Navigating the cloud is still a challenging endeavor for organizations, as questions around on-premises, public cloud and hybrid solutions complicate computing architectures for companies. To help guide these transitions, many businesses working to support enterprise cloud efforts are pivoting from product solutions to service-based offerings.

“Our customers want to undergo these new digital journeys. … That’s the transformation that HPE is going through right now. Not just being a product company, but really moving to being services led to deliver these digital experiences,” said Ana Pinczuk (pictured), senior vice president and general manager of Pointnext at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.

Pinczuk spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Peter Burris (@plburris), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the HPE Discover EU event in Madrid, Spain. They discussed HPE’s transformation into a services-based company and how its acquisitions, partnerships and development of services like Pointnext are supporting advisory-centric digital transformation initiatives. (* Disclosure below.)

The social change of digital transformation

HPE’s services-over-product approach promotes a focus on the social change crucial to successful cloud adaptation. With Pointnext, the company can work with customers to make hybrid information technology simple by addressing problems of social innovation, as well as getting products to market.

“We’ve always done … product-attached services. … Then we decided to launch Pointnext. … This is really coming at it from a completely different angle … recognizing that there is an element of social and management of change that comes through digital,” Pinczuk said.

A substantial part of that advisory-led approach is helping companies figure out how to leverage existing services and partners in conjunction with cloud computing to create the ideal experience for their customers.

“When we work with automotive companies, we’ve got to think not just about … the car company and their connected car, but also … how the consumer of the car is going to interact with the information technology environment in the car,” Pinczuk said.

With Pointnext and HPE’s other new services, the company is refocusing strategies to serve not just their customer’s experience, but all the adjacent elements related to that experience for the best possible offering.

Unlike some cloud competitors, HPE provides full-service solutions, including hardware, software, data center care and operational management on-premises in a hosted environment, and turns that service into a pay-as-you-go model. Part of its service is managing this environment for the customer.

“You don’t have to worry about the equipment, you don’t have to worry about infrastructure as a service … we’re providing a full solution in an outcome base, and I think that’s what differentiates us from some of the solutions that are out there,” Pinczuk said.

HPE considers itself less a cloud competitor and more an adviser that can remain objective in assisting customers through their cloud decisions. “Where does it make sense to be on the public cloud or in a private environment? … What we’re trying to do also is bring those two together … and optimize for the customer benefits that you’re going after,” Pinczuk stated.

HPE is leveraging its own partners, like Microsoft Azure, to give customers robust provider solutions, and utilizing its acquisition of Cloud Technology Partners Inc. to complement its portfolio with strong data to inform decision-making.

“We can actually come in and measure what [they’re] doing … and then bring that information back to them and have a conversation about what to do with your workload,” Pinczuk said.

Through all its efforts, HPE is working to know customers better to improve its ability to guide them into the cloud. “It’s a very close engagement with the customer … to be able to have that conversation and truly enable the right mix,” Pinczuk concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the HPE Discover EU event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the HPE Discover EU event. Neither Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE