HPE & SPAR: Creating the Retail Experience of the Future – Six Five On The Road

How are leading tech companies collaborating to transform the retail experience for tomorrow’s consumers?

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From HPE Barcelona 2025, hosts David Nicholson and Will Townsend are joined by Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Phil Mottram, Executive Vice President & Chief Sales Officer, and SPAR ICS's Andreas Kranabitl, Managing Director, for a conversation on how HPE enables SPAR ICS as a strategic transformation partner to deliver on their most ambitious goals for the future of retail. They dig into evolving retail technology and questions of security, AI integration, and building the foundation of sovereign, resilient retail platforms.

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Key Takeaways Include:

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🔹 Emerging Opportunities: Phil Mottram shares strategic priorities and identifies areas of growth and innovation discussed at HPE Discover 2025 in Barcelona.

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🔹HPE & Digital Transformation: Insights on how HPE is supporting SPAR ICS’s efforts in resiliency, security, and AI as a long-term technology partner.

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🔹 Building The Future of Retail: Andreas Kranabitl highlights SPAR’s approach to driving innovation in digital retail, and the importance of secure, sovereign platforms.

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🔹HPE’s Latest Impact: Evaluation of key innovations in AI-native networking, hybrid cloud, virtualization, and security—and what resonates with SPAR.

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🔹Defining Partnership Success: What both companies envision as success metrics for the HPE–SPAR collaboration over the next 12–18 months.

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Learn more at HPE.

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Or listen to the audio here:

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David Nicholson:

Welcome back to HPE Discover Barcelona 2025. I'm Dave Nicholson, and I brought my extra brain with me, Will Townsend, the bigger, better brain. Will, thanks for being here. 

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Will Townsend:Thanks, Dave. I really appreciate it. It takes a lot of the pressure off. 

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David Nicholson: And we've got Phil and Andreas from HPE. Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you. Well, we've got some news here. So Phil, allegedly, you are now the chief sales officer at HPE. Indeed. Tell me it isn't true. Why would you take on a responsibility such as this? What were you thinking? Did you consult with any of your family before agreeing to this?

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Phil Mottram:

They said it's not a good idea. So yeah, for about the last month, I've been appointed the Chief Sales Officer. And I've been with the company now for about six and a half years. I've actually been working for HPE. And then before this, I was running the Aruba networking business for about four years. I remember.

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Will Townsend:

So I got to know Phil for a while. Yes, of course.

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Phil Mottram:

So yeah, I'm in the sales role now, but my background is actually in sales. So earlier in my career, I was a salesperson and then a sales manager. So I still remember, you know, what makes a good salesperson and what the customers want and need, and it's all about listening. So in sales, there's the old adage, you've got two ears and one mouth, and you should use them in that proportion. So that's the way I plan to approach this job. You seemed to be peering into my soul when you made that last comment.

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Will Townsend:

All right.

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David Nicholson:

What do you think, Will?

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Will Townsend:

Well, I think Phil's the right guy for the job. Obviously, I've known him for quite a while. And, you know, sales and marketing and partnerships go hand in hand. And, you know, Phil, I'm wondering, you know, Spar is leaning into resiliency, security and AI. And I'm just curious, like, how is HPE enabling that journey for such a strategic partner like Spar?

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Phil Mottram:

Yeah, well look, we're really excited to be working with Andreas and the team. We've been working on this project for quite a long time now and it's bringing together all of the capabilities of HPE. So yeah, we're really pleased to be working with them, delivering a private cloud solution for Spark.

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David Nicholson:

So Andreas, from Spark ICS's perspective, we've heard a lot of things from HPE here at the show over the last couple of days. What are some of the highlights for you or the standouts?

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Andreas Kranabitl:

Honestly, the highlight was really less in the morning, so the first 10 minutes, the keynote of Antonio, because it shows me a strategy execution. From my point of view, there is a program on the table addressing the top right component where we have to go ahead and where we have to invest for the future. So I think also the strategy regarding networking, regarding computing, regarding security, and then at the next stage AI is exactly the program which is on our table. And yesterday I saw really a solid strategy and people on stage they know what technology means and they know what strategy execution means. So there are not so many sales people on stage, from my point of view. And this really enables trust for me. So we have a lot of trust because we are working together with HP since 1995. So it's really a famous roadmap we are going and there is also a high level of trust. But I was totally impressed about the strategy, about the components and when you also think about what HP did the last year by Juniper and so on. So really picking the right partner on board and now shaping a holistic picture of everything you need for stability, for security, for sovereignty. So everything is there and also for innovation. So this is, I think there is no other company on this planet who can really deliver that that quality and I really trust that this will be really reality in the next years.

