>>The Cube Presents UI Path Forward five. Brought to you by UI Path. >>Hi everybody. We're back. David Ante with David Nicholson. This is UiPath Forward five from Las Vegas. We're live, you know, the customers here, they're automating all the time, sucking work and the cube. We're sucking all the information out of the experts and the customers. A bar Toban is here. He's the global business, Shared services, leading automation and AI at PepsiCo. And Para Colan is back is the chief, He's the chief product officer, UiPath longtime Cube alum. Great to see you guys. Thanks for coming on. Great to see us all day. So you guys keynote today, you know, excited to have PepsiCo on. I'm not sure I've ever interviewed PepsiCo in the Cube, but tell us about your role there. >>Absolutely. So I'm part of a PepsiCo global business shared services team. I lead automation and AI capabilities. GBS has, you know, we started GBS portfolio back about three and a half years ago, and we have a six hubs across PepsiCo. And as, as a part of my role, we deliver transformational capability across the PepsiCo. >>When did it all start? >>About three and a half years ago, 2019. So >>Prior to the pandemic. Yeah. You know, versus the pandemic was a catalyst for this. Yeah. But it was at the catalyst, but maybe it sped it up a bit. Yeah. >>PepsiCo journey started with, if, if you look at the PepsiCo, you know, the automation journey, it started back in 2017, but the GBS portfolio took shape back in 2019. So prior to that, you know, PepsiCo was definitely, you know, working on lot of, you know, the automation capabilities and automation product across, you know, PepsiCo. But with the introduction of PepsiCo global business shared services team, we are, you know, centralizing a lot of transformation capability, you know, across the functions that, that we support within the >>PepsiCo and, and UI path. Was going to part of that journey all along? Or was there sort of other activities beforehand or how >>No, no, absolutely. Starting from 2017, if I, you know, remembered, you know, with the vision of our, you know, some of our senior leadership team and recognizing the value of, you know, automation in the core, you know, capability as a transformation at that time, you know, we started with just like anybody else, right? We started with, you know, proof of concept, showed some, you know, early wins and the value back to the business, start setting up some, you know, business processes and capabilities, stood up the platform, build a complete, you know, ecosystem around that, you know, platform and partnership with, you know, UI bot team. And you know, from there, here we are five years. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a very critical component to our digital transformation capability and, and yes, leverage across >>Let's talk platform. So you, you guys have made some announcements this week. You talk about the business automation platform. I remember our first forward was, you know, RPA tool. Okay. Yeah. And then you guys made acquisitions. I was there for that. So the process process cold and then people started to really expand it and it's really come in amazingly long way in a short time. So what did you guys announce today? What'd you talk about on stage 20, 22, 10? Tell us more about it. >>Absolutely, Dave. So you've seen the journey, you've been with us since the early days. You know, we were in 2017 and RPA tool that could automate a representative task that happened over and over again in the environment. And then three years ago you were here when we announced the automation platform, we said, it's not just about a task, it's about involving humans in bots to manage end to end processes. It's about discovering what automation opportunities exist. It's about using ai. Pepsi Co was actually the pioneer of using AI along with automation. You know, we were in stage together with them in, in 2019. And where we are now is we're essentially seeing people want to take the next step with automation. They're saying that it's no longer just an automation tool, It's the way we operate. It's the way we innovate in the organization. So they're really making sure that it becomes a part of their digital transformation journey that they're on. >>And they're saying that we can do the digital transformation by consolidating multiple DRP systems and CRM systems. And that'll take us seven years to do, or we can go with UI path and we can leverage the core that we can leverage the GL system that exists today. We can leverage inventory tracking system that exists today and start to build processes on top of that that can adapt to what customers are trying to do in this digital age. And that's where, you know, we've made announcements today is, is really pivot the platform to be a business automation platform. And there's sort of three layers, you know, unique but you know, connected layers of the platform. The first one is discover. And Discover is all about finding your processes, identifying the opportunities, making sure that you are managing the return on investment. What is the process? You know, how are you getting ROI on it? >>The second one is automated, and that is really where we're applying semantic automation to identify the digital building blocks of an enterprise, which is your data, your document, your screens and communication. Like putting all of that together and saying you can automate our processes, leveraging a lot of intelligence that exist in how business processes are done. And the last one is operate, which is if you're trying to execute a business process at scale, you're processing not just, you know, a task thousand times, but you are fulfilling millions of transactions. You're, you know, you're looking at trillions of records to identify what processes you need. A scalable enterprise platform that's able to ingest a lot of data, report on metrics, reporting efficiency. So that's what we've announced today is an automation platform that companies can use to put at the center of the digital transformation >>Journey. So I about the interesting thing about PepsiCo, you guys started in 2017. Yeah. So kind of early, early on. Yeah. Yeah. And you kind of been there with the progression platform. So my question to you is end up, it was, you know, we've seen the e from primarily on-prem, now it's cloud first. Yeah. How disruptive or non disruptive was that for you? Did you have to rip and replace? Did you have to sort of retool or migrate? What was that like? >>No, I mean, significant disruption, right? I mean, I mean, as, as we started our journey back in 2017, just like, you know, PRM mentioned, right? With simple rule based, you know, the automation from then now to our journey where our continue to, you know, infuse, you know, AI capability, document understanding, conversation ai, right? As a part of our end to end portfolio. At the same time, I think the cloud is providing a fantastic opportunity for us to continue to scale, right? You know, scale at, at a large. So that I think is a fantastic, you know, fantastic platform and fantastic, you know, the opportunity that we are looking forward >>To know. So how do you affect adoption inside of the organization? Can you talk about that? What's working? What's, >>It's always value driven as you know, right? I mean, the business business has to see the value. It it, it was, I mean, I would, you know, admit it was not as easy as before, but as the mindsets have started to shift, right? As the people have started to realize the value that, you know, the automation brings to, you know, the, I mean, you know, not just the, the value for the business, but actually transforming the entire portfolio, right? And, and people have started to see now that not every automation project is going to be transformation product, but for every transformation project you will find the automation at the heart and the core of it. So I, I, I think that's what has started to shift the mindset of, of uniforms. >>So how do you know when you have end to end? What are you wake up one day and say, Wow, we've achieved it. You know, is it pieces that come together? Yeah. What do you say? >>Yeah, You know, we wanna look at customers from, you know, from an end to end perspective. It's not just about piecemealing mealing finding a problem, solving it, really what does it deliver from, from an end to end perspective. Did you actually, you know, because a lot of times companies will say, we wanna automate X number of processes, and, and they do that and they're like, Well, we've automated a lot of processes. We're not sure what value we're getting out of it. It's the ability to measure like, what impact is this automation having on your business from an operational metric, but from a business metric as built. But then going back and saying, Well, where is the biggest pain point? Where do we have the largest value that we can give to the business back? So one of the things we actually announced today is the ability to take at an look at an idea and look at what was the estimated benefits of that idea, and then map it all the way through execution to say, what are we getting? >>We estimated we were gonna save a million dollars by doing those automation, or what have we achieved till now? Have we achieved a million dollars? Have we achieved half a million dollars by having achieved? That's true. That never happens. That, and, and, and, and it's hard to do that, like the data existed, but it's really hard for people to pull that data out. So we build out the box dashboards that give you the ROI bag, and that's why it's really important to, to make sure that, you know, you look at it not just as a technology project, but more as a investment from a business side. And so you can making a business more efficient. Yeah, >>That's, I just, I know you were jumping in, but that's super important. Cause you know, you run a lot of projects. Yeah, absolutely. And each of those projects has zone roi, then you jam it into the application portfolio. Exactly. And then everybody sort of forgets about it. You can't really track what impact it had because there's always, you know, some things that are benefit, some things are sometimes a negative. And so it's that holistic picture that you >>Trying to achieve, extremely critical point, what you hit on, right? From it's measuring the benefit and measuring the continuous benefit across, and not just from start and end, Okay, what I promised I delivered or not, but, but you have to have this continuous mindset. And so I think Yeah, definitely that that's a very, very critical to our finance team and our cfo, >>They organic mechanisms. It's constantly >>Evidence. Absolutely. Yeah. So abar, yeah. Global business shared services. Yeah. When you think of PepsiCo, yeah, of course people immediately think of Sure, Pepsi. But PepsiCo is a multi tentacled absolutely beast of a company. Absolutely. In a good way. Yeah. For organizations that are in that same category, holding companies, companies that have all sorts of different entities that are working together under one umbrella, how shareable is this idea of automation and business automation process moving forward? How, how shareable is that on the share oter? Yeah. Yeah. As far as, as far as, as far as you're concerned, are you, are you talking to some people where you're saying, Hey, I'm here, I'm here from GBS and I'm here to help, and they look at you like you're crazy because you don't understand their business? Or is this something that relatively easily applies across businesses >>That No, to your point, I mean, very valid point, right? I mean, it's, that's, that's the gbs, global business shared services mindset, right? As you move the functional areas into the Pepsi, into the Pepsi, gbs, like hr, procurement, commercial sales, supply chain, right? That's where you wanna start to find those, you know, the optimization, you know, opportunity. You wanna start to ize your processes, and that's where you will, you know, as you transition this processes within the gbs, that's what create those, you know, opportunities for you. So >>What, >>What about automation opportunities? Not in the sh I know you're in the shared arena. Yeah, yeah. But each of those business units has processes that could probably be optimized and automated. Sure. Is that something that's under your purview? We've heard, we've heard a lot about citizen developers. Yeah. I don't know if that, if that >>Applies to No, that definitely. I mean, you cannot just have focus on end to end, you know, automation. I mean, that's, that's a huge portfolio for gps at the same time supporting, you know, automation through the citizen development capability. That that's where, once again, you know, you have not provided a lot of capability and solution tools that we use, right? To continue to empower the folks who are part of our, you know, GBS team inside or outside gbs, right? It, it, it's, I think it's very, very critical. It, it, it helps people transform their career even in one ways, right? And, and, and, and you have that muscle, you have that resource, and you have the power. You definitely want to utilize that. >>So let's talk about metrics for a minute. So more data, the better. Usually I like data. Yeah. But, but if you're trying to optimize for 15 metrics, I feel like you're not gonna optimize on any, So how do you deal with that from both, as par was saying, an operational standpoint and a business standpoint? What are the things about how do you sort of get the, the teams focused on the right things? >>B business, functional leadership team drive those alignment for us as a part of a global business, shared services, we, we are hip to have connected with our business, you know, functions, right? They, they have to help us prioritize those. And to your point, I mean, yeah, you cannot attack 15 metrics at once. You have to prioritize, you have to make sure that you bring the focus to the product, you know, project, right? So, so definitely, I mean, it's, it's, it's not often 15 metrics, but top three metrics, let's, let's focus, let's zoom in and ensure we are driving it. But, >>And if you think about the system, I mean, at the end of the day, the p and l manager, he or she cares about ebit, let's say. Sure, okay. But there are so many factors, you know, in that complicated organization that are gonna affect ebitda and they're gonna be different. But somebody's gotta figure out, okay, how do they fit together in a system? And can, can UiPath help me understand that, those relationships and those dependencies? >>Absolutely. I mean, I think there's a, there's an aspect of human relationships and, and making sure that you get the right level of sponsorship from the business and, and there's a business stakeholder and, and looking at every investment and, and outcomes that you're driving based on that. But, but that is something that we, from a tools perspective, we're trying to make sure that you can measure the value throughout the entire value chain. But then getting the business sponsorship, like where we've seen automation scale is always because there's a business sponsor that's essentially saying, Here's what I'm trying to achieve and here's the, here's my goal, here's a North star and go get it and let me know how you're tracking against it. And, and our job is to make sure that we can provide the visibility, the people that are operating the, the programs to make sure they get that level of visibility. >>What's the scope of automations in your, you know, organization? Is it dozens, hundreds, >>Huge. >>That is thousands. >>We are getting there. Okay. No, definitely. I mean, we have definitely, you know, realized that it's, it's a core component to our digital transformation, right? So, so there is no, there's no stopping on it. There, there, there, there's plenty of support from top down and you know, it's a fantastic time to be at PepsiCo. Right? Especially at the PepsiCo gbs. Right, >>Right. Thanks for sharing your story. Congratulations on all the progress you guys have made. It's actually quite remarkable to see where you guys have come from. So I really appreciate it. Thank you, Dave. Thanks. Thank you Dave. Okay. Thank you for watching. This is Dave Ante for Dave Nicholson. We are right middle of day two at forward five from Las Vegas. We're live, we're right back.

