(upbeat music) >> Live, from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering UiPath Forward Americas 2019. Brought to you by UiPath. >> Welcome back to Las Vegas, everybody. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. We go out to the events and we extract the signal from the noise. This is day two of UiPath Forward III, the third North American conference that UiPath-- The rocket ship that is UiPath. Clemmie Malley is here. She's the Enterprise RPA Center of Excellence Lead at NextEra Energy. Welcome. Great to have you. And Mariesa Coughanour, who is the Managing Principal of Intelligent Automation and Technology at Cognizant. Nice to see you guys. >> Nice seeing you. >> Nice to see you. >> Thanks for coming on. How's the show going for you? >> It's been great so far. >> Yes. >> It's been awesome. >> Have you been to multiple... >> This is my third. >> Yep. >> Really? Okay, great. How does this compare? >> It has changed significantly in three years, so. It was very small in New York in 2017 and even last year grew, but now it's a two-year event taking over. >> Yeah, last year Miami was-- >> I don't know. >> It was nice. >> Definitely smaller than this, but it was happening. Kind of hip vibe. We're here in Vegas, everybody loves to be in Vegas. CUBE comes to Vegas a lot. So tell me more about your role at NextEra Energy. But let's start with the company. You guys are multi billion, many, many, tens of billions, probably close to $20 billion energy firm. Really dynamic industry. >> Yeah, so NextEra Energy is actually an awesome company, right? So we're the world's largest in clean renewable energy. So with wind and solar, really, and we also have Florida Power and Light, which is one of the child companies to NextEra as a parent, which is headquartered out of Florida. So it's usually the regulated side of power in the state of Florida. >> We know those guys. We've actually done some work with Florida Power and Light. Cool people down there. And we heard, one of the keynotes today, Craig LeClaire, was saying, "Yeah, the Center of Excellence, "that's actually maybe asking too much." But there are a lot of folks here that are sort of involved in a COE and that's kind of your role. But I was surprised to hear him say that. I don't know if you were in the keynote this morning, but was it a challenge to get a Center of Excellence? What is that all about? >> So I think there's a little bit of caution around doing it initially. People are very aggressive. And we actually learned from this story. So when we started, it was more about showing value, building as many automations as possible. We didn't really care about having a COE. The COE just happened to form. >> Okay. >> Because we found out we needed some level of governance and control around what we were doing. But now that I look back on it, it's really instrumental to making sure we have the success. So whether you do a hybrid development to automation, which you can have citizen development, or you're fully centralized, I think having the strong COE to have that core governance model and control and process is important. >> Mariesa, so your title is not, there's not RPA in your title, right? RPA is too narrow, right? >> Yeah. >> In your business you're trying to help transform companies, it's all about automation. But maybe explain a little bit about your practice and your role. >> Sure, so Cognizant's been on the automation journey now for three years. We started back in 2014 and right out the gate it was all about intelligent automation, just not RPA. Because we knew to be able to do end-to-end solutions you would need multiple technologies to really get the job done and get the outcomes they wanted. So we sit now, over 2,500 folks at our practice, going out, working cross-industry, cross-regions to be able to work with people like Clemmie to put in their program. And we've even added some stuff recently. A lot of it actually inspired by NextEra. And we have an advisory team now. And our whole job is to go in and help people unstuck their programs, for lack of a better way to say it. Help them think about, how do you put that foundation? Get a little bit stronger and actually enable scale, and putting in all this technology to get outcomes? Versus just focusing on just the pure play RPA, which a lot of people struggle to gain the benefits from. >> So Clemmie, what leads you to the decision to bring in an outside firm like Cognizant? What's that discussion like internally? >> So, I'll just give you a little bit of backstory, because I think that's interesting, as well. When we started playing with RPA in late 2016, early 2017, we knew that we wanted to do a lot of things in-house, but in order to have a flex model and really develop automations across the company, we needed to have a partner. And we wanted them to focus more on delivery, so developing, and then partner with us to give us some best practices, things that we could do better. When we founded the COE we knew what we wanted to do. So we actually had two other partners before we went with Cognizant, and that was a huge challenge for us. We found we were reworking a lot of the code that they gave us. They weren't there to be our partners. They wanted to come and actually do the work for us, instead of enabling us to be successful. And we actually said, "We don't want a partner." And then Cognizant came in and they actually were like, "Let's give you somebody." So we wanted somebody around delivery, because we said, "Okay, now that we centralize, "we have a good foundation, a good model, "we're going to need to focus on scale. "So how do we do that? "We need a flex model." So Cognizant came in and they said, "Well, we're going to offer you a delivery lead "to help focus on making sure "you get the automations out the door." Well, Mariesa actually showed up, which was one of the best hidden surprises that we received. And she really just came in, learned the company, learned our culture, and was able to say, "Okay, here's some guidance. "What can you instill? "What can you bring?" Tracking, and start capturing the outcomes that she's mentioned. And I know that was a little bit more, but it's been quite a journey. >> No, it's really good, back up. So Mariesa, I'm hearing