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HPE GREENLAKE: DIVING DEEP INTO THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Project partner

HPE GREENLAKE:

DIVING DEEP INTO THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE We speak to Erik Vogel, Global Vice President, Customer Experience at HPE to see how the global, edge-to-cloud Platform-as-a-Service company is transforming the customer journey with GreenLake to provide an ‘everything-asa-service’ offering…

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Andr ew Woo d s Cr ai g D ani els

HPE GREENLAKE

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or many sectors and enterprises,

the experience we are creating for our

the notion of a customer jour-

partners aligns to their expectations,”

ney, has been virtually non-ex-

explains Erik Vogel, Global Vice Pres-

istent until fairly recently. The digital landscape turned all of that on its head however,

ident, Customer Experience at HPE. Vogel leads the Customer Experience

and now the delivery of a seamless and

Area at HPE with regards to its Green-

painless customer journey can be make-

Lake solutions. “About a year-and-a-half

or-break for every business right now,

ago, I became part of the HPE GreenLake

regardless of sector. No more so, than in

team,” he tells us. “We’re really focused on

the sales of the very hardware, software

customer experience and I think of my-

and services that facilitate the digital realm.

self as something of a customer expe-

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is in the midst of a multi-year transformation to offering their entire portfolio as

rience zealot. I'm customer obsessed, which I have to be, in the markets we’re in.”

HPE has been offering a GreenLake-

a service by 2022. This is no small feat,

type model for the past ten years and it

as HPE is a large company offering serv-

was last summer during HPE’s Discover

ers, storage, networking, consulting and

event that Antonio Neri, the HPE CEO,

support as well as financial services. To

made the announcement that the comp-

successfully navigate this pivot, HPE has

any was pivoting to an everything-as-

embraced the importance of a customer’s

a-s ervice company. HPE GreenLake

journey through its many offerings and

brings the cloud experience to apps

services.

and data everywhere, enabling speedy

And HPE is focused on delivering a better

adoption of transformative technol-

customer experience by gaining insights

ogy to simplify operations. GreenLake

from both direct sellers and partners. The

delivers public cloud services and infra-

customer experience needs to extend to

structure-as-a-service on premise, fully

anyone who interacts with the customer,

managed in a pay-per-use model at the

regardless of the logo on their badge. “We

edge, in colocations, and in the client’s

spent time with our key partners like CBTS

data center. “We’re offering everything

that really informed us about the expe-

we have as a service underneath the HPE

rience they need to be successful. We

GreenLake brand,” Vogel explains. “We

lear-ned a lot from these discussions, and

are moving beyond just selling hardware

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HPE GREENLAKE

in a consumption model, to providing it as

loying any of the hardware or software

a true end-to-end service.”

required for the service.”

“As part of the end-to-end service, we

According to Vogel, when we think about

can extend the service to include soft-

as-a-service and how customers want

ware from leading providers. For example,

to consume and use as-a-service solutions,

we can add leading back-up and recov-

it's no longer about speeds and feeds;

ery software from Commvault or Veeam,

a faster processor or a faster server. “Now

on top of our GreenLake infrastructure

it's all about the experience and the out-

to provide a SaaS like experience for our

come,” he claims. “So, we've recognized

customers. In this model, we can give

we need to think differently about how

them a true as-a-service experience, for

we talk and interact with customers, to

backup and recovery, without the cust-

really get that customer obsessed view,

omer every having to worry about dep-

to provide that service with an experience 5

CBTS Client Benefits with HPE GreenLake Solution CBTS is an HPE Platinum and Inner Circle Partner with a strategic relationship in place for 30+ years.

CBTS generates over $1 billion in revenue annually by supporting over 3,000 clients in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. CBTS employs 2,000 highly skilled associates holding 260 HPE technical and sales certifications across the entire HPE and Aruba portfolios

THE GREENLAKE PARTNERSHIP: CBTS, HPE

over-provisioning, enabling the client to

AND A GLOBAL ASSET MANAGEMENT FIRM

have instant access to capacity for business

A global asset management firm turned

growth, and most importantly align the

to CBTS for assistance when refreshing

cost of IT infrastructure to the client’s busi-

their data center infrastructure for mul-

ness usage and technology requirements.

tiple locations in the United Kingdom THE IMPACT: A 5 year partnership between THE STORY: A US-based, global integrated

the client, HPE, and CBTS represented by an

asset management company focused on real

HPE GreenLake service agreement executed

estate, credit, equity, and other financial as-

via the HPE GreenLake for Partners program.

