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Google Cloud talks Middle Market
1.6k Plays1 year ago
On this episode of The Market That Moves America, Doug Farren talks with Darren Mowry and Laney Marx of Google Cloud about how middle market businesses can leverage cloud usage to drive growth. Darren and Laney share their expertise on ways that middle market businesses can be strategic as they look to integrate.
Google Cloud accelerates every organization's ability to digitally transform its business. Google Cloud delivers enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google's cutting-edge technology - all on the cleanest cloud in the industry. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems.
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Transcript
Introduction to Middle Market Trends
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to The Market That Moves America, a podcast from the National Center for the Middle Market. The center is the leading source of knowledge, leadership and innovative research on the middle market economy. Throughout our podcast, we will feature middle market leaders and stakeholders to hear their real world perspectives on trends and emerging issues.
Cloud Technology Misunderstandings
00:00:22
Speaker
Cloud technology is becoming one of the most common technologies utilized at middle market companies, yet the various applications and functionalities are often misunderstood. The National Center for the Middle Market partnered with Google Cloud to explore this topic. Listen to hear two leaders describe that work and what it means for middle market digital transformation.
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome to the Market That Moves America podcast. In today's discussion, we're going to be talking about the cloud. And no, I don't mean the weather, but rather the growing technology platform that's driving a number of business processes, not just data storage.
Meet the Experts: Darren & Lainey
00:00:58
Speaker
Joining me today from Google Cloud is Darren Mowry, Managing Director of North America, and Lainey Marks, North America Sales Lead for Mid-Market Enterprise. Welcome, Darren and Lainey. Thanks so much, Doug. Great to be here. Hi, everyone.
00:01:12
Speaker
So first of all, can you each just tell us a little bit about your background, your experience in the technology sector, and then your current roles at Google Cloud?
Darren's Middle Market Journey
00:01:24
Speaker
Darren, I'll start with you and then we'll turn it over to Laney.
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So again, Doug, thanks for having us on the line. We've been really looking forward to this conversation. So I've been in the IT industry for a little over 25 years. I've had the opportunity to work with some really exciting large technology companies, whether that be Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, or now Google Cloud.
00:01:45
Speaker
But throughout all of my experience, my career has constantly centered and come back around to the middle market. And it's been a thrilling opportunity for me to see a series of technology advancements and new waves of innovation coming through the industry. I've just reached my year and a half anniversary here at Google Cloud. And as you had said in the intro, I had the opportunity to look over North America and get to work with folks like
Lainey's Career Transition
00:02:08
Speaker
Lainey.
00:02:08
Speaker
on bringing an unparalleled experience from Google Cloud to a set of really important customers, which definitely includes the middle market. So looking forward to our time together today. Yeah, awesome. Thanks, Laney.
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, thanks everyone. Excited to be here. About 18 years ago, I started working at the world's number one beauty company and did very traditional product development, brand management and marketing. But I was really lucky to work with some of the amazing people there to launch products all over the world with major retailers like Walmart and Target.
00:02:38
Speaker
I just celebrated my nine-year anniversary at Google last week, and in 2014, I joined the more traditional segment of the ads and working with telco companies. And then after a brief stint at Google Fiber, I helped launch the sales team in 2016 for Google Cloud. It was really exciting in the early days introducing Google Cloud platform and the brand really to consumers, sometimes for the first time.
00:03:02
Speaker
And over the last seven years, it's been such a journey working with everyone from startups to some of our largest enterprise. But today and over the last year and a half, really have had the honor of working with and leading our mid-market enterprise segment, working with some of our key channels. So that's it. Awesome.
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah, so excited about today's discussion. And on behalf of the center, I can say that we've really enjoyed the opportunity working with both of you and your teams. As our listeners probably know, we collaborated over the last year or so on a research project looking at cloud technology in the middle market and released that report here in March of 2023.