from Clemmie that you were willing to teach these guys how to fish, as opposed to just perpetual, hourly, daily rate billing. >> Yep. And that's really what our belief is. We can go in, and yes, we can augment, from resourcing perspective, help them deliver, develop, support everything, which we do. And we work with Clemmie and others to do that. But what's really important to get to scale was how do we teach them how to go do this? Because if you're going to really embed this type of automation culture and mindset, you have to teach people how to do it. It's not about just leaning on me. I needed to help Clemmie. I need to help her team, and also their leadership and their employees. On how do you identify opportunities, and how then do you make these things actually work and run? >> So you really understand the organization. Clemmie was saying you learned the culture. >> Yeah. >> So you're not just a salesperson going in and hanging out in theCUBE. So you're kind of an extension, really, of the staff. So, either of you, if you can explain to me sort of, where RPA fits into this broader vision. That would really be helpful. >> Sure, so maybe I can kick a little bit off from what I'm seeing from clients like Clemmie, and also other customers. So what you'll find is RPA tends to be like this gateway. It's the stepping stone to all things automation. Because folks in the business, they really understand it. It's rule-based, right? It's a game of Simon Says, in some ways, when you first get this going. And then after that, it's enabling the other technology and looking at, "Look, if I want to go end-to-end, "what do I need to get the job done? "What do I need around data intake? "How do I have the right framework "to pick the right OCR tool, "or put analytics on, "or machine learning?" Because there's so much out there today and you need to have the stuff that's right-fit to come in. And so it's really about looking at what's that company strategy? And then looking at this as a tool set. And how to use these tools to go and get the job done. And that's what we were doing a lot with Clemmie and team when we sat down. They have a steering committee that's chaired by their CIO, Chief Accounting Officer, and senior leaders from every business unit across their enterprise. >> So you mentioned scaling. >> Yep. >> We heard today in the predictions segment that we're going to move from snowflake to snowball. And so I would think for scaling it's important to identify reusable components. And so how have you, how has that played out for you? And how's the scaling going? >> Yeah, so that's been one really cool component that we've built out in the COE. So I had my team actually vote on a name and we said, "We want to go after reusable components." They decided to call them Microbots. So it's a cool little term that we coined. >> That's cool. >> And our CIO and CAO actually talk about them frequently. "How are our Microbots? "How many do we have? "What are they doing?" So it's pretty catchy. But what it's really enabled us is to build these reusable snippets of code that are specific to how we perform as a company that we can plug and play and reduce our cycle time. So we've actually reduced our cycle time by over 50%. And reusable components is one of the major key components. >> So how do you share those components? Are they available in some kind of internal marketplace? And how do you train people to actually know what to apply where? >> Right. So because we're centralized, it's a little bit easier, right? We have a stored repository, where they're available. We document them-- >> And it's the COE-- Sorry to interrupt. It's the COE's responsibility, and-- >> Exactly. So the COE has it. We're actually working with Cognizant right now to figure out how can we document those further, right? And UiPath. There's a lot of cool tools that were introduced this week. So I think we're definitely going to be leveraging from them. But the ability to really show what they are, make them available, and we're doing all of that internally right now. Probably a little manual. So it'll be great to have that available. >> So Amazon has this cool concept they call working backwards documents. I don't know if you ever heard this. But what they do is they basically write the press release, thinking five years in advance. This is how they started AWS, they actually wrote. This is what we want, and then they work backwards from there. So my question is around engineering outcomes. Can you engineer outcomes, and is that how you were thinking about this? Or is it just too many unknown parts of the process that you can't predict? >> So I think one of the things that we did was we did think about, "What do we want to achieve with this?" So one of the big programs that Clemmie and the team have is also around accelerate. And their key initiatives to drive, whether it's improve customer experience, more efficiencies of certain processes across the company. And so we looked at that first, and said, "Okay, how do we enable that?" That's a top strategy driven by their CEO. And even when we prioritize all the work, we actually build a model for them. So that it's objective. So if any opportunities that come in align to those key outcomes that the company's striving for, they can prioritize first to be worked on. I actually also think this is where this is all going. Everyone focuses today on these automation COEs and automation teams, but what you will see, and this is happening at NextEra, and all the places we're starting to see this scale, is you end up with this outcomes management office. This is a core nucleus of a team that is automation, there's IT at the table, there's this lean quality mindset at the table, and they're actually looking at opportunities and saying, "All right, this one's yours. "This one's yours and then I'll pick up from you." And it's driving, then, the right outcomes for the organization versus just saying, "I have a hammer, I'm going to go find a nail," which sometimes happens. >> Right, oh, for sure. And it may be a fine nail to hit, but it might not be the most strategic-- >> Exactly. >> Or the most valuable. So what are some examples of areas that you're most excited about? Where you've applied automation and