(upbeat music) >> From our studios in the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, California, this is a CUBEConversation. >> Hello everyone, welcome to Palo Alto's CUBE studios. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We're here for a special CUBEConversation as part of our new brand of tech leader series as well as Extracting the Signal From the Noise. We're here with Gary Conway, the CMO of Automation Anywhere, a hot startup, heavily funded, attacking a whole new market segment, that's kind of changing the game of value in digital, obviously, RPA, robotic process automation, is the buzz word. It's actually real, it's happening, we're seeing a lot of success in companies there. It's changing the way business is operated, business is structured, and value is created. Gary, thanks for joining me. >> My pleasure. >> So we covered your event, Automation Anywhere. You guys are essentially doing very very well, heavily funded, growing like crazy. RPA is one of the fastest growing segments in this next generation digital culture. You're seeing a lot of companies coming out attacking this. What's your perspective, why is RPA so important, why is it so hot? >> It's a pretty simple reason, actually. You know, the truth of the matter is that companies are now, because of RPA, able to automate parts of their business processes, or entire processes that they were never able to automate before, and they can do it with RPA at a relatively little cost compared to a lot of other technologies out there, especially from the big ERP vendors. We say that, and we really believe this, and we're finding this to be true, that since the onset of automation about 30 years ago, from the big technology companies, only about 20% of the processes that businesses manage now are actually automated. The 80% of them that are not automated are pretty much done by human beings, you know. Millions of human beings employed to manage those back office processes. RPA is enabling companies to actually automate more of those processes than ever before. >> Before we get started, just quickly define, what is RPA for the folks that are learning for the first time, because we're now seeing the concept really penetrating mainstream right now. It's becoming, frankly, a topic that's being discussed across most of the largest enterprises and small business, what is RPA? >> So RPA means robotic process automation. So think of them as robots that are built as predesigned software bots that you can plug into any business process, and it'll automate a part of that process, or the entire process, by just plugging it in. It actually is capable of observing what human beings do, remembering what human beings do, and then repeating that again and again and again, only in a fraction of a second. That's the easiest way to think of it. >> So when I think of robots, I think of like a machine, you know, moving things around, from, like, manufacturing, whatnot. It's beyond that, it's not just robots, it's software as well, and this is the key in all this. >> It is software, I mean. >> It is software, it's not robots. >> RPA is only software. >> It's only software. >> I think most people, when they think of robotics, do think of, you know, mechanical robots used in manufacturing. That's not what RPA is. RPA is robotics that is only constructed with preconfigured software. >> I want to get your take on the impact to business and how leaders are adapting to this, but first I want to get to the mainstream topic that is trying to be figured out, and the classic one is technology's going to automate my jobs away, and the example that I use is retail. Most people go to retail, and they think, you know, whether it's a person out of college, or someone working in retail, that oh my god, a robot's going to show up and move stuff on the shelves, and eliminate those jobs. It's not so much robots, per se, it's Amazon that's going to impact in retail. We know what Amazon and Walmart has done to commerce. So that's already happening, retail's impacted. It's not so much that jobs are going away, they're just changing. That's our opinion. Can you share your opinion on the impact of software automation to jobs? >> We agree that jobs are not going away. They will change, but I always tell people when I'm asked this question that there's not been one technology that's ever been introduced that has actually done anything but create more jobs, and I always use the example of the PC. You know, I'm old enough to remember when the PC was introduced, the headlines were what will people do with all this additional time? You know, people were predicting a three day work week because of all the efficiencies that would be created by the PCs, and in fact the opposite has happened. Technology actually makes people more productive, and when they're more productive they're capable of doing more things. So with the automation of certain things that people happen to be doing now, those people are being upskilled, they are being redeployed to other jobs, as we've seen in the past, and actually, more jobs are being created. >> You know, we cover a lot of the Big Data space going back to 2010 when we first started theCUBE, at Hadoop World, which that kind of had its course, but ultimately Big Data, which became AI, you know the bank teller example, you know the ATM was going to kill the branches, when in reality there's been even more branch offices-- >> That's what we're seeing, yeah. >> than ever before. So again, I think the argument is pretty clear from the data and the trend, technology is actually helping create new jobs, but not the jobs maybe that there were once there. That seems to be the big debate, so we agree with you on that. Now we applied some of our, not RPA, but we had some technology that applied to all of our videos that we did with you at your event, and a couple things came out of the entity extraction. I want to share with you, I want to get your reaction. Business hubs, human versus machines, complex problems, digital colleagues, digital worker, new potential applications, digital native companies, supply chain, system integrators, labor platforms, AI assistance, inefficiencies, and machine learning. These are key words that really kind of point to the next generation. This is essentially the language of your company. What's your reaction to that? >> Well, I'm not sure it's the language of our company as much as it's the language that people are using to determine what role they will play in the future, and what role, how they will impact their businesses going into the