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June 25, 2024

Inside Dell Tech World 2024 with Roberto Cortez

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What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas when you’re talking about Dell Tech World. What’s it like to shape the future amongst so many innovators and technologies? This week on Catalyst, Dell’s Global Client Executive, Roberto Cortez, has your inside look. Check out the highlights below, then dive into the full episode to learn more.

Going beyond the hype of AI

No surprise, AI was a main topic in every discussion, from hardware enhancements to software capabilities. While AI conversations are happening everywhere, everyone at Dell Tech World 2024 was careful to discern between genuine innovation and hype. Forget theoretical discussions — the real impact of AI is evident in real-world use cases across industries such as finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and automotive. For example, in healthcare, AI is revolutionizing post-operative cancer treatment by enhancing the accuracy of biopsies and reducing the need for follow-up surgeries. 

Simplifying the complex

In the pursuit of digital innovation, simplicity is often a complex challenge. Roberto likened it to military strategy: straightforward in concept but intricate in execution. Generative AI, for example, promises streamlined processes and optimized resources, but achieving these efficiencies requires meticulous planning and execution. Simplified operations allow companies to reinvest savings into enhancing customer experiences, which will drive additional revenue.

Future-ready innovations

Dell Tech World 2024 featured sessions on emerging technologies, strategic partnerships, and digital transformation. Highlights included quantum computing and the Internet of Things (IoT), underscoring Dell’s commitment to driving innovation and meeting evolving customer needs. Dell’s strategic alliance with NTT DATA is a perfect example of how partnerships can deliver end-to-end solutions and meaningful customer outcomes.

A commitment to sustainability

Sustainability was another major focus because companies that prioritize sustainability not only contribute to a healthier planet, but also gain a competitive market edge. Dell’s comprehensive approach demonstrates that sustainability is both a moral imperative and a strategic business decision. From bamboo-based laptop backpacks to green data centers and advanced cooling solutions, Dell is committed to reducing its environmental impact. Roberto highlighted Dell’s collaboration with NTT DATA, emphasizing initiatives to minimize energy consumption and promote sustainability. It’s proof that environmental responsibility and business success can go hand in hand.

As always, don’t forget to subscribe to Catalyst wherever you get your podcasts. We release a new episode every Tuesday, jam-packed with expert advice and actionable insights for creating digital experiences that move millions.

sources
Podcast
June 25, 2024

Inside Dell Tech World 2024 with Roberto Cortez

What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas when you’re talking about Dell Tech World. What’s it like to shape the future amongst so many innovators and technologies? This week on Catalyst, Dell’s Global Client Executive, Roberto Cortez, has your inside look. Check out the highlights below, then dive into the full episode to learn more.

Going beyond the hype of AI

No surprise, AI was a main topic in every discussion, from hardware enhancements to software capabilities. While AI conversations are happening everywhere, everyone at Dell Tech World 2024 was careful to discern between genuine innovation and hype. Forget theoretical discussions — the real impact of AI is evident in real-world use cases across industries such as finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and automotive. For example, in healthcare, AI is revolutionizing post-operative cancer treatment by enhancing the accuracy of biopsies and reducing the need for follow-up surgeries. 

Simplifying the complex

In the pursuit of digital innovation, simplicity is often a complex challenge. Roberto likened it to military strategy: straightforward in concept but intricate in execution. Generative AI, for example, promises streamlined processes and optimized resources, but achieving these efficiencies requires meticulous planning and execution. Simplified operations allow companies to reinvest savings into enhancing customer experiences, which will drive additional revenue.

Future-ready innovations

Dell Tech World 2024 featured sessions on emerging technologies, strategic partnerships, and digital transformation. Highlights included quantum computing and the Internet of Things (IoT), underscoring Dell’s commitment to driving innovation and meeting evolving customer needs. Dell’s strategic alliance with NTT DATA is a perfect example of how partnerships can deliver end-to-end solutions and meaningful customer outcomes.

A commitment to sustainability

Sustainability was another major focus because companies that prioritize sustainability not only contribute to a healthier planet, but also gain a competitive market edge. Dell’s comprehensive approach demonstrates that sustainability is both a moral imperative and a strategic business decision. From bamboo-based laptop backpacks to green data centers and advanced cooling solutions, Dell is committed to reducing its environmental impact. Roberto highlighted Dell’s collaboration with NTT DATA, emphasizing initiatives to minimize energy consumption and promote sustainability. It’s proof that environmental responsibility and business success can go hand in hand.

