>> Amy, thank you so much for spending time with me today.
I really appreciate it.
>> I'm happy to be here.
>> Thank you. So today,
I was hoping to get really your perspective on the business
particularly as the CFO of
one of the world's largest technology companies.
>> Yes.
>> The fact that the decisions you make every day,
daunting as they may be, have global impact.
Really thinking about technology and how that
enables the decision-making particularly for your role,
your team, as well as your peers in the industry.
>> I don't think I'm really unique.
The more conversations I have with my peers,
or Chief Digital Officers,
or CMOs more like yourself is that you end up realizing
that the basic needs
that you want from technology are actually quite similar.
>> Interesting.
>> Increasingly, I think I hear a couple of things.
Number one, I need to get information that's holistic.
>> Yes.
>> I think what they mean and I mean when I say
that is the days when,
even five years ago when I started this job,
I was actually quite comfortable getting siloed reports.
But increasingly, the conversation started to pivot.
I think it's pivoted everywhere from this view of product-central
reporting to this concept of customer-centric reporting.
>> Yes.
>> When you think about customer-centric reporting,
it requires common data frames,
common access, common terminology,
and real data governance.
It also means that I want to be able to understand the health of
everything that touches that customer.
Whether it's all the way to
a back-office experience that people may think,
around billing or the commerce engine, fraud or protection.
>> Right.
>> Whether it comes to account management all the way to
sales engagement to product support to service to field operations.
You can go down the list.
>> Right.
>> You realize, no matter what your leadership seat was,
the demand was gosh,
now, what I need is a holistic view-
>> That makes sense.
>> -of the data estate,
a holistic way to interact with that data with confidence in
both its master management but
also its terminology and governance.
Then of course, that frankly it was accessible-
>> Right.
>> -to the actual decision-makers as opposed to just leadership,
which is another, I think, pain point.
>> Well that's a good point, it's how do you
enable the entire organization.
>> Yes, and the real answer is to enable
broad empowered holistic end-to-end decisions
made not at the corporate center,
but made on the front lines with
such high confidence and speed and agility.
>> Right.
>> Then of course, you'd say, gosh,
I just can't go through another five-year deployment cycle.
>> In today's environment, doesn't work.
>> It doesn't work and the bill that comes with it.
>> Right.
>> Doesn't work. So you want someone who's trusted,
who actually has a broad view of the landscape,
who's known for innovation and having sort of
a durability to their worldview,
and of course actually can get time to value done.
>> That makes sense.
>> So that really you can feel not
like a two or three or four-year journey that you're on,
but there're these quick wins.
>> Well, that's excellent.
We as a company, Microsoft,
has really taken a pretty big pivot
on Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform.
>> Yes.
>> For many of the reasons that you've talked about,
taking data out of silos,
being proactive, not reactive,
having that holistic view of the customer.
Tell us a little bit more about,
as we think about Microsoft generally.
>> Yes.
>> How does Dynamics and the Power Platform fit into the strategy?
>> It's interesting.
I think this actually is
people who've heard me on the earnings calls
along with Satya I think have heard our passion around this topic.
I think... I love this opportunity to
really explain where that passion comes from.
>> We would love to hear that.
>> It's because I think so many of
us have been thought of as reporters.
I'm reporting an outcome,
I'm reporting on this.
That could be anything. Your payroll system
all the way to a financial system.
You're reporting the past.
Frankly, what I am becoming increasingly confident
in really because of Dynamics 365, the Power Platform,
and the vision that the team has put
forward is it is fundamentally about
projecting the future so that all of us can make
decisions to positively change predictive outcomes.
So it's not that a machine will tell me what will happen.
The machine will aid in the decision-making,
aids my understanding of
what action I as a human can next best take.
>> So you talked about time to value.
One of the things that it would be great to hear from you is,
part of what plagued us before
in business applications is this notion of rip and replace.
You've got to take the whole system out
and that ties into your five,
10-year journey of take out all of
your investment, bringing new investments.
One of the things that you in finance,
you have SAP as our core financial.
>> Yes.
>> But you are using Dynamics in addition to that. Can you tell-
>> Yes.
>> -us a little bit about that.
>> The reality is that Dynamics 365 for us,
it just it fits the criteria I gave earlier.
How can I get a quick time to value?
How can I have something that our users fundamentally
understand out of the box in
terms of its application to their life?
We can go through some examples.
Our commerce team on fraud.
This is a problem frankly across every company-
>> Absolutely.
>> -that we meet.
>> Absolutely.
>> So that's a great area for us.
>> Retailers, universally, how do you predict.
>> Across our system.
So for us, I think it was one of
the first logical places for us to start to invest.
I might even say it's hard not to
mention Power BI for us of course.
>> Analyzing data.
>> It's what we do.
It's core to our mission in finance.
But what people may not realize is we really do use
it to surface even some
of our modern forecasting tools that we've built inside Azure.
So for us, it's about Power BI is almost the user interface.
>> Being able to embed other productivity tools.
>> So it lets us, I think in some ways,
showcase the predictive nature through a common tool,
people understand, they love to use it on
mobile because the experience is terrific.
What it does ultimately is change the culture of the team.
I sometimes think people don't appreciate it.
>> That's such an important element.
We talked about digital transformation and people don't
realize how valuable the cultural aspect is.
>> It's quite different. If you think about,
I tell people all the time, six years ago,
we rewarded people in finance for how much they knew.
Off the top of their head,
how many numbers did they memorize,
how quickly could they answer a question.
The reality is, that's
exactly opposite of really what you ought to be
rewarding in any company that wants to focus on customer outcome.
>> That's a good point.
>> What you want to focus on is, wait a second,
how available was that information to
all of the people who needed to make great decisions?
>> The accessibility of it.
>> Yes, it is about
literally leveling the playing field for impact.
It wasn't about who you knew,
it's no longer about who you can call,
it isn't about how long you've worked here.
It's really about having
everybody be able to see the same information
and be able to make the same amount of
impact both on their customer, inside these walls.
So when we talk about,
it's so fun for me because we talk about digital transformation.
We talk about the role of business applications.
But really the role of these things is how
it changes the company itself.
>> I think the thing too is, I'm going to come
back to that connected aspect.
>> Yes.
>> Because one of the things that I think is so unique is,
it isn't siloed and it can't be departmentally siloed.
>> No.
>> So your sales team has to
know the same information that the customer-
>> Correct.
>> -service team has at the back end
supply and vendor management team.
So-
>> Yes.
>> -being able to have that holistic view.
>> When I talked about in the beginning. No, no.
I want to see every interaction we've had with a customer, not me.
>> Right.
>> I want the support team to have the context,
I want my Xbox team to have the context,
I want my Azure team to have that same context.
When you lack the context,
frankly, you don't make great decisions.
>> Right.
>> This is where I think
you have to look in the mirror as a leader.
If you haven't enabled
your teams to see that inter-flow of information,
it's hard to say you've let your people run in a digital way.
>> Right. In a modern-
>> It's not-
>> -environment.
>> -just taking an application and making it mobile.
It's not just taking the old process and running it in the cloud.
>> Right.
>> It's really about rethinking,
access, or design, information flow.
>> Absolutely.
>> Then letting the application,
which I think what Dynamics does so well,
let the application support-
that as opposed to define your workflow for you.
>> Right. Amy, thank you so much.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
>> Thank you.
>> I appreciate it.
