S3: E2: Who Wins… and Who Gets Left Behind?

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Featuring experts from ALSO and leading Vandors, we explore diverse insights on AI. Welcome back to Season Three of the ALSO AI podcast! In Episode One We Explored The Hidden Costs Of AI From Productivity And Dependency To The Risk Of Outsourcing. Our Thinking Today were asking what happens next? Let's imagine two companies for a second same market, same products.

Same access to AI. one uses it to transform how it works. the other simply adopts the tools. five years from now or who knows maybe even less than that? Who will win? and if everybody has access to this technology where does competitive advantage actually come? That's the AI divide we are exploring today in season three episode two of The Alzo AI podcast.

Joining me from HP is Brad Winston and from Arzo Daniela Lonzo. Welcome guys, thank you Morgan. So happy to be here today Really enjoy talking about AI. I have been with HP for twenty six years now. I am the Enablement Manager for all of our, what we refer to as above-the-box value experiences. So that includes security, manageability AI and our software solutions.

Thank you Morgane For this opportunity. it's a super interesting topics That We have here really excited To get into conversations around them with Brad. Okay so two experts in This room to discuss The subject matter. thats great. Maybe to break the ice a little bit, let's start on a hypothetical. Let's imagine for a second two companies have the same budget and the same access To AI as a technology.

Company A has the better technology And company B Has The Better People & Processes. Brad if you had to bet some money On this who would You Bet On? I'd bet on company b every time. bottom line to me is that If you don't have the right people on covering, The issues that you have in your environment.

The strategies That You're trying to accomplish as a company... The technology ends up being useless. It's not an end-all be all. We need To Have Those People and understanding of where the Company needs to go And then apply the Right Technology to help kind Of solve those problems. So Company B On People In Processes Would You Have The Same Bet Daniel?

Definitely, I would have to say the same approach. Companies that don't have a clear view on their strategy or the processes for how do they implement technology? They're not going to learn correctly. so yeah definitely it's mean together but you need people. People is what matters. So maybe as a follow-up What are your first things that come into mind when we change this bet?

Brad maybe I'm not sure that there's anything that would change my bet. If we think about the technology coming out today, a lot of it has AI in it and the AI is helping to make that software run better. It helps companies be more productive from the sense they're able solve problems quicker and hit their strategies faster.

but doesn't The fact that the people within the company and the processes, still had to find that technology. And how do you figure out? is it going to help me improve as we go forward? I see... Daniel would anything make your mind change? Maybe there's a case in hypothetical where somebody can come to view their processes through an analysis set up for them but anyways the people to understand what's going on.

You can maybe have a high-level overview with somebody who'll help you out in the first stage, but then your team will need to understand technology and how to drive it through.". That would be another way of looking at that. What actually creates an advantage or competitive advantage? Because we need the technology – We NEED THE PEOPLE.

AND HOW DO THOSE TWO ENTER PLACE? From what you're seeing at HP when two businesses have access to similar AI capabilities, What makes one better? At turning the technology into real business value. Maybe you have an example in mind that you'd like to bring. Yeah absolutely I think he said it. and first question To me its about people And we've been delivering great software not just in AI but areas of security and manageability for years from HP.

Some of it comes free with the PC, some have to purchase from services perspective and I'll give you one great example I guess about ten years ago, i was in front of a customer and we were discussing kind of their issues that they are having where the wanted to go as company. This is large federal customers from United States being held very stringent security standards.

And as we kind of dug into their issues, one of the key things that they were having problems with is that they had a policy which stated that no-one could take data off of the PCs using AUSB device. So what they were doing and they didn't realize this was their problem... They came to me saying shipping costs are huge for them because they were shipping a device from HP to a location and had a dedicated person who was opening up every PC, filling the USB port with glue boxing it back up.

And then shipping paying a huge amount of money, not just to employ someone who's sitting there with the stick-of-glue but also in shipping costs for moving these PCs across the country back and forth from different locations. When we were providing software with every one of our PCs which at this moment is powered up on the desk a policy could be implemented that controlled bias and locked down USB ports and ensured that security policy was in place.