future. So these are not our terms, these are terms that exist in the space right now as people try to determine for themselves the role they will play in defining the future and how they will use technology to make their businesses more efficient. >> And companies are using cloud, for instance, to kind of reshape. We had a big conversation yesterday around, you know, do I want to be in the business of managing data centers, or be in the business of managing my business with technology. These concepts are interesting from an industry standpoint. Business hubs. Good concept, I get that. Digital worker. This is the impact that you guys are enabling. What's the managerial leadership role as an executive or a worker in these new cultural shifts? Because, as this is being enabled, new value is being created. Digital is enabling that. How does someone manage all this? What do you guys see, how do you see that playing out? >> Look, I think that whenever things are changing, and things are changing dramatically in business today, the only way to manage it is a day at a time. You can't project yourself so far into the future that you trip over the things that are immediately facing you now. So my suggestion would always be to evaluate options every day, every week, and make decisions when it's the right time to make decisions for your business. But let's go back to one of the terms you described, digital worker. So a digital worker in our view is actually available in what we call our bot store, which is a bot that is actually preconfigured to have skillsets that you would require. So let's just say you need an order-to-cash person, person who understands that, and it's a part of an automated process. The idea is that you would be able to download a digital worker with similar skills, and plug that bot into your process, and it would begin to work with, I would say, the skillsets of somebody who understands the order-to-cash process. That's really what a digital worker is. Now imagine that, in the future, and that future is not that far away, where every human being will be working side by side with a digital worker, so that the human being can offload the repetitive things that a digital something could actually do for them, and that digital worker would take on the task-based stuff, freeing up the individual to use their creativity to create higher order value for the business. That's really what we mean by digital worker and the importance of a digital colleague, for example. >> I think that it's a profound statement, and I think this is one of the cultural shifts that I see that this next generation workforce and leaders have to get their arms around, and in watching folks in Washington, D.C., we've been covering a lot of the procurement changes going on in government and businesses. There's a leveling up going on in the IQ of organizations, because that is a profound statement. Now we saw that with DevOps in cloud. You know, you talk to tech people, if you're doing the repetitive task more than three times, automate it. You're getting at something a little bit different. You're not just automating, you're adding intelligence to it, so what I like about the process automation area, is it's not just an undifferentiated, heavy lifting, mundane task. Yes it is, but there's an era of machine learning, you're seeing intelligence being applied to it, so it's truly becoming an augmentation to a human. That's kind of what I hear you saying. Do you agree with that, and is that something that you guys see happening, and what does that actually mean for the enterprise? >> No, I do agree with it, and we are at various stages of that evolution. But like anything else in business, and in life, you don't just flip a switch and all of a sudden people migrate to that new model, that's not how life really works. We evolve to those things, and I think what we're seeing is a very fast evolution to exactly what you just described. >> I want to get your thoughts on operationalizing new technology. You know, obviously, being an entrepreneur, I've done a bunch of startups, and the startup ethos is come on a narrow entry, get a landing area, and then sequence to the broader market opportunity. There's a lot of entrepreneurial ethos involved in how to operationalize something new like RPA, because you can't just, you know, shut down the old and bring in the new, there's a method there. This is a challenge in any new technology. How do you guys see this playing out? Because you guys are on the front end, bringing real value to the table, but people might want to get more aspirational and then get the reality. How do you get into the point of going into someone and saying I love what you guys do, what's the playbook, what do I do next? This is the challenge, can you share your thoughts on how an executive or a business can operationalize these benefits? >> So we have a lot of customers, 1800 customers, unique customers, and 2800 entities around the world that are using the software now. And I think that each of them had one thing in common. They started in bite-sized chunks. They said we're going to try this, and what's happening with RPA, which is one of the reasons it's growing so fast, is that once you try it, once you implement a few bots to automate the things that you weren't able to automate before, it starts ramping like this, right? It has a very very fast ramp-up. So you realize some successes in the processes that you begin to automate that you've never automated before. And the more you do it, the more you learn from it. The more you learn from it, the more you want to do it, the more processes you identify that could be automated, and should be automated, and what starts happening in most companies is they start adopting much much faster once they understand the benefits of it. And the benefits to business is driving higher levels of efficiencies, and reducing costs dramatically. >> So the tie to value is fast. >> Right, the value is very fast, compared to-- >> And that's driving the ramp-up, to your point. >> And that's driving the map. >> The flywheel kicks in, you start with a process that's known, and you automate it, wow, that's good, do it again, do it again. >> Correct. Well, do it again, and do it with more processes, right? And the other unique thing about this technology is human beings, once they understand the advantages of automating things that other human beings may have to do manually, most of those people who have been doing them manually will say I want more of that. We should be automating this, we should be automating