>>The Cube Presents UI Path Forward five. Brought to you by UI Path. >>Hi everybody. We're back. David Ante with David Nicholson. This is UiPath Forward five from Las Vegas. We're live, you know, the customers here, they're automating all the time, sucking work and the cube. We're sucking all the information out of the experts and the customers. A bar Toban is here. He's the global business, Shared services, leading automation and AI at PepsiCo. And Para Colan is back is the chief. He's the Chief product officer at UiPath, longtime Cube alum. Great to see you guys. Thanks for coming on. Great to see us all day. So you guys keynote today, you know, excited to have PepsiCo on. I'm not sure I've ever interviewed PepsiCo in the Cube, but tell us about your role there. >>Absolutely. So I'm part of a PepsiCo global business shared services team. I lead automation and AI capabilities. GBS has, you know, we started GBS portfolio back about three and a half years ago, and we have a six hubs across PepsiCo. And as, as a part of my role, we deliver transformational capability across the PepsiCo. >>When did it all start? >>About three and a half years ago, 2019. So >>Prior to the pandemic. Yeah. You know, versus the pandemic was the catalyst for this. Yeah. But it was at the catalyst, but maybe it sped it up a bit. >>Yeah. PepsiCo journey started with, if, if you look at the PepsiCo, you know, the automation journey, it started back in 2017, but the GBS portfolio took shape back in 2019. So prior to that, you know, PepsiCo was definitely, you know, working a lot of, you know, the automation capabilities and automation product across, you know, PepsiCo. But with the introduction of PepsiCo global business shared services team, we are, you know, centralizing a lot of transformation capability, you know, across the functions that, that we support within the >>PepsiCo and, and UI path was kind of part of that journey all along? Or was there sort of other activities beforehand or how did that >>No, no, absolutely. Starting from 2017, if I, you know, remembered, you know, with the vision of our, you know, some of our senior leadership team and recognizing the value of, you know, automation in the core, you know, capability as a transformation at that time, you know, we started with just like anybody else, right? We started with, you know, proof of concept, showed some, you know, early wins and the value back to the business, start setting up some, you know, business processes and capabilities, stood up the platform, build a complete, you know, ecosystem around that, you know, platform partnership with, you know, UI bot team. And you know, from there, here we are five years. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a very critical component to our digital transformation capability and, and yes, leverage across >>Let's talk platform probably. So you, you guys have made some announcements this week. You talk about the business automation platform. I remember our first forward was, you know, RPA tool. Okay. Yeah. And then you guys made acquisitions. I was there for that. So the process process cold and then people started to really expand it, and it's really come in amazingly long away in a short time. So what did you guys announce today? What'd you talk about on stage 2022 dot 10? Tell us more about it. >>Absolutely, Dave. So you've seen the journey, you've been with us since the early days. You know, we were in 2017 and RPA tool that could automate a representative task that happened over and over again in the environment. And then three years ago you were here when we announced the automation platform, we said, it's not just about a task, it's about involving humans in bots to manage end to end processes. It's about discovering what automation opportunities exist. It's about using ai. Pepsi Co was actually the pioneer of using AI along with automation. You know, we were in stage together with them in, in 2019. And where we are now is we're essentially seeing people want to take the next step with automation. They're saying that it's no longer just an automation tool, It's the way we operate. It's the way we innovate in the organization. So they're really making sure that it becomes a part of their digital transformation journey that they're on. >>And they're saying that we can to the digital transformation by consolidating multiple RP systems and CRM systems. And that'll take us seven years to do, or we can go with UI path and we can leverage the core that we can leverage the GL system that exists today. We can leverage the inventory tracking system that exists today and start to build processes on top of that that can adapt to what customers are trying to do in this digital age. And that's where, you know, we've made announcements today is, is really pivot the platform to be a business automation platform. And there's sort of three layers, you know, unique but you know, connected layers of the platform. The first one is discover. And Discover is all about finding your processes, identifying the opportunities, making sure that you are managing the return on investment. What is the process? >>You know, how are you getting ROI on it? The second one is automated, and that is really where we're applying semantic automation to identify the digital building blocks of an enterprise, which is your data, your document, your screens and communication. Like putting all of that together and saying you can automate in our processes, leveraging a lot of intelligence that exist in how business processes are done. And the last one is operate, which is if you're trying to execute a business process at scale, you're processing not just, you know, a task thousand times, but you are fulfilling millions of transactions. You're, you know, you're looking at trillions of records to identify what processes you need, a scalable enterprise platform that's able to ingest a lot of data report on metrics report and efficiency. So that's what we've announced today is an automation platform that companies can use to put at the center of the digital transformation journey. >>So like about the interesting thing about PepsiCo, you guys started in 2017. Yeah. So kind of early, early on. Yeah. Yeah. And you kind of been there with the progression of platform. So my question to you is, and it was, you know, Yeah, we've seen the e from primarily on-prem now it's cloud first. Yeah. How disruptive or non disruptive was that for you? Did you have to rip and replace? Did you have to sort of retool or migrate? What was that like? >>No, I mean, significant disruption, right? I mean, I mean, as, as we started our journey back in 2017, just like, you know, PRM mentioned, right? With simple rule based, you know, the automation from then now to our journey where our continue to, you know, infuse, you know, AI capability, document understanding, conversation ai, right? As a part of our end to end profile. At the same time, I think the cloud is providing a fantastic opportunity for us to continue to scale, right? You know, scale at, at large. So that I think is a fantastic op, you know, fantastic platform and fantastic, you know, the opportunity that we are looking forward >>To. So how do you affect adoption inside of the organization? Can you talk about that? What's working? What's, >>It's always value driven as you know, right? I mean, the business business has to see the value. It it, it was, I mean, I would, you know, admit it was not as easy as before, but as the mindsets have started to shift, right? As the people have started to realize the value that, you know, the automation brings to, you know, the, I mean, you know, not just the, the value for the business, but actually transforming the entire portfolio, right? And, and people have started to see now that not every automation project is going to be transformation product, but for every transformation project you will find the automation at the heart and the core of it. So I, I, I think that's what has started to shift the mindset of, of uniforms. >>So how do you know when you have end to end? What are you still wake up one day and say, Wow, we've achieved it. You know, is it pieces that come together? Yeah. What do you say? >>Yeah, You know, we wanna look at customers from, you know, from an end to end perspective. It's not just about piecemealing finding a problem, solving it, really what does it deliver from, from an end to end perspective. Did you actually, you know, because a lot of times companies will say, we wanna automate X number of processes, and, and they do that and they're like, Well, we've automated a lot of processes. We're not sure what value we're getting out of it. It's the ability to measure like, what impact is this automation having on your business from an operational metric, but from a business metric as well. But then going back and saying, Well, where is the biggest pain point? Where do we have the largest value that we can give to the business back? So one of the things we actually announced today is the ability to take at an look at an idea and look at what was the estimated benefits of an idea, and then map it all the way through execution to say, what are we getting? >>We estimated we were gonna save a million dollars by doing those automation, or what have we achieved till now? Have we achieved a million dollars? Have we achieved half a million dollars by having achieved? That's, that never happens. That, and, and, and, and it's hard to do that, like the data existed, but it's really hard for people to pull that data out. So we build out the box dashboards that give you the ROI bag. And that's why it's really important to, to make sure that, you know, you look at it not just as a technology project, but more as a investment from a business side. And so you can, making a business more efficient. You >>Know, that's, I just, I know you were jumping in, but that's super important. Cause you know, you run a lot of projects Absolutely. And each of those projects has zone roi, then you jam it into the application portfolio. Exactly. And then everybody sort of forgets about it. You can't really track what impact it had because there's always, you know, some things that are benefit, some things are sometimes a negative. And so it's that holistic picture that >>You trying >>To achieve, extremely critical point, what you hit on, right? From it's measuring the benefit and measuring the continuous benefit across, and not just from start and end, Okay, what I promised I delivered or not, but, but you have to have this continuous mindset. And, and so I think yeah, definitely that, that's a very, very critical to our finance team in our cfo, >>Organiza, they're organic mechanisms and it's constantly >>Absolutely. Yeah. So abar, yeah. Global business shared services. Yeah. When you think of PepsiCo, yeah, of course people immediately think of Sure, Pepsi. But PepsiCo is a multi tentacled absolutely beast of a company. Absolutely. In a good way. Yeah. For organizations that are in that same category, holding companies, companies that have all sorts of different entities that are working together under one umbrella, How shareable is this idea of automation and business automation process moving forward? How, how shareable is that on the share oter? Yeah. Yeah. >>As >>Far as, as far as, as far as you're concerned, are you, are you talking to some people where you're saying, Hey, I'm here, I'm here from gvs and I'm here to help, and they look at you like you're crazy because you don't understand their business? Or is this something that relatively easily applies across >>Businesses that No, to your point, I mean, very valid point, right? I mean, it's, that's, that's the gbs, global business shared services mindset, right? As you move the functional areas into the Pepsi, in, into the PepsiCo gbs like hr, procurement, commercial sales, supply chain, right? That's where you gonna start to find those, you know, the optimization, you know, opportunity. You wanna start to standardize your processes, and that's where you will, you know, as you transition this processes within the gbs, that's what create those, you know, opportunities for you. >>What, >>What, what about automation opportunities? Not in the, I know you're in the sharing arena. Yeah, yeah. But each of those business units has processes that could probably be optimized and automated. Sure. Is that something that's under your purview? We've heard, we've heard a lot about citizen developers. Yeah. I don't know if that, if that >>Applies to No, that definitely. I mean, you cannot just have focus on end to end, you know, automation. I mean, that's, that's a huge portfolio for gps at the same time supporting, you know, automation through the citizen development capability. That that's where, once again, you know, you have had, provides a lot of capability and solution tools that we use, right? To continue to empower the folks who are part of our, you know, GBS team inside or outside gbs, right? It, it's, I think it's very, very critical. It, it, it helps people transform their career even in one ways, right? And, and, and, and you have that muscle, you have that resource, and you have that power. You definitely want to utilize that. >>So let's talk about metrics for a minute. So more data the better. Usually I like data. Yeah. But, but if you're trying to optimize for 15 metrics, I feel like you're not gonna optimize on any, So how do you deal with that from both as Paramo saying an operational standpoint and a business standpoint? What are the things about how do you sort of get the, the teams focused on the right things, >>Bi business, functional leadership team drive those alignment for us as a part of a global business, shared services, we, we are hip to have connected with our business, you know, functions, right? They, they have to help us prioritize those. And to your point, I mean, yeah, you cannot attack 15 metrics at once. You have to prioritize, you have to make sure that you bring the focus to the product. You have a project, right? So, so definitely, I mean, it's, it's, it's not often 15 metrics, but top three metrics, let's, let's focus, let's zoom in and ensure we are driving it. But then >>If you think about the system, I mean, at the end of the day, the p and l manager, he or she cares about ebit, let's say. Sure, okay. But there are so many factors, you know, in that complicated organization that are gonna affect ebitda. Yeah. And they're gonna be different. Yeah. But somebody's gotta figure out, okay, how do they fit together in a system? And, and can, can UiPath help me understand that, those relationships and those dependencies? >>Absolutely. I mean, I think there's a, there's an aspect of human relationships and, and making sure that you get the right level of sponsorship from the business and, and there's a business stakeholder and, and looking at every investment and, and outcomes that you're driving based on that. But, but that is something that we, from a tools perspective, we're trying to make sure that you can measure the value throughout the entire value chain. But then getting the business sponsorship, like where we've seen automation scale is always because there's a business sponsor that's essentially saying, Here's what I'm trying to achieve and here's the, here's my goal, here's the North star and go get it and let me know how you're tracking against it. And, and our job is to make sure that we can provide the visibility, the people that are operating the, the programs to make sure they get that level of visibility. >>What's the scope of automations in your, you know, organization? Is it dozens, hundreds, huge. That is thousands. >>We are getting there. >>Okay. >>No, definitely. I mean, we have definitely, you know, realized that it's, it's a core component to our digital transformation, right? So, so there is no, there's no stopping. I mean there, there, there, there's plenty of support from top down and you know, it's a fantastic time to be at PepsiCo. Right? Especially at the PepsiCo ubs, Right. >>So, Right. Thanks for sharing your story, Pam. Congratulations on all the progress you guys have made. It's actually quite remarkable to see where you guys have come from. So I really appreciate it. Thank you Dave. Thank you Dave. Okay. Thank you for watching. This is Dave Ante for Dave Nicholson. We are right middle of day two at forward five from Las Vegas. We're live, we're right back.