sets that serves clients across North America,

The resulting solution for this client is a mod-

Europe, Asia, and Latin America approached

ern, optimized, and agile data center based on

their CBTS support team to assist in address-

an innovative pay-for-use service platform with

ing a challenge for their business. The client

immediate access to on-premises variable ca-

had a need to refresh their data center infra-

pacity ensuring a sustained business outcome.

structure for multiple locations in the United Kingdom. With past refresh projects requiring

WHY CBTS

a significant amount of capital, the client was

The extensive HPE portfolio of products and

seeking an innovative and collaborative solu-

services is critical to our ability to assemble

tion through CBTS. A partnership with CBTS

comprehensive, valuable, and innovative IT

and HPE was required to deliver a solution with

solutions for our clients. By taking advantage

the latest technology, sized effectively to sup-

of HPE certifications, local training events, HPE

port the client needs, and structured to align the

Discover, and webinars our CBTS team is

costs of the refresh and new IT infrastructure

always at the forefront in understanding the

to the business usage. The partnership journey

latest products and innovations available

began with a discovery discussion, assess-

from HPE. Our clients benefit from the CBTS

ment, multiple technology review sessions,

HPE subject matter expertise and our exten-

sizing discussions, platform reviews, a trip to

sive experience in delivering HPE solutions

HPE Discover, and a comprehensive review of

across multiple industries in the global market-

the HPE GreenLake solution.

place. CBTS greatly values our relationships and access to HPE executives, our executive

THE SOLUTION: A thorough review of the

sponsor, partner business managers, and other

client’s IT requirements and technology needs

strategic resources. Our relationship with

determined that the new infrastructure would

HPE enables CBTS to support our valued clients

be optimized by a combination of HPE Synergy,

and earn their business in the most complex

HPE 3PAR, and HPE StoreOnce. The solution

situations while maintaining a trusted advisory

was delivered via an HPE GreenLake service

relationship over the long term.

agreement to eliminate the extensive cost of

“It's very difficult to lay out a CX transformation or a CX journey without understanding where you are today? What does it look like today? Where do you want to get to?

What are the customers saying? What are they looking for from you? What do they need from you?”

— ERIK VOGEL G L O B A L V I C E P R E S I D E N T, CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, HPE

that our customers are demanding. My

some hardware in and let them try it. But in

role is to really focus on the experience.

the services world, it becomes a do-it-them-

Are we providing the right experience?

selves model. They want to kick the tires;

Are we delivering the outcome that our

they want to try and test things. They want

customers are looking for?”

to talk to other developers, or they want

One of the first things HPE tried to under-

to talk to other data scientists about what

stand in terms of the customer journey

they're doing in a community forum. They

was how a customer navigates through

want to pose questions.”

“the awareness phase”; how they learn about the HPE GreenLake service, whether that's through marketing or social media channels or communities or forums.

Once through the awareness phase, customer move into a conversion phase, where “Now they've heard about it and they're going through, ‘Is it going to work for me, and do I want to buy it?’ And ultimately making a buying decision and thinking differently about what types of content, collateral and information clients need in the as-a-service world. In our traditional transaction world, we'd send a seller out with a PowerPoint deck or we'd drop 8

HPE GREENLAKE

The next stage of HPE’s investigations into

when I order a pizza, why can't I see my

its customer journey centred around the

order status real time when I've ordered

purchase process. How do they want to

a HPE GreenLake solution?’”

buy? “You think about services, now you

As HPE reconsidered both the conver-

buy with a credit card swipe or an app on

sion and the purchase processes, it organ-

your phone. Even though maybe it's not a

ically led to the building of an experience

direct competitor of ours, one of the things

that its customers were expecting once

we've learned about experience is we're

they’d bought it. How could they stand

now being judged across the broad set of

that up and think differently about getting

experiences our customers interact with.

the infrastructure right? “Customers want

It's no longer just competing against Dell

things fast,” says Vogel. “One of the key

and Lenovo and saying we have a better

pillars of our experience is speed, and

experience than Dell. We have to have an

we don't have time to take 90, 120 days

experience that's on a par with Uber, Apple

to go build hardware and put it through

and Disney, and some of the big banks.

our supply chain and get it to a customer.

