Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Reality Bytes #36: DEX innovation in 2024 (w/ Sam Gantner)

Transcript

Reality Bytes #36: DEX innovation in 2024 (w/ Sam Gantner) · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

0:01
Welcome Item Change Makers to the Deck show with Tim Flower and Tom McGraw.
0:07
Let's get into it. Hello everybody, and welcome to the very first Reality
0:13
Bites of twenty twenty four. Can you believe it? It's a new year.
0:19
It's the same brilliant Reality Bites show within a show within a show format,
0:23
and we've got a very very special guest. Our first I believe,
0:26
returning Reality Bites guest, and it's it's Sam Gantner back on the show.
0:31
Nice to see you again, Sam, How are you doing? Hey?
0:33
Thank you, Tom. I feel honored to be the first returning guest.
0:37
That's a big thing. Thank you so much. Well, it's a double
0:40
privilege, if I might say, because you're not only our first returning guest,
0:43
but you kicked off this series of Reality Bites next think interviews as well,
0:49
and let me tell you, it was one of the best performing episodes
0:52
of last year. Now, so we had to get you back on not
0:58
least because I really feel like twenty twenty three was such a milestone year for
1:04
our company, and you know, you were sort of you and your team,
1:10
your large team, was such a key part of that. I'm interested,
1:15
first of all, some how would you characterize twenty twenty three. You
1:19
know, when I look at twenty twenty three from a market perspective, looking
1:23
at decks, looking at next thing, I think it was really the year
1:29
where the world really realized the value of faving and applying a decks strategy.
1:36
And let me explain. You know, in the past, they felt that
1:38
people who were kind of forced into that. We had the pandemic that really
1:44
forced companies to change the way that they were working. And then after the
1:47
pandemic, we started with the Great resignation, right, and companies were forced
1:52
with that once again. But in twenty three certain things came down a little
1:56
bit, and that's the moment where they realized that there was actual value in
2:00
spontaneously starting a TEXS initiative without being forced into that, right, and they
2:07
understood that it's a fundamental discipline as much as you know, incidental problem management
2:13
were considered in the past. So, you know, I think for us
2:16
it's a it's a huge satisfaction being the company that invented decks, right to
2:22
see this recognition in the market. Yeah, I totally agree. I think
2:25
that's a brilliant way to put it. It was the first the first time
2:29
Decks was taken up volitionally you might say, by the market. Yeah,
2:32
it wasn't wasn't forced to put it by circumstance. Indeed on a personal level
2:38
of professional level, I mean, but from your personal perspective, what were
2:43
if you had to pick three big highlights from last year, what would they
2:46
be? Wow? So many things happened, but you know, probably the
2:50
first one is really the consolidation of Infinity. We started twenty twenty three with
2:57
Infinity. That was this new jewel just out right, but it was not
3:00
yet a proven technology, and we worked really hard with our customers. We
3:06
received so much feedback, so much engagement, and all of that feedback allowed
3:10
us release after release, with ten releases in twenty twenty three right to really
3:15
consolidate the platform and get it to the level that really wanted it to be.
3:20
So that's definitely something that I'm looking, you know, with a lot
3:24
of pride about. And then probably the second one is the launch of next
3:29
Thing Flow, which is our automation product. You know, that's been a
3:35
lot of work and something that we were really excited about because some of our
3:38
customers were telling us about the importance of moving towards automation for the past few
3:44
years, and to see the reality of that and to so how quickly we
3:47
could go to that and build that was really cool. And then obviously,
3:53
you know, I couldn't not mention Jenei, right. I was educated as
4:00
a software engineer. I became a product manager. But I've always intrinsically been
4:04
a geek my whole life. And you know, since maybe thirty years ago
4:10
I watched two thousand and one Space Odyssey and you know, there was the
4:15
hull ninety nine thousand there, and I've been asking myself, when are we're
4:18
going to get to the point where artificial intelligence really becomes a thing? Right?
4:24
And I feel like, you know, probably twenty twenty three is the
4:27
year that we're going to remember as being the turning point when it comes to
4:30
that. So obviously we need to talk about that, right one hundred percent,
4:36
Sam, Welcome to the show. It's always good to talk to you.