So if I'm looking at that, we had customers out there who understood the software or were using it—the moment they purchased the PCs from us —and then we're getting that advantage! And then another customer came up either not being told nor didn't have the right people to understand. this software could be used in the policy put-in settings.

As I'm thinking about that example specifically, you can apply today's AI environment. If they don't know how this helps them and if it doesn't help them move or accomplish their business strategies then they're never going to find the software nor use it. irregardless of what companies are doing and who they compete against It becomes very difficult for them to execute on those strategies or solve problems.

It's difficult to top that up. Yeah, exactly the point we're trying to make here. if you don't know how do use it yeah You are not going be able To get the edge out of it. For me like the annual sales currently and trying to frame this powerful tool around This environment currently. so The difference on for example a sales activity without or with AI can be really different.

The results that you can accomplish if you set up your business workflow, this type of tools from the beginning of the funnel... If we want to call it like that sales funnel and so on You can apply there are many software right now as Brad says That has already AI And then bring those pieces into work for you Can adjust agents to be part of that and make this funnel, but you used to have bigger faster more efficient.

And scale it up like really in a different way compared to a company that is not implementing that. so basically This is the really use case on sales. That makes a difference and we can translate these in different segments or areas of the Company The team but actually analyze the workflows and try to understand where to apply those tools.

But as I'm seeing right now, like it's a big difference if you play the game without understanding how do use these tools specifically just for sales? is again changes or example no coding? well that there are many business applications? absolutely maybe AI has a tendency amplify the advantages and weaknesses of the businesses who use it in a smart way or not?

Brad. It's an interesting question, we both discussed kind of is still very heavily reliant on the people in the processes that are implementing them. I think that could actually amplify some when you're in a very competitive situation and your own small company. Yeah, as you thinking about the smaller ones who know what they are doing have taken software leap made some sort of digital transformation into their environment that helps them achieve business goals faster.

That could be detrimental to another company Who hasn't? From larger company perspective I don't see that it making a huge difference yet, because there's just simply a time period within how long it takes to actually implement these pieces. And there's always an offset with regards to processes or people who are implementing something that may be quicker.

so as an example if you're looking at something like well i'm going use AI to help my marketing department become more efficient. If you have right people in place, who are already doing this and they're a large company. And their very creative and good at getting the information out there AI may not be of big help to them but if your looking from smaller companies perspective that AI is going to do something they aren't doing already I can almost guarantee it.

Yeah i think uh...if u places wrongly we sure is gonna amplify ur weaknesses if you kind of use it to speed up your processes. For example, a company that tries out how do the strategy develop an app or process with a web app and they want to test it out With AI can easily test different scenarios without much cost And decide on how to structure their strategies.

So I think definitely relies on the first question of people, what they decide to do. But in that part we are making sure if you have a right people for sure it gives your advantages. If i am an SMB reseller and just starting my journey with AI What should be done on Monday morning? How would go about implementing AI in smart way?

I've tackled it in a personal way first. Understanding, because there is a lot of technology out there and to implement into business process. you need understand clearly the business processes even though they are more bigger companies but do have control over your personal processes inside your environment or framework?

One small step for getting this is try to understand where can be in Businesses processes. use a little bit of AI, you know. maybe in an analysis here Maybe gathering the news first thing I think in the morning. Maybe Data set analysis that used to do with Excel and now You can do it faster With help of AI.

so in those pieces? You will understand a little be how this technology Can't help you with. And then when you start looking at a bigger picture You can see where you make these changes on the big workflows in your company. Of course, there are people that gets more into details of technical side and maybe even higher level understanding.

but to be able really nail it... ...you need a whole structure or team to understand bit about it because business guy doesn't understand What can you do with AI? How it applies to him. Yeah, exactly his input is really important for the processes and now he can transform those ideas just With a simple prompt something that before takes Months or maybe I don't know.

years Now it's super fast. So II think that's the first step will be look into your personal processes And see where can yeah help you out and then start like looking in through a bigger scope. Yeah, okay. What you're referring to? Maybe this is what's a bounce off of your saying Daniel. maybe it's Brad.