Our customers are saying, ‘Hey, if I can

Because they want this as-a-service, the

see my delivery status real time on Domino’s

expectation is ‘we want it right away’. So,

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we had to start rethinking that operating

expecting? And bringing in that voice of

process; that end-service that's delivering

the customer to start rethinking what this

an outcome.”

experience needs to look like. We started

The final phase of research and devel-

with understanding the journey map, and

opment involved a focus on ‘renewal and

really defining the journey a customer is on

a growth’. HPE is determined that the cust-

with these six stages we're using: aware-

omer should be “so happy and so delighted

ness, conversion, purchase, initiate, oper-

that they continue to buy it over and over

ate, grow/renew. And that was the first

and add to it because it's been such a

step in really understanding that this is diff-

good experience. “My job has been to

erent to the journeys our customers typi-

understand that end-to-end process and

cally go on if they're buying a transactional

start to rethink how we approach these

product. So, the first step was to lay that out.

six different journey stages our custom-

“The second step was to get the data

ers are going through, relative to what the

and the analytics behind it. It's very difficult

industry’s doing? What are our customers

to lay out a CX transformation or a CX

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HPE GREENLAKE

journey without understanding where you

fast, and whether this is from what they're

are today? What does it look like today?

used to in cloud or SaaS providers that

Where do you want to get to? What are the

they've gotten accustomed to where they

customers saying? What are they look-

can go and sign up and, in a day, or two,

ing for from you? What do they need from

it's up and running. They don't have to buy

you? So, we started with some customer studies commissioned by analysts. We did some of our own customer feedback where we went out and talked to customers and started to bring that together to get a good handle on what customers are looking for from an experience. What would be a great experience in our customers’ minds?”

“ B eing customer-centric, means we’ve got to be listening, watching and understanding what our customers are doing” —

ERIK VOGEL G L O B A L V I C E P R E S I D E N T, CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, HPE

Customer experience is perceived, and only the customer can decide if it was a good

hardware and deploy things; they get it

experience or not.”

right away. Or cloud, where they really

As a product company, one of the funda-

could swipe a credit card if they wanted

mental shifts or insights HPE gleaned was

to and have an environment in 10 minutes.

to look beyond speed-to-market by flipping

But speed was paramount because their

the telescope to focus on the customer’s

businesses are accelerating and getting

end view. “When we move to this as-a-ser-

more competitive. The business cycles

vice or the CX model, it's really about

are shortening. What used to be a slow

starting with the customer in view,” Vogel

cycle business is now standard cycle, and

explains. “What's the value we can add to

what's standard cycle is now fast cycle,

the customer? Where do they want to get

and what is fast cycle is hyper fast cycle.

value, because it's not about that faster

Or business cycles are compressing from

server, it's about value to the customer.”

18 months to 12 months to six months, so

A result of commissioning these cust-

they have to work much faster. So, as a

omer viewpoint studies, Vogel and his team

result, speed was critical. We recognize

established what they refer to as their

that a key component of the experience

three North Star principles; the first one

we had to provide was speed and think-

being speed. “So, customers want things

ing about not just whether the processors 13

and equipment is fast, but the end-to-end

for example?’ What kept coming up was,

journey from ‘OK, I've heard about it. Now

‘It's easy. It's simple. It's standardized. It's

I want to test it, I want to demo it, I want

intuitive.’ Whether it's learning about the

to try it. I want to make sure it's going to

service, getting a price for the service,

meet my needs. I want to buy it, I want it

operating the service, provisioning some-

deployed, I want to be operating it and

thing from an operations perspective,

generating value.’ Because every day we

we had to think about each stage of that

delay in getting them that solution, we are

journey and say, ‘How do we make that

delaying the value they're going to cre-

easier and lower effort for our customer?’

ate from that solution. So, speed is critical.”

And understanding that the task of our

The second principle is what Vogel calls

customer is not just operating the envi-

‘low effort’. “So, in the CX world, we talk

ronment, but a customer may come in and

about effort or ease. We have to make

say, ‘Hey, will this interact with my other

things simpler and easier, and when we

environments? And I want to learn about

talk to customers about, ‘Hey, what do

that.’ Or ‘I want to get a price for this solu-

you love about your cloud experience,

tion. I don't want to take a month waiting

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So, we had to think about low-effort, and that was another key component in how we make things easy across every stage of the journey and reduce the amount of effort in the task that our customers are working on. Every interaction has a goal associated with it. They're doing it for some reason, and how do we make it easier to reach that goal?”

The third ambition represented the provision of differentiated value. HPE did not want to go out and declare themselves

conversion and purchase, traditionally

another Amazon Web Services, Microsoft

we've done that in an analogue motion.