that, and it actually makes them much more productive, and it makes them feel as if they are delivering higher value to the business themselves, and what an amazing human dynamic that is. >> You know, I was talking to Dave Vellante about this, we were talking about the TAM, the total adjustment market, for RPA, we're like, I think it's just in the trillions because with digital, everything is connected, so you can measure everything. Everything is ultimately a supply chain, whether it's network effect for internet, whether it's, you know, some process with cryptocurrency, whether it's blockchain or a process with cybersecurity, digital is pretty much connected, it's pretty much a supply chain. Some of them are more formed than others. This seems to be the entry point that most people would go to. Do they go to the supply chains first, or, better yet, what's the use cases that you see as the low hanging fruit that people come in on and automate? Is it simple supply chain stuff that's known, or are they applying it as they grow to other areas? >> It's very broad, but the fastest adoption, especially beginning about two years ago, were from the companies in industries like banking, other financial services, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, which is supply chain, as you rightly point out. Those businesses that tend to be earlier adopters of technology have also become earlier adopters of RPA. But what we're finding now is it's now, because of the results that these businesses have demonstrated, and because digital native competitors are actually coming into the space and threatening what are sometimes referred to as legacy businesses, businesses are not delaying the investments they're making so that they can actually become more competitive, and when you think about that, it's not just the efficiencies that these technologies like RPA drive, but it's the ability to make businesses acutely more competitive than they've ever been before. >> That's a great angle, competitive strategy has always been one of those things where, you know, the cloud native world or digital native world was like oh yeah, pick one feature, innovate, and you can go beat an incumbent. The incumbent now has leverage in the marketplace, whether it's physical presence or other assets. Using RPA gives them a way to level up, so to speak. >> Level up, for sure. So let's just take something we're all familiar with, right? You can now go on your phone, and you can have a car at your house to take you somewhere in about four minutes in most cities, right? If you have an issue, you can solve that issue on your phone as well. You don't have to call anybody, you just solve it on your phone. These ride share companies have made it so simple, it's almost as if there's no such thing anymore as a front office or a back office. Digital native companies have brought those things together, and now there's one office. So that immediacy is what legacy companies are actually competing against, and if those companies don't adopt this kind of automation to make more efficient those processes and narrow the gap between customer facing and back office, they won't be able to compete. >> Yeah, they can turn a liability into an advantage, with software. Big big bullish on the software, I think the competitive landscape also is interesting, I'd like your thoughts on. There seems to be a battlefield, at least from my perspective, my opinion is that, okay, RPA software is out there, it's going to grow really fast. The competitive battle will be around intelligence. How do you guys view the competitive levers? How do you guys compete, what's the advantage? Is it intelligence, is it being more intelligent, is it more operational, what's the advantage you guys see vis-a-vis the competition? >> Yeah, so we're actually seeing a sort of a bringing together of technology, what we have considered to be strictly technology, and what's being described broadly now as artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is still evolving. Everybody has his own definition of what it really is, but what we're seeing, and I think in other sectors we're seeing the same thing, is now the merging of things that have truly been technology with things that are perceived to be artificial intelligence, and they're beginning to come together. What that will look like five years from now, nobody knows. What it'll look like 10 years from now, no one can even conceive of, but we're seeing that dynamic in place now, and this is the beginning. >> It's a great wave, excited to have you on and share your insights, Gary. It's great stuff you guys are doing over there at Automation Anywhere, love the, we love this wave, I think it's going to be relevant. My final question for you, though, is little bit different. You know, you're at a cocktail party, you're at a friend's house, you're at a confab, and you see people that aren't in the business, and they're like Gary, I need to get, I need to be more competitive. What do I do, what is this RPA thing, how do I change my culture, how do I get my people and my process aligned with software, what's the playbook, what's your advice? >> So what I would say is, get started as quickly as possible, because if you delay too long, you will be left behind. So that's would be my first bit of advice. The other, it would be to start slowly. Learn as quickly as you can. Don't worry about automating things that are hard to automate, go to the things that are easy to automate. Companies find that when they address those things first, they're actually able to drive more success faster, and then they will look for more and more opportunities based on what they've learned and the success that they've derived, and that's what happens to create this ramp effect, where it becomes almost viral-like. Where you have one process that works great, you automate that, you automate another one, you automate five more, 10 more, and before you know it, believe it or not, we have customers that are implementing more than 3000 bots over the last year and a half, and that's how they started. >> Get rid of the mundane work, you've got happy people, HR is happy, you've got more revenue coming in, you're more competitive as a business, this is a good value proposition. It's an easy sale. >> Nothing's easy, but it has a huge appeal. >> Gary, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your insights around RPA, appreciate it and congratulations on your success. >> Thank you. >> This is CUBEConversation, and I'm John Furrier here in Palo Alto, thanks for watching. (upbeat music)