
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: and during you deploy it, during your deployments, what's our
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: change management model look like, what does our communications process
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: look like? How do we deploy and patch? Now? What
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: is the plumbing of the enterprise? And knowing that before
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: you do things? And it's not the sexy work, right,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: this stuff that I've just outlined, these are pretty boring
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: and bland. If you don't do it, though, you're going
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: to have a CrowdStrike incident hit and you'll say, how
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: do we Then you go back to more you're reactive,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: but with a dex technology, right, and that defeats the
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: object of it. So those are some three sort of
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: early stage items I would say that enterprises can do
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: and that's sort of how we at least lead that
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: implementation of DEX technologies. And there's many where I could
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: go into, but those are just a few ideas.
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: You actually made a great point that I wanted to
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: explore a little bit more because it's not just about
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: the technology. It's really not about the technology at all
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: when you think about it. We should never be doing
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: it just for its sake, right, It is here for
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: the business to make the business better, more efficient, more profitable.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: How can it leaders better connect those technical insights that
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: they're getting, that discovery that you talk about, and all
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: of that visibility, it's all great inbound information they never
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: had before. How do you connect all of that to
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: the right business outcomes and demonstrate value? And when I
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: say value, value on the business side of the house
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: as well as in it, we tend to put the
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: blinders on and say we need to show value to it,
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: we need to make our it shop better. But the
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: real reason we're doing this is to make the business better.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: So how do leaders connect the dots?
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so connecting those dots that's stricken. I think the
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: biggest thing is actually setting expectations. I would say is
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: the biggest thing, and it sounds and it sounds very simple.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: But setting expectations and focus are the two areas that
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: I would touch on there. So when it comes to
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: setting expectations, a lot of the times when you make
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: a business justification for a purchase, your expectations are on
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: implementation suddenly become hey, we're going to print x dollars
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: within the first three months, which just not realistic, right,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: It just isn't. And what happens is people knee jerk
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: into trying to unnaturally force business value when you're not
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: ready to yet. Right. So what we say is with that,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: and so to your question of how the business leaders
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: do it is kind of set expectations as to what
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: value what the definition of value is as part of
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: the journey early on. Yes, it's going to be a
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: lot of task and activities in that journey that is
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: going to be your value. Right, That's what value means.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Value is a continuum. It doesn't stay the same, right,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: So at implementation and getting this thing rolled out right
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: and getting yourselves together and organizing everything, your value really
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: should be based upon progress through those items. But then
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: for business leaders then they have to kind of slowly
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: change and not stay in task and activity mode. They
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: need to then say, okay, as part of now that
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: we're out of that, what are we proactively remediating and why? Right,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: So then it's about stabilizing the environment, which is the
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: term you used tim for years, right, stabilizing the environment proactively.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: And what I would say is also is making sure
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: that you're not proactively for leaders, this is a specific one,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: not proactively remediating things just because you can. Right. So
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Starbucks have very popular case where they had recurring issues
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: on their endpoints and instead of using next think right
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: to remediate sixteen sort of isolated problems that were recurring
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: on endpoints, they decided to say, no, let's point this
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: and look at it through the context of the infrastructure.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: And when you do that, well, suddenly they found they
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: didn't have sixteen issues. They had one huge SECN problem, right,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: and so what fifty four step remediation later they resolve
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: that and they say fifty five thousand engineering hours per month. Right.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: So that's what leaders need to do, is they can't
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: just say yes, do that, just fix that, do it?
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: They have to think there is there something underlying here
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: that we can do more. So that's another side. And
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: then the other one, of course, is making sure that
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: they are still starting, that they're moving towards the end
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: in mind, right, the evolution of debts, how do they
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: become a detch driven digital workplace? To be dex driven
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: means you have to listen to the data and act
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: upon the business priorities. Right, Don't be afraid to say
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: we're going to use decks for a strategic acquisition. Don't
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: be afraid to say we're going to use decks to
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: transform the way in which we do hardware refresh or
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: software licensed reclamation or I just came off a call
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: with our team a customized use of debts around five
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: to nine software for soft phones and understanding the care
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: quality on these types of technologies and pushing it further.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: So there is I think there's a bit of attitude
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: in there and some practical in terms of setting expectations
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: and then making sure they stabilize the environment.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: Sorry. Yeah, and you know, we've been using the C
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: diagnosed fix tagline on this to simplify the things that
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: you can do. And everybody kind of obviously navigates to
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: the fact that or gravitates to the fact that that's
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: around fixing technology that's broken but c diagnosed. Fix can
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: also be seeing your asset management problem and finding the
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: right diagnosis for that and fixing that in a financial aspect.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: There's so many different nuances to what seeing and diagnosing
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: and fixing things means that I think, like to your point,
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: it gets a little drawn out, and it can the
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: definition of that can change over time in my travels
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: around the world, what I'm seeing and you made reference
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: to it, right, Folks just tacking on the word decks
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: to their platform and we do it, but it's really
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: not it's not in their DNA. I'm seeing a lot
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: of those warning signs from other providers that if I
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: was still a technology buyer, would cause me concern. Right,
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: we did the research, so you don't have to, Well,
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: you're kind of fox in the henhouse when you do that.