It seems generally we talk about AI as if its one thing but in fact there are generative AI and the capabilities resulting from that change. Do think technology needs evolve in that aspect too, maybe from you as a technology provider perspective? As a vendor. Yeah I think this might be somewhat controversial answer especially considering our work here at HP but the reality is... Go ahead!

I think that the technology is already evolving to meet the needs and it's evolving faster than what our customers are actually looking. don't know what agentic AI means, what generative AI means. What AI on the edge or local AI means? We don't have an active customer base coming to us going hey I want to buy some AI.

that's not happening today. and...and reality is if we think about kind of technology as it moving forward let look at phone for example. in the nineteen eighties everybody had a phone on their wall then evolved into carphone And everybody had this big box inside their car and it was called a car phone.

Then we have cell phones, you've got flip-phones in what we refer to as dumb phones now... ...and then came the age of smartphone. We had iPhone come out right before BlackBerry and these things moved about. If you look back, I'm sitting here holding this Samsung Galaxy in my hand. Other people may be holding an iPhone in their hands.

Nobody's calling those mobile phones cellphones smart phones anymore. It is just your phone. By twenty-thirty, I'm going to speculate that we're not calling these things AI PCs anymore. They all have AI in them and We're referring to things that don't have an NPU as non AI PC's which is a very small percentage of the market software companies as they're making investments going forward, if they are not implementing AI.

They will fall behind the wayside and so all software in some form or fashion is gonna have AI in it to be effective at solving problems and helping customers meet their business needs. So I think technology... Yeah! The technology. what we need to do is just help customers understand, like we've been saying.

How does it solve their problems and be less scared of this thing that we refer as AI or artificial intelligence? Or a gentic AI or local AI on the edge as you were talking about there? Daniel if I am an SMB I am not the same size as a big corporation. Who puts all these pieces together? Is Arzov, for example as a distributor changing that conversation.

Yeah... For sure! One of the roles is to train and get partners who can supply this type of understanding into customers. The whole chain also supports it And brings clarity on what to look at because there's a lot Of course, of course. There's a lot of technology there. what to look at in certain scenarios?

What type or path to take on your training towards accomplishing whatever you want? do with AI according where you are. watch our segment piece for while you're trying to accomplish. but yeah also plays huge role here and that's why we were working actually together this information to get these technology out there for the partners and for the SMBs, and for them customers that are eager to understand or eager to implement.

To still be relevant than competitive on the market. because yeah with AI if you know how can we use it? You come play in court against big ones! Yeah...you have fun let's say. The key takeaway from what I'm hearing is that AI is levelling the Playfield into a small-and large business ecosystem. Brad, I'd like to ask you an uncomfortable question.

As a technology provider slash vendor do you believe that we are equally as good at enabling people keep up with it? I work with sales forces across our resellers, across our distributors. Even our own internal Salesforce within HP on a daily basis and i would say that effectively. in the past probably between twenty to thirty percent of salesforces In the technology space really kind know how.

Be more consultative and solution selling like what I was just talking about, you know using a whiteboard And just asking the open any questions. What are your problems? Um what we all have been very used to selling is A speeds-and-feeds type discussion. here's a product in its feature set. Here's a project on it's feature set.

The thing with AI Is that It is Very much a problem solver. it helps expedite the speed in which you're solving problems, it helps you solve more problems today than you could yesterday. So in order to be effective at helping a customer understand what AI can do for them we need to be better At the consultative sale.

We need to Be Better at The solution selling process and Helping Customers Understand This is the problems that it's solved and even helped them uncover their own problems in their environment. If we're not effective at doing that, then all we are just going into saying hey buy AI by this PC with an NPU, buy software has AI in it... And trying to tell them does this ,this & this when there very little capability for them understand translation between said feature set that they may be particularly having.

Brad's another uncomfortable question maybe, what will separate the resetters who will remain relevant in this ever-changing markets versus those who do not? Yeah I think that I'm a double down on my last answer there. and just you know as we think about these resellers out there And they're not adept at having those discussions with the customer and having those hard questions.