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David Nicholson:

Does it feel to you like we're moving from, you know, we're sort of in this constant movement towards execution from vision, but we're getting, you know, we're more in the execution zone now.

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Andreas Kranabitl:

Would you agree? That's exactly the point because, you know, I'm talking to a lot of people, a lot of people are talking to me about AI and something. I think 80% is on another universe, so maybe it could come in or not. So I think here I see really the reality. So if you look in operations, if you look on networks, if you look on security, And also I think the strategy and the tactic is to say, for example, security is nothing on top, it's really inside all the components. So I think this is what we need. And this is, from my point of view, the difference of HPE. Here we are talking about reality. We are not talking about some dreams. And here are people who know exactly how the future will look like and not talking about how the future could look like.

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Will Townsend:

I think Antonio summed it up really well during the keynote. The theme this year is Discover What's Next. And so it's no longer proof of concept, it's moving things into production, right? Andres, I'm wondering, from your perspective, the combination of Aruba Networking and Juniper, what excites you the most about those two business units coming together?

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Andreas Kranabitl:

As I said before, I think it's the combination. There's technology, enabling technology with all this Wi-Fi stuff and so on, so networking from the data center to the edge. Sure. And Juniper is bringing all the security components and so on, and bringing that together really to one holistic environment. is much more also if you're talking about more force and so on. So this is really, everything is on the table. And everything is more or less, and you can see it here, also on the software level, it's really reality. It's really working together. And I think that's so, if you think about security, so we need a high integrated environment. And that's what, because I was here two years ago where Antonio talked about the Juniper stuff, now it's reality. And you see really the, let me say, First of all, the experience, but also the advantage is now having this all together in one big center.

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Will Townsend:

Right. And it's making the network one of the enforcement points for security, right? And, you know, bolt-on, it creates gaps. I also like how Apstra and HPE OpsRamp is coming together for observability. to drive better security control and also network assurance. But I know you're very focused on creating the retail future experience and innovating in digital experience. And I'm wondering, what are you leaning into from HPE to ensure secure and sovereign deployments? Because sovereignty is a very important aspect in the European Union, right?

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Andreas Kranabitl:

So let me say in that way, Two years ago, the focus was super on the supply chain. So we invested a lot into automation. So I think there are a lot of challenges bringing thousands of goods and also the assortment is changing every day. We have to run a 24-hour, 7-day business and more or less we are a critical infrastructure because the people they need food. And so we have to think about how we establish and how we enable the right technology on that. So with our Snowball project we started two years ago and the initial ideas is coming from Barcelona together with Mark Walters. And I wanted to say, hey, we have to go in that direction because also if you talk about sovereignty and business critical, we're now having geo-redundancy in Austria. So we have two data centers, 300 kilometers in different regions. And with the HP technology, we really are now able to switch over an application and this application we didn't really change something on the application really with all this infrastructure and with this platform we can move one application to the to the other side within one minute and we do not lose data so we do not lose any order and this is this is from my point of view a super achievement because talking about applications, the applications they are not focusing on reliability, on business continuity, on geo-redundancy. And that I think is for us important to have this reliability and also because the environment is changing a lot. So if you asked me five years ago about blackout, But now it's reality, and that's why we've been investing in this Jewel Redundancy. And on the other side, I think we are moving forward to enable a lot of applications also much more focused to the end customer. So, was it five years ago supply chain where we could say, okay, if there is an outage of two hours we can manage it. At four hours it will become critical. Currently we are having a lot of direct communication with consumers, 24 hours. And if we have issues, technical issues, in 10 minutes we will have the war in the stores because they could not manage their promotions, they cannot use the payments and so on. So this is, I think, for these applications and we really want now to focus to digitize and to communicate with the consumer on that level. So we need a perfect infrastructure, reliability and on the other side of course performance. We shouldn't forget that and also I think I think a perspective from the future to say we need a partner that can follow also our strategies because I see a lot of things which are coming in, especially if you talk a little bit of AI because I think we have now really a lot of, let me say, 10 business cases really in place where AI is really delivering business value. So not the simple things like translations services and so on. So I think there is a lot and here I need the technology, I need the partner and I also need a kind of continuity in the common strategy.

