Navigator Preview: Bob Evans from Cloud Wars Joins C2C on March 2 | C2C Community

Navigator Preview: Bob Evans from Cloud Wars Joins C2C on March 2

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Navigator Preview: Bob Evans from Cloud Wars Joins C2C on March 2

To be in tech is to know Bob Evans and Cloud Wars. 

Whether a cloud giant like Google Cloud is churning out news around innovation, or simply about how they are helping companies thrive in today's digital economy, Evans is on it.

Cloud Wars brings the human element into the cloud with incisive insights and clever conversation, and it connects the business drivers to the rapidly iterating cloud products world.

“I have always been more interested in the business innovation side rather than the pure technology side itself,” Evans said, donning the work-from-home uniform so many of us have embraced: a zip-up sweatshirt.

So 10 years ago, he made it happen by joining SAP managing strategic communications. Soon he was recruited to Oracle, where after five years as its chief communications officer, Evans made the leap and started Cloud Wars Media, looking at the most influential cloud vendors in the world. 

“One of the things that I try to focus on that I think is different is I try to get out of the Silicon Valley bubble,” Evans said. “I try to bring up customer business and perspective.”

Over the past three years or so, cloud vendors are experiencing a significant boom in interest necessity. They are now responding by actively and aggressively mapping solutions to what the customers want. 

“There’s been a big switch there, and I think that's something that Cloud Wars does,” Evans said. “I think we try to look at it more from the customer in, rather from the vendor side out.”

On March 2, Evans will join a C2C Navigators conversation without the jargon and the industry lingo. Our topic centers around winning cloud-native customers through culture and leadership; you can register for it here. We’ll discuss his renowned Top 10 Vendors List and why Google Cloud leapfrogged Salesforce. What are they doing right? What could they do better? 

 

We’ll also discuss the importance of customer experience, the landscape holistically, and lessons learned from his recent interviews with the CEOs heading up the companies fighting for the top spot on his list, including Google Cloud’s Thomas Kurian.

One lesson: Listen to what your customer wants; after all, there’s plenty of room for co-creation and co-innovation between the customer and Google Cloud.

“Google is learning,” Evans said, reflecting on his conversation with Kurian. “If you take a look at Google Cloud’s results, they've become by far the fastest-growing major cloud vendor in the world. They're growing 50% faster than Microsoft, 50% more quickly than Amazon. The big lesson that [Kurian] brought in a couple of years ago is to be customer-centric and understand what the customers want.”

Google is also responding to the industry need by building a mighty salesforce; we recently learned they marked $5.6 billion in losses, but it’s actually a good thing, according to Evans. 

“In the two years since Thomas Kurian has been CEO of Google Cloud, investment in the company has surged, revenue is up 124%, but the loss is up only 29%,” Evans wrote.

He then provided four more reasons, and we’ll explore all of this too in our upcoming C2C Navigators conversation.

Our talk will also cover what Google Cloud is doing right and where the industry will be going.

“One of the things that I think will be if not the biggest trend—new trend and high-impact trend in 2021—is going to be industry-specific solutions, industry clouds,” Evans said. 

Recent announcements from Google center on its Workspace product and specifically focus on Google Meet and necessary features and functionalities in a classroom setting. 

Finally, Evans has three critical things for attendees to keep in mind before attending the talk on March 2.

 

We are looking forward to seeing you and sharing your questions with Bob on March 2!

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