>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering InterConnect 2017 brought to you by IBM. >> Hey, welcome back everyone. We're live here in Las Vegas for IBM InterConnect 2017. This is theCUBE coverage of their cloud and big data event Watson Analytics, and IoT Cloud. It's theCUBE coverage for three days. A lot of great interviews. I'm John Furrier, my co-host Dave Vellante. Our next guest is Scott Francis, an entrepreneur, CEO, co-founder of BP3. Welcome to The Cube. >> Thank you, glad to be here. >> Great to have an entrepreneur on because you've been, in your business, you co-founded it, built it form the ground up, >> Scott: Right. >> Hundreds of employees. Now, over 100 employees. >> Scott: Right. >> IBM partner, great story. >> Yeah, we started with just two of us 10 years ago. And, we'll have our 10th anniversary in May this year. >> John: Congratulations. So take us through the, you know, state of the art. I mean, go back 10 years ago. You've actually provisioned your own servers. You actually had to load routers and networking gear. That's like, I'd say a tax of at least 100K in just gear. And then you've got the ISP chart, all that stuff. >> Right, well the economics have totally changed, right? For us and for our customers, and I think the main benefit is you can get to business value so much faster now and spend less money that's sort of wasted spend, right? >> So take a minute and talk about what you guys do and what your role is here. And then I want to get into some of the things that are changing the market place, that people are seizing opportunities around, certainly around processing and new innovations. So, give us a quick update on who you guys are, and your role here today. >> Yeah, so our focus is on business process and decision management. And, you know, our experience is that it is foundational technology and foundational aspect to almost everything you're hearing going on, right? Whether it's block chain or cognitive, or moving to the cloud. What are their key considerations? How does it impact my business process? How does it impact my operations? How does it impact my decisions? So we feel like in our space, we're right at the sweet spot of what all our customers are worried about. And when we hear them talk about block chain, we know we've got a process problem we've got to address. And when we hear about moving to the cloud, we better address all the Halo applications around that, application that's moving to the cloud and make sure they're all addressed and part of the new business process. >> It's interesting, the whole decoupling of existing systems models >> Right. >> Is really kind of what I see as the micro trend over the past six years, and like you mentioned, foundational building blocks is key, right? >> Scott: Right. So that's key. And, so let's take this to the next level. I want to ask you a question because I think this is something we see all the time on theCUBE when we do interviews, is that technology now is so much different. In the old days it was, we knew the process. >> Scott: Right. >> And we don't really know the technology. Let's go automate that accounting, blah, blah, blah. You know we saw that, ERPs, CRM, all those vendors. Now it's, I have technology, I don't know what the process is going to be because some new, big data analytics people changed the insight, and changed the value chain, or changed the business model, one tweak radically will disrupt proven, process which no one wants to change. Whoa, you know, so there's now a real factor. Give us some insight and color around how that goes down, because someone has an insight, they want to roll it in and implement it. It changes the entire process flow. >> Right, well the key thing is, having an insight as a single person in a process is one issue, but rolling it out across a Fortune 500 company is a whole other proposition, right? You've got regulatory issues and compliance issues, and customer experience issues that you've got to work through. And all those accommodations may be there. The value prop may be there, but you've got to work through it. You can't, you know, at a billion dollar organization, you can't just change it for that, you have to work all that out. >> John: So what's the playbook? >> Yeah, so the playbook is when we have an insight, what we talk to customers about is you've got all these tools now to arrive at insights you couldn't get to before, or by the time you got to them, you're doing your analytics over data that's six months old. Okay, now I have an insight about what would've worked six months ago. The difference is with cognitive and machine learning algorithms, and the analytics you have available today, and the access to the data, those insights are available now. We have to re-architect the processes to reflect that and to let me make new decisions within that operational context. >> Go ahead. >> Operationalizing those insights. Go ahead, finish your thought. >> Well the data first thing that you talked about is key. We just had our big data event. It's look in value in conjunction with strata hadoop was data in motion and badge are working together now to your point, the times series of data is relevant in the time you need it, right? >> Scott: Right. >> Not yesterday. So this brings up the question of, Okay, you've got some spark thing going on. I see IBM has got spark, that's cool. But now, how do you get into the app, right? To developers? I'm a developer. I'm a coder. Do I need to be a wrangler, data wrangler, or data scientist, to make that happen? So this is the conversation people are trying to figure out. What's your perspective on that? >> I think a lot of the tools that are, that are available now, basically made a common coder, right? Has a decent chance OF that competing with their data scientist friends. There's a different level of expertise, obviously, for the data scientist. But much like in business process, you know years ago, you had to get your lean six black belt, and you really had to