As always, don’t forget to subscribe to Catalyst wherever you get your podcasts. We release a new episode every Tuesday, jam-packed with expert advice and actionable insights for creating digital experiences that move millions.

sources

Podcast
June 25, 2024
Ep.
439

Inside Dell Tech World 2024 with Roberto Cortez

0:00
34:23
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/2a379a2b-d3cf-4db6-bc5c-7d6e8a3dbb8f.mp3

What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas when you’re talking about Dell Tech World. What’s it like to shape the future amongst so many innovators and technologies? This week on Catalyst, Dell’s Global Client Executive, Roberto Cortez, has your inside look. Check out the highlights below, then dive into the full episode to learn more.

Going beyond the hype of AI

No surprise, AI was a main topic in every discussion, from hardware enhancements to software capabilities. While AI conversations are happening everywhere, everyone at Dell Tech World 2024 was careful to discern between genuine innovation and hype. Forget theoretical discussions — the real impact of AI is evident in real-world use cases across industries such as finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and automotive. For example, in healthcare, AI is revolutionizing post-operative cancer treatment by enhancing the accuracy of biopsies and reducing the need for follow-up surgeries. 

Simplifying the complex

In the pursuit of digital innovation, simplicity is often a complex challenge. Roberto likened it to military strategy: straightforward in concept but intricate in execution. Generative AI, for example, promises streamlined processes and optimized resources, but achieving these efficiencies requires meticulous planning and execution. Simplified operations allow companies to reinvest savings into enhancing customer experiences, which will drive additional revenue.

Future-ready innovations

Dell Tech World 2024 featured sessions on emerging technologies, strategic partnerships, and digital transformation. Highlights included quantum computing and the Internet of Things (IoT), underscoring Dell’s commitment to driving innovation and meeting evolving customer needs. Dell’s strategic alliance with NTT DATA is a perfect example of how partnerships can deliver end-to-end solutions and meaningful customer outcomes.

A commitment to sustainability

Sustainability was another major focus because companies that prioritize sustainability not only contribute to a healthier planet, but also gain a competitive market edge. Dell’s comprehensive approach demonstrates that sustainability is both a moral imperative and a strategic business decision. From bamboo-based laptop backpacks to green data centers and advanced cooling solutions, Dell is committed to reducing its environmental impact. Roberto highlighted Dell’s collaboration with NTT DATA, emphasizing initiatives to minimize energy consumption and promote sustainability. It’s proof that environmental responsibility and business success can go hand in hand.

As always, don’t forget to subscribe to Catalyst wherever you get your podcasts. We release a new episode every Tuesday, jam-packed with expert advice and actionable insights for creating digital experiences that move millions.

sources

Episode hosts & guests

Chris LoSacco

VP, Solution Architecture
Launch by NTT DATA
View profile

Roberto Cortez

Global Client Executive
Dell
View profile

Episode transcript

Roberto Cortez: Vegas two weeks in a row. Then it's, you know, it's...

Chris LoSacco: (Laughs) It's a lot of Vegas. 

(CATALYST INTRO MUSIC) 

Chris: Hello and welcome to Catalyst, the Launch by NTT Data podcast. I am Chris LoSacco, a VP here at Launch. Launch is a capability within NTT Data that is specifically designed to deliver digital product innovation. And we love building things with our clients and our partners that do really cool things on the internet. And speaking of cool things, today I am joined by a very special guest, Roberto Cortez from Dell Technologies. Roberto, I would love it if you could introduce yourself to the listeners and talk a little bit about your role at Dell. 

Roberto: I want to thank everybody that's taken the time to listen today. I am the Global Client Executive at Dell for the NTT account. I manage the account globally, and I've been in this role for about two and a half or three years. I've been with Dell almost five. One of the things that I will say from a background perspective is that I do not have a specific tech background. I spent 25 years in strategic consulting, most recently as a practice leader at Deloitte before Dell. I think that it's very relevant to the conversation that we are having nowadays around outcome-based focus on end user customers, not necessarily focusing on the hardware, on the bits and the bytes, but on what exactly it is that the customer is trying to accomplish, what they are trying to do, then, with their end user customers. And it allows us to really consult together and work in partnership with our different partners on making the end user customer happy with what they have bought, because it gets them the outcome that they are looking for. 