00:03:46
Speaker
Very excited about that. In fact, we have a webinar that's going to be coming up very soon. We're all having the chance to participate and talk a little bit about some of the things that are going on, particularly around AI in the middle
Why Focus on Middle Market?
00:03:59
Speaker
market. So really, really looking forward to that. And it kind of leads into my first question for you, Darren, which is,
00:04:05
Speaker
When you took this role, you reached out to the center. I remember, gosh, it was an email I think you sent to me or through our generic inbox in the spring of 2022 looking for more information about the middle market. What was the driving force behind that decision to focus on this specific segment of companies?
00:04:25
Speaker
Yeah it's a good question Doug and there were actually a few things behind my decision to connect with you. So first of all I've actually been a consumer of the great content from you in the center for years and actually including when I was building a different technology practice in a different company it really helped me understand and unlock the pretty huge potential from a mid-market perspective but I wanted to switch and change that model from a consumer to a contributor and a partner and so that's why I wanted to lean in and learn more about some of these
00:04:54
Speaker
specific questions that we may want to ask and how we could actually work together to partner in research to actually help identify some key focus areas, not only to help us understand the market even more effectively, but frankly, help us be even better stewards in serving the middle market. So, you know, I've had the opportunity to work in and around the middle market, as I had said, for a really long time.
00:05:16
Speaker
And I've always known that this market segment has this super massive potential. But frankly, it also tends to not get the attention sometimes in the investment from large technology companies. And I believe more today than ever that there's a really incredible innovation and need coming from the middle market. And we're frankly really excited to partner with you in the center to double down on that opportunity.
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more there. As you kind of went through your career background, you've got a deep career across a number of different tech companies. When you think about the comparisons between enterprise or large companies, of course, the middle market, and then you've got small startup organizations,
00:05:56
Speaker
How do the technology needs of the middle market differ? In other words, what are some of the things that they might have in common with those other two segments, but also what makes them unique, particularly as you think about a platform like cloud?
Tech Needs vs. Resources in Middle Market
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah it's actually a really good question that Laney myself and the team continue to learn and ask daily because the first thing we have to remember is nothing is static right everything is changing especially nowadays when it comes to technology. You know the needs of this specific market segment are changing and what we really think is almost real time.
00:06:29
Speaker
So we're super committed to stay focused on those market needs and try to be as nimble and responsive as we can. And to your point, I think there are some commonalities across all of these types of organizations that we want to center on. So one, everyone is seeking to be successful, obviously. Everyone is seeking to differentiate from their competitors. And we're finding this overwhelming feedback that the whole concept of growth and acceleration
00:06:53
Speaker
and bringing a really excellent employee and customer experience is really top of mind. I have yet dug to ever meet a CEO who says that those top of mind items are most critical to her, right? And so those things absolutely continue to stay consistent.
00:07:08
Speaker
With those commonalities in mind, though, there are definitely a number of what I think are really important differences that I'll quickly touch on. For example, enterprises and middle market companies typically have common business and technology requirements. But the key difference, and you guys have actually helped me really understand this,
00:07:26
Speaker
Is the scale of those requirements may be different right middle market companies face enterprise challenges the same challenges as many of their big brother and big sister global enterprises may face but. Experience is telling us that those middle market companies may have less internal capabilities and resources compared to their global brothers and sisters.
00:07:45
Speaker
to address those problems. Now, conversely, we work a lot with startups and those startups tend to be engineering led organizations where you can imagine the founders and the senior leaders are many times the lead developers and the architects. They're actually putting hands on keyboards and bringing ideas to life.
00:08:02
Speaker
time really tends to be their most scarce resource in those cases. And we work with those organizations in a way that's super kind of tech forward, high-paced, and really focused on getting them using technology as quickly as possible. So to be even more specific, what I'll say, Doug, is we're finding in the middle market as well as global enterprises that
00:08:22
Speaker
These organizations really want to have a partnership aspect meaning they want to look beyond the ones and the zeros and we need to be talking about outcomes we need to be talking about customer experiences employee experiences driving top line revenue reducing costs.