study it to get good at it, and really master statistics, and I've got tools that will run the statistics for you, right? So you don't have to master the statistics but you've got to collect the right data, you have to engage in the business. So I think you see a sort of, democratization of data science, right? With the tools that are available now. >> Talk a little bit more about decision management. Go back to the mid-2000s and the Harvard Business Review is writing articles that gut feel trumps, you know, paralysis, analysis, paralysis by analysis every time. That's seemingly changed but what specifically has changed in regards to operationalizing those insights? >> Well I think they're a couple of things that are interesting. If you look at how processes were traditionally designed, you know, before BPM came along, BPM and decision management tools came along, just write the code. Build your application. And when you wanted to change the decision, well you had to find where that was modeled in the code, and edit the code, right? And that was a challenging proposition. The guys that wrote it might have moved to other projects. So how do you figure it out? >> So gut feel was faster. >> Yeah, and BPM, and OEM, you know, gave us tools for managing those things. BPM in terms of process, having a diagram that a mere mortal can understand and find the right context for whenever that decision gets made. And decision management to mange rule sets and the interactions between these rules in a more codified way that again, mere mortals can understand, right? So you don't have to go hunting through code. We're looking at a model, a representative model. I think the change now with machine learning, with cognitive computing, the real time access to data is that you have to really rethink your processes and allow those decisions to be altered in real time, not later, six months later, when I'm doing a revamp of the process as a separate, sort of institutional operation but actually as I'm running my process. We design it to accommodate the idea that as we're collecting data we're going to learn and get better, and actually affect those decisions, or recommend a different decision to the person whose Johnny-on-the-spot. >> Are you finding that the business impact is that your customers, the consumers of this sort of new way of doing decision management are seeing things that they wouldn't have seen before, or is it more greater conviction and faster time to everybody pulling the same direction? >> Well, I think for sure they're seeing things they haven't seen before. We're surfacing data that they just didn't have access to before in a timely fashion. And in the context of their process which was always a difficult thing to do in traditional systems, right? For any of your traditional ERP, or CRM system, the notion of where you are in your cross functional process may not be present. Today you have that context. You have the real time access to it. That really changes the nature of what you're seeing. I think the other bit is, yeah, the action ability, right? How easy it is to turn that insight into an action. >> And have you seen any effect on the politics of decision making, because we all know the P and L manager whose the strong voice in the organization, he or she is going to pull data that supports their business case. Have you been able to, sort of, neutralize that sometimes damaging effect in organizations? >> Yeah, well, I think in the cycle of the economic cycle, you know, if we rewind five or six years ago, almost every project we engage with with a customer is about operational controls, reducing costs, trying to produce the same result with fewer resources, right? And that has shifted dramatically over the last few years. The last two years it's been almost entirely about capturing revenue. >> Dave: Opportunistic, yeah. >> Serving new revenue streams without having to hire as much to support it. It's much more about revenue capture and customer experience. And I think that reflects the stage we're in in the cycle. >> Dave: Is that a bubbling cater? I hope it reflects a good long term view. >> Dave: I hope so too. >> You know, but it's interesting. There's a customer speaking here at InterConnect today, StubHub, about their customer experience. And they BPM to manage their customer experience, and back in 2009, 2010, when everybody was pulling back, and they were all focused on cost containment. You know, I recall StubHub was working on how to make their customer experience better. It's kind of interesting, right? And they've done very well over the years, right? So I think that value system in that culture really pays off over time, but you have to really mean it. If you're just swinging back and forth with the ebb and flow of the economy, then I think it's very difficult. >> Well, if you're doubling down when everybody else is sitting on their hands, you're going to get a competitive. >> It's a great opportunity, right? >> So, talk a little bit more about the IBM connection. What's going on in InterConnect, and what's the relationship there? >> Well, IBM is our best partner. You know, we've been partnered very closely with IBM ever since they acquired Lombardi which was our company that we came out of back in 2007. And that has become, you know, the heart of the IBM, BPM portfolio. And we work with their business process products, decision management, as well as cognitive and blue mix. So we're in the mix with IBM in a big way, and I think this conference is a great opportunity for us to not only reconnect with folks from IBM, but also with our customers who tend to come to this conference as well. So it's a great opportunity for us. >> So specifically you're leveraging IBM tooling, sort of. >> That's right. >> Repackaging that in your solutions for your clients. >> Right. So we are a reseller. We're also OEM IBM software, and we do delivery work for IBM customers. So, it's kind of a trifecta. >> You started this company 10 years ago. We love this start up