Chris: I love that you started there. It's so funny because it's a pretty big contrast, actually, to how I think of Dell, the company. You've gotta forgive me, because I'm sure that this is, like, sacrilege at this point. I think of the "dude, you're getting a Dell" campaign from the early 2000s, and I think of, like, the old-school, like '90s version of the XPS laptops that everybody had when they were getting their first laptop computer. But Dell of 2024 is pretty different, right? I mean, consumer hardware is like, one slice of the business, but Dell does a lot more than that now. And so I would love it if you could just talk a little bit about that. Like, what are the different parts of the business that Dell does right now? 

Roberto: From a Dell perspective, we are not the traditional Dell of the '80s. We are not just the laptops, or the... One of the things that I really appreciate about the work that we do with NTT is that I think NTT faces some of the same brand hurdles that we face. 

Chris: Mhm. 

Roberto: Is that, you know, we acquired EMC, we now do laptops, we do server, we do storage, we do services. So we do a little bit of everything. We provide that full end-to-end infrastructure stack that allows for the end user customer to get any outcome from an infrastructure perspective that they're looking for. So we are not laptops. But, at the same time, in our partnership with NTT, when you think of NTT, I think that the immediate thought goes to Telco, it goes to Japan. And that is exactly what NTT isn't. 

Chris: That's right. 

Roberto: You know, a slice of the pie is Telco, but they are everything else that sits on top of our infrastructure stack. And I think Abhijit Dubey said it best most recently, which is: 60% of global internet traffic travels over the NTT network. You have the third or fourth largest data center footprint globally. You are one of the largest global SIs now, competing with the other SIs that are the traditional service integrators. And when you think about what NTT can do, is that you really put everything that an end user customer wants, aside from infrastructure, under an umbrella. And that's why I talk about the uniqueness of the Dell-NTT relationship, which is, any outcome that a customer wants, we can deliver it between the two of us, and that is something that you don't see anywhere else in the marketplace. We just gotta let people know that we're not laptops and Telco. 

Chris: That's exactly right. We have very similar challenges. Yeah, I love that. Abhijit, who is our new global CEO, described us as the fourth or fifth largest IT services company that nobody knows about. (Laughs) Which is kind of funny. 

Roberto: Yeah, he said, the $30 billion company that changes the world every week and that nobody knows about. 

Chris: I would love to dive in to some of the things that were specifically coming out of the Dell Technologies World 2024 conference. So this was something that Dell held in Vegas, if I'm not mistaken, last month, that was all about sharing the latest news across the company and with partners. You had some pretty interesting special guests, but there was a lot... It seems like there was a lot that was covered at this conference. First of all, just general take - like, how was it? How was the experience, how was the conference overall?  

Roberto: It was fatiguing. 

Chris: (Laughs) I hear you.  

Roberto: (Laughs) I will be perfectly honest with you. So, NTT had its Americas sales kickoff in Vegas the week before. 

Chris: Yes, we did. 

Roberto: And I was fortunate enough to be able to go home for the weekend. But some of the NTT guys stayed in order to attend Dell Tech World in Vegas the week after. And we... You know, I think that every company's in the same boat, is that when we travel now, it's very budget-constrained. 

Chris: Yes. 

Roberto: Everyone is looking to make sure that they maximize every dollar that they spend. So when you're out of town, you're meeting from the second that you hit the ground until the minute that you leave. And that is breakfasts, meetings, lunch, meetings, happy hour, dinner, and then start it all over again. So it is four months' worth of meetings packed into one week. 

Chris: Yeah. Totally. 

Roberto: And it was... As tiring as it was, it was absolutely beneficial, absolutely worth it. And it is nice to kind of get back to pre-COVID times where we are meeting face to face. 

Chris: Yep. 

Roberto: Where we sit down and, at its most simple terms, having a burger and a beer together, and trying to figure out what we're doing together in the marketplace, and how we can make the end user customer happy with our joint product. 

Chris: Absolutely. So did AI come up at all?  