Where do you want to be as a company in six months, eighteen months? In five years what are your biggest problems that you're having whether their IT problems or not? Having those open-ended questions and then taking the next step in helping them solve those is where the real resellers who were going to be successful Are Going To Be is achieving Those Things.

The difficult part there is that's putting an ownership and responsibility on our resellers, specifically the sales force within our reseller to have a better understanding of. The actual problems that the technology they're providing solves. doing the research going out there and looking at these ISVs out There who are building off of AI?

Looking at the software in solutions That come with the PCs, but their selling and being able to have open-ended discussion With a customer. I can honestly say, if you're out there just pushing a unit today with the inception of AI it's going to be much more difficult for you to compete. With those companies that are like managed service providers who were living and breathing customer problems all day long.

Daniel do you think this threatens traditional reseller Modus operandi? The way they operate currently? It is changing at some point. the speed that others may have is you're not going to be able to catch up. You know, we are now gonna be able do as much of your competition's doing and respond fast than other ones are responding depending on what problem they need to tackle us.

but by saying identify which are their strengths or what does one want to do with them? Your understanding where to implement this body anyway will be a challenge by your peers on the market, because they are using technology and understanding it. They're having different type of workflows. that for sure reducing their cost bringing up sales basically at bottom line I think is changing.

everybody should go through process experiencing analyzing doing tough questions analyzing what's the situation and start like seeing where they can be more competitive, try to apply on those points this type of technology. So the player in this ever-changing play field who's winning? what would that player look like two years from now?

five years? We don't know because it is changing so fast. Brad What are your thoughts about this? I think its Exactly what Daniel was saying there. I mean, we're seeing this growth over the past several years of The MSP market to manage service providers the number of them out. There are a number of organizations that are supporting the managed service providers.

That are doing things like also is with regards to training and educating their resellers on the capabilities that they have and how that helps solve customer problems. The old way of thinking, here is a website where you can go in place an order And That Is the Extent with which we're going to help You.

We are gonna give you access To all the software In All Hardware. When You Go Pick Out What You Want to Sell. That's not helping the reseller. Help the Customer As we move forward, what I honestly believe is happening here. Is that AI is uncovering those in the market who are speeds and feeds? I'm out there selling a tire.

having it is showing customers and opening their eyes that I can get technology to help me solve problems, not just go buy something. What is the one thing businesses should be preparing for now? That they're probably underestimating? Well, I'm gonna say two things. if you don't mind Fine. Yeah First and foremost to your previous question as we're thinking about investment is were thinking about hardware refreshes.

People have made decisions on hardware refresh in the past based on their current workload that they do on the PC. There's a new version of Microsoft coming out. there was a new This software solution, I need a slightly better processor or more memory to do it. AI is the different world. you look at something like a genetic AI.

That PC now becomes an employee. It's not The workload that your doing on. If you want to solve problems faster, if you wanna keep up with the fact that by twenty-thirty I'm speculating all PCs will have AI in them and all software will have an AI in it some form or fashion. these investments need be made now.

which dovetails into kind of the second thing that people need to be looking at, which is to me. The one question where AI comes up in my customer discussions today, Which is this security around it? You need To Be Looking At The Processes And The Investments That You Need To Put In Place In Order To Ensure That Your Putting A Box Around The AI from a security perspective on what it can and cannot touch, the data that you're keeping corporate policies in place to help control.

We discussed this with Jake in episode one, the whole governance behind AI who owns it. And again Brad you're jumping because This is what we'll be tackling for Episode three. maybe You want to come on and share your thoughts? Daniel What are Your Thoughts On The One Thing That Business Should Be Preparing For Now that They're Underestimating Security security.

I think well, we're talking about AI and were talking about you know processes on bottlenecks where? You can find an identify those areas that you can implement this new technology. But yeah the security on top of that is super important Super important. keep it compliant keeping in house Make sure that do grow with the handles over your company.

No That's a really good point And for sure interesting topic about what we're talking about. Okay, thank you both! Myth or reality is back the same rules as last time. I'll give you a statement. You tell me from your point of view if this is a myth or reality and provide A short explanation maybe fifteen twenty seconds to defend yourself And i'm not going to accept it depends because This Is a hard myth or Reality.

