Cloudflare EMEA Update

Hello Boris, it's a pleasure to have you among us. We have seen the recent announcements of your arrival at Cloudflare as well as the launch of Cloudflare France. We are really happy with these announcements. Could you share your perspectives with us? Yes, hello Lorraine. I am particularly happy to join Cloudflare as Director of France. I am also delighted to be able to help build a better Internet and to develop our business, which is experiencing a strong acceleration in France. This is an important step for Cloudflare, even though our presence is already relatively visible in Europe, because after London, Munich, Lisbon, Paris, it is our fourth office in the IMEA region, so Europe, Middle East and Africa. With this opening, we will be able to better support our local customers, to recruit talent in France and to also meet the strong market demand to build on the successes we have had in other countries in the rest of the world. I was particularly impressed by the success of Cloudflare in Europe and in France and I am even more enthusiastic about our future and our future successes with our customers, our partners and our employees. It is an enthusiasm that we really share at Cloudflare. Moreover, we have very diverse teams of culture and experience and I would be delighted to know a little more about your professional journey. Yes, indeed, the culture of Cloudflare is something that marked me, that touched me, this culture of diversity. I was born in Paris, I grew up in Paris, also in Normandy, and I spent two years in Germany. I started my career almost 20 years ago in high technology and during my childhood, I had the chance to play with one of the first Apple devices available in France. At that time, I was able to learn development languages, I was able to learn computer science and I still have a passion for technology, the value that it can bring to companies of all sizes, small and large companies, when it is well used. In my previous functions as a sales representative, as an account manager, as a sales director or general director, I had the chance to manage businesses and teams of all sizes and nationalities. They were always passionate about looking for the best solutions to meet the needs of customers and I have always put customer interest and customer support at the heart of my different strategies. In 2011, I opened the Amazon Web Services office in France and during these last nine years, I have been able to support many companies of all sizes and sectors in their digital transformation towards the cloud and towards SaaS architectures. Startups, from their startup phase to their scale-up phase and even exit and purchase for some, ETIs, K40 companies, software publishers, consulting companies, service companies of all types and sizes. So thank you very much for this question, Lauren, but enough about me, I would also be curious to know your background and your job as a CSM at Cloudflare. Yes, with pleasure. I joined Cloudflare two years ago within the sales team to then specialize in supporting our existing customers as a Customer Success Manager. I wanted to see the upside of the scene, to help users get the best out of the platform. And not having a technical profile myself, I find it really exciting to better understand how our technology works, the value it brings to companies of all sizes and sectors that rely on it. So each customer is different and one of the aspects of my role is to understand their objectives and to help them achieve them in order to surpass them. So why did they choose Cloudflare? What do they want to take away from the solution? Whether it's, for example, a 90% cache rate, the acceleration of their dynamic traffic, ensuring a 100% availability rate of their sites and applications, countering malicious bots that will infiltrate their database, securing access to the company's internal applications, or even protecting their cyber attack infrastructure. There are still many, many other examples. So it varies a lot. And another aspect of my role is also to inform customers of the platform's improvements and new products that can help them address other objectives or other problems they may encounter. Since I joined Cloudflare, the platform has evolved enormously and our product portfolio has largely expanded. So the problems that we are able to address today with our solutions are always more diverse and varied. So we really don't have time to get bored. There are always new things to learn on the platform and on the new technology that we are developing. It sounds exciting. Yes, it's very, very interesting, Cloudflare. To come back to your journey, you have had to go through a major transformation in the IT landscape over the past few years, with the move to the cloud in particular. What impressed you the most? Well, that's a very good question. Indeed, I have been able to support many customers over the past 10 years in the implementation of new IT architectures based on the cloud, in the deployment of new business models based on SaaS, based on usage models. And over the years, I have noticed that, on the one hand, these transitions are inevitable. Customers who switch to new models, cloud and SaaS, rarely come back. But these transitions also bring with them an important increase