Roberto: What... What are you talking about? What is AI? 

Chris: (Laughs) Yeah. Right. 

Roberto: I don't think that there was anything that was talked about except for AI and gen AI. Obviously, from our announcements, our announcements were very hardware-oriented, I'm not going to get into it, but every storage array, every server, every laptop had a gen AI function. NVIDIA was there. You know, we heard from Jensen Huang a lot. 

Chris: The CEO. Yep. 

Roberto: The CEO of NVIDIA. But the great thing about all of these announcements that are very gen AI-centric is that it really touches everything else that the end user customer is thinking about. It touches on edge, it touches on cloud, it touches on sustainability. It touches on how to monetize data, how to protect data. And so, anything the customer's thinking about right now, if you start with a conversation around gen AI, even if they don't know what direction they want to move to, you can have an entire strategic session for an entire weekend, or an entire couple of days, just with that discussion originating with gen AI. 

Chris: Let me ask you this question. What do you feel like is real, and what do you feel like is hype? Because I don't think you're exaggerating when you say that AI was part of every discussion topic at this conference. And I will say from our sales kickoff, we also had a lot of discussion about AI solutions, how we are using them internally to make ourselves better, how we are using them with our clients, what our clients are asking for. It is at the top of everybody's list to talk about. But there's also a lot of stuff that's out there that's just cashing in on the hype cycle, it seems like, and not actually real, or going to make a difference to real end users. So I'm curious, like... Was there discussion about the things that are moving the needle and then the things that are not? Like, did that come up during this Dell Tech World? 

Roberto: It did not come up specifically in the presentations that we were given. But I think that, you know, this is no different than if you think about the dot com boom that we went through in early aughts. 

Chris: Yep. 

Roberto: I don't think it makes sense to try to point a finger at what's real and what is hype, because, is there going to be hype? Sure. But we're going to figure that out in a year, in five years or ten years, because that is going to be dependent on who made an investment, what did they make an investment in, and was it the right choice? I will say what is real is that the investment in the overall gen AI movement is absolutely real, and I think that the proof of that is in, just the use cases that we've already seen. You know, you think about finance, healthcare, manufacturing, automotive. We already have use cases where you're seeing process automation. Process optimization. Energy and resource management. You look at data center cooling, you look at individual cooling systems that we're starting to use. I'm bringing NTT up into this. NTT sponsors the IndyCar race. The gen AI that they… Use cases that they have for just how to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of each individual IndyCar team is a use case in and of itself that is now getting pushed out into different areas of automotive. So, it is real. The question, and this is where we really have to provide this outcome-based consultative approach is, who are the decision makers and who are they ultimately answering to? A lot of times we're talking to CFOs, or we're talking to CROs, CTOs, but the CFO is the ultimate decision maker, because they want to understand what the ROI is. Is it going to get paid back in a quarter? What is my short-term, you know, what am I going to see this quarter? Especially if they're a public company? What am I going to see this year? Am I going to make a huge investment but I'm not going to see the result until next year? They don't want to see that. So... 

Chris: Yep. 

Roberto: It's absolutely real. The outcomes that... And savings that companies are getting are absolutely real. The question is, what are the customer needs? How do you identify those needs? How do you identify what the TCO is, the ROI? How do you pilot this? If you don't go down that road, then it may end up being hype for your specific need, because you maybe blew the decision. 

Chris: Were there any specific examples that you feel like were especially effective or especially cool, as you heard about the different real-world use cases of artificial intelligence? 

Roberto: The use case that hit home the most was one that we are championing in APAC, and it was around healthcare, and it was, it had to do with... With cancer treatment. And using AI to help with post-op assessment of the success or failure of a surgery. Because, as anyone who has ever had a loved one that has gone through cancer treatment, or is going through it themselves, as soon as you have the operation, the first question that is asked by everybody is, did we get it all? 

Chris: Right. 