Are you ready? Super. All right, myth or reality? Business that don't adopt AI will get left behind. Definitely a reality for me here. to make a conscious decision To not have any AI in your environment is basically making A conscious decision. do Not Have Any Software Or PCs. Okay Thank You Brad Reality.

For Me It's Clear That If you Don't Jump Into This Wave At some point you're not going to be able to be competitive in this new Framework in the market. So yeah, it's a reality. Okay Thank You Daniel. myth or reality. AI gives SMB. companies are bigger Competitive advantage and the larger enterprise so as a whole It could go either way.

I know enterprises will have more access due to bigger hardware an AI token budgets. However Ai does level the playing field for SMBs giving them that opportunity to execute strategies, that only the larger companies could have done before. So I'll lean towards reality here. Thank you so much Brad I would say Reality as well.

with AI You can scale up your operation? You can automate workflows. i would say in this context SMBs will be able To address different how they compete on the market. if we see it that way SMB could reduce the gap between what enterprise is doing right now. But anyways, Enterprise have also their own approach if precisely to that question?

Yeah it's a reality. Reality. thank you Daniel. AI skills will matter more than AI technology. Definitely realities specifically The skills of knowing how to apply and To contain the technology. yeah reality. For me, reality since technology is moving ahead fast. understanding the AI setup skills and not only AI around all technology will give you an understanding on how to use that upcoming technologies.

So I would say these skills will allow you to remain competitive anyways with a technology That you are currently using or the one that is coming ahead. so I will go for this kills definitely, but it's a reality. The skills thank you Daniel. when final myth or reality in five years companies won't have an AI strategy they were simply had a business strategy.

One hundred percent reality. here, you know it's again as we've talked about before. It's about focusing on executing your strategy as a company and Looking at how AI is going to help. You do that And as AI becomes more pervasive in all of our software and PCs That word and the concept will just kind of phase out.

Just like I mentioned with that smartphone analogy Reality worth seeing. already the Word ai and the approach on how to frame it is changing rapidly, discussing if it's AEI or Superintelligence or AGI. What I'm trying to say that its technology will all be using at some point during these coming years.

so as we shift from paper-to-computer to spreadsheets now were shifting through software using AEI and AI tools, so at the end we're going to have business strategies that are used in this type of technology. So yeah it's a reality! And this concludes season three episode two of The Alzo AI Podcast. Brad & Daniel thank you very much.

It has been an absolute pleasure to engage with these discussions during your session. Oh absolutely its my pleasure to be here. I really enjoy talking about things like customer problems. If I was gonna kind of leave you with one thing to do here today, and for all those who are listening whether your a partner or whether your customer is just keep doing what you're doing about looking for those strategies.

Looking for those customer problems but think more openly. Think About deeper Problems Or More Issues That You Have More Strategies that You Can Go Solve Because AI isn't changing how you think about things, but it's helping you solve more of those day-to-day problems as we've talked about here. So just be more open to expanding your business and looking for those things that can help you grow.

Thank You Brad! thank you Morgan. It has been a pleasure really interesting discussions. an idea I would say my key takeaway is SMBs or end customers that are right now addressing the situation at market just to go ahead and start their journey with this type of tools because I would say even though there is some potential risks, it's not a hundred percent clear on their organization.

Just initiating the motion will make them understand how to use it and be able to leverage, to be more competitive. It's like starting the motion right now as soon you can. Thank You once again Brad & Daniel And thank you to our listeners for joining season three episode two of Alzo's AI podcast. Stay tuned for Episode Three As we dig deeper into the governance regulation and corporate responsibility around AI.

This was Morgan Galan Jones Talk Soon Also, AI Podcast. Whether you're an IT reseller or simply curious. we hope today's episode has inspired new ideas and perspectives. The conversation continues beyond this episode. Share your thoughts And ask questions For more resources links and product details discussed today.

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S3: E2: Who Wins… and Who Gets Left Behind?

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