Cloud Wars CEO of the Year

Thomas Kurian has been CEO of Google Cloud just one year, and in that time he has transformed the organization.

Thomas says Google started the year by focusing on changing to organization to be more customer-centric, and enabling the customer journey. He goes on to say if you’re talking to a financial institution, are there better solutions to do fraud detection, anti-money laundering? If you talk to logistics and manufacturing companies, how can I optimize the location of my fleet? How can I save money doing that better? How can I do scheduling better?

He says everybody wants to create that magic moment with a customer.

Thomas says there’s a scarcity of talent in AI and machine learning – at least people that do it well. He says Google’s approach has been to create a solution that helps people fundamentally improve the experience that their consumers have when they call the contact center – without having an army of people and expertise themselves. He says Google wants to enable organizations to be bold and brave – and don’t feel afraid of embracing technology.

Thomas says there are different kinds of partners that customers have needs for – not just distributors and resellers, but system integrators, solution partners, and managed services companies. And he says they’ve really been pleased with the growth in the partner community.

Thomas says Google has had customers tell us, “Hey, I've been told it'll take me 10 years to re-optimize my supply chain infrastructure – and what you guys delivered for me in four months is improving my inventory turns and my supply chain efficiency by 10 times.”

Finally, Thomas compares this to running a marathon. He says there’s a great runner called Eliud Kipchoge who ran a marathon in two hours – something that people never thought possible. He says you have to be patient, but you have to have a sense of urgency – and the people who work at Google do both.

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