Roberto: Is there literally even one cell left that we have to follow up with an additional surgery for to make sure we get it out? Now, AI is helping with the biopsies, and instead of having a person go and count that, the AI is going and helping identify any potential cancer cells, is running through the first, second, third level of screening, and is either eliminating follow-up surgery or sussing out those biopsies that have to have an additional person look at it to make sure that, you know, the doctor is comfortable with it. But... I would say that that is the most impactful because that, it's not efficiency, it's not dollars, it's not anything other than the people that are in our lives. And helping us from that perspective. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Roberto: And I will say that on a personal note that was a little distressing, is that then we saw the full range of what the hospital can do with multiple use cases, which is, it starts using facial recognition the second that you walk into the hospital. And in a depressing note, it's actually very good at gauging age, and I thought I looked a lot younger than that. (Laughs) 

Chris: (Laughs) Oh my God. I didn't know where you were going with that. That's relieving and very funny. 

Roberto: But like, you know, I love the healthcare use case because, if you think about the frontline healthcare workers that are really overburdened right now from a work perspective, if you think about all the use cases that we have, let's start using edge applications where, the second an ambulance picks somebody up it starts collecting data, and that data is now immediately sent to the correct group of doctors, the correct group of nurses, if it's going to be an ER or something else. By the time that patient rolls in, they already have that data. And then, as that person's rolling in, facial recognition takes over and maybe they're already a patient. So all the records are already pulled up and sent to an edge device that the doctor has. And now you've just saved key minutes, potentially hours... 

Chris: Right. 

Roberto: ...That you're no longer having to spend in a waiting room. And then, you take that all the way through these potential post-op benefits that we're now seeing, and it really provides an end-to-end coverage for an individual that makes a significant impact on their health. And that, to me, is the ultimate use case that we can possibly have. 

Chris: And the fact that you're highlighting that... Some of these examples are really just about streamlining, making the experience smoother and easier, making things immediately accessible when you want them, versus having to wait. It's potentially life and death stakes in healthcare, but I think this is applicable to every industry, right? Every industry wants to think about, how do we smooth out our operations? How do we maximize efficiency? How do we think about how we are getting things in customers' hands right when they want it? And these are the kinds of use cases that the tooling and the infrastructure will start to provide as, you know, things get built out. But it's funny because people hear gen AI and they think, oh, it's ChatGPT, you know? Or Apple just announced that they are building it into the next version of iOS. And they think, oh, this is, like, a chatbot, or, like, a virtual assistant. But the reality is that the way that gen AI is going to show up is going to be very varied as you look across these different industry applications. And I love that, the cancer identification example that you highlighted, like, that's obviously a hugely impactful one. But I think, again, it applies to a lot of different industries. I mean, if you look at automotive, right? Like, Tesla announced that they completely retrained their full self-driving feature using a neural network, gen AI models. So it's really interesting to think about how this is going to be pervasive across a lot of different kinds of applications. 

Roberto: Yeah, I fully agree with that. And I will add on to what you said in terms of what people are thinking about with gen AI, because then there's the other extreme of, the robots are going to take over and take our jobs or ruin humanity. 

Chris: Yep. 

Roberto: The way that I think about it, not to get too meme-ish, is that I saw some posting on LinkedIn that said, I don't want gen AI to do my job so that I have time to clean my house and do my dishes. I want Gen AI to clean my house and do my dishes so I have time to do my job. And the example that I gave, I think, is a perfect illustration of that, which is... What we're doing with healthcare personnel is, we are taking away the mundane admin issues... 

Chris: Exactly. 

Roberto: ...That either keep them from doing their job, or distract them from doing their job as good as they potentially can. 

Chris: That makes a lot of sense to me. There was another interesting industry application that was talked about at Dell Tech World, I think, which was music. You had some, like, musicians that joined the conference, right? And talked about AI and music.  

Roberto: Yeah. And I didn't actually get to see that presentation. I heard about it afterwards. But what they then did is, you know, as a add-on or tangent to what I just talked about is that, they are not letting AI do some mundane tasks so that they can create their art. What they're saying is, now let me use this tool and let me make my art better or different. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Roberto: Maybe helping with adding a different spin to it, but using it as a tool. And not making the job now something that gen AI just does completely. So, using it as a benefit to get a better outcome. 

Chris: Right. 

Roberto: Or just a different outcome. 