(upbeat music) >> Okay, welcome back everyone to theCUBE's coverage here at re:MARS. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. It's the event where it's part of the "re:" series: re:MARS, re:Inforce, re:Invent. MARS stands for machine learning, automation, robotics, and space. And a lot of conversation is all about AI machine learning. This one's about AI and business transformation. We've got Stepan Pushkarev CTO, CEO, Co-Founder of Provectus. Welcome to theCUBE. And Russ Lamb, eCommerce Retail Data Engineering Lead at PepsiCo, customer story. Gentlemen, thanks for coming on theCUBE. >> Great to be here, John. >> Yeah, thanks for having us. >> I love the practical customer stories because it brings everything to life. This show is about the future, but it's got all the things we want, we love: machine learning, robotics, automation. If you're in DevOps, or you're in data engineering, this is the world of automation. So what's the relationship? You guys, you're a customer. Talk about the relationship between you guys. >> Sure, sure. Provectus as a whole is a professional services firm, premier, a AWS partner, specializing in machine learning, data, DevOps. PepsiCo is our customer, our marquee customer, lovely customer. So happy to jointly present at this re:Invent, sorry, re:MARS. Anyway, Russ... >> I made that mistake earlier, by the way, 'cause re:Invent's always on the tip of my tongue and re:MARS is just, I'm not used to it yet, but I'm getting there. Talk about what are you guys working together on? >> Well, I mean, we work with Provectus in a lot of ways. They really helped us get started within our e-commerce division with AWS, provided a lot of expertise in that regard and, you know, just hands-on experience. >> We were talking before we came on camera, you guys just had another talk and how it's all future and kind of get back to reality, Earth. >> Russ: Get back to Earth. >> If we're on earth still. We're not on Mars yet, or the moon. You know, AI's kind of got a future, but it does give a tell sign to what's coming, industrial change, full transformation, 'cause cloud does the back office. You got data centers. Now you've got cloud going to the edge with industrial spaces, the ultimate poster child of edge and automation safety. But at the end of the day, we're still in the real world. Now people got to run businesses. And I think, you know, having you here is interesting. So I have to ask you, you know, as you look at the technology, you got to see AI everywhere. And the theme here, to me, that I see is the inflection point driving all this future robotics change, that everyone's been waiting for by the way, but it's like been in movies and in novels, is the machine learning and AI as the tipping point. This is key. And now you're here integrating AI into your company. Tell us your story. >> Well, I think that every enterprise is going to need more machine learning, more, you know, AI or data science. And that's the journey that we're on right now. And we've come a long way in the past six years, particularly with our e-commerce division, it's a really data rich environment. So, you know, going from brick and mortar, you know, delivering to restaurants, vending machines and stuff, it's a whole different world when you're, people are ordering on Amazon every couple minutes, or seconds even, our products. But they, being able to track all that... >> Can you scope the problem statement and the opportunity? Because if I just kind of just, again, I'm not, you're in, it's your company, you're in the weeds, you're at the data, you're everything, But it just seems me, the world's now more integration, more different data sources. You've got suppliers, they have their different IT back ends. Some are in the cloud, some aren't in the cloud. This is, like, a hard problem when you want to bring data together. I mean, API certainly help, but can you scope the problem, and, like, what we're talking about here? >> Well, we've got so many different sources of data now, right? So we used to be relying on a couple of aggregators who would pull all this data for us and hand us an aggregated view of things. But now we're able to partner with different retailers and get detail, granular information about transactions, orders. And it's just changed the game, changed the landscape from just, like, getting a rough view, to seeing the nuts and bolts and, like, all the moving parts. >> Yeah, and you see in data engineering much more tied into like cloud scale. Then you got the data scientists, more the democratization application and enablement. So I got to ask, how did you guys connect? What was the problem statement? How did you guys, did you have smoke and fire? You came in solved the problem? Was it a growth thing? How did this, how did you guys connect as a customer with Provectus? >> Yeah, I can elaborate on that. So we were in the very beginning of that journey when there was, like, just a few people in this new startup, let's call it startup within PepsiCo. >> John: Yeah. >> Calling like a, it's not only e-commerce, it was a huge belief from the top management that it's going to bring tremendous value to the enterprise. So there was no single use case, "Hey, do this and you're going to get that." So it's a huge belief that e-commerce is the future. Some industry trends like from brand-centric to consumer-centric. So brand, product-centric. Amazon has the mission to build the most customer-centric customer company. And I believe that success, it gets a lot of enterprises are being influenced by that success. So I remember that time, PepsiCo had a huge belief. We started building just from scratch, figuring out what does the business need? What are the business use cases? We have not started with the IT. We have not started with this very complicated migrations, modernizations. >> John: So clean sheet of paper. >> Yeah. >> From scratch. >> From scratch. >> And so you got the green light. >> Yeah. >> And the leadership threw the holy water on that and said, "Hey, we'll do this."? >> That's exactly what happened. It was from the top down. The CEO kind of set aside the e-commerce vision as kind of being able to, in a rapidly evolving business place like e-commerce, it's a growing field. Not everybody's figured it out yet, but to be able to change quickly, right? The business needs to change quickly. The technology needs to change quickly. And that's what we're doing here. >> So this is interesting. A lot of companies don't have that, actually, luxury. I mean, it's still more fun because the tools are available now that all the hyper scales built on their own. I mean, back in the day, 10 years ago, they had to build it all, Facebook. You didn't know, I had people on here from Pinterest and other companies. They had to build all of that from scratch. Now cloud's here. So how did you guys do this? What was the playbook? Take us through the AI because it sounds like the AI is core, you know, belief principle of the whole entire system. What did you guys do? Take me through the journey there. >> Yeah. Beyond management decisions, strategic decisions that has been made as a separate startup, whatever- >> John: That's great. >> So some practical, tactical. So it may sound like a cliche, but it's a huge thing because I work with many enterprises and this, like, "center of excellence" that does a nice technology stuff and then looks for the budget on the different business units. It just doesn't go anywhere. It could take you forever to modernize. >> We call that the Game of Thrones environment. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Nothing ever gets done 'till it blows up at the end. >> Here, these guys, and I have to admit, I don't want to steal their thunder. I just want to emphasize it as an external person. These guys just made it so differently. >> John: Yeah. >> They even physically sat in a different office in a WeWork co-working and built that business from scratch. >> That's what Andy Jackson talked about two years ago. And if you look at some of the big successes on AWS, Capital One, all the big, Goldman Sachs. The leadership, real commitment, not like BS, like total commitment says, "Go." But enough rope to give you some room, right? >> Yeah. I think that's the thing is, there was always an IT presence, right, overseeing what we were doing within e-commerce, but we had a lot of freedoms to make design choices, technology choices, and really accelerate the business, focus on those use cases where we could make a big impact with a technology choice. >> Take me through the stages of the AI transformation. What are some of the use cases and specific tactics you guys executed on? >> Well, I think that the supply chain, which I think is a hot topic right now, but that was one use case where we're using, like, data real time, real time data to inform our sales projections and delivery logistics. But also our marketing return on investment, I feel like that was a really interesting, complex problem to solve using machine learning, Because there's so much data that we needed to process in terms of countries, territories, products, like where do you spend your limited marketing budget when you have so many choices, and, using machine learning, boil that all down to, you know, this is the optimal choice, right now. >> What were some of the challenges and how did you overcome them in the early days to get things set up, 'cause it takes a lot of energy to get it going, to get the models. What were some of the challenges and how did you overcome them? >> Well, I think some of it was expertise, right? Like having a partner like Provectus and Stepan really helped because they could guide us, Stepan could guide us, give his expertise and what he knows in terms of what he's seen to our budding and growing business. >> And what were the things that you guys saw that you contributed on? And was there anything new that you had to do together? >> Yeah, so yeah. First of all, just a very practical tip. Yes, start with the use cases. Clearly talk to the business and say, "Hey, these are the list of the use cases" and prioritize them. So not with IT, not with technology, not with the migration thing. Don't touch anything on legacy systems. Second, get data in. So you may have your legacy systems or some other third party systems that you work with. There's no AI without data. Get all the pipelines, get data. Quickly boat strap the data lake house. Put all the pipelines, all the governance in place. And yeah, literally took us three months to get up and running. And we started delivering first analytical reports. It's just to have something back to business and keep going. >> By the way, that's huge, speed. I mean, this is speed. You go back and had that baggage of IT and the old antiquated systems, you'd be dragging probably months. Right? >> It's years, years. Imagine you should migrate SAP to the cloud first. No, you don't do don't need to do that. >> Pipeline. >> Just get data. I need data. >> Stream that data. All right, where are we now? When did you guys start? I want to get just going to timeline my head 'cause I heard three months. Where are we now? You guys threw it. Now you have impact. You have, you have results. >> Yeah. I mean that for our marketing ROI engine, we've built it and it's developed within e-commerce, but we've started to spread it throughout the organization now. So it's not just about the digital and the e-commerce space. We're deploying it to, you know, regionally to other, to Europe, to Latin America, other divisions within PepsiCo. And it's just grown exponentially. >> So you have scale to it right now? >> Yeah. Well- >> How far are you in now? What, how many years, months, days? >> E-commerce, the division was created six years ago, which is, so we've had some time to develop this, our machine learning capabilities and this use case particular, but it's increasingly relevant and expansion is happening as we speak. >> What are you most proud of? You look back at the impact. What are you most proud of? >> I think the relationship we built with the people, you know, who use our technology, right. Just seeing the impact is what makes me proud. >> Can you give an example without revealing any confidential information? >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was an example from my talk about, I was approached recently by our sales team. They were having difficulty with supply chain, monitoring our fill rate of our top brands with these retailers. And they come up to me, they have this problem. They're like, "How do we solve it?" So we work together to find a data source, just start getting that data in the hands of people who can use it within days. You know, not talking like a long time. Bring that data into our data warehouse, and then surface the data in a tool they can use, you know, within a matter of a week or two. >> I mean, the transformation is just incredible. In fact, we were talking on theCUBE earlier today around, you know, data warehouses in the cloud, data meshes of different pros and cons. And the theme that came out of that conversation was data's a product now. