>> Announcer: Live from Miami Beach, Florida, it's theCUBE covering UiPath Forward Americas, brought to you by UiPath. (upbeat music) >> Welcome back to Miami Beach, everybody. I'm Dave Vellante with Stu Miniman. This is UiPathForward Americas. We're talking about robotic process automation. We're seeing the ascendancy of a new marketplace. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. Let's see, let's get into it. So Param Kahlon is here. He's the UiPath's Chief Product Officer. Welcome, so we're going to get into some of the product stuff. We haven't really dug down deep today, so that's great. >> Thank you. >> Jairo Quiros is here. He's the Vice President of Global Shared Services, an RPA COE, center of excellence, leader at Equifax. Welcome, thanks for coming on theCUBE. >> Thank you, thank you. >> Jairo, let's start with you. Tell us about your role. I love the title. (Jairo laughs) You got automation in your title. Do people embrace you when they see you coming or run? >> No, no, no. Actually, that's very interesting. I've been with the company for 20 years now, so I'm responsible to lead Global Shared Services all across from business operations, financing, accounting, you name it, IT security, right? So, coming along with automation has been quite a journey for us. First of all, we love the product so thank you, Param for everything you guys do at the service, as well. But truly, automation, what it means to us is pushing our workforce to do stuff that is of more valued added to our customers, removing the but out of the human which is critical to us, so no fear of buts anymore. And it's been two years. >> The product's at the tip of the iceberg, I'm hearing. There's a whole lot of other stuff beneath it, culture, obviously process, mindset. >> Jairo: Yeah, correct. >> We will get into some of that. But Param, tell us about your role as Chief Product Officer. You make it all happen. (Param laughs) >> I'm responsible for making sure we can listen to what our customers want, what the market wants, translate that into requirements, and deliver that in the form of products. That's all I do, it's very simple. >> You're a translator. >> We translate it, transform it into requirements that can be given to the product team, their development team that can go write software for it. >> Kind of like that AI layer in UiPath that translates all this data into something that's actionable, right? >> Param: Absolutely. >> Jairo, you were saying you liked the product before. I mean, our personal experience is we could actually download it and play with it, and we're not ultra technical, some of our guys are. What do you like about the product? >> Well, I think many things. I mean, first of all, I think it's very easy to use, right? So, it's built for execution, right? For instance, in our case, we're having a lot of junior engineers coming on board. So we go out to colleges and recruit people that are passionate about process. So what UiPath offer us is a way for them to entry our operation and actually perform tasks and do, and realize results pretty easily. So then, they can see the work being done and appreciate it. >> So who are the users in your organization? Is it a spectrum? You got the sort of RPA developers and then you got business users, as well? Describe that. >> Well, it's a combination, right? So we built the COE over the past couple years. It's inclusive of not only configurators, but also analysts and people that can understand the business. So when you look at through the process, start thinking about how do you design for automation? So this tool allows a very comprehensive very easy to use and we see they make progress release after release, so it's very exciting. >> Alright, Param, why don't you walk us through the announcements that you made? What's new to the platform? Some enhancement to the community. >> Yeah, so we've done some really key announcements in this event today. The first one that we're very excited about is UiPath Go, which is our marketplace that enables broad innovation across our entire ecosystem of customers and partners. We can create on a platform or we can put it in a marketplace and then everybody else can easily access the innovation that's available there. We also released 2018.3 which is the third release we've done this year, but probably the most comprehensive release that we've done 'til date in the history of Enterprise Automation. So we're very excited about launching that release today, as well. And third, we've announced a $20 million fund that will fund our partners that will co-innovate together with us in bringing out new RPA capabilities, new machine learning and AI capabilities into the marketplace. Those are three key announcements. >> What are the-- >> I'm just-- Sorry, but from my understanding, you run on a quarterly cadence for the release of the primary product, correct? >> We're in a quarterly cadence, yes. >> What are the critical aspects of the new release? >> So, there's a few things we've done in the main release. One of the first things we've done is we've allowed for re-usability of the software. So if you're using a lot of components, if you've built a way to automate a certain process, it could be as simple as, here's how I log into a application, a financial application. The rest of the people in my organization don't have to go reinvent that thing themselves. They can reuse the component, the way I've built it, so they can be reused to process every single aspect of the customer, as well. We've made it very easy for our customers to upgrade to new versions of the software, as we're releasing very rapidly, we want to make sure that the upgrades are easy, but the upgrades are also seamless as in they don't affect any of the existing processes that are running in production. So we support version management and package management so we make it easier for people to manage that. There's some other capabilities that we've done. We've supported internationalization of the platform, so now customers in Japan can use our product in Japanese, customers can use it in Spanish, they can use it in Deutsche, German, so we've allowed that in this release, as well. Another cool thing we've done is allowing humans to provide input to what the robots need to do by putting a form that they can use to provide input to them, so it can provide a better symbiosis of humans working together with robots to achieve more processes and more automation in the ecosystems. There's a lot of stuff, this is some of the highlights. >> So what do you think? I mean, what of those, what of that compendium is of interest to you? >> I think, you know, I've been a member for a year now, from, of their customer advisory board, so they truly listen to what we need to say, right? Because the robotic aspect of it is critical, but there's so many other aspects, such as the analytics. So, understanding the business outcome, right? What's the bot producing? Not necessarily the bot that's up and running, but really, what's the impact to the business? I think that's part of the feedback that we've been given in UiPath, they're really working hard on that. The other aspect which is important also is how do you move forward from simple RPA to more complex automations? So, the human in the loop approach to things is important. We call that