Chris: Yeah, I thought it was interesting, I was reading, you know, the summary of the panel. And part of it was about generating music, right? These musicians generating music. And I think they were all a little wary, frankly, of using it for themselves or for others. But then they also talked about, like, using it to generate imagery or video, as, like, an accompaniment to their music. Which is kind of what you're hinting at, right? Like, ways to augment what you're doing rather than replace what you're doing. And I thought that was really fascinating. And I think that that... It applies to, you know, the arts for sure. But again, to tie it back to business and some of the cases that I think we see every day in our clients, it's these kinds of things where it's not necessarily replacing something you're doing, but it could be augmenting what you're doing in a way that, you know, is easy with a computer or a large language model that is difficult when you're using human energy. 

Roberto: So, my background is in finance and accounting. And when I first got started in my career, we were on the front end of starting to use laptops. Excel was really just coming on the scene, and there were a lot of older partners at my firm, I started at Pricewaterhouse, that were still missing the days of the eight-column ledger. 

Chris: (Laughs) Yeah, exactly. 

Roberto: And computers were going to ruin everything. Like, you know, those damn kids and their rock and roll! 

Chris: Yep. 

Roberto: And, did it fundamentally change the nature of how we do work? Yes. But again, what technology allowed us to do is, I can now do pivots, I can do embedded formulas. And I now have the time that I have freed up to use to actually get a better understanding of trends I might be seeing from a financial perspective, help the company understand what they need to change in order to do that, because I'm no longer writing things out. So, the risk with any technological change is assuming that the status quo won't change. And if you don't change with it, then you are going to get overrun. 

Chris: Right. 

Roberto: This goes back to what you asked about earlier, is it real or is it hype? So, if you ignore the issue and just assume everything's going to change, then you may get left behind. Or, if you buy into the quote-unquote hype and don't really think about how you're making your investment, and you don't monitor it every day and you don't make sure it's operationalized correctly, then you may lose a significant number of steps. But this is all happening, and it is absolutely a game-changer that... I don't think anyone can argue has changed the way that we do work every day. It changes the way that anybody graduated from college today has to rethink their career. But in so many good ways that I think outweigh the negatives. 

Chris: I agree with you. It is going to be a constant negotiation, right? And a back-and-forth, to decide how do we embrace this in a way that feels normal and natural and ethical? But also, knowing that we're tapping into this, like, immense power that just was not possible before. I think the analogy to, you know, paper ledgers to Excel is a great analogy. And we go through cycles in technology, and we're at the beginning stage of another cycle when it comes to gen AI. 

Roberto: Laptops and Excel did not eliminate a single job in finance or accounting. 

Chris: It just changed the landscape. 

Roberto: Correct. 

Chris: Yep. 

Chris: I wanted to touch on a couple other things. Sustainability. So, sustainability was a theme that I think came up a bunch and is something that Dell thinks quite a bit about, and I know NTT thinks quite a bit about, so I'm curious if you could share your thoughts on sustainability and what's at the forefront of, you know, responsible technology from a sustainability perspective? 

Roberto: One of the things that I really enjoy about working with NTT is that, you know, they are a Japanese-based company. They think decades in advance, and their sustainability goals are incredibly far-reaching. What we have done with NTT has worked very closely, because they're very broad goals. Dell has very broad goals. And so what we've done is really tried to work to understand where we overlap and how we can focus on this. From an NTT perspective, this involves green data centers, liquid cooling. You know, you guys do a lot of purchases from Dell and other vendors so you're very focused on the environmental impact of gear that you are upgrading. So, what kind of buybacks do we have? What kind of recycling programs? And you also want to understand what manufacturing practices your vendors use to make sure that we're starting to all use more green eco practices. I know that, from a Dell perspective, and I'm sure other vendors do this as well, something as simple as the backpacks that we use for laptops, now, are made with bamboo. And it's either 100% recycled or recyclable materials, or something that has a very low carbon footprint. 

Chris: Mhm. 