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> And what you're kind of describing is, just gimme the product or find it. >> Russ: Right. >> And bring it in with everything else. And there's some, you know, cleaning and stuff people do if they have issues with that. But, if not, it's just bring it in, right? It's a product. >> Well, especially with the data exchanges now. AWS has a data exchange and this, I think, is the future of data and what's possible with data because you don't have to start from, okay, I've got this Excel file somebody's been working with on their desktop. This is a, someone's taken that file, put it into a warehouse or a data model, and then they can share it with you. >> John: So are you happy with these guys? >> Absolutely, yeah. >> You're actually telling the story. What was the biggest impact that they did? Was it partnering? Was it writing code, bringing development in, counseling, all the above, managed services? What? >> I think the biggest impact was the idea, you know, like being able to bring ideas to the table and not just, you know, ask us what we want, right? Like I think Provectus is a true partner and was able to share that sort of expertise with us. >> You know, Andy Jackson, whenever I interview on theCUBE, he's now in charge of all Amazon. But when he was at (inaudible). He always had to use their learnings, get the learnings out. What was the learnings you look back now and say, Hey, those were tough times. We overcome them. We stopped, we started, we iterated, we kept moving forward. What was the big learning as you look back, some of the key success points, maybe some failures that you overcome. What was the big learnings that you could share with folks out there now that are in the same situation where they're saying, "Hey, I'd rather start from scratch and do a reset." >> Yeah. So with that in particular, yes, we started this like sort of startup within the enterprise, but now we've got to integrate, right? It's been six years and e-commerce is now sharing our data with the rest of the organization. How do we do that, right? There's an enterprise solution, and we've got this scrappy or, I mean, not scrappy anymore, but we've got our own, you know, way of doing. >> Kind of boot strap. I mean, you were kind of given charter. It's a start up within a big company, I mean- >> But our data platform now is robust, and it's one of the best I've seen. But how do we now get those systems to talk? And I think Provectus has came to us with, "Here, there's this idea called data mesh, where you can, you know, have these two independent platforms, but share the data in a centralized way. >> So you guys are obviously have a data mesh in place, big part of the architecture? >> So it is in progress, but we know the next step. So we know the next step. We know the next two steps, what we're going to do, what we need to do to make it really, to have that common method, data layer. between different data products within organization, different locations, different business units. So they can start talking to each other through the data and have specific escalates on the data. And yeah. >> It's smart because I think one of the things that people, I think, I'd love to get your reaction to this is that we've been telling the story for many, many years, you have horizontally scalable cloud and vertically specialized domain solutions, you need machine learning that's smart, but you need a lot of data to help it. And that's not, a new architecture, that's a data plane, it's control plane, but now everyone goes, "Okay, let's do silos." And they forget the scale side. And then they go, "Wait a minute." You know, "I'm not going to share it." And so you have this new debate of, and I want to own my own data. So the data layer becomes an interesting conversation. >> Yeah, yes. Meta data. >> Yeah. So what, how do you guys see that? Because this becomes a super important kind of decision point architecturally. >> I mean, my take is that there has to be some, there will always be domains, right? Everyone, like there's only so much that you can find commonality across, like in industry, for example. But there will always be a data owner. And, you know, kind of like what happened with rush to APIs, how that enabled microservices within applications and being sharing in a standardized way, I think something like that has to happen in the data space. So it's not a monolithic data warehouse, it's- >> You know, the other thing I want to ask you guys both, if you don't mind commenting while I got you here, 'cause you're both experts. >> We just did a showcase on data programmability. Kind of a radical idea, but like data as code, we called it. >> Oh yeah. >> And so if data's a product and you're acting on, you've got an architecture and system set up, you got to might code it's programmable. You need you're coding with data. Data becomes like a part of the development process. What do you guys think of when you hear data as code and data being programmable? >> Yeah, it's a interesting, so yeah, first of all, I think Russ can elaborate on that, Data engineering is also software engineering. Machine learning engineering is a software. At the end of the day, it's all product. So we can use different terms and buzz words for that but this is what we have at the end of the day. So having the data, well I will use another buzz word, but in terms of the headless architecture- >> Yes. >> When you have a nice SDK, nice API, but you can manipulate with the data as your programming object to build reach applications for your users, and give it, and share not as just a table in Redshift or a bunch of CSV files in S3 bucket, but share it as a programmable thing that you can work with. >> Data as code. >> Yeah. This is- >> Infrastructure code was a revolution for DevOps, but it's not AI Ops so it's something different. It's really it's data engineering. It's programming. >> Yeah. This is the way to deliver data to your consumers. So there are different ways you can show it on a dashboard. You can show it, you can expose it as an API, or you can give it as an object, programmable interface. >> So now you're set up with a data architecture that's extensible 'cause that's the goal. You don't want to foreclose. You must think about that must keep you up at night. What's going to foreclose that benefit? 'Cause there's more coming. Right? >> Absolutely. There's always more coming. And I think that's why it's important to have that robust data platform to work from. And yeah, as Stepan mentioned, I'm a big believer in data engineering as software engineering. It's not some like it's not completely separate. You have to follow the best practices software engineers practice. And, you know, really think about maintainability and scalability. >> You know, we were riffing about how cloud had the SRE managing all those servers. One person, data engineering has a many, a one to many relationships too. You got a lot going on. It's not managing a database. It's millions of data points and data opportunity. So gentlemen, thanks for coming on theCUBE. I really appreciate it. And thanks for telling the story of Pepsi. >> Of course, >> And great conversation. Congratulations on this great customer. And thanks for >> coming on theCUBE. >> Thanks, thank you. Thanks, Russ, would you like to wrap it up with the pantry shops story? >> Oh, yeah! I think it will just be a super relevant evidence of the agility and speed and some real world applicable >> Let's go. Close us out. >> So when, when the pandemic happened and there were lockdowns everywhere, people started buying things online. And we noticed this and got a challenge from our direct to consumer team saying, "Look, we need a storefront to be able to sell to our consumers, and we've got 30 days to do it." We need to be able to work fast. And so we built not just a website, but like everything that behind it, the logistics of supply chain aspects, the data platform. And we didn't just build one. We built two. We got pantry shop.com and snacks.com, within 30 days. >> Good domains! >> The domain broker was happy on that one. Well continue the story. >> Yeah, yeah. So I feel like that the agility that's required for that kind of thing and the like the planning to be able to scale from just, you know, an idea to something that people can use every day. And, and that's, I think.- >> And you know, that's a great point too, that shows if you're in the cloud, you're doing the work you're prepared for anything. The pandemic was the true test for who was ready because it was unforeseen force majeure. It was just like here it comes and the people who were in the cloud had that set up, could move quickly. The ones that couldn't. >> Exactly. >> We know what happened. >> And I would like to echo this. So they have built not just a website, they have built the whole business line within, and launched that successfully to production. That includes sales, marketing, supply chain, e-commerce, aside within 30 days. And that's just a role model that could be used by other enterprises. >> Yeah. And it was not possible without, first of all, right culture. And second, without cloud Amazon elasticity and all the tools that we have in place. >> Well, the right architecture allows for scale. That's the whole, I mean, you did everything right at the architecture that's scale. I mean, you're scaling. >> And we empower our engineers to make those choices, right. We're not, like, super bureaucratic where every decision has to be approved by the manager or the managers manager. The engineers have the power to just make good decisions, and that's how we move fast. >> That's exactly the future right there. And this is what it's all about. Reliability, scale agility, the ability to react and have applications roll out on top of it without long timeframes. Congratulations. Thanks for being on theCUBE. Appreciate it. All right. >> Thank you. >> Okay, you're watching theCUBE here at re:MARS 2020, I'm John Furrier. Stay tuned. We've got more coverage coming after this short break. (upbeat music)

>> I've got Madhav Mekala here with me, commerce architect at PepsiCo Madhav welcome to the program. >> Thank you Lisa. >> So we're going to be talking about the solution that you implemented that helped with the global supply chain. So let's talk first about your role, commerce architect. Help me understand that a little bit better. >> So Frito-Lay PepsiCo is pretty big. It's a conglomerate of multiple product lines. So I worked for Frito-Lay, which is basically all the salty snacks and then we have a Quaker products as well in our portfolio. So I oversee all the architecture for all the commercial IoT solutions in the FNA portfolio. >> Got it all the commercial lines. So we all know the last 18 months major challenges with the global supply chain component shortages, we've seen a huge increase in the cost of raw materials, limited labor, but you guys actually started to tackle this challenge before the pandemic happened. So talk to me about the catalyst that PepsiCo, what you saw to modernize field service and supply chain application. >> Yeah, so we have a pretty old system that our field force, our frontline users are using. So we have a world-class supply chain system where we go into the stores and place orders and deliver products throughout the U.S. And then we penetrate, I think, more than 95% of the households with our products. So we need to have a robust supply chain as well as a good frontline sales application, to be able to manage the orders, and be able to deliver the products, right? So the system that we have is almost 20 year old system running on a very outdated technology. We've been trying to replace that for a while now. And finally, we started this early last year to completely replace the solution with a brand new IPhone based app. And then that gives our frontline the ability to go place orders, do deliveries to retail execution in the store like check-in check-out, bill displays. There are so much functionality that our RSRs or frontline users do in the stores and this app enables them to do much more efficiently. >> And we're going to break into that, but you mentioned you had a 20 year old technology. Talk to me about some of the challenges that that likely presented to those frontline workers. >> Yeah. I mean, there are multiple challenges for one, we cannot enable new business models. So business wants to come up with new ideas for, to be able to implement in the field, but with our system being so old, it's so hard to implement anything on that one. And then even the physical device is not scaling. We had a lot of memory issues, so it's time for it to kind of retire, but also the technology we use the 3G technology is retiring pretty soon at the next year. So we were definitely need to move to a new solution. And this is one of the must things we have to do right away. So that's where we started the project and we are in pilot phase right now. >> What would have been some of those negative consequences, had you not undertaken the effort? I imagine from a competitive perspective, knowing how much competition is out there, what would some of those challenges have been if this had persisted? >> Yeah, so one is the stability of the application, right? So the frontline users have to spend more time because the app is not stable, the current one. So that reduces the efficiency of our Salesforce. Right? And then on the other hand, we also not able to put new features or new business models enable new business models on top of the existing ones. So we are losing out on some of them because of our outdated system. So that's one thing we want to solve with the new one. >> So this is really critical to really evolve PepsiCo's business at, at its baseline, right? >> That's true. Yeah. It is very critical application that we are building and this will enable us to do a lot more