Analytics are Crucial Right Now

Hi all. In a separate post, I covered the Oktane20 event from Okta. If you recall, Okta touches EVERYTHING SaaS. Any and all enterprise SaaS services are in their Integration network. SaaS investors here need to be soaking up these details, as we are able to gain insights directly from the partners & customers right from the keynotes & sessions. Not just insights on Okta, but for ANY and ALL SaaS providers in general. In particular, this was probably the most timely interview I have seen in Oktane20, and felt it deserved its own post.

This is from the Day 2 Morning Keynote, entitled "The Value of Identity". To set the context, there were 3 major points to the keynote. The first one was about how moving to the cloud was still early innings, and they had on the CTO of Tyson Foods. Here are my notes on that interview.

My thought: Analytics are crucial right now, and are driving this company to pivot and be nimble right now in order to solve the myriad of issues that are cropping up on a daily basis. While he didn't mention what they are using for analytics (and they likely have a sea of data scientists), I believe this directly applies to the benefits Alteryx (AYX) can give its customers, right as we have been pondering how this pandemic will affect its phenomenal execution from here and if analytics is an essential need for struggling enterprises.I think this interview helps prove the answer is YES.

Tyson Foods CTO speaking on moving 85yr old company to modern infrastructure [starts at 15:25 in vid].

Talking to another CTO who was boasting about having a new data center. He said "sorry to hear that" - data centers are too much cost to maintain and need to be able to scale on demand (otherwise you have to over-plan and have that extra capacity idle for majority of time). Companies need agility.

This pandemic requires agility. Supply & distribution chains are being disrupted. LOTS of analytics going on right now to be able to adapt. GenZ used to eat out, greatly impacted by this pandemic - now have to use groceries more. Tyson predicting what foods are helping solve that, and shifting their entire supply chain & distribution. Analyzing it all, to help predict how pandemic is spreading to get ahead of disruptions. Starting to go direct-to-grocery now to circumvent distribution networks impacted. Logistics are complex, for example truck drivers can't eat as they drive across the nation since truck stops aren't serving.

New app made that they distributed on iPad network to help workers w/ life management (local regs, safety, education/GED, financial education, family help). Helps with communication during this crisis.

Being such an old company, things were driven for so long on analog processes. They are trying to isolate a lot of these paper processes in the entire process & digitize them, especially on the supply chain & distribution sides. Can then apply ML/AI over it to help improve speeds and keep prices down. Analytics is becoming CRUCIAL right now.

Gives them an advantage to navigate today's issues as well as against competition. Business choices are also impacted by pandemic - software & process roll-outs were timed for now, but they have been delayed as they don't want additional disruptions right now. This gives them more time to look at all the analytics and make choices for short-term & longer-term.

- muji