those small black boxes, you know people with 20 years of experience, they understand how to make decisions but those aren't documented, right? So, now we're giving the opportunity for that human to become part of the process, right? So that is very powerful to us. >> So one of the aspects we've been looking at, the marketplace seems interesting. I'm wondering if you've had a chance to look at that, are there things that you would consider using, and anything that you might even consider contributing in the future? >> I think so. I think this is a whole movement, it's a community today, so no matter where you are, developers, they love it. My guys are telling me, "When is this out?" Because, you know, they have I mean, they're so much hungry to get stuff done and to share what they can do, it makes a difference not only for our company, but for the world, right? So it means something. >> That's interesting. Your company's been around for a long time. You're not worried about, I mean, this open mindset is really intriguing to us, you're not worried about putting your IP in there? Or do you feel like, this open community, we're going to get back as much as we give? >> No, of course. Of course, there are controls in place, and of course, there'll be a protocol in place, but you know, at the end, you're making a difference in the world. So if someone wants to, for instance, have a mortgage because they're wanting to buy a house, you want to make it easy, right? At the end, that's the end goal. You know, for EquiFax and for all the institutions that are in the same sector. >> So from a product standpoint, we just have Craig LeClair on, he couldn't directly call out UiPath. It's not cool, right? I mean, he has to be independent. But, look, he wrote the report, UiPath went from third on the list to first on the list, out of I don't know, 10, 15 vendors. It's like the Gardiner magic quadrants, all these rating systems, right? We don't do 'em, but we read them because they're good, and they're informative. He said in there that last year's features have become this year's table stakes. And some of the things that are differentiating companies, and obviously UiPath won so I presume you have the differentiation ears. Analytics and governance. Those are two big areas, I see the heads nodding. Maybe you guys could each talk about that, Jairo let's start with you, why are those things important? You address the analytics, you kind of address governance, as well, but maybe you can summarize. >> I mean, we address governance as the get-go, and it's an evolution. So for instance, you know, really, truly when we're looking into RPA, it's not only so much about a tactical approach to a specific problem, but it's really turned into a strategy, right? So if you want to scale, you need to have the proper controls in place. So, these guys have done an amazing job integrating with tools such as Cyberart, for instance which is reall important for many companies. They're trying to secure their systems and make sure that the bots are operating on their very secure environment. >> So you guys not only you were in the place position, now you're in the lead. Now the pressure's really on. It's like the Red Sox, Stu. (laughs) So, how'd you get there? What is that enables that? Architecture? Mindset? Culture? You know, give us the insights there. >> Yeah, first of all, let's say we're super excited about being in the first place. I think it's really good, it's a really good testament to the hard work the team is putting in there, so we're super excited about that. We believe that our success and the product roadmap depends upon hearing a lot from customers and making sure that we're responding to their customers. So I think that's what we have done for the most part is ensuring that if there are things that our customers need, if there are things that our customers think our platform and technology is moving toward, we're actually doing the kinds of things that'll actually take us there. So a lot of the innovation that we've done on the platform has come from a direct result of engagement and working with customers and bringing their success into there. Specifically, the governance and analytics, those are very important aspects of what we're doing on a product. Most of our customers are very large corporations like Equifax, other corporations. They will not use our technology if we couldn't support the level of governance and compliance that they need from the ability to run those processes, especially when they're running autonomously without having a human look over what's happening. So that was a core part of what we've invested in. Analytics is also something that we've invested but we'll continue to make more investments there. We're now hearing from Equifax and other customers that people don't want to just get analytics that is responding to what the robots are doing but they want to understand what sort of business impact the robots are having on the corporation. So we want to build an analytics platform that is ingesting not just the robot workloads but bringing in information about line of business systems, as well, to be able to give the reports and perspectives that somebody can look at that and say the robots have done so much for me. Not just in terms of number of hours, but in terms of the business outcomes that I've achieved through the work the robots are executing. >> Jairo, I want to ask you about innovation at Equifax. We've observed many times in theCUBE that innovation in the tech industry used to march at the cadence of Moore's Law. Oh, new chip's out! We've got to do, we can now put better, faster data warehouse. You know, more storage, whatever it was. The innovation model is changing dramatically. And we've observed that it's a combination now, it seems, of data plus AI plus cloud, for scale. So, what do you think about that sort of innovation sandwich? Do you buy into it? How are you guys applying innovation in your business? >> I mean, I'll tell you I got a similar question the other day, you know. It's about, you know, I live in Costa Rica, right? So we surf all the time, right? So it's about riding, you know, the wave, right? So it's not about riding it, right? If you don't ride it, then you're going to drop, right? And then you're going to fall behind. >> Dave: You're going to be driftwood. >> So, yeah, innovation is there, you know. It's that demand for all companies. For us, innovating not only about how do we approach customers and consumers and we put them first in everything we do, but in how we operate internally. Creating a culture that drives automation, right? So giving time for people to think about stuff, you know, that makes a difference, right? I think that's how I can summarize innovation as of this moment. >> So, Stu had a question. >> So, if I understand this right now, we can blame the robots if our credit score isn't good enough now, right? (laughs) >> What do you think? Blame the robots, right? >> Blame the robots, always. >> Blame the innocent, as we say. Well, guys, thanks very much for coming to theCUBE. >> Param: Thank you. >> Param and Jairo, it was great to have you, appreciate it. >> Thank you again. >> Alright, keep it right there. Stu and I will be back with our next guest from UiPath Forward Americas. You're watching theCUBE. (upbeat music)