Azure or Google Cloud. “We have to really

By that I mean we send a seller out with

focus on what we do well. What is our busi-

a PowerPoint deck or we do a traditional

ness, and how can we differentiate and

sales call. In the as-a-service world, cust-

provide value in ways that those other

omers want to do a lot of it themselves.

cloud providers cannot do or SaaS provid-

So, we had to create a whole digital front

ers cannot do; including our traditional

door where customers can come in and

competitors, the Dells or Lenovos of the

learn about HPE GreenLake. They could

world. How do we continuously provide

read testimonials, join communities and

that differentiated value? Those quickly

get a price for the purchase process. They

became our North Star principles. So,

can estimate their own price by filling in

we have this journey we built. We talked

a few details about the size of their envi-

to customers, we established those North

ronment and what they're looking for. We

Star principles that it has to be fast, it has

started to simplify and digitize that aware-

to be easy, and has to provide differen-

ness conversation and purchase process.”

tiated value, and those were absolutely critical.”

“When we think about awareness and

HPE then started to harness the customer feedback to understand what, and why, things were happening within the 15

“I think my favorite quote on this whole CX thing is what Walt Disney said. He said, “Do what you do so well that your customers will come back and they’ll bring a friend.’”

— ERIK VOGEL G L O B A L V I C E P R E S I D E N T, CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, HPE

GreenLake experience. Vogel and his

platform. And that will be a key component

team deployed Qualtrics as a CX plat-

as we're continuing to grab and gather that

form and data aggregation platform. “We

customer data.”

were already good at what I would call

Integral to the development of any

the operational data. So, we would see

successful customer journey is feedback.

how many people would click and how

What do the customers think? What do

much time they would spend on the site.

the customers want? HPE is continu-

We had good visibility into what was

ing its interaction with clients to finesse

happening. What we didn't have visi-

its offerings. “Being customer-centric,

bility into was why it was happening. So,

means we've got to be listening, watch-

we started to deploy Qualtrics, and we're

ing and understanding what our custom-

in the process now of deploying that site-

ers are doing.” Vogel and his team then

wide across the entire HPE GreenLake

provide this knowledge to their frontline

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employees; the sales teams and account

there might be something here.’ It gives us

teams. “Because we recognize that when

a much better view of what's happening

we think about product decisions and

in the world of the customer, and again,

where we want to go with a portfolio, we

being customer obsessed means we have

expect to get a lot of detail and data from

to be constantly listening to the customer.

our customers telling us what they want.

We have to think about our sellers, our

But we also expect to get good informa-

account teams and even our partners as

tion internally. We're now allowing our

well as our customers.”

sellers to provide that type of feedback

Digital is key for HPE with everything

at scale where we can now do analytics

available on demand, whether thar’s infor-

on it. We can triangulate, ‘Hey, we heard

mation, quotes or confirmation. HPE is

this account team say this and we had

also focusing intently on personalizing

these three customers say that. Hey look,

the experience with the data its collecting 17

regarding its customers. The final piece of the jigsaw is the move to making everything omnichannel. “What I call seamlessly omnichannel,” Vogel explains. “Again, it used to be they would come to our website to look at speeds and feeds. We'd send out our seller with a PowerPoint deck, very single channel, very easy. But now these services are being bought by different personas, the channels where they consume and receive the information is different. I think my favorite quote on this whole CX thing is what Walt Disney said.

He said, "Do what you do so well that your customers will come back and they'll bring a friend.’ So, we're doing what we do well with the on-prem in the data center and we're doing it so well by doing it fast, doing it easy and offering this differentiated value so that our customers are coming back. In fact, we have a 90+% renewal rate, and a very high NPS (net promoter score), so, they're maybe not bringing a friend, but they're telling a friend. They're promoting our service to their friend. And that’s a great feeling.”

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HPE GREENLAKE

Erik Vogel Global Vice President, Customer Experience HPE

Erik is customer obsessed with an innate passion for customers to not just fix their problems, but to delight them. And he is dedicated to unifying the way HPE employees view Customer Experience (CX). As the CX leader for HPE GreenLake, Erik is driving the CX focused transformation to delivering everything as-a-service by making sure HPE lives and breathes a customer-centric approach.

Erik is a powerful storyteller who, instead of presenting customers as numbers can bring the customer to life in rich detail. This allows him to make complex topics easy to understand, share insights, and present data in actionable formats to make it relevant and meaningful. And Erik believes in connecting a great customer experience to a clear and concise measurement framework and treating metrics as an asset because they offer key insights into what customers want and how to make them happy.

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