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: I want to do my own research or or leverage
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: a third party to give me the unbiased view of it.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: But I really think that that and I will call
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: it a little bit of desperation out there in the
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: in the marketplace, trying to keep up with what Nextic
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: has built.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Here.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: The technology is awesome, the operational expert tiase we have
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: along with partners like you to actually bring it to
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: bear in your environment is huge. There's this concept now
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: that it's bigger than just the tech or the team.
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: It really is dex ops. It's the operational rigor that
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: goes around it. But what should people watch for when
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: they're evaluating those decks technology providers to make sure they're
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: making the right choice.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's a really good I'd actually posted something
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: recently on LinkedIn around this, so I'm actually, if it's okay,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: I'm going to cheat here and just go back to
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: that because I think I won't to see if my
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: opinion has either has changed. Yeah. No, I just to
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: remind myself because I put a lot of thought into
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: that and this actually might help with this one. And
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: so let me go here, let me go to the show.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Will my posts here? Yeah? So okay, So when it
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: comes to the risks and pitfalls when it comes to
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: evaluating technologies, there are a few things right first and foremost,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: as we've already kind of established so far right that
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: the opportunity is staggering with decks. But here is the thing.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: The first thing to watch out for is really just
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: the wrong technology right when someone comes in and says
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: we are a powerhouse I t SM platform and suddenly
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: now we do decks and your account executive or REP
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: is suddenly your best friend out of nowhere because of this.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Because of this, this term deck be very very wary
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: look under the hood right a lot of the times,
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: and this goes back to enter people not realizing that,
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: you know, real time data gathering is not going to
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: make you successful with des right. Gathering information from multiple
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: system is not going to get you from reactive to proactive.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Looking under the hood of the technologies very carefully understand.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: And their heritage is another one. So if you want
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: to understand if DEX is going to add value for you,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: and you have a vendor talking to you, question what
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: their foundation was, where did it come from, why did
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: they exist in the first place. If suddenly their their
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: heritage was for example, yes, we were a very specific
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: VDI right sizing tool, right, Okay, have they now built
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: a complete architecture around DEX and what that looks like?
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: You know, can they go into that level of detail?
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Most of the time they can't because their heritage is
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: very different the architecture of their their technology is fundamentally
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: flawed and then and therefore they won't be able to
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: get to the outcome. So the biggest thing I say
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: when looking at technologies, look at the heritage and just
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: look at the architecture and the roadmap and that that
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: should tell you a lot. But before you do that,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: make sure that you're actually buying from you know, partners
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: or vendors who actually have experience with it. And very simple.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: You know whether it's your your of the month, that
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: you love him or hate him, but you know. Elon
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Musk made it very clear. Right, if you want to
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: know if someone knows what they're talking about, ask them
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: about it and see how much level of detail they
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: can go into. Right, when you talk to vendors or
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: partners about decks, ninety nine percent of them won't know
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: what they're they will they'll do the classic sales one
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: oh one. So tell me about your problems. Ah, well,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: dex can help with that. That's not an answer. If
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: these people you're working with don't have a strong opinion
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: about what you're doing, whether it's comfortable or uncomfortable for you,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: they don't know, right, and be very very weary. And
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: also I'd say also beware of relationships. Relationships are great.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Just because it's good doesn't mean you then spend millions
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: of dollars on a dex solution because you've just known
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: that person for years. So sometimes there is a bias
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: that happens in these purchase cycles. And then I think
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: the other one to highlight as well. It really is.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: And it's at the core of ellipses is do they
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: actually know what value realization looks like in the context
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: of decks? Right? Are they talking about what happens after
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: you buy? Most of them won't. Most of them won't.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: It'll be beature lead, It'll be uh, it'll be let's
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: go to an event and get together for some drinks lead.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: They rarely will talk about what happens after you make
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: that purchase. If they can't go into great detail and
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: then demonstrate people or process or approaches to make you successful,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: you're not going to be successful. Right, So those are
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: my three sort of high level ones. I'd say on.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: That, and I guess the same would apply for picking
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: the right partners.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I think it would. Yeah, I would I
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: And again, you know something, I will say this, I'm
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: very very pleased and comfortable to say, Ellipsis is the
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: only company in the world who only does decks. Now,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: some may say that's a disadvantage for us, it's a
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: hot knife through butter come to us about other things
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: right now. The answers, no, we're not interested. We are
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: relentless focused, and we're relentlessly focused because that's what customers need,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: right Customers, Ellipsis didn't just come out of an idea.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: It came from It really came from the core of
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: listening to customers experience on their journey with decks, and
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: that's why we exist. So, yes, we are the only
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: ones who only do this. It's all we do right now.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: And maybe things will evolve in the future and decks,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: of course can mean lots of things, but for now,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: that's what we do as a business. And other partners, respectfully,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: they will be maybe experts in other areas, or they
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: may be generalists, or they may be they're as sort
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: of an outsourced service provider who's simply there to maintain
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: the cheapest possible contract to deliver you the bare minimum.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: That's not where you put emerging technologies right. Emerging technologies
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: are they're new, they are disruptive, they involve differences of
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: opinion with people and process and insights. There are so
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: many things. Emerging technology doesn't live really with large partners, right,
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: they're there because they have a groundswell and they've been
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: around for years emerging technology. Our belief for Ellipses is
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: that enterprises, these leaders they are living well below their
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: privileges with emerging technologies because they don't have the experience
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: or the expertise or the resources to consume them and
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: to get the value from. And that's our mission.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: All comes down to deck SOPs at the moment, I
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: feel tim this is yeah truly, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah,
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: we've got to rise above the tech itself, the.