things in future. And we can come up with new ideas, including like virtual reality or connecting to multiple systems. There are so many new ideas that we want to enable once we have this in place. >> Awesome. Talk to me about why Couchbase and then tell us more about, you started to talk a little bit about the solution, but let's go ahead and dig in and unpack the actual solution that you implemented. >> Yeah. So this is, eh, we call it an ERP and a mobile device because it has so much functionality as a company Frito-Lay, we have been over a hundred years in this business, right? We have so many optimized process that we have that kind of led to some digility in the system because we want to do in a particular way, because that's the best way to do it as part of our business process. So what we're trying to do here is take that business process and also provide an app that will enhance it and then connect to more, more systems. So that's what we are trying to do here. And then on top of that one, we will replace all the existing peripherals that we use with the new technology, like Bluetooth and all so that, they are much more faster and they slot more productive for our frontline force. >> Sounds like a lot of sales folks are going to to be a lot more productive. Talk to me about where Couchbase is as an integral component to this new system. >> Yeah. So one of the key requirements for this app is offline mode. What that means is one of our other salesforce who go from our system from our DC to other stores, should be able to run the whole day without any major disruption, even if they're not connected, let's say because when they go into big stores, typically there's no connection there all metal boxes. So the cellular reception is not there, but most of our work that we do from our frontline is within the store. So it has to be a full offline where we have to have all the data within the device and we should be able to place orders, create inventory that records or adjust inventory, and then create invoices. All the majority of the things that we do are in the store and they should be able to do without the connection. So that's where we explored multiple options and kind of zeroed in on Couchbase where we bring all the data into Couchbase database on the device and then sync it when there is connection, but there's no connection, we still have all the data on the device and we can go do all of our duties in the stores without any issues, even if it is not connected. >> So the sales folks can be in the stores with their mobile device, doing all the transactions that they need to do with the stores, regardless of if there's connectivity. Talk to me about what happens when they get back to connectivity in that and the Couchbase database sync. >> Yeah. And the other big thing we want is instant connect. I mean, when there's connectivity, we want instant sync with the backend, right? If there's new data that comes, we need that in the device. At the same time, if I place an order, I want to send it back immediately to our backend systems so that our fulfillment starts for those. So that's very critical when we have a lot of cutoff times for our orders. So we need order as soon as we've placed to be going into the backend systems. So what happens when it gets connected, as soon as the sales folks come out of the store or when, within the story they could connectivity the Couchbased technology that we are using using the sync gateway immediately syncs the data back and forth if there's any new data that's available. So that is key for us in this particular app. >> So our transactions happening in real time or near real time. >> Yeah. So the data flow happens in real time when there's connectivity, but when it is not connected still, it doesn't have any issue with the actual transactions with the RSR that can go complete anything that. >> Got it. Okay. So there's no impediment there. In fact, it's a productivity enhancer. It sounds like for all of those sales folks out on the frontline. Tell us so millions of documents go through the system, tens of billions of dollars. Talk to me about the volume of data and the actual monetary value that's traversing the system. >> Yeah. It's huge, again, this is kind of the lifeline of the company. The sales are always the life of any company, right? So most of the sales for Frito-Lay goes through our system and we're talking anywhere between hundreds of thousands of documents that flow through back and forth between the Couch between the device and the server. So there's a lot of master data that comes like products price from customers, all that information that comes from the backend to the device and all the orders inventory and everything that gets created on the device gets flown sync back to the server. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's a very complex system. And also from the volume perspective, it's huge. So we had to build a massive infrastructure on the backend to be able to handle all this. One of the key feature is again, we have this massive data that we need to sync to the devices, but each device should only get the portion of the data that they want because a particular Salesforce only goes to a small set of 20 stores, let's say. So the data that we sync to that device is only for those 20 stores. So that's the key here. So Couchbase allows us to do that. The Couchbase sync, where we can subset the data into different portions and only send the data that is relevant for a particular device. >> So then from a, from a latency perspective, it must be pretty low latency, pretty fast to be able to get this data back to the device and to the sales person that is in the middle of a transaction. >> Yes. I mean, it's pretty, the sink is very fast. The Couchbase sync, especially user's web sockets. And we do continuous replicators where if I complete an order, the next instant it's on the server. So it's, it's we observed the speeds improved a lot. So the technology that we are using uses syncs for a long, long time compared to Couchbase, and that's another productivity gain for our Salesforce. >> What were some of the differentials? You mentioned some of the technology requirements that PepsiCo had in rearchitecting, the infrastructure, but what were some of the key technology differentiators that really made Couchbase stand out as the obvious choice? >> Yeah, so we, when we started this project, we all know the sink is the key for this whole project, because we thought the data going back and forth, we cannot really build a robust offline app. So we looked at multiple options, other providers that are doing the sync. And we also looked at building our own sink, in-house using APIs, but then we did lots of performance testing across all the options that we had at that time. And then Couchbase came above all of them pretty handily. So obviously we can coach base takes care of the sync, and then we can focus on our business process. So we can go build all the business process and not worry about how to build the syncing engine. And then that is itself a big effort. So that's what Couchbase provided us saying a instant sync engine. And then we were able to focus more on our, the app applicants, the frontline application, the sensor application. >> And those business processes. Let's talk about some of the business outcomes. We've mentioned a few already in our conversation, increased in productivity, the sales forces increased in that as well. But I imagine there's a lot of benefits for the end-user customer in terms of being able to get the transactions completed faster. What are some of those positive business outcomes that PepsiCo is seeing as a result of implementing Couchbase? >> Yeah. So you hit on a couple of them that the sync times are definitely a big factor where that will directly give more time for the sales folks to go either go to most stores, or even if they go to the existing stores, they can do more, spend more time with the customer merchandising and making sure everything is correct. So that's one, also the new app users connect with a lot of new peripherals that are not available on the previous platform. Also, the, our folks are very enthusiastic about using a new app, right? So it's like coming into the 21st century for them using such an old lab for a long time. So a lot of things that they see, they can see the images of the bags while ordering, which was not a feature earlier. Some of them are small, but they make a huge impact on our users. So, yeah, I mean, and then this is just a start that we are doing. And then once we are able to completely implement this one, we have a lot more going into, in future. I was just talking about, we can do virtual reality or show them how to sell using virtual reality. We can show a display to a store manager saying, 'Hey, I want to put a display here. And this is how it looks,' they can show it on the phone directly, than just explaining and showing some paper images. So there's a lot of possibilities. >> A lot of improvements to the customer experience. It sounds like, it sounds like adoption is quite high for your folks who are used to 20 year old technology, probably being very excited that they have a modern app. But talk to me a little bit about the appetite of the organization to continue modernizing the application infrastructure and presuming going from older technology to that 21st century, like you talked about. >> Yeah. So in other parts, we are already modernized some of these. So we have been on the journey for the last four, five years building multiple digital platforms. So one of the examples I can give is when COVID hit, there's a lot of disruption for everybody, for the consumers, so they are not able to find the products in the stores, a lot people are afraid to go to the stores to even buy products. So we reacted very quickly and opened a consumer website called snacks.com, which Pepsi never sold it to consumer directly. We always go through our stores, but the first time we open the consumer channel and Couchbase powered some of it for the backend purpose. So this is not a mobile app, it's just a desktop app, but we already have been on the digital transmission journey, even before we quickly turn into COVID for the snacks.com. And similarly, we are, doing this for our retail execution, portion of it using this project. So, and then we'll be continuing to do this going forward to enable a lot of functionality for I mean, for all of our sales, as well as supply chain and other systems, so that we can be more efficient. We can be more elastic saying if there is more demand, our backend should be able to handle all that, which was not the case before. So now we've built a state of the art backend system on cloud. So there's a lot of transmission, digital transmission going on within PepsiCo. And I'm really proud to be part of this project so that we took this to the next level. And then this is just a start. We can do a lot more. >> Right? This is just the beginning. That sounds like a great transformation for a historied company that we all, everybody knows PepsiCo and all of its products. But it sounds like when the pandemic hit, you had the infrastructure in place to be able to pivot quickly to launch that direct to consumer, which of course consumers, patience has been quite thin in the last year and a half. Talk to me a little bit about the impact to the overall organization as a result of being able to, to get more direct with those consumers. >> Yeah. So till now, again, we are the business model is we sell to the stores and then go customer. So we'd never get a direct sense of what consumer liking is. I mean, we get through some surveys and stuff, but we don't have a direct channel to the consumer, which this particular project enabled us snacks.com. So we know the consumer behavior, how they buying patterns, browsing patterns, which ones they like and including with geography and all so we learned a lot from the consumer behavior point of view for the project. And then we kept on enhancing. So one new thing we introduced was called Multipack where the consumers can come and pick, make their own Multipacks basically. They can say, okay, I need these many of this particular product, this particular product and make their Multipack and we ship them the customized Multipack. And it was, such a huge hit that we are not able to even fulfill them so much demand was there for that one, so we had to revamp and then get back. And now it's a huge thing on all the snacks.com platform. So all of this is possible because we had a digital platform underneath that supports this kind of innovation. So the new business models are just coming to life in within weeks or even few months and that's what we will be trying to do with the new platform that we're building for this app as well, where we'll bring in lot of new business models on top of we have already. >> Excellent, a lot of transformation it sounds like at PepsiCo in the last couple of years, I love the customization, that personalization route that you're going and I think that's going to be a huge hit for consumers. And as you said, there's a lot of demand , Madhav thank you for joining me today, talking about how you are modernizing the field service and supply chain application, the impact it's making for end users for your customers and for the sales folks. We appreciate your time. >> Thank you so much Lisa. >> From McCalla. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching this Cube conversation.