4:41
I want to explore a couple of things. I get asked a question
4:45
more and more frequently as I talk with people as I travel around, and
4:48
the question is kind of a I'm going to turn it into a two parter
4:51
for you that we can talk about a bit, because I think there's some
4:55
things that we need to explore. The first is, the question really is
5:00
what's the future of the service desk? And customers want to know Next Think's
5:03
opinion of that future. What's the future of the service desk hold? And
5:09
I think the part that I've been exploring is service desk. When I hear
5:12
the word service desk, I hear I think l one health desk, And
5:15
I think the question really is bigger than that. What's the future of it
5:17
operations? And how does Next Think play into that? Into that future?
5:25
So kind of the two parter question is where do we see where do we
5:31
see the market going? Right? What's that future of the service desk look
5:36
like? And two, we as a software vendor, are we following the
5:42
market or are we setting the market? And people are following us with our
5:46
product? What are your thoughts about where the market's going and how we play
5:48
into it. Well, maybe maybe it will be a little bit provocative here,
5:55
but I believe that the future of the service desk is actually to disappear
6:00
right, And we've been moving in that direction for a while in the sense
6:03
that the companies really want to reduce number of tickets and number of problems that
6:08
need to be reported by employees, right, And it's only a logical conclusion
6:13
that if we're successful with the initiatives that are already started, the service desk
6:18
will pretty much disappear. And obviously, you know, we're always going to
6:21
have somebody that needs to pick up the phone in case there is an emergency
6:25
there is there is a VP that can connect or something like that. But
6:30
you know, for ninety five percent of the problems that people are facing today,
6:33
we should change approach. And what is interesting about that is that some
6:39
of the current strategies have been focused on replacing the service desk basically by shifting
6:46
left right. But this means putting all the burden of that on the actual
6:51
employees and personally. You know, shift less is an important thing and something
6:58
that as an intermediary step we should support as an industry, but it shouldn't
7:03
be our final goal. It shouldn't be a final goal to put all of
7:08
this effort on the employees. Right. Our final goal should be to completely
7:12
get rid of problems, any incidents and all of that. And you know,
7:16
we can achieve that by first of all, moving to a proactive approach
7:21
really avoiding the problems in the first place. And on top of moving to
7:27
this reactive proactive approach is also about, you know, when we detect something,
7:30
being able to resolve that very very quickly and in an automated way,
7:35
or at least as automated as possible. Now there's another point, right when
7:41
you look at tickets and service desks, many of the requests are not actual
7:46
problem to what we call service requests, right, these employees needing something.
7:50
And then that's another point that I think has been a little bit underestimated,
7:54
because why should I need to open a ticket if I need an application?
8:00
Right? I mean, the system should be smart enough to understand that if
8:05
I'm trying to access an application that they don't have access to, or if
8:09
there's an application that everybody that has the same person as me I'm not saying
8:13
my colleagues, but the same person as me, they need should provision that
8:15
automatically or at least ask me, do you think you need this? Or
8:18
we believe actually, even better, we believe that you might have a benefit
8:22
using this. So I think as we look at that in the future,
8:26
it's also about how do we make sure that we move to a behavior based
8:31
model where not only we avoid the problems, but we also anticipate needs and
8:35
fulfill them in an automated way. Yeah, I went back and watched your
8:41
experience everywhere, you know, a couple of times to pull out that one
8:45
specific point and the demo that you did. The example of a customer who
8:48
clicks on an application I can, they don't get they don't have access routes
8:54
the manager, the approval gets provisioned, that gets back to the employee,
8:56
and I've highlighted that for several both customers as well as colleagues, and the
9:01
intrigue is definitely there to talk about and to see that come to life where
9:07
it's behavior based provisioning versus request based provisioning. It's the same concept as it
9:13
is with incident management. Why don't you just know that I had a problem?
9:16
And when I was in it, I had so many of our customers
9:20
at Hartford say, especially new hires, you guys are an it. Why
9:24
don't you just know what I need? Why is it that I have to
9:26
tell you what I'm in the business. I don't know what I need.
9:28
I'm a new hire. Why don't you just know and I think we're really
9:33
on the road to starting to get there. It's it's a really cool direction.
9:37
So to expand on that a bit with all and you mentioned a couple
9:41
of the small not small, a couple of the individual accomplishments in terms of
9:46
our product set last year. Do you expect more of the same this year,
9:50
more innovation, more new product, more evolution or is it really about
9:56
circling the wagons on what we've done and making the existing products better? What
10:03
are we we're going to continue to evolve or or what's the share look like?