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: Even who you buy from. You got to have a
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: great partner. But if you don't have an operational mindset
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: and how to change how you operate, it really requires
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: that that operational discipline to get it right.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think on the operational discipline piece,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: just to comment there really quick is a lot of
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: the times there is this idea that, oh my gosh,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: we have to have five people dedicated to this out
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: of the game. You don't. You don't, right, You're not
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: going to do everything overnight. Right, if you did everything
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: DEX could do overnight, then sure, but what you really
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: need for most enterprises obviously varying size and scales, but
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: on average from as low as half an ft to
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: one to two fts to get started, you can do
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: immense damage in twelve months of that. But that bandwidth,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: you do not need an army of eight people at
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: the gates.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: But you already have an army of people doing the
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: reactive stuff. So now you evolve them into not only
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: new capability for you and your company, but they now
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: have a career path and exciting career evolution to what
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: they're doing, and some will even rise through the ranks
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: and become leaders that you didn't realize they could because
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: of that spark that they get from a new discipline.
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: So it's not about bringing new people in, it's about
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: evolving the teams that you're doing that you already have
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: to do something even bigger and better.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: And looking ahead. Finally, SEP what excites you most about
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: your journey professionally and also the next stage as you
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: see it for the DEX industry.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: As Yeah, the great thing about decks is that it
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: will and does kind of already involves various sort of
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: technologies and approaches to the user experience, to the employee experience.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: There are a couple of thoughts there. So one, we
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: are very excited because you know how many technologies out
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: there are considered emerging hundreds, right, there are so many, Right,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: let's narrow it that down just into the decks, ones
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: that you could argue could be part of the dex ecosystem. Again,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: absolutely tons. We know as a business, and we know
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: there is so much because we know that right that
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: the key to the future of it is typically in
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: the emerging technologies. That's where you're really going to really
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: drive your enterprise to evolve and move forward. So we
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: as a business look at that and say, we know
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: that most partners are not interested in emerging technology. Respectfully,
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: they're very so serving and they're want to maintain of
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: the status quote business they have, and it takes them
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: a long long time before they even turn their head
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: at something which is which requires a bit of a
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: maybe a longer sale cycle, maybe something that's not been
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: budgeted before. So we kind of embrace that. We say,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: oh my gosh, there is so much opportunity to add
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: value to enterprises who are trying to drive their digital
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: workplace into the future, right, there is tons. So for
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: now we're very much we're very much laser focused on
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: in the next thing space, et cetera. But we know
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: that's going to expand, right, and there's gonna be more
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: and more opportunity. And then the other side that we're
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: particularly excited for is actually continuing a bit of a
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: personal thing here is watching the careers evolved. Right. One
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: of the greatest sense of satisfaction I've had in bringing
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Decks into enterprises is watching the single, double, or triple
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: digit promotions that take place when these guys who take
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: the risk, these guys and girls, they take the risk, right,
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: and they they have to live with the decision of
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: the purchase they've made and watch it succeed. That is amazing, right,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Being able to see people's career say, oh my gosh,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: I'm now the I'm the most popular person in the
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: in the it outfit, right because of dex Right, and
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: I always warn them in their evaluations, you're going to
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: get really popular. And then the other side of it
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: as well, is the convergence of Decks is dex right now,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: it says is somewhat heavily leaned on the it operating
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: side of things, but there is definitely a convergence taking
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: place between it and the business. So when we're talking
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: about employee experience, we're now you know, looking at technologies
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: as is next thing, for example, when it comes to
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: understanding how the business enables enter prizes to consume those
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: applications and services. So I see a convergence of the
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: sort of the c h R O I guess, or
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: the CHO chief chief human Yeah, chief human what's wrong
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: with me? On? I have? I forgot the word human resources?
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Human resources. I was to say relations, some relations, Yeah,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: chief human resources officer and the CIO. I think that's
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: going to be a really fascinating thing as we try
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: to bridge the gap between employee and technology. So yeah,
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, the opportunity is just endless, and our passion
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Atalypsis is to take these technologies, maximize their value and
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: as I say, redline them, push them beyond what they
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: were originally built for, to make them so sticky so
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: that customers can say, oh my gosh, I can't imagine
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: a living without this, and that's what we live for.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: Passion comes through loud and clear. So that's good, fun,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: wonderful to catch up. Yeah, it's a pleasure to have
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: you on and it's a very timely chat me and
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: Tim and I. We were just in a London boozer
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: last week discussing some of these themes ourselves. So it's
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: been great man. Thank you so much.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 32:50
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