>>I've got Mada Mykola here with me, commerce architect at PepsiCo Mada. Welcome to the program, >>Lisa. >>So we're going to be talking about the solution that you implemented, um, that helped with the global supply chain. So let's talk though, first about your role commerce architect. Help me understand that a little bit better. >>So Frito, uh, PepsiCo is pretty big. It's a conglomerate of multiple product lines. So I worked for Frito-Lay, which is basically all the salty snacks. And then we have, uh, the Quaker products as well in our portfolio. So I oversee all the architecture for all the commercial IOT solutions, uh, in the CFNA portfolio. >>Got it all the commercial lines. So we all know the last 18 months major challenges with the global supply chain component shortages. We've seen a huge increase in the cost of raw materials, um, limited labor, but you guys actually started to tackle this challenge before the pandemic happened. So talk to me about the catalyst that PepsiCo, what you saw to modernize field service and supply chain application. >>Yeah, so we have a pretty old system that our field force, our frontline users are using. So we have a world-class supply chain system where we go into the stores and place orders and deliver products, the us, and then we penetrate, I think, more than 95% of the households with our products. So we need to have a robust supply chain as well as a good frontline sales application, to be able to manage the orders and be able to deliver the products. Right? So the system that we have is almost 20 year old system running on a video data technology. There've been trying to replace that for a while now. And finally, we started this, uh, early last year to completely replace the solution with a brand new iPhone based app. Uh, and then that gives our frontline the ability to go place orders, do deliveries to retail execution in the store, like checking checkout, build displays. There are so much functionality that our RSRs or Franklin users do in the stores and this app enables them to do much more efficient. >>And we're going to break into that, but you mentioned you had a 20 year old technology. Talk to me about some of the challenges that that likely presented to those frontline workers. >>Yeah. I mean, there are multiple challenges for one, we cannot enable new business models. So business wants to come up with new ideas for, um, to be able to implement in the field, but with our system being so old, it's so hard to implement anything on that one. And then even the physical device is not scaling. We had a lot of memory issues, so it's time for it to kind of retire. And also the technology we use the 3g technologies retiring pretty soon at the next year. So we were definitely need to move to a new solution. And this is one of the most things we have to do, but right away. So that's where we started the project and we are in pilot phase right now. >>What would have been some of those negative consequences? Had you not undertaken the effort? I imagine from a competitive perspective, knowing how much competition is out there, what would some of those challenges have been if this had persisted? >>Yeah. So one is the stability of the application, right? So, uh, the frontline users have to spend more time because the app is not stable, the current one. So that reduces the efficiency of our Salesforce. Right? And then on the other hand, we also not able to put new features or new business models enable new business models on top of the existing ones. So we are losing out on some of them because of our outdated system. So that's one thing we want to solve with the new one. >>So this is really critical to really evolve PepsiCo's business at, at its baseline. Right? >>That's true. Yeah. It is very critical application that we're building and this will enable us to do a lot more things in future. And we can come up with new ideas, including like virtual reality or connecting to multiple systems. There are so many new ideas that we want to enable once we have this in place. >>Awesome. Talk to me about why Couchbase, and then tell us more about, you started to talk a little bit about the solution, but let's go ahead and dig in and unpack the actual solution that you implemented. >>Yeah. So this is, eh, we call it an ERP and a mobile device because it has so much functionality as a company three. Totally. We have been, uh, over a hundred years, uh, in this business, right. We have so many, uh, optimized process, uh, that we have that kind of led to some digital in the system because we want to do in a particular way, because that's the best way to do it as part of our business process. So what we're trying to do here is take that business process and also provide an app that will enhance it and then connect to more, more systems. So that's what we're trying to do here. And then on top of that one, we will replace all the existing peripherals that we use with the new technology, like Bluetooth and also, so that, uh, the, they are much more faster, and it's a lot more productive for our frontline force. >>Sounds like a lot of sales folks are going to be a lot more productive. Talk to me about where Couchbase is as an integral component to this new system. >>Yeah. So one of the key requirements for this app is an offline mode. What that means is, uh, one of our Salesforce who go from our system, uh, from our DC to all the stores, should be able to run the whole day without any, uh, major disruption, even if they're not connected, let's say because when they go into big stores, typically there's no connection. There are metal boxes. So the cellular reception is not there, but most of our work that we do from our frontline is within the store. So it has to be a full offline where we have to have all the data within the device, and we should be able to place artists create inventory that records or adjust inventory, and then create invoices. All the majority of the things that we do are in the store and they should be able to do without, um, the kind of connection. So that's where we explored multiple options and kind of zeroed in on Couchbase where we bring all the data into Couchbase based database on the device, and then sync it when there is connection, but there's no connection. We still have all the data on the device and we can go do all of our duties in the stores without any issues, even if it is not connected. >>So the sales folks can be in the stores with their mobile device, doing all the transactions that they need to do with the stores, regardless of if there's connectivity. Talk to me about what happens when they get back to connectivity in that and the Couchbase database sync. >>Yeah. And, uh, the other big thing we want is instant connect. I mean, when there's connectivity, we want instant sync with the backend, right? If there's new data that comes, we'll need that in the device at the same time, if I place an order, I want to send it back immediately to our backend systems for that our fulfillment stacks for those. So that's very critical when we have a lot of cutoff times for our artists. So we need artists as soon as we've placed to be going to the backend systems. So what happens when it gets connected, as soon as the sales folks come out of the store, or when within the store, they got connectivity, these codebase technology that we are using using the sync gateway immediately syncs the data back and forth. Uh, if there is any new data that's available. So that is key for us in this particular app. >>So our transactions happening in, in real time or near real time. >>Yeah. So the data flow happens in real time when this kind of gritty, but when it is not connected still, it doesn't have any issue with the actual transactions with the artists that can go complete anything that they would >>Got it. Okay. So there's no impediment there. In fact, it's a productivity enhancer. It sounds like for all of those sales folks out on the frontline TA. So, so millions of documents go through the system, tens of billions of dollars. Talk to me about the volume of data and the actual monetary value. That's traversing the system. >>Yeah. It's huge. Again, this is kind of weak. It's the lifeline of the company. The seals are always the life of any company, right? So most of the goes through our system. And, um, we're talking anywhere between hundreds of thousands of dollars that flow through back and forth, uh, between, uh, between the device and the server. So there's a lot of master data that comes like products place from customers, all that information that comes from the backend to the device and all the orders, inventory, and everything that gets created on the device gets flown back to the subtler. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's a very complex system. And also from the volume perspective, it's huge. So we had to build a massive infrastructure on the backend to be able to handle all this. One of the key feature is again, we have this massive data that we need to sync to the devices, but each device should only get the portion of the data that they want because a particular Salesforce only goes to a small set of 20 stores, let's say. So the data that we seem to that device is only for those 20 stores. So that's the key here. So Couchbase allows us to do that. The codebase sync, where we can subset the data into different portions and only send the data that is relevant for a particular device. >>So then from a, from a latency perspective, it must be pretty low latency, pretty fast to be able to get this data back to the device and to the sales person that is in the middle of a transaction. >>Yes. Uh, I mean, it's pretty, the sink is very fast. The Cosby's sink, especially user's web sockets. And we do continuous replicators where if I complete an order, the next instant it's on the stairwell. So it's, it's we observed the speeds improve a lot. So the technology that we are using users are things for a long, long time compared to code based. And that's another productivity gain for our Salesforce. >>What were some of the differentials? You mentioned some of the technology requirements that PepsiCo had in rearchitecting, the infrastructure, but what were some of the key technology differentiators that really made Couchbase stand out as the obvious choice? >>Yeah, so we, when we started this project, we all know the sink is the key for this whole project, because we thought that data going back and forth, we cannot really build a robust, um, uh, offline app. So we looked at multiple, uh, options, other providers that are doing the sink. And we also looked at building our own sink. Uh, in-house using API APIs, but then we did lots of, uh, performance testing across all the, uh, options that we had at that time. And then Ottawa cost base came above. All of them are pretty handle it. So obviously we can coach base takes care of the sink, and then we can focus on our business process. So we can go build all the business process and not worry about how we build a single. And then that is itself a big effort. So that's what caught me is prior to seeing instant sync engine. And then we were able to focus more on our, uh, the app application, the frontline application, the sales application, >>And those business processes. Let's talk about some of the business outcomes. We've mentioned a few already in our conversation, increased in productivity. The sales forces increased in that as well, but I imagine there's a lot of benefits for the end-user customer in terms of being able to get the transactions completed faster. What are some of those positive business outcomes that PepsiCo is seeing as a result of implementing Couchbase? >>Yeah. So you hit on a couple of them when the sink times are definitely a big factor with that will directly give more time for the sales folks to go either go to most stores or even they go to the existing stores, they can do more, spend more time with the customer merchandising and making sure everything is correct. So that's one also the new app users, uh, connect with a lot of new peripherals that are not available on the previous platform. Um, also the, uh, our folks are very, uh, enthusiastic about using a new app, right? So it's like coming into the 21st century for them using such an old lab for a long time. So a lot of things that they see, they can see the images of the bags while ordering, which was not a feature earlier. Some of them are small, but they make a huge impact on our users. >>Um, so yeah, I mean, and then this is just a start that we are doing. And then once we are able to completely implement this one, we have a lot more going into, in future. I was just talking about, we can do virtual reality or show them how to sell using what filter do. We can show a display to a store manager saying, Hey, I want to put a display here. And this is how it looks. They can show it on the phone that Dan just explaining and showing some paper images. So there's a lot of possibilities, >>A lot of improvements to the customer experience. It sounds like, it sounds like adoption is quite high for your folks who are used to 20 year old technology, probably being very, uh, excited that they have a modern app. But talk to me a little bit about the appetite of the organization to continue modernizing the application infrastructure and presuming going from older technology to that 21st century, like you talked about. >>Yeah. So in other parts, we are already modernized some of these. So we have been on the journey for the last four or five years building multiple digital platforms. So one of the example I can give is when COVID hit, there's a lot of disruption for everybody, for the consumers. So they are not able to find the products in the stores, but people are afraid to go to the stores to even buy products. So we reacted very quickly and opened a consumer of a website called snacks or calm, which Pepsi never sold it to the directly. We always go through our stores, but the first time we open the consumer channel and base powered some of it for the backend purpose. So this is not a mobile app, it's just a desktop app, but we already have been on the district has mission journey even before we quickly turned into COVID for the snacks.com. >>And similarly, we are, you are doing this for our retail execution portion of it, um, using this product. So, and then we'll be continuing to do this going forward, or to enable a lot of functionality for, uh, I mean, for all of our sales, as well as, uh, supply chain and other systems, so that we can be more efficient. We can be more elastic saying if there is more demand, our backend should be able to handle all that, uh, which was not the case before extra. Now we built a state of the art backend system on cloud. So there's a lot of transmission, digital transmission going on within PepsiCo. And I'm really proud to be part of this project so that we took this to the next level. And then this is just a start. We can do a lot more, >>Right? This is just the beginning. That sounds like a great transformation for a history company that we all, everybody knows PepsiCo and all of its products. But it sounds like when the pandemic hit, you had the infrastructure in place to be able to pivot quickly to launch that direct to consumer, which of course consumers, patients has been quite thin in the last year and a half. Talk to me a little bit about the impact to the overall organization as a result of being able to, to get more direct with those consumers. >>Yeah. So till now, again, we are, the business model is we sell to the stores and then go to the customer. So we'd never get a direct, uh, sense of what consumer, uh, liking is. I mean, we get through some surveys and stuff, but we don't have a direct channel with the consumer, which this particular product enabled us next.com. So we know the consumer behavior, how they, um, buying patterns, browsing patterns, which ones they like and including with geography. And also we learned a lot from a consumer behavior point of view for the project. And then we kept on enhancing. So one new thing we introduced was called multipack where the consumers can come and make their own market practices. They can say, okay, I need this many of this particular product, this product per I can make that multipack. And we ship them the customized market back. >>And it was such a huge hit that we are not able to even fulfill them so much demand was there for that one. So we had to revamp and then get back. And now it's a huge thing on our snacks that complex. So all of this is possible because we had a digital platform underneath that supports this kind of innovation. So the new business models are just coming to life in within weeks or even few months. And that's what we will be trying to do with the new platform that could billing for this app as well, where we'll bring in a lot of new business models. We have >>Excellent, a lot of, uh, transformation. It sounds like at PepsiCo in the last couple of years, I'd love the customization, that personalization route that you're going. I think that's going to be a huge hit for consumers. And as you said, there's a lot of demand letter. Thank you for joining me today, talking about how you are modernizing the field service and supply chain application, the impact it's making for end users for your customers and for the sales folks. We appreciate your time. >>Thank you so much >>From out of McCullough. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching this cube conversation.