00:08:37
Speaker
While in parts of the market, we want to talk a lot about exciting tech, my opinion in the middle market is we have to be really clear and again, work in that partnership model to help decision makers in these middle market companies know what they're going to get, know what they're going to be able to deliver by adopting this new technology. I would say that's unique. Yeah. I think that's spot on. Our experience has been
00:09:00
Speaker
You kind of touched on this, but we have a saying that we use quite frequently, which is middle market companies have big company problems with small company resources to address them. That is why it's so critical to find
00:09:15
Speaker
trusted advisors and partners who can really help address, how do I start? Where do I start? What are the best practices and approaches as they start down this road? That's a good segue.
Google Cloud's Customer-Centric Approach
00:09:29
Speaker
Laney, I want to throw this next question at you. As the leader of the middle market sales team at Google Cloud, what are some of those messages and information and tools
00:09:39
Speaker
that you're sharing with your team and your team is using to effectively talk to a lot of these businesses across the country.
00:09:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question, Doug. So first and foremost, the main message to our team of Googlers is that their guiding light is always, first and foremost, their customer. Our goal and our mission is to support them and solve real business problems, as you just mentioned, that they have those problems, but maybe not enough resources. So through our technology, and honestly, that can mean different things for different customers. So for example, a retailer
00:10:12
Speaker
may want to leverage the latest in AI with Google and our recommendation system for the latest in models to help that customer buying experience even be better. We also help support banks in the financial services industry with the latest access for proactive security warnings or things that help for early threat detection.
00:10:35
Speaker
And honestly, we work with hospital systems and their frontline workers and how they need to have a consistent email and chat experience across their phone or computer or tablet, wherever they are within the hospital. So really just solving real world problems they need to have. So that's kind of first. Everything we do is brought back to the customer and those business needs.
00:10:57
Speaker
In terms of the tools and information, we really have two major ways we help our teams work more effectively with our clients. First, we have access to all things that Google can provide. Our teams act like windows into the world of all things Google and Alphabet Universe that they can bring in terms of innovation, culture, and technology all in one place.
00:11:17
Speaker
And then second, we have a very strong go-to-market with our channel ecosystem, because at the end of the day, as you mentioned, Google does provide innovative technology, but these partners really help bring it to life for these mid-market customers. So one of the things that I've learned this year, especially working with these mid-market enterprises, they really need a couple of things.
00:11:38
Speaker
a basic understanding and access to the technology in a simple and concise way, and two, a way to bring this technology to life in kind of the real world of their day-to-day business. And as Darren mentioned, these organizations are really tightly run and focused on the business needs. So the goal here is really to free up their time and their resources so they can go focus on the business and let Google focus on the underlying technology that supports that business.
00:12:04
Speaker
This is actually one of the key insight that we learned from the study and I think what we'll see in the mid-market indicator that really people and resources are still the number one area where those businesses want to invest. Our goal is to help them enable those resources so they can be as efficient as possible and bring
Cloud's Essential Role in Growth
00:12:21
Speaker
value. Really, the last thing I'll say on the topic is that we know from our research that we did with the National Center for Mid-Market that 92 percent of those mid-market companies surveyed do believe that cloud is the way forward.
00:12:33
Speaker
And I believe the words they use were essential and game changer. So there's really zero doubt in my mind that this is the future. VCIOs know it as well. It's just a matter of how you move, how quickly you get there in the full organization on board and which cloud partners you select to lead you on this journey.
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah, so let me kind of tag onto that comment, Laney. Of course, research data is great. Thought leadership and insights are great. But as you and your team are out actually talking to these businesses, I really think there's nothing that can replicate having individual conversations with
00:13:08
Speaker
with your clients and understanding their challenges and concerns. Are you hearing reservations or things that are keeping them up at night, whether it's Cloud specific or just technology in general?