10:07
Well, it's both right. Overall, we set really solid foundations with
10:13
Infinity, and in many of the feature set and the things that we do
10:16
and some of the products that we have out there today, we're reaching a
10:20
certain level of maturity right where the product is delivering on the on the value
10:24
that we expect it to deliver it and it's doing that with a with a
10:26
great user experience in a way that is very smooth. So we will continue
10:33
to invest on some of those things, but probably at a slower pace,
10:35
but we still want to see progress in those areas. But I think maybe
10:39
the part that is the most interesting is is everything that is related to AI.
10:45
Right, we build infinity from the very beginning with AI in mind.
10:50
So we build this platform that has an incredibly solid foundation in the ability to
10:56
collect the data put everything together. We invent a NQL because we wanted a
11:01
standard that way to access all of these very rich data sets on which we
11:05
could build upon as a foundational thing. And then we invested into all the
11:09
security and data privacy considerations that are so important for that. And when you
11:16
look at that type of investment, that's you know, eighty percent of the
11:18
cost of putting in place AI is actually on those foundations. Right When you
11:22
look at the aipiece itself, it's just a tip of the icebergs, the
11:26
part that is actually visible, right, but it relies on all of these
11:30
technology underneath. And so now that we have this platform, and at the
11:35
same time there's been so much advancement in certain of the AI components that have
11:39
become really commodity, I think we can really start to adopt throughout the platform.
11:43
And an example of that is next Think assists. Right. With assists,
11:48
we want to make sure that everybody can use the product in an easier
11:52
way. We want to reduce the complexity of using next income, getting value
11:56
out of next in producing the amount of training that needed for some of the
12:01
most advanced concept around the platform. And I'm really much looking forward to the
12:05
launching general availability that I'm sure will happen in the first half of the year.
12:11
But then there are also other things where we're invested quite a bit and
12:15
I'm excited to see a conclusion. Right for instance, the new Alert hub
12:18
that was a fundamental piece that we introduced with Infinity, and now we're enriching
12:24
it with AI insights based on data from eighteen million end points out there in
12:31
the cloud. So we're able to detect problems across the data from all of
12:33
our customers and then map those problems within a specific environment and you know,
12:41
so just a solution for those particular things. And this will be part of
12:45
the new Alert tab next year. So that's very exciting because it will take
12:50
this problem detection and resolution completely to a different level. So, yeah,
12:54
there are so many things that we're going to invest in and so much excitement
12:58
that is going to come out into an before very cool, very awesome conversation.
13:05
Sam. Hey, this is Megan. Thank you so much for coming
13:07
on the show again. It's so good to have you. It's so interesting
13:11
to hear your unique insights on all our products. And I was lucky enough
13:15
to be at the Boston Experience event this year, so I got to watch
13:18
your key out with Pedro where you announced Flow to the North America audience,
13:22
and I could also kind of walk around the event afterwards, and you could
13:26
really feel the excitement about Flow. Right, everyone's so excited by this new
13:31
product, so excited by this new capability and everything it offers. So as
13:33
we look forward to twenty twenty four thinking about Flow specifically, what's the roadmap
13:39
for that product? What can people get excited about? Oh, we have
13:43
so much stuff that is coming there. So when you look at Flow right
13:48
now today, where it really shines is setting the fundamentals right and we call
13:54
that evergreen. There are other names for that, but it's really about making
13:58
sure that your environment is in a continuous green and working state where all the
14:05
services are up and running, all the requirements are working in an ideal way,
14:11
and all of that now in a few months, what is coming is
14:13
really was I was talking about before around the foundation, that we need to
14:18
move to behavior based the service fulfillment if you want. And this is mainly
14:24
three functionalities that are coming. The first one is a stream based approach to
14:30
be able to trigger workflows, and this means being able to listen to specific
14:35
events that are coming from the endpoint or from the ecosystem and react in real
14:39
time to those events. The example that I give that experience is you know,
14:43
being able to see that the user is accessing a specific application and within
14:46
a few seconds being able to trigger your workflow based on that. But there
14:50
are many other examples re respect to that. So that's the first one,
14:52
this stream based approach. The second one is lowering the bar even more when
14:58
it comes to the complexity of creating a workflow. And what we notice is
15:03
that, you know, there is a ton of value when you start to
15:07
interact not only within the next thing, but also all the components that make
15:11
up the IT ecosystem, right, and for that we're packaging a very rich
15:15
catalog of connectors where just by jug and job you're going to be able to
15:20
bring all of these products together within the same workflow. And it is possible
15:24
today, right, but you need to write a little bit of Jason.