>>From around the globe. It's the queue with digital coverage of AWS reinvent 2020 sponsored by Intel, AWS, and our community partners. >>Hello, and welcome back to the cubes coverage of ADFS reinvent 2020 it's virtual this year because of the pandemic we can't be in person normally would do in these interviews face to face, but we're here remote. I'm your host, John furrier. We're the cube virtual and we're here with Teresa Carlson, who is the chief and heads up the public sector business, uh, for AWS and also now has industries, which is a lot of the verticals and just continues to, um, have great leadership and continues to do well in the business. I Theresa great to see you for the eighth consecutive cube interview you've been on every year and we thank you for coming on big year this year. Thanks for coming on. Great to see you. >>Thank you, John. Thank you for having me. It's hard to believe it's eight years already. Wow, go ahead. >>Well, first of all, I want to say congratulations. Um, the first year you will run, you never wavered. You always had a North star. Um, you had the Amazonia and kind of way, um, you told us what you were going to do and you did it. The CIA came on board and the dots just connected. So congratulations this year more than ever, um, during your keynote. And re-invent, even though it was virtual, um, again, you're raising the bar on the theme leadership and making use of the data two major themes this year on your keynote because of the pandemic. And just because of the cloud computing benefits are all kind of coming together. You're helping more people than ever doing a more public service with cloud when it needs it. The most. This has been a big story. Share your, your reaction to that. >>Yeah. Well, John, thank you again for having me in your coverage of reinvent. It's been three weeks of, wow. I mean, three weeks we do one hour a day three, uh, that COVID, you know, we're still, we're still not dead, right? The vaccinations are out. People are starting to, I saw on the television yesterday here in the U S the first nurse that was vaccinated. Uh, but for us, I will tell you the data side of this piece during COVID has been huge. I mean, huge. It has been, you know, our customers have always said data is golden for them, right. Uh, but during COVID, we have actually seen the use of data, just go up like crazy and not just the use of it, but, um, I will say it's multiple data lakes that are used hydrating multiple data lakes and using that data to merge. >>So if you think about economic data and health data and putting those data sets together in a way that they have deeper understanding of what's happening within their community, their state, their, their, uh, their country. So we've seen emerging of data, uh, in a big way. If you think about the vaccinations themselves, uh, John, that wouldn't have been possible to move this fast without the use of scalable compute, processing and analytics in a way like no one has ever seen it. And, uh, it's, it's, it's pretty amazing. And I don't think we'll ever go back. And also I'll just say sharing of that data has changed. Researchers are now much more open to sharing that data air cord 19 a research site that we've done has thousands of researchers on it. Now, hundreds of thousands of views on it with people sharing research about COVID and think about that. I mean, research has always been held tightly, and now we're really starting to see them open up and share that data so that we can move much faster. >>I think doing that public service with the data has always been a killer idea. We talked about national parks being kind of open for the people over the years now, super computing and data. You guys do a great job doing that, but the other area that you're getting a lot of press on and, and rightfully so is an area that I know is close to your heart, as well as our mission, which is getting people trained up on cloud computing. And you've done this for years, but this year more importantly, with all the pressure and all the need, you guys have offered, offering a huge training skills training for 29 million people globally. I saw that on the news, I saw you on doing some TV interviews on this. It's been all over the press has been getting a lot of great buzz. Can you tell me more about what that is? >>Yeah. So part of my, when I picked up bear industry business units also picked up our training and certification organization that is ran by Maureen Lonergan. I know you've had Maureen on your show before too, and then I have education, which is run by Kimma Jarris in the U S and max, uh, Peterson internationally. And we are now we've merged so that we have a model that we can teach and train around the world in a much more scalable way that this announcement was about going into 200 Kemp countries and territories training, 29 million people by 2025 free do free skills training and making that available job through multiple different programs and scaling those. So we'll take the programs we have and we'll scale those app much more rapidly. And then now we'll also look for new programs that we need to run in parallel because that's what we do. >>We have to look around corners. Also make sure that we have the right programs and, you know, I've lived, I've lived, you know, they're all amazing, but near and dear to my heart has always been our AWS educate, which we started, uh, for ages 14 and up to at the university and high school level, to be able to start to bring on those cloud skills. Then we added badging and credentialing onto that. And from there, you can go into the air Academy, which you can actually get certifications as a solution architect. Uh, but we've, we've added so many more, uh, our program restart now, which has been really, which is about training. Those who are jobless or an underserved communities and socioeconomic depressed areas. Uh, and I love that program. I told a story about an individual in Boston who had opened a training center, a gym he's a fitness trainer, and he had to close it, uh, because you know, COVID, and he went through our 12 week. >>We restart training program and now has a job with a company there in Boston. And I just love those kind of stories where you know, that you're putting people to work. And I think for us, there's thousands and thousands of jobs around the world, just in any city, if you, if you search on cloud computing jobs open, I just looked in New York when I was on CNBC. I looked in New York and there are 10,000 cloud jobs just there in New York. And I just did a quick search. So there's always jobs, and we've got to make sure that we're skilling them so they can go now fill those jobs. And that will help us close that gap. Uh, John, which we still have a big one, uh, to get all the jobs filled that are out there. >>That's a great mission. And I got to say, it's super important because one is cloud computing. There's openings for this kind of new, the new paradigm, which is now mainstream and playing out on, in real time, as, as Andy was talking about, but also the global it markets being reshaped by cloud computing. So you have the intersection of those two, which is a new skill. You can't just take it and make a cloud. You've got to bring it together. So it's a great opportunity for someone to come into the industry and level up pretty quickly. You don't have to have the 20 years of experience to do this. It's you can come in instantly level up, have a great job. >>You know, it's the one thing John, I hear all the time around the world before from like when I would go and speak with university chancellors and presidents and just professors, they would say, Hey, you know, AWS, we need you to do the micro-credentialing along the way. And this was pre COVID when they said, we need to get your students want to work while they're in school. Well now more than ever, it's important. And we also, John Luke, just in September, over 800,000 women left the workplace. That is a trend that we do not want and we can not sustain. And so doing, you know, doing programs like this virtually that you can do self paced environments, intensive environments. We want to make, we want to make these programs fit for whatever the individual needs. So it's not just a one size fits all. We want to make sure that the programs that we're providing will fit the needs of the individuals doing the training. And I, I particularly am, uh, I want to push this with their, you know, inclusion and diversity of the individuals that we need to get into the workplace, but it is pretty alarming when you see that many women leaving the workplace, you know, when a choice is being made right now, we're seeing women take the brunt of that. And we want to make sure that they have the opportunity to work virtually train themselves and get those new jobs that are out in tech. >>Well, that's one of the questions I had for you. I'll just jump to that. Now I'll get back to some of the other ones, but the customers that pivot to remote work and learning, uh, it's changing. And, you know, I was, um, riffing on an interview. Um, I think it was with one of your public sector customers, the future of work. And if you just think about the word work workforce, workplace workload work flows, the notion of work is now impacted. And you mentioned the diversity piece. This is an opportunity. So how should people think about this, uh, relearning? So we don't lose people and we actually get a net positive inbound migration to the workforce. >>You know, the flexibility I had, I did a fireside chat with Andrew Nooney. Um, he was the former CEO of PepsiCo and chairman, and is now on our Amazon board, uh, for re-invent. And she talked about, you know, being your authentic self, uh, curiosity, but one of her big points is women in the workplace. Uh, and she's gonna publish a new book soon, and it's going to be really focused on kind of equity policy, uh, areas of need that we have to focus on to make sure that we have at women being able to tackle both the home issues and being able to work and taking advantage of that plus 50%. And I would say the virtual opportunity is really fantastic, especially for, um, all levels of socioeconomic individuals, because you can work part-time full-time, you can work virtually. And I do believe while we all want to get back into the workplace. >>I think for me, I'm a social animal. I'd love to be there sitting beside you, John, you know, I think for a lot of us, we are, we kind of yearn to be back in the office, but there's also a lot that working from home, um, is, is much more achievable for them, right? Especially with childcare if school day, if it's a short day, because the schools and allowing flexibility with work is going to be really important and COVID has taught us that that is possible. My team did not miss a beat during COVID. I tell ya, it's like unbelievable. Our business, uh, has, has really kinda been on fire because public sector. And if you look at the other industries, I've picked up financial services, uh, energy and telecommunications and training and certification. These are all that had to keep going. Uh, governments were moving faster than ever. >>So our team was really busy. Um, I've had individuals asked me, well, how did you manage the downtowns? Like we didn't have any downtime. Like literally day one, we were like 24 seven and the teams were working with it pretty much every government around the world because COVID moved so quickly and all virtually. And I will have to say, John, I was really skeptical in the beginning about how is this? How, how are we going to do this? Um, but the teams really, we figured out how to operate. You know, you had to, it's a new muscle. You kind of have to build that virtual work muscle and figure out how you manage your day, how you fit things in. And then there's the point that people think you're always available because you are at home, right? So you can never, that you can't possibly not be available because you know, you're, you are sitting at home. And then there's the many times where people's cats walk across and kind of with their tail on their face. And that dog child were at REMS in with the diaper. And you know, it's all, you, you have to have grace and humor about all this. Sometimes T like you can't take everything so seriously. And perhaps we've learned that, um, work and life can blend a little bit more, right? That you can, you can have that when a lot of people, when they talk about work-life balance, now we have work-life harmony. >>You know, you and I have talked about this before. If you can tap whoever taps, the diversity of talent will always let me win the game and not just, um, diversity in terms of gender or background role. I mean, if you can tap the virtual space, you're a winner because there's talent out there that can be aggregated in, and there's no stigma associated with anything. So, you know, this is, I think Andy kinda, uh, expressed that to me. And, and he heard it in his keynote where he said, Hey, people are a square, but you can get more participation. I think that is a real positive, um, upside. And I love the perspective of this new muscle. I totally agree. You need to, you need to have that >>Square. I mean, we've, we've actually chatted. I don't know if we'll ever go back to having big rooms with people in it, because you have a voice, you have a face. And I do believe, especially for women, uh, John, who can not always speak up, it's an opportunity for them to have their own space. They ha they can have their own voice. All individuals cause centers. They have great ideas, but they don't always value them. So having, you know, when you, each person has their own square, you can actually kind of see, well, who's, who's has an opinion. Who's spoken up. Who, who do I want to call on here and ask them if they have an opinion? So I like the idea of everybody having their own space when you're having a meeting. If you have to be virtual, because you get lost in translation, especially if you have that large leader in the room and everybody else's around them, then sometimes they only kind of adhere to their voice. This is an opportunity for others to really have that pool. >>I was just, I saw a joke on Twitter from a friend that said, Hey, I run all the meetings now because I can mute people. So if someone starts talking, you're muted bye-bye. So again, this is a whole new muscle great stuff. Well, since you've, since you brought up your role, I know you have a new expanded role. Could you take a minute to explain what that is? Because I'm still not clear. I know you've been doing an amazing job. I've written about, uh, your initial successes, and now you