Challenges in Cloud Adoption
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah. There's really three main challenges or reservations when it comes to Cloud and we're hearing this. We heard this both in the study and we hear this day-to-day. We just mentioned, we know this is the direction of the future and if organizations want to future-proof their business,
00:13:36
Speaker
cloud is the way forward, but that's not to say there aren't going to be challenges along the way. The good news is that this journey to the cloud began originally in 2008 for Google Cloud, but really in the last five years, we learned so much how to overcome these obstacles. Take it one by one. First, security. We touched on this a lot in the study, but I'll be more specific. The hesitation around data security, whether it's
00:14:02
Speaker
you know well my data be secure from the cloud provider themselves and or the rest of the world. So I believe this is at the heart of the security question and about being the biggest inhibitor for you know moving faster or more to the cloud. In one way you really have to respect these organizations they have built and layered on these technology solutions over the last
00:14:22
Speaker
20 plus years. However, this kind of band-aid approach may not have been able to keep up with the more sophisticated security challenges that 99% of the time when you hear about these breaches, it's from an on-prem or maybe a homegrown solution. So someone like Google, who has thousands of security engineers and invested billions of dollars into this space,
00:14:43
Speaker
It's why that it is one of the number one benefits that we found in the study for why they moved to the cloud. Second and largest hesitation is education enablement. One of the number one requests we get around from CIOs is around training and enablement of the people within their enterprises. So no one likes change and moving to the cloud is probably one of the largest changes an IT organization can go through. So how do we make it bite-sized for them?
00:15:11
Speaker
No one, honestly, is doing cloud transformations in one fell swoop. They start small with a use case of workload. They start to see the benefits and eventually get there. But either way, training is a big part of the hesitation, but honestly, one of the easier things to overcome. And then lastly, AI. We cannot lose sight of the crucial time that we're in at this very moment.
00:15:32
Speaker
cio's of these men market companies are telling me all the time my board has called my ceo and he or she has called me and they're asking me what is our ai strategy and i need to get an answer to them like yesterday so what we're seeing now regardless of these potential hesitations that were lingering this ai revolution has absolutely accelerated all companies men market included
00:15:53
Speaker
towards the cloud for multiple reasons. And AI might be the driving force behind it, but what I think we'll see of all of these benefits come together, productivity, time efficiency, giving time back to those valuable engineers to go develop revenue, not really manage infrastructure. It's super exciting, and now the race to the cloud couldn't be any more on than it is right now.
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. So Darren, you already mentioned some of the goals and objectives of working with the NCMM, but this was the first time that Google Cloud has partnered with a university-based research organization like us. Why was conducting this research so important for your organization?
00:16:37
Speaker
Yeah, you know, Doug, while we're really excited about the partnership both to prove out how this work can really help inform Alphabet and Google, we also do believe that it's the beginning of something bigger, something broader. As I said, nothing is static. Everything is dynamic. And so we wanted to take this first step with you. You know, while we spend a lot of time, as you can imagine, as an organization engaging with and listening to our customers,
00:17:01
Speaker
The way that we viewed this was really this research gave us an opportunity to gain much broader like market level insights from just a larger cross section of the middle market. And we also see this opportunity as a really, really, really great opportunity to fine tune and target that research on really specific areas of curiosity.
00:17:21
Speaker
Lastly, and probably not surprisingly, we're really, frankly, proud to be able to call you guys our partners. We not only want to learn from the process, but you've been at this for a very long time. As I said, I've been a consumer of what you guys have created for quite some time. And we want to also frankly signal to the broader market that Google Cloud is invested. We care deeply about what's happening in the middle market. And we're just at the very beginning of a series of big investments that we think are going to unlock some pretty great results for this market segment.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah, the same goes for us as well. In fact, we've been talking about this research and this collaboration quite a bit over the last couple months. We were going to be at some events here over the summer that are focused specifically on digital transformation. And a lot of this research that we did together is serving as kind of the backbone of those presentations.