15:26
It can get a little bit complicated, so we really want to lower the
15:30
bar in terms of complexity. And finally, we want to continue building our
15:35
library and really putting together this very big catalog that on one end will serve
15:43
as a showcase of what is possible and what is recommended. And this is
15:48
even about idea generation, right, what are the the opportunities that you have
15:52
to generate value within that? And the second will even further decrease the complexity
15:56
because if you can start with a template rather than starting from scratch, then
16:00
it's even easier, right, And we have planned investment across all of these
16:03
three ares. Then obviously there's more that we're going to do governance and the
16:07
UX and reporting and all of that, but I would say those three are
16:11
the most impact on impactful one at least from a value generation perspective. Amazing,
16:17
amazing. So it's just going to get easier and easier to do more
16:19
and more with flow for customers. Pretty cool. Okay, So then thinking
16:25
about flow was maybe one of the more exciting announcements, but it certainly wasn't
16:29
the only one of the last year, and you know, at the end
16:32
of the year, it's hard to think back, but like Amplify came out
16:33
in twenty twenty three, and Infinity came out twenty twenty two, but this
16:37
was really the year of Infinity. So if we're thinking about all of the
16:41
other things we released this year, what are some significant planned milestones for these
16:45
in terms of availability and iteration going forward twenty twenty four. Once again,
16:53
I think, you know, we're going to have progress across the board the
16:56
alertab assist and to continue to invest into network visibility. By the way,
17:03
so we're reaching general availability with network connectivity, we will be by far the
17:11
most complete ex solution on the market when it comes to being able to understand
17:15
all of these complex connectivity ecosystems with a hybrid between a PVCIX, a PV
17:21
four connections going to data centers and the Internet and some of the Internet that
17:26
people still have, So all of that, you know, and as icing
17:30
on the cake, we're going to have the network activity view that is coming
17:34
as part of that is definitely something that I'm looking forward to in that particular
17:40
direction. And then you know, I was mentioning about this AI side,
17:45
So what we're looking at is really investing throughout the platform to bring insights within
17:49
the data that we show. So today you can build all these incredible dashboards
17:55
and visualizations and queritedit in real time and get all of these answers. Right.
18:00
But I think the next step for people is tell me the conclusion,
18:03
tell me the insights, tell me what this means. Don't let me have
18:07
to spend the time to try to figure that out myself. Right, And
18:12
we're reaching this level now, right. We did an innovaton within the engineering
18:18
department. We actually had to limit the number of participants because we had more
18:22
than twenty teams that wanted to participate. But you know, as a jury,
18:26
we would have taken us forever to go through all of that, so
18:29
we limited that to twenty and basically eighty percent of those were ideas related to
18:36
bringing insights and additional knowledge through AI within the platform. And that was so
18:41
exciting, and you know, the opportunities there are just huge to completely change
18:45
the game when it comes to consuming next thing and getting value out of the
18:48
solution. And for the rest, you know, just expect value across the
18:52
board. We're not forgetting by the way of the importance of governance when it
18:56
comes to the platform in terms of security, accessibility and all of these things
19:02
that are absolutely fundamental as well as some of the things that are really important
19:06
today for the industry. Right. I think when you look at everything that
19:11
is happening, there is this concept of a digital sobriety that is becoming more
19:17
and more important. Right. So the idea that you need to be very
19:21
efficient in what you do, and you need to have a really this concept
19:26
of driving things knowing where you're spending your money. Right. An example of
19:32
that is understanding which software licenses you're consuming and making sure that the tools that
19:37
you're deployed are really used. Another example is this concept that I absolutely love
19:41
around the circular computing. Right. The majority of the CO two emissions and
19:45
also the spend come from changing harder, Right, So what if we could
19:49
recycle harder and use it and extend the life cycle. So the whole aspect
19:55
around the sustainability and green a tea that is becoming very very important, and
20:02
we want to continue investing into that, definitely for a tea and then user
20:06
computing. But I believe with next thing, we have opportunities even outside of
20:10
that, really to go and help the CSR teams with the huge challenges and
20:15
opportunities that they're in front of them in twenty twenty twenty four. All of
20:22
these are amazing. I SAMD in a here can you share any insights into
20:27
new products that users will be able to see and actually use across twenty twenty
20:33
four some snippets and sneak picks. Look, let me tell you we're working
20:41
on four new exciting products now. One of them next thing, dot Ai,
20:48
was announced by period Experience Everywhere, and this is definitely something that we're
20:55
very, very very excited about. I believe that this concept of completely democratic
21:00
decks, not only for I TA, but for anybody and everyone in the
21:04
company is absolutely, absolutely fantastic. For the other three products, I actually
21:14
cannot say anything about that, right, but I encourage everyone to take a
21:18
look register for Experience Everywhere twenty twenty four because that's probably where we're going to
21:23
unveil some of that innovation. Exciting. Cannot wait until the end of the
21:30
year gets in then, yeah, sorry, it's a little bit of a
21:33
long wait, right. I would love to be able to say, tune
21:37
into the next episode in a month and we're going to tell you all about
21:41
that, But you're going to have to be a little bit more patient.