in the complexity of technical architectures. We see that technical architectures have now become very heterogeneous with SaaS applications, software as a service, applications based on the cloud, which are developed and deployed on different clouds, multiple clouds for many companies, but also critical applications, historical applications or legacy applications, which will potentially host critical data and which will remain hosted in the customer's data centers. And this new complexity has generated an unprecedented increase in threats, as well as an unprecedented increase in protection needs, availability guarantees, performance guarantees. And we see that, with unprecedented Internet utilization, attacks have become more and more sophisticated. The attack surface of Internet-exposed applications has also become unprecedented. And the volume of attacks has never been so important. And we see that these new attacks are even able to bring down the defense capabilities of the most important or most advanced companies. And what we see is that today, with teleworking, with all these clients and partners that can be located anywhere, we see that the new network of companies has become the Internet itself. And this fundamentally forces us to rethink how to ensure security, how to ensure availability and how to ensure the performance of applications. For companies of all sizes, the digital properties of companies, Internet sites, applications, or even APIs, have become one of the most important assets. And the way they will be able to serve their clients, their partners and their employees through the Internet has become a really strategic issue for all these organizations and has become a global strategic issue. And so, the security, availability and performance guarantees of these assets have also become a strategic issue. And Cloudflare is the leader in this transition. Yes. And to go back to your journey, it is very interesting and very rich. What motivated you to join Cloudflare and open the French office? Listen, Lorraine, when I heard that Cloudflare wanted to open an office in France, I was very enthusiastic right away and very motivated to join this unique adventure. And there are elements that convinced me. One of the first elements is the installed base of Cloudflare customers as well as the growth. I was really impressed by the number of customers, the growth and the speed of adoption of Cloudflare solutions. Today, Cloudflare has more than 3.2 million customers worldwide. This includes about 16% of Fortune 1000, the 1000 largest companies in the world. Cloudflare manages more than 25 million Internet properties worldwide. These Internet properties, which are, as I mentioned earlier, the most precious assets of companies today. And Cloudflare has customers in all sectors, whether it's the public sector, the private sector, start -ups, charities. All use Cloudflare solutions to protect themselves, accelerate and guarantee the availability of their digital property. And we see that every day there are thousands of new customers who switch to Cloudflare services. That's the first element. The second element, which is also a very strong element, is that I discovered quite early the power and extent of the Cloudflare network. The Cloudflare network is a network that has been built in the cloud since 2010, so now more than 10 years. It's a network that learns, that grows perpetually. And that means that companies will also be able to grow and expand with Cloudflare services that will support them in their growth. This network is deployed today in more than 200 cities, in more than 100 countries around the world. And to give you an idea of how big it is, there are more than 1 billion IP addresses that go through the Cloudflare network every day. And this network works a bit like an immune system. That is, it learns continuously in the face of threats, in the face of attacks, which evolve constantly. And thanks to this learning, it adapts, it evolves constantly, and it allows each customer to benefit from these constant evolutions almost instantly, wherever they are located in the world. Another interesting aspect is that within this network, 99% of the population is connected to the Internet, which is located within 100 milliseconds of this network. So to give you an idea of what 100 milliseconds is, a clean model is between 300 and 400 milliseconds. And a last order of magnitude, which is also really important, is that every day the Cloudflare network blocks more than 76 billion attacks, among which we also have the most important attacks that we have ever seen on the Internet. And that really demonstrates the extent of the Cloudflare network, and also, in a way, the importance of Cloudflare as an Internet actor. Thank you, Boris. Yes, it is something that I also share, and as far as the existing customer base is concerned, it is a really powerful network, which also allowed me to help French customers such as RATP or Appen. So it is very interesting to see how this network can help them protect and accelerate their sites and applications. You also mentioned the culture of Cloudflare. Can you tell me a little more about that? Yes, so we have already mentioned the culture, but the culture of a company, for me, is fundamental. Fundamental in