00:18:15
Speaker
Laney, you threw out some of the statistics from the study. You probably know them better than we do at this point. Were there things in the research data that you found either surprising or powerful or particularly interesting as you mentioned some of those tools that you're equipping your sales teams with?
00:18:35
Speaker
Doug, I'm not going to lie. I think I have the whole study memorized by heart. But for me, the most insightful data point from the study was that the companies with cloud, they're more integrated across various functions of their organization that was directly related to the companies that were growing faster than their peer sets. To me, this tells me two things. More integration with cloud and access for key stakeholders across the organization, not just IT.
00:19:04
Speaker
will lead to more efficient and employees, more efficiently work and employees and better collaboration. We see it all of the time. Whether it's through workspace collaboration tools or like a looker of business intelligence or data analysis, everyone can access everything across the organization and really takes these organizations from people forward thinking and innovative. The second thing this tells me
00:19:26
Speaker
is that these early adopters and early majority that to more fully adopt cloud across the organization have really shifted the way they work so that their engineering resources, technical resources are spending more time developing maybe the latest software application or improving their customer call center, the better for the company. In other words, putting the right resources for revenue generating and business critical opportunities lead to faster growth in the competition.
00:19:54
Speaker
And I know this research hasn't come out, but I'll be really interested in the mid-year indicator. How are they thinking about AI? I'd be really curious the next time we do this, if the organizations in the middle market who adopted AI earlier on, will they also be the ones in the next wave of companies that are growing the fastest? So something tells me the answers they will be, but we'll see what the research says.
00:20:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great segue over to my next question for Darren, which is thinking about the future of cloud technology, what are going to be some of the emerging trends and opportunities and maybe even potential challenges? I mean, we've already mentioned AI at least several times in this quick discussion.
00:20:35
Speaker
I was at a conference last week out in California. Every single session, keynotes, break up, generative AI was the leading topic. And so we know it's out there. Laney alluded to the fact that we're in the process right now of collecting data on this in our middle market indicator survey, which I think is going to be really, really interesting to see that. But what are some other things, Darren, that if you could share things to look for down the road?
Future Trends: AI's Impact
00:21:04
Speaker
Well I definitely can't not talk about AI but I'll put that back a little bit and come back around to it because I think you heard Laney a moment ago talk about the importance of security and what I really found profound in the data and the research as Laney really clearly had had talked about is that security is the biggest draw but also the biggest concern.
00:21:23
Speaker
I think that that will continue to be the reality in the Cloud, especially for middle market companies. As Laney said, we've got a lot of resources. We've been doing this for a very long time. We're extremely confident in our security position, but we also can appreciate the fact that there is trust associated with Cloud computing and trust is earned. I think security will continue to be an element where you'll see us invest and innovate, and you'll see us actually continue to release some pretty incredible innovations in that space as well.
00:21:53
Speaker
One area that we haven't spent as much time talking about today, but I want to make sure and get on the agenda, Doug, is this concept of data. We're seeing this continued really strong evolution towards better use of organizational data to make even better decisions. While we focus a lot on real-time analytics over the years, we find that organizations continue to face these challenges with disparate silos.
00:22:20
Speaker
It is all over the organization. It's in different formats. It's in different standards. It makes it really difficult for organizations of all sizes, but especially the middle market to integrate and make sense and put real-time decision-making and predictive decisions behind that. We absolutely will continue to see waves of interest, waves of engagement, massive investment from Google and Google Cloud to help solve that data problem.
00:22:46
Speaker
The data problem leads to two other things that I'll quickly touch on, Doug, and before I talk about AI. One is, we actually don't believe that everything should move to the cloud. You may be surprised to hear me say that, but when we're working across middle market companies, we really want to partner to truly assess
00:23:05
Speaker
what those enterprise applications are and where should they be and what i mean by that is some applications when we work with organizations in the middle market. They help us understand that some of these apps have low usage they may have a shorter shelf life and when we also down and say is it worth the investment to refactor and move the answer is no let those applications stay where they are.