have given a business outcome that's been successful? >> Yeah, so we are an energy company. And we've had a lot of really awesome brainstorming sessions that we've held with UiPath and Cognizant. And a couple of key ones that have come out of it, really around storm season is big for us in the state of Florida. And making sure that our critical infrastructure is available. So our nursing homes, our hospitals, and so on. So we've actually built automations that help us to ping and make sure that they're available, so that we can stay proactive, right? There's also a cool use-case around, really, the intelligent automations space. So our linemen in their trucks are saying, "Hey, we spend a lot of time having to log on the computer, "log our tickets, "and then we have to turn our computers off, "drive to the next site, "and we're not able to restore as much power "or resolve issues as quickly as possible." So we said, "How can we enable them?" Speech recognition, where they can talk to it, it can log a ticket for them on their behalf. So it's pretty exciting. >> So that's kind of an interesting example. Where RPA, in and of itself's not going to solve that problem, right, but speech recognition-- >> It's a combination. >> So you got to bring in other technology, so using, what, some NLP capability, or? >> Yeah, so that's one we're currently working on. But yes, you would need some type of cognitive speech recognition, and. >> So you sort of playing around with that in R&D right now? The speech [Mumbles]. >> Yeah. >> Which, as you know, is not perfect, right? >> It is not. >> Talk to us. We know about it all. Because we transcribe every word that's said on theCUBE. And so, there's some good ones and there's some not so good ones. And they're getting better, though. They're getting better. And that's going to be kind of commodity shortly. You really need just good enough, right? I mean, is that true? Or do you need near perfect? >> So I think there's a happy medium. It depends on what you're trying to do. In this case we're logging tickets, so there might be some variability that you can have. But I will say, so NextEra is really focused on energy, but they're also trying to set themselves apart. So they're trying to focus on innovation, as well. So this is a lot of the areas that they're focusing on: the machine learning, and the processing, and we even have chat bots that they're coining and branding internally, so it's pretty exciting. >> So NextEra is, are you entirely new energy? Is that right? No fossil fuels, or? >> So it's all clean energy, yes. Across the enterprise. >> Awesome. How's that going? Obviously you guys are very successful, but, I mean, what's kind of happening in the energy business today? You're sort of seeing a resurgence in oil, right, but? >> Yeah, so I think we had a really good boom. A couple years ago there were a lot of tax credits that we were able to grow that side of our company. And it enabled us to really pivot to be the clean energy that we are. >> I mean, that's key, right? I mean, United States, we want to lead in clean energy. And I'm not sure we are. I mean, like you say, there was tax incentives and credits that sort of drove a lot of innovation, but am I correct? You see countries outside the U.S., really, maybe leaning in harder. I mean, obviously we got NextEra, but. >> I mean, I think there's definitely competition out there. We're focused on trying to be, maybe not the best, but compete with the best. We're also trying to focus on what's next, right? So be proactive, and grow the company in a multitude of ways. Maybe even outside the energy sector, just to make sure that we can compete. But really what we're focused on is the clean renewables, so. >> That's awesome. I mean, as a country we need this, and it's great to have organizations like yours. Mariesa, I'll give you the final word. Kind of, the landscape of automation. What inning are we in? Baseball analogy. Or how far can this thing go? And what's your sort of, as you pull out the binoculars, maybe not the telescope, but the binoculars, where do you see it going? >> I think there's a lot of runway left. So if you look at a lot of the research out there today, I heard today, 10% was quoted by one person. I heard 13% quoted from HFS around where are we at on scale from an RPA perspective? And that's just RPA. >> Yeah. >> So that means there's still so much out there to still go and look at and be able to make an impact. But if you look, there's also a lot of runway on this intelligent automation. And that's where, I think, we have to shift the focus. You're seeing it now, at these conferences. That you're starting to see people talk about, "How do I integrate? "How do I actually think about connecting the dots "to get bigger and broader outcomes for an organization?" and I think that's where we're going to shift to, is talking about how do we bring together multiple technologies to be able to go and get these end-to-end solutions for customers? And ultimately go, what we were talking a little bit about before, on outcome-focused for an organization. Not talking about just, "How do I go do AI? "How do I go put a bot in?" But, "I want to choose this outcome for my customer. "I need to grow the top line. "I'm getting this feedback." Or even internally, "I want to get more efficient so I can deliver." And focus there, and then what we'll do is find the right tools to be able to move all that forward. >> It's interesting. We're out of time, but you think about, it's somewhat surprising when people hear what you just said, Mariesa, because people think, "Wow, we've had all this technology for 50 years. "Haven't we automated everything?" Well, Daniel Dines, last night, put forth the premise that all this technology's actually creating inefficiencies and somewhat creating the problem. So technology's kind of got us into the problem. We'll see if technology can get us out. All right? Thanks, you guys, for coming on theCUBE. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for having us. >> You're welcome. >> Thanks. >> All right, keep it right there, everybody. We'll be right back with our next guest right after this short break. UiPath Forward III from Las Vegas. You're watching theCUBE. (electronic music)