Roberto: Those are all the things that people are thinking about right now. Everything from, just the peripherals that we're using to the manufacturing process to what the energy footprint is. This is especially significant for NTT because you guys have, again, the third or fourth largest data center footprint. Anyone who's ever been to a data center, I think, which is probably one of the most amazing building tours I've ever had. But they create such an incredible amount of heat that you really can't understand it until you've been in it. So, how do we reduce that heat? There's liquid cooling that allows us to cool... You know, obviously fan cooling, then there's liquid cooling that allows us to cool the inside of a server. At our proof of concept data center in Singapore, I visited that maybe a month and a half ago, and I got to see our immersion cooling, where we actually take servers and completely immerse them in an oil-based liquid for 100% efficient cooling of the heat generated, whereas liquid cooling is more about 60%. But these are all things that NTT and other customers and partners are thinking about, because this is what our stakeholders want. This is what shareholders want. They want green companies. This is what ultimate end-user consumers want in terms of recyclability of the products they're buying, even from a retail or wholesale perspective. It's what the next generation wants, just in terms of sustainability of their overall planet. It is a business imperative because it is what the customer is asking for, not because it is necessarily the cheapest thing to do. 

Chris: I really appreciate that you framed it as, yes, this is good for the planet and a good human thing, but it is also good business. Because, at the end of the day, more and more, like, consumer dollars and buying dollars are going towards companies that care about their environmental impact. And care about their long-term sustainability. And that is changing the business landscape. It's not just an altruistic, hey, we want to make sure that, you know, things are better for future generations. Although that's obviously a good motivation too. But it's good business. And it's increasingly becoming good business to care about your environmental impact. So I really appreciate that you highlighted that. And then it sounds like it is, you know, something that is being talked about, you know, as these next-generation technologies get developed. I also wanted to comment on the data center thing you pointed out, with cooling and ways to better use heat. I remember that there was an article that came out last year... I don't think this was an NTT data center. I think it was an Amazon data center? But they were using the heat that was generated by the computers in the data center to heat homes. Like, they were sort of funneling the heat back into the town. I think it was in Ireland, I want to say? 

Roberto: Chris, I think you're just making things up now. It sounds like you're just... (Laughs) 

Chris: No, I swear to God. We will find this article and link it up in the show notes. 

Roberto: I absolutely believe what you're telling me. And the thing that I love is that, with these business imperatives that are coming out, is people just get much more creative in solving the problems. And, if you can solve a problem and create a revenue stream at the same time, why not do that? 

Chris: Exactly. This is the thing people are self-interested, right? Corporations are self-interested. But if you make it good business to solve some of these problems, then people are very innovative, you know? So I completely agree with you. 

Roberto: Necessity is the mother of all creation. 

Chris: There you go. Okay, the last thing I wanted to talk about with you is simplicity. And so, I had this note that... Something we see in our clients for sure, and I think maybe it was something that came up, is that the C-suite wants to simplify. So yes, there's a lot of new tech out there. There's a lot of new options. But there's also a new sort of movement, or a new swing of the pendulum to say, how do I make this simpler? I need to make this clean and clear and easy to manage. And, you know, I don't want something that is overly complicated. Again, this is something we certainly hear from our clients. And I was wondering if that's something you had a view on, or if that's... If that informs how Dell approaches, you know, some of the conversations that you have with your customers. 

Roberto: One of the things I'll point out here is, I'm a former Army guy, and so I read a lot of military history. And von Clausewitz, I think, said it the best, which is he said, everything in war is simple. The simple things are hard. And it's the same thing with business, is that, something like we were just talking about. Sustainability? Sustainability is simple. In concept. In execution, it's incredibly difficult. 

Chris: Right. 

Roberto: It's like, we see all the commercials about the easy button. We all know what needs to be done in order to drive more revenue, to drive more business, to get the customer the outcome that they want. But it's almost like the reverse of the 80/20 rule, which is that 20%, the simple stuff, takes 80% of your time. 

Chris: Yeah. 

Roberto: I agree with you that everybody is looking for simplicity, and this goes back to... Kind of like, the original talking point around generative AI is that simplicity is efficiency, it's optimization, it's better resource management. It is all the things that are going to make the processes more simple, and will give us the free time to then work on the core, or put our time towards the core things that we're actually trying to work on. But that streamlining is incredibly difficult, and that's why not everyone does it. Now, if you're able to get streamlining, risk management, resource management, cost optimization down, it gives you such a significant market advantage against the competition that you can then take any savings of time or money, and you can put that into the end user customer. So you can give a better price to the customer, you can give them additional benefits, you can invest in additional personnel that will support that account. So, that's where the simplicity comes from, because again, it makes good business. Not because we're going to just save more money and put it in our pockets, but because we're then going to reinvest it in the end user customer experience, which is then going to drive additional business and additional revenue. It's a circle. Or, you end that circle because you don't simplify, and your competition does. 