00:23:26
Speaker
Now, on the other hand, there are going to be an entire set of enterprise applications that do warrant deep kind of reinvention, thinking about retooling. And so what I really want to call out is this key trend in middle market companies that, frankly, we should be very leery. All of us middle market organizations.
00:23:44
Speaker
as well as hyperscalers that no one should go into the model of everything must move to the cloud. We believe that that's antiquated. We don't believe it meets the modern needs of modern organizations. And that was a recommendation in the early days of cloud. And in fact, you may even still hear this in some pockets of the industry. Modern demands of organizations really tell us that this is an open multi-cloud world where middle market companies need to really make really well-informed, well-factored decisions
00:24:14
Speaker
role in that, as do our partners. And then obviously, Doug, as I said, I got AI really quickly. Lainey had talked about this generational shift in computing. And that's the term that we don't just say we deeply mean with every cell in our body. And what we mean by that is while we're at the very early days,
00:24:34
Speaker
This a concept is gonna move much further beyond where much of us are focusing right now right i'm as you said generated a you are at your conference many of us see that the media attention being placed to search base generated a and don't get me wrong we're super passionate at google about an extremely compelling google search right based on advancements in a i.
00:24:56
Speaker
But I really want to focus here that with mid-market companies, our belief is that AI extends far beyond the topic of search, right? And we're working with middle market organizations to, as Laney said, first really make sure we have a purpose-built, future-proofed AI strategy. When we look across the market, we see AI disruptors, meaning organizations that are
00:25:18
Speaker
Deep down in the ai centric intellectual property of ai they're building large language models they're inventing things that have never been seen before but we also see on the other side of the spectrum a whole set of organizations that are trying to be ai powered or what we're calling ai explorers meaning they're asking themselves what is possible with the intelligent use of ai
00:25:41
Speaker
But in those cases, again, as I said a moment ago, we don't want to dive right into the tech. We want to actually partner to say, what are the use cases and the business problems that we could solve most effectively with artificial intelligence? And let's kind of walk this journey together. So while we're super energized, we're deeply passionate about AI, we're taking a very methodical, a very responsible approach to this new technology. And we want to bring that kind of experience to the middle market as well done.
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah, and one thing I keep seeing over and over is like Google Cloud statement, I'm innovating boldly, but responsibly. And I think that's pretty important to keep in mind as well, particularly for middle market companies, right? It absolutely is. I mean, again, at the end of the day,
00:26:25
Speaker
AI is a super advanced way of making decisions from data, right? So that's why I wanted to talk about data there for a moment is AI doesn't exist unless we all have a thoughtful approach about the data that the artificial intelligence is then using to make decisions. And so that's where, again, it's very important that all of us think about search-based AI, things like chat GPD or our version, Bard. All of those are very interesting, but they're consumer-focused solutions.
00:26:51
Speaker
We want to be clear with mid-market organizations that we have the capability to bring the same dazzling experience that they may get from that search-oriented generative AI, but we're able to do that by putting walls around your data, actually making your data the data source that the AI is then using, and ensuring that that data is just that. It's your data. You manage it. You control it. Google has no access to it. No one else does.
00:27:17
Speaker
That's where we get excited about AI, Doug, and that's where we think AI is truly going to unlock some potential for middle market companies. Yeah. So my last question, and I'd like for each of you to comment on this if you could, and this would be our closing kind of
Advice for Cloud Adoption
00:27:33
Speaker
area to explore. That would be advice that you would give to middle market leaders who may be struggling or confused or overwhelmed. It could be all of the above as they think about their own technology. What would be some things that you would say to those leaders to say, this is what you should be doing and thinking, particularly given a lot of the uncertainty that's out there right now in the macro economy, but more specifically,
00:28:01
Speaker
The things that we hear at the center are, these things are great. We see the potential and we see the opportunity. We just don't know where we should be starting. What would each of you say to those companies who are struggling with that question right now?