21:44
It's exciting times. It's going to be worth the wait as always, And
21:48
what about R and D at next thing? Which areas are we focusing on
21:52
here and why? Well, one of them is what we've always been focusing
21:59
on, scale, performance, speed. You know, we're doing great today
22:04
by the way, we expect to that, but there is also a lot
22:07
of growth that is coming within our customer base, and we want to make
22:11
sure that the experience of the product continues to remain the same and we continue
22:18
to be fast, efficient and you know, really providing this snappy experience while
22:22
consuming next thing, which is part of a little bit of of our culture
22:26
and everything that we want to provide. And then the other one is you
22:30
know you probably heard about continuous integration and continuous delivery, right, and that's
22:37
something that many software companies are moving towards, and it's something that we're also
22:42
invested in that and we've been for a while. And there is a little
22:45
bit of a debate when it comes to that, right because when you're in
22:48
the large enterprise space, people don't necessarily want to have new features every single
22:55
day, right, They want to be able to have some level of control.
22:59
So we looking at how do we bring a continuous delivery in this large
23:03
enterprise universe in a way that is compatible on one end with us delivering more
23:08
value more quickly, which is something that obviously everybody wants, but on the
23:14
other end also understanding that you know, in this space, people want to
23:18
be able to know what to expect and what is coming and all of that.
23:23
So we're trying to figure out what is the best way to bring that
23:27
being conscious of these too objectives that sometimes they're a little bit contradictory between with
23:33
each other. Obviously, the foundation of all of that is the highest level
23:37
of quality. Right we see many companies that are doing that and lowering the
23:41
bar, and that's definitely something that we don't want to do. If anything,
23:45
we want to we want to raise the bar when it comes to coming
23:48
up with the outmost level of quality. Well, I mean, I couldn't
23:52
We couldn't have had a better guess to get us going for the New years.
23:56
This is sounds like really really exciting. Yeah, ahead of us from
24:00
your perspective of all of those things you named, or even if it's something
24:03
else, Well, what excites you most about this year? Where do you
24:07
wait? What gets you going look personally, Infinity is where we want it
24:17
to be right now, Right, It's a dream that started three four years
24:19
ago and now now it's done. You know, it's it's achieved. So
24:26
what I'm actually very excited about is that all of these engineers that have spent
24:30
the last three years working on Infinity. Guess what work They're gonna go on
24:37
holidays? No, actually they should, right, But on top of that,
24:42
they will put a lot of their time into net new innovation, right,
24:48
and and that's absolutely fantastic. You know, we want to take dex
24:51
to the next level. We want to continue to define this category, and
24:55
I believe that we have the right people to do that. We have now
24:57
the right platform to do that, and especially we have this amazing customer base
25:03
that is being helping and advising and guiding us. We establish some really strong
25:08
relationships there and you know, I'm sure they will continue to do that.
25:11
So we have these three fundamental ingredients to take us to the next level,
25:17
and then really looking forward to see where where where we can go and how
25:19
far we can go. Absolutely brilliant. You truly were our appetites, Sam,
25:25
and a pleasure to have you on the show for a second time.
25:26
I have a feeling you're going to be our first third returning guest as well,
25:30
So thank you so much. Let's all have a great year. Hey,
25:33
thank you for having me. Thank you great. Thank you. To
25:37
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