story. Tell us, you and your colleagues started. Tell us your start up story and how you go to where you are now. >> Well we were, you know, we would meet up at a coffee shop, right? And get together and kind of talk about, you know, the fact that it felt like there was a big opportunity out there. >> Dave: This is in Austin. >> Yeah in Austin. My co-founder and I, you know, we were working at Lombardi but we felt like there was an opportunity to build a great services firm in our space, right? In this business process space, that there was a lot of untapped potential. And as we met and talked about it, we just got the bug that we needed to go out and do it. And when we started the company, you know. It was just the two of us initially. We bootstrapped the firm. Last summer, for the first time, we actually raised money, outside capital, to help fund the growth. >> Dave: 10 years then. >> Yeah, yeah. But all that time we self funded which was a great experience. A great learning experience. Certainly lost some sleep over the years. But, you know, there is an aspect of kind of putting the band back together. You know, hiring people we really enjoyed working with in previous lives, previous jobs, and putting together a killer team to go after it. >> So the decision to take outside capital, maybe talk a little bit about that because that's probably wasn't an easy one, or maybe it was, I don't know. >> No, I think, you know, what we've been fortunate to do is we've taken some calculated risks over time, right? We used to only operate in the United States. We acquired a business in London to expand to Europe. And now a third of our business is in Europe. But those risks, you can put the whole company at risk taking a chance like that. And so it occurred to us, after taking a few of those calculated risks and winning that maybe we should hedge our bets a little bit and have some more capital to work with, and have a good financial partner that if we were engaged in that kind of discussion, someone who could help, both advise and also possibly fund if we got into that situation. And so, we took an investment from Petra Capital based out of Nashville. They're a great growth equity firm, and they invest in healthcare and tech start ups, like ourselves. And so we got some great people on the board as a result. Mike Simmons from T2 Systems, and Jeff Rich from another capital investment firm. These guys have been operators. They've run companies much bigger than ours but they've also been in the mix at our size. So we've got some great outcomes out of taking that investment. >> So you've been cashflow positive since the early days. You had to be. Is it the plan to continue to do that, or do you make gasoline in the fire type investments? >> You know, I think it's cultural, right? I know there's a lot of business models where there's actually some good since in the running and not worrying about profit for awhile, but I also think you need to develop habits and our business serving enterprise customers, I think they deserve to know that we're being responsible with our money, with how we spend, with how we grow, and that we have a responsible level of growth. We could spend more and grow faster at the same type of process. >> John: At the risk of service. >> But at the risk of service quality for our customers and that's not worth it for us because ultimately, it's the repeat business with customers that really drives our growth long term. >> We feel the same way, obviously self funded. You know I'd say Silicon Valley is a story like that. Heirarchy of entrepreneurs and it's well known that the number one position is self funded growth without outside capital. It's a lot harder. No offense to my VC funded friends. It's a lot harder to do it from the ground up than just get other people's money. So tier one is do it yourself, which you guys are in. Get some capital, grow that and have an exit. Three, try and fail, or four, work for a company. (laughs) >> I think the key thing is it takes patience. If you're going to do it yourself and self fund it, you know, let the business fund itself, not just throw in your own personal money, but actually make the business fund itself. You have to have a lot of patience to stick with it. And I think whether by hook or crook, we picked a space that afforded us some of that patience, right? >> Yeah, you get rewarded for innovation. You get awarded for good service delivery. >> We feel like business is a human endeavor, right? So a good business process and good decisions are going to be problems that our children will face, not just us. >> And they're going to get more exciting for you as processes get automated with machine learning and AI right here on the doorstep, and Devops exploding with IoT coming on full line. It's going to change the game big time. >> Yeah, and I can't remember who said it but someone just yesterday was saying, you know, "It's not so much about automation "as it is about augmentation." And I really think that's true. I think if you automate out all the mundane, what's left is the stuff that's really interesting, right? And that's kind of how we view our job is to automate all the stuff that's getting in the way of highly skilled people doing their job taking care of their customers. >> I always love the story when IBM super computer beat Garry Kasparov at chess. You've heard this a million times. Kasparov didn't just say, "All right we're done." He created a competition, and he beat the computer, and now the greatest chess player in the world is a combination of human and machine. So it's that creativity, that common atoria factor that's drives the machine. >> It's actually better than the machine only, right? >> The creativity is going to change the game. Scott Francis, entrepreneur, founder, co-founder and CEO of BP3 in Austin. Thanks for joining us, appreciate it. More live coverage here. Stay with us, theCube is at IBM Interconnect here in Las Vegas. More great interviews after this short break. (upbeat techno music)