the well-being, of course, of the collaborators and the fact that everyone feels good and can grow. But it is also fundamental in the success, the long-term success. And I was really impressed by the culture of Cloudflare. It is a unique culture. I had the chance to meet many Cloudflare employees, as well as all the management teams, before and after I arrived. And I met teams of great diversity, of origin, of a really extraordinary intelligence, all driven by the passion of the customers, the curiosity, their responsibility and their commitment to the Cloudflare mission. I discovered a state of mind, really, of entrepreneurs, passionate teams, teams committed to this mission. And I really loved the openness, the transparency work, and a team spirit and really extraordinary collaboration. This culture, for me, is really aligned with my values since the beginning of my career. And Cloudflare's mission has deeply touched me, to build a better Internet and allow any organization to access technologies among the most advanced, which in the past were reserved only for companies that were able to make big investments, to put a lot of resources, a lot of time into the acquisition, deployment and maintenance of these solutions. And we see that Cloudflare's technology finally democratizes the access to these technologies that were reserved for these large companies. So this culture is really unique. And there is another aspect to this culture, it is Cloudflare's technology and its speed of innovation. At Cloudflare, the speed of innovation literally blew me away. We had the Zero Trust Week last month. We saw the number of announcements that Cloudflare was able to make during this week. Well, Cloudflare is continuously launching new products and new features worldwide. And with the network I was talking about earlier, this smart network, well, these new features and these new products are available on the entire network for all customers, without any installation or any necessary update. So I was able to discover really new products that I didn't know existed, but that are adapted to the world of the Internet and that break a lot of traditional approaches. So to share a few, we have Cloudflare One, which is a new generation platform to connect, secure teams, applications and devices wherever they are located, in teleworking, in the office or even on the seat. We see that in the current context of teleworking, we have a product that is really relevant. Cloudflare Workers is a serverless solution, the most advanced that can exist, which redefines the way applications are deployed. We deploy code directly on the points of presence, so on these 200 points of presence that are distributed all over the world. And the execution of the code, the deployment, the scalability of the application, is the problem of Cloudflare, it is no longer the problem of customers. Another product that is particularly interesting is Magic Transit. Magic Transit allows you to provide services and the power of Cloudflare services on customer datacenters. And we see that with all the freedom that customer architectures have, to have a product of this type that allows to have the same features in the cloud or on its own datacenters, it makes perfect sense, especially in terms of DDoS protection and acceleration. In terms of acceleration, we have Argo Smart Routing, which is an equivalent of Waze, which constantly analyzes the routes of the Internet and optimizes its access routes. And it's a product that has reduced in an extremely important way the waiting time of Internet users. And a last product that is very important and that really interested me is Cloudflare Web Analytics. It's a solution that provides a lot of analytics on the use of Internet sites, applications, APIs, available for marketing services, for web creators. And all this information and this analytics is done without any compromise on the confidentiality of customer data. Cloudflare has a non-utilization chart for commercial purposes, customer data, which is also very aligned with Cloudflare's mission. Thank you, Boris. Yes, this innovation and this culture are also two aspects that I personally like a lot at Cloudflare. We really work with very different people, but who all have this openness and this passion and this desire to develop beautiful technologies. And in connection with this, we also have projects like Galileo or Athenian, which are particularly inspiring. Can you tell us a little more about these projects? Yes, absolutely. Galileo is a project that was founded in 2014. Galileo is Cloudflare's response to cyberattacks that are launched against important targets for the Internet, but vulnerable. And we see that there are many artistic groups, humanitarian organizations or controversial political voices or political dissidents. We see that in recent years, these attacks have become too widespread and too powerful as well. And the Internet is a wonderful, powerful tool to spread and develop ideas, but it is also a tool that is ultimately quite vulnerable. And Cloudflare's mission to help build a better Internet also includes the protection of online free expression for these vulnerable groups. And we see that when you are a journalist, when you are a social activist, when you are part of a minority group