00:28:17
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead. No, I'll start. Yeah, I mean, it's one of the aspects of the research that I loved and Doug knows this because I was always begging him to bring it up to the top of the presentations and it's at the back, but it's really like so helpful. And I think about this as practical advice for how key considerations for moving to the cloud first thoughtfully define your approach. You know, whether you work with Google or a partner, you really identify that first use case.
00:28:45
Speaker
and run a TCO analysis, what makes sense to get started. Second, you have to hit the security question head on and get it all out on the table, see what's possible and really understand the security benefits and it's overcome that early on. Third, leverage the right resources. This goes back to working smarter, not harder and leveraging the ecosystem that we have in Google and our partners to help you go get there faster and more efficiently. Do not go it alone.
00:29:15
Speaker
Next, focus on the full cloud integration. I talked about this earlier from the research, but we know the more integrated equals more growth. So why not think about vast use cases across the organization, not just the IT and think about lines of business, marketing, operations, logistics, customer service. It's honestly endless.
00:29:33
Speaker
Fifth, I would say move away, and Darren just touched on this, from relying on one single cloud. We didn't talk about this in the hesitation section, but I would absolutely add this as a fourth dimension. Customers in the mid-market are fearful of the lock-in and afraid that they will no longer have the freedom to do and choose the best cloud for the right use. So some cloud providers are known for more of a lock-in approach, and we hear from this today from our customers, but to avoid this, move away from one cloud,
00:30:00
Speaker
and use the right solution for the right problem. Then lastly, turn that technical debt into new revenue streams. You mentioned the environment that we're in, Doug, so we talked about this a bit, but it's all about moving the right resources to where they can be more impactful to help the top line. Cloud can free you up to do this in one of those real value alts of the Cloud. I know this wasn't part of the research and I'm going to say it one more time. There's one more I would add.
00:30:25
Speaker
this clearly have a defined AI and ML strategy and use case. If you haven't already started experimenting with what's possible, obviously, I encourage you to do that with Google and reach out, but really get started on your enterprise-ready AI platform so that you can help drive for your company that AI first vision for your organization.
00:30:47
Speaker
Yeah, Darren, what would you add? Yeah, I mean, I think Lainey nailed it. I'd say it's really important to have a cloud strategy, as we've kept saying over the course of our podcast today. Staying focused on outcomes, outcomes, outcomes is really what enables us to work together to ensure that these investments are aligned to these strategic priorities and delivering both the top line and the bottom line results that we're expecting. You know, the importance of these outcomes for the business should then prioritize all the investments and the projects that we want to take on together.
00:31:16
Speaker
As Lainey had said, we're spending a lot of time with mid-market executives and boards to create this multi-factor, multi-cloud strategy that includes what we talked about today. What's the application modernization and migration component? Do you have a cloud-first strategy? And what does that look like for new applications? What is your data strategy? What's your security strategy? And as we clearly said, have a perspective around AI.
00:31:40
Speaker
I mean, at the end of the day, Doug, what I'd say is beware of science experiments where the focus has lost focus on outcomes and it's become more about shiny objects. Stay focused on business outcomes, on technology outcomes, and on the results that all these efforts are going to create for employees and for customers. That's what shows us time and time again that it's a winning combination.
00:32:01
Speaker
Right. Well, these have been some really powerful insights and observations and really takeaways and food for thought for our listeners. I think we've only scratched the surface of a lot of the things we talked about today. And again, for those listeners that want to hear more, particularly around the topic of AI, I would have everybody be on the lookout for the webinar that's going to be coming up.
00:32:26
Speaker
I'm really excited to participate that and hopefully bring some of this new MMI data to that conversation. Darren Laney, appreciate your time. It's been great having you on The Market That Moves America today. Thanks so much, Doug. Thanks, Doug. It's been a pleasure. For more information about Google Cloud, visit their website, cloud.google.com. And thank you very much. Thank you for listening to The Market That Moves America. Never miss a new episode by subscribing anywhere podcasts can be found.
00:32:56
Speaker
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