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Will Townsend:

Yeah, because the opportunity cost to a retailer is huge, right? With any downtime, right? And the whole notion of a self-driving network and AI native is super, super compelling.

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Andreas Kranabitl:

And that's what I said before, if you see now on the portfolio, it's exactly what we need. And everything is, most of it is coming from one supplier. It's really integrated highly and is following the same strategy. I think this is really a big value for us.

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David Nicholson:

So Phil, what does success look like when you think of the relationship between HPE and Spar? Looking out a year, year and a half, you know, 2026, 2027, what does success look like?

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Phil Mottram:

So we're really pleased to have Spar as a customer and from a relationship perspective I think it feels really good. I mean the things that we like is what Andreas was just talking about there, the levels of innovation and the fact that they're really doing stuff. It's not a talking project, it's a very live implementation. So I guess the definition of success would be a mutually beneficial relationship. So these guys continue to grow in the market with resiliency and a brilliant service, and we're happy to be a partner with them.

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David Nicholson:

So, Phil, I think you're confusing implementation with sales in your answer. I was looking for a revenue number. The answer was supposed to be very simple, a number, okay? You've got to get used to the new gig, Phil.

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Phil Mottram:

You've got to get used to the new gig. I need to reset my mind.

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David Nicholson:

A share of wallet percentage. I was waiting, I was waiting for your answer too.

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Andreas Kranabitl:

But that's the difference. So they are not talking about, as I said, sales and figures. We are talking about solutions which are bringing value. Yes, I know.

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David Nicholson:

That's what sales is all about at this level. It's about successful implementation.

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Phil Mottram:

Exactly right. It's about finding interesting projects with interesting customers that really make a difference. I mean, that's really what we're interested in.

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David Nicholson:

Yeah, yeah. Well, so Phil, what do you, I mean, you know, it's sort of a softball question to say, you know, what have you been impressed by here at HPE Discover Barcelona? But what, you know, just the vibe, I mean, even compared to Las Vegas.

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Phil Mottram:

Yeah, I mean, the show was hugely oversubscribed. I mean, I mentioned to Will earlier, I think we had to stop taking invites. You sold it out for the first time. I think it's almost doubled in its level of attendance over the last two to three years. And obviously the Vegas show is even bigger, isn't it? It's like a multitude bigger. When I think about what's going on externally, so the external trends, you've got lots of customers concerned about rising costs of virtualization. You've got lots of interest in AI, but I think now people are really looking for projects to implement and get value. With that comes questions about where should data sit, data sovereignty, costs of having data in the public cloud, right? Other things as well that we're seeing or hearing from customers is, because with AI there's so much data going around the network, they're really concerned about security. So they want to make sure that the network is protected, so with that, there's a lot of upgrade activity, but also using AI in the platforms, be that either Mist or Aruba Central, looking out for odd behavior on the network. So when you think about all of these things coming together, it feels like we're, you know, they're the external things. It feels like we're in a great position, doesn't it? I mean, because, you know, success in business, a lot of it is about strategy and execution, but a bit of luck helps as well, doesn't it, right? You know, there's that phrase, isn't there? It's going to be lucky and good. So it feels like externally the market is moving our way and as Andrea said, if you listen to the keynote that Antonio did yesterday, we've got all the right products in the right spaces. So yeah, that's been the exciting thing from my perspective and I've had a lot of partner and customer meetings this week. And in all of the meetings, there's lots of stuff to talk about. So it feels like the portfolio is really on point.

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David Nicholson:

Well, Will and I are sort of objective observers of all of this. Trust me, we would tell you if we disagreed with you on that point. We would, we would, we'd let you know. But I think we're seeing, we're getting that same vibe.

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Will Townsend:

It's really interesting.

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David Nicholson:

And myself, coming from an infrastructure background, I feel like it's a bit of a revenge against the hyperscale cloud providers, that we have a lot of relevance in the age of AI. There's no question about it. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. Will, again, thank you. That was so relaxing for me. Thanks for joining us here. HPE Discover Barcelona 2025. Stay tuned to Six Five on the Road. We'll be right back with more interesting content.

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