and you are, several times, flooded with malicious traffic to be tempted to be put offline and to be kept offline, well, in the end, the Internet ceases to keep this promise. And so Cloudflare offers products, a technology with very robust security that allows companies that are the target of these powerful DDoS attacks and other cyber attacks to protect themselves. And Cloudflare's Galileo project is to make this same security available for free for these targets that are potentially vulnerable to the Web and that are targets, that are sources of public interest. So, if you are part of these artistic groups, of these humanitarian organizations or of political dissidents, you can apply online to our Galileo program. Thank you. Yes, these are very interesting projects. And to come back a little more on the opening of the French office, we haven't discussed it yet, but what do you think are the prospects of the French market? So, we see that in France, we are lucky to have a startup ecosystem that is very active. In 2019, there were 5 billion investments in the startup ecosystem by Venture Capital, by Risker Capital. It was a 40% increase compared to the previous year. We are also lucky to have among the largest companies in the world, with the highest concentration in Europe, companies of the Global Fortune 500, the 500 largest companies in the world. We also have an environment of PME and ETI, which is extremely dynamic. And so, we have this environment. France has always been a strong interest of Cloudflare and strong investments of Cloudflare because Cloudflare has had French clients since its launch in 2010. Cloudflare has also opened one of its first European data centers in Paris only 10 months after its launch. And today, we see that in France, we have thousands of French clients in all areas, startups, PMEs, ETIs, large companies, organizations in the public sector, associations also for lucrative purposes. So, we have in France large companies like L'Oréal, Solocal, Criteo, Alliance France, Webedia, DPD Group, La Poste Group. We have large training organizations like INSEAD. We have big names in the public sector like RATP, as well as iconic startups like BackMarket, Appen, Wine Mocha, Sending Blue. Today, more than 25% of K40 and more than 30% of Next40, the 40 largest startups in France, have chosen Cloudflare technology to protect themselves, accelerate and improve the reliability of their Internet applications. This is why we are setting up Cloudflare teams in France to support our customers, but also to develop our business and accelerate our growth and also help build a better Internet in France. So, if you are interested, we are also setting up these teams, so teams of executive accountants, channel managers, business development representatives, sales engineers, solution engineers, customer success managers, to help our many French customers and continue to develop our business in France. Thank you. As for the future of Cloudflare in France, how do you see this future for Cloudflare? We see that since the beginning of the year, we have seen an unprecedented increase in the use of the Internet and teleworking. Cloudflare has measured that in France, with the lockdown, there is an increase of 30% of Internet traffic from the month of March-April, which then decreased a little during the summer and which has increased again from the start of the year, with an increase of more than 20%. We see that in the Paris region, we have an increase of 50% of Internet traffic at the beginning of the pandemic and since the start of the year, an increase of 40%. This has also generated an unprecedented increase in attacks and requests from the Internet network. All companies today have an essential need to provide better protected Internet services that are faster and more reliable for their customers, partners and employees. As I mentioned earlier, the business network has now become the Internet itself and it requires adapted solutions. Today, the demand for Cloudflare solutions has never been so important. This is why we are launching the Cloudflare teams in France. If you are a private company, a public sector organization, a non-profit organization, if you are facing cyberattacks, performance difficulties, availability difficulties of your Internet applications, if you have difficulties in setting up teleworking via Internet or if your costs and performance of your VPNs have become a real difficulty, we can help you. Contact us. If you are also an SS2I, a consulting firm or an information manager, we can also explore partnerships to help you speed up your business in cybersecurity, performance of Internet applications, availability of Internet applications. And lastly, as I mentioned, if you want to help us build a better Internet, we are looking for talents to join our teams. In any case, you can contact me at bellecoeur .Cloudflare.com. For me, it is a real honor to be part of the Cloudflare family and to build a better Internet by helping our French clients. Thank you. Yes, it is a very promising future. As our co-founder Michelle Zatlin says, I think we are just getting started. I am also very curious to see what will happen. Thank you. Thank you, Lorraine. I also share your analysis. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.