Chris: I very much relate to what you're saying, and I want to underscore that the savings that you get from operating your business more effectively can be funneled directly into thinking about the next generation of your business. This is something that we have actively coached our clients on. We call it run, transform, run. How do you, like, run your business more efficiently, use the savings there to transform your business, and then run the transformed business. This is really applicable to things like, you know, I'm on the mainframe and I gotta get to the cloud. Or I want a private cloud installation. We can help you get there. We can give you significant cost savings. And then, just as you're describing, Roberto, you take those cost savings and you say, how do I improve the interfaces that my employees are using, that my customers are seeing, that are ultimately affecting the end user experience? And then level everything up to evolve and iterate as you go forward on a new modern platform. It can sometimes take, you know, years to see through that strategy, but it's extremely effective. And it's a far better use of dollars than just saying, well, I'm on this legacy platform and there's no way off of it, so I just gotta keep throwing money at it. Because that is a losing proposition. And you will, your competition will come take your business because you're not keeping up with the times. 

Roberto: Building off of that, and pulling from an absolutely non-tech company, I'll plug a book that I just read. So there's a book called Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, and he was one of the partners that ran 11 Madison Park, which is a three-star Michelin restaurant in Manhattan. And his mindset was, our approach to the end user customer should be unreasonable. Their expectations should be unreasonable, and we should exceed them. And he liked to think about his budget as 95-five. Which is, I run my business based on 95% of my budget, and I save and I scrimp and I save pennies wherever I can so that I build a 5% pot to provide something unreasonable when the opportunity presents itself and when it makes sense. And he writes a story about how a German family came in, they had a couple of kids. It was Christmas season and it had started snowing, and this was the first time those kids had ever seen snow. And so he took some of that budget. He had one of his employees go down the street, buy three little toboggans, snow sleds. And then after the family got done, he hired a car, took them out to Central Park, and gave them an experience, you know, in freshly fallen snow. 

Chris: Oh my God. (Laughs) 

Roberto: And that is an unreasonable experience. You can't do it with everybody. But this is what simplicity allows us to do. So, efficiency, cost optimization, saving a penny here, saving a minute there, allows us then to spend time and/or money giving our customers the outcome and experience that they didn't expect because we were able to go above and beyond. And then you create, not only a story that other customers hear, but that customer will never forget, and they are loyal to you forever. 

Chris: That's right. That's exactly right. It's unforgettable. And you've got a customer for life, if you do something like that. So often with technology companies and software companies, the bar is so low. (Laughs) They're like, you know, just make sure our software doesn't go down. And, like, that's the... 

Roberto: And please respond to my email. (Laughs) 

Chris: Right. Right. And we as an industry can be doing so much better. And I love the idea of saying, we need to have unreasonable expectations for ourselves so that we are... Not just meeting our clients' expectations, but we're setting the bar high, and then we're exceeding them. It's something that we certainly endeavor to do at Launch, you know, my group within NTT Data, and I think in general, the company as a whole is all about, like, how do we... How do we overachieve? It's such a great story, and I love that you pointed it out. And now I want to go read that book. (Laughs) 

Roberto: I'll tell you what, Chris. Give me your contact information after this and I'll send it to you. 

Chris: Great. Alright. 

Roberto: I love passing along books that truly have an impact. I've probably got maybe another hour worth of reading left. I haven't finished the book yet, but it has absolutely changed the way that I'm approaching things, because our customers and our partners should expect that same unreasonable service. 

Chris: Absolutely. I think that's a perfect place to leave it, Roberto. Thank you so much for chatting with me and for giving me the rundown from Dell Tech World, and all things that are top of mind for you and for our partnership. And I want to remind everybody listening, if any of this piqued your interest, if... I guarantee you everybody's thinking, how does gen AI apply to my business and how could I get some help? We would love to talk to you. Please reach out to us. The email address is catalyst@NTTData.com and we would love to hear from you. Roberto, thanks again, and we will talk to you all soon. 

Roberto: I look forward to it. Thank you for making the time. 

Chris: All right. Bye bye. 

(CATALYST OUTRO MUSIC)

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