continue to do well with public sector and believe me, I've exploding. I see it. We're reporting on it. Public service is changing with digital transformation, but these other things, what are you working on? What are the new areas? Yeah, so I >>Just passed my 10th year. I'm starting my 11th year and it's been like amazing building this public sector business. I, I, and our government customers. Wow. The innovation and education during COVID has been pretty off the charts, which I don't think I'll slow down. And then a few months ago I was asked to take on our, uh, our training and certification org and our evangelist in solution architecture org, along with the industry business units of, uh, finance, telecommunications, and energy. And then, uh, John, if you remembering June, I announced our aerospace and satellite industry business unit. So, uh, these are the ones that we have right now are very regulated. A lot of them are, you know, very closely aligned to regulated industry. Um, you know, there could be others that are not as regulated, but the ones right now, if you think about aerospace, satellite, financial services, telecommunications in, in, in energy. >>So they, for me, um, they're very, it can tell a lot of the work I've been doing in building public sector, because when I go into a country today, when my teams go in, we generally always have to work with these groups. So if you think about telecommunications, we have to go in and make sure that we're working on our networking, our connectivity, and we negotiate and work with those telco providers. Same with the energy companies, both large ones and small ones. We go in and we work to build a power purchasing agreements, you know, solar power, uh, renewable energy to power our data centers and make sure that we're giving back to the grid. So we have that partnership. And then in the financial sector, I've had our, uh, I've had all of our regulators anyway, like FINRA fed reserve. Um, I R S treasury. >>So I've already, I've always had all the regulators. So now working with the, uh, you know, the additional, the banking, the investment sector, capital markets, it's very, it's, it seems so natural if that makes sense. And now diving into the upstream and downstream stream of supply chain for both that energy and telco and what a fantastic time now for telcos with 5g. I mean, I've been saying for two or three years that I thought this would be a huge opportunity for telecommunications companies to actually look for new, uh, work streams for their customers. And I mean, edge, you know, now our connect or call centers that they can do and take advantage of that. So I'm actually really excited. Uh, John seeing seven of new opportunities and, you know, renewable the new energy, uh, startups that are out there, the things I'm seeing, power, solar, nuclear, um, and then seeing a lot of the larger energy companies take on these projects. It's a lot of fun. And, um, I'm very excited now to continue to meet those customers. I got to meet a lot during re-invent. I love their energy. Yeah. I love kind of learning about what they're looking to solve. And, and I'm also just looking forward to helping them, um, with the connections that we've already been doing in government. I think it's a really nice combination of working together. Now. >>I, I see it as, um, what you've done with public sector was take a partnership approach to an old standing industry, changed them quickly, get the transformation, build the relationships, get the successes and establish that transformation and this needed versus the organically developing, you know, stuff. That's going to be the cloud startups and whatnot. Those are going to use Amazon, but you're a transformational leader. >>John, if I could just save for a minute, if you think about re-invention, you're at re-invent and a lot of these are going through massive reinvention, uh, you know, again, 5g with telco renewables, uh, with energy and then financial services where everything is kind of moving to an online model and digital model with different types of currencies that they have to deal with. It's, it's really perfect for cloud and what we offer. So I think the opportunity, um, to dive in and really partner with these industries and aerospace and Salado. Oh my gosh. It's just, I have to say, I really do believe cloud computing is, um, the perfect kind of step forward with all these industries for reinvention and innovation, which they're all moving towards. >>Well, Theresa, you're a re-invention leader. Uh, we've covered it. And now we've got all new territory for you to work on. Um, bring your playbook, you know, people-centric partner results are charging Theresa, thank you for your time. Great to have you on. Great to see you. Wish you, we were in person in real life again soon. Thank you for coming on. >>Yeah, John, thank you. Happy holidays. I look forward to seeing you next year. >>Okay. This is the cubes coverage of AWS reinvented. We have Teresa Carlson, she heads up the public sector. She's the chief of the whole public sector, and now taking on other industries to bring that playbook, the reinvention to the industries, really a big part of the Amazon web services, vision and cultural change. That's going on with the pandemic reach rechanging and reformatting and refactoring industries. That's what's going on in the big picture and a lot of gay tech under the hood. I'm John for your host. Thanks for watching.

>>Live from Las Vegas. It's the cube covering UI path forward Americas 2019 brought to you by UI path. >>We're back in Las Vegas. UI path forward three. You're watching the cube, the leader in live tech coverage. Bobby Patrick is here. He's the COO of UI path. Welcome. Hi Dave. Good to see it to be here. Wow. Great to have the cube here again. Right? Q loves these hot shows like this. I mean this is, you've said Gardner hasn't done the fastest growing software segment you've seen in the data that we share from ETR. You guys are off the chart in terms of net score. It's happening. I hanging onto the rocket ship. How's it feel? Well it's crazy. I mean it's great. You all have seen some of the growth along the way too, right? I mean we had our first forward event less than two years ago and you know about 500 plus plus non UI path and people then go year later. It was Miami USY. >>There's probably a lot. Cube I think was Miami right yet and a, and that was a great event, but that was more in the 13 1400 range. This one's almost 3000 and the most amazing part about it was we had 8% attrition from the registrations. Yeah. That's never seen that we're averaging 18% of 20% for all of our, most of our events worldwide. But 8% the commitment is unbelievable. Even 18 to to 20% is very good. I mean normally you'll see 25 to sometimes as high as 50% yeah. It just underscores the heat. >> Well I think what's also great, other stats that you might find interesting. So over 50% of the attendees here are exec. Our senior executives, like for the first time we actually had S you know, C level executive CHRs and CEOs on stage. Right. You could feel the interest level. Now of course we want RPA developers at events too, right? >>But this show really does speak, I think to the bigger value propositions and the bigger business transformation opportunity from RPA. And I mean, you've come so far where no one knew RPA two years ago to the CIO of Morgan Stanley on stage, just warning raving about it. That's, we've come a long way in two years. >> Well, and I saw a lot of the banks here hovering around, you know, knocking on your door so they, they know they are like heat seeking missiles, you know, so, but the growth has been amazing. I mean I think ARR in 2017 was what, 25 million at this time. Uh, at the end of 17 it was 43 and 43 and 25 and now you're at 12 times higher now 1212 X solve X growth, which is the fastest growing software company. I think in that we know from one to 100 we were, we did that in 21 months and all that. >>And we had banks who now we're not really counting anymore and we're kind of, you know, now focus more on customer expansion. Even though we hit 5,000 customers, which we started the year at 2050 ish. We just crossed 5,000. I mean, so the number of customers is great, but there's no question. This conference is focused on scaling, helping them grow at enterprise wide with, with, with RPA. So I think our focus will be in to shift a bit, you know, to really customer expansion. Uh, and that's a lot of what this announcements, the product announcements were about a lot of what the theme here is about. We had four dozen customers on, on stage, you know, the Uber's of the world, the Amazons of the world. It's all about how they've been scaling. So that's the story now. Well, you know, we do a lot of these events and I go back to some of the, uh, when the cube first started, companies like Tablo, Dallas Blunck great service. >>Now, I mean, these you can, and when you talk to customers, first of all, it's easy to get customers to come talk about RPA. Yeah. And they're, they're all saying the same thing. I mean, Jeanne younger said she's never been more excited in her career from security benefit. But the thing is, Bobby, it's, I feel like they're, they're really just getting started. Yeah. I mean most of the use cases that you see are again, automating mundane task. We had one which was the American fidelity, which is a really bringing in AI. Right. But they're really just getting started. It's like one to 3% penetration. So what are your thoughts on that to kind of land and expand, if you will? I think, you know, look, last year we announced our vision of a robot for every person. At that point we had SNBC on stage and they were the one behind it. >>And they are an amazing story. Now we have a dozen or so that are onstage talking about a robot for every person like st and others. And so, but that, that, that's a pretty, pretty, pretty bold vision I think. Look, I think it's important to look at it both ways. Um, there's huge gold and applying RPA to solve real problems. There's a big opportunity, enterprise wide, no question. We've got that. But I look New York Foundling was on stage yesterday. We have New York Foundling is a 150 year old associate. Our charity in New York focused on child welfare, started by three fishers of charity. They focused on infants. And anyway, it's an amazing firm. Just the passion that New York family had on stage with Daniel yesterday was amazing. But what they flew here because for once they found a technology that actually makes a huge difference for them and what in their mission. >>So their first RPA operation was they have 850 clinicians every week. They spend four hours a week moving their contact, uh, a new contact data associate with child child issues from system to system to spreadsheet and paper to system, right? They use RPA and they now say for a 200,000 hours a year. But more importantly, those clinicians spend those four hours every week with children not moving. So I'm still taking, I think Daniel had a bit of a tear in his eye, hearing them talk about it on stage, but I'm still taken by, by the, by the sheer massive opportunity for RPA in, in a particular to solve some really amazing things. Now on a mass scale, a company can drive, you know, 10, 15, 20% productivity by every employee having a robot. Yes, that's true on a mass scale. They can completely transform their business, your transform customer experience, transform the workplace on a mass scale. >>And that, that is, that's a sea level GFC level goal and that's a big deal. But I love the stories that are very real. Um, and, and I think those are important to still do plug some great tech for good story. Look, tech gives, you know, the whole Facebook stuff and the fake news got beat up and it had Benny come out recently say, Hey, it's, it's not just about increasing the value to shareholders, you know, it's about tech for good and doing other things affecting lifestyle's life changing. And Michael Dell is another one. Now I've, I've, I've kind of said tongue in cheek, you know, show me the CEO misses is four quarters in a row and see if that holds up. But nonetheless, you love to see successful companies giving back. It seems to be, it's part of your, well look I've been part of hardware companies and I met you all through a few of them and others they have good noble causes but it was hard to really connect the dots. >>Yes there CPS underneath a number of these things. But I think judging by the emotional connection that these customers have on stage, right and these are the Walmarts and Uber's and others in the world judging by the employee and job satisfaction that they talk about the benefits there. I just, I my career, I have not seen that kind of real direct impact from you know, from B2B software for example on the lives of people both everyday at work but also just solving the solving, you know, help accelerate human achievement. Right. And so many amazing ways. We had the CEO of the U N I T shared services group on stage yesterday and they have a real challenge with, you know, with the growth of refugees worldwide and he would express them and they can't hit keep up. They don't have the funding, which is, you know, with everybody and, and Trump and others trying to hold back money. >>But they had this massive charter for of good, the only way they get there is through digital. The new CEO, the new head of the U N is a technology engineer. He came in and said, the way we solve this is with templates, with technology. And they decided, they said on stage yesterday that RPA and RPA has the path to AI and the greater, the greater new technologies and that's how they're going to do it. And it's just a, it's a really, it's, I think it's, it feels really great. You know, it's funny too, one of the things we've been talking about this week is people might be somewhat surprised that there's so much head room left for automation because the boy, 50 years of tech, Kevin, we automated everything. That's the other, but, and Daniel put forth the premise last night, it actually, technology is created more process problems or inefficiencies. >>So it's almost like tech has created this new problem. Can tech get us out of the problem? Well, essentially you think about all the applications we use in our lives, right? Um, you know, although people do have, you know, a Salesforce stack and sometimes in this SAP, the reality is they have a mix of a bunch of systems and then we add Slack to it and we add other tools and we add all the tools alone, have some great value. But from a process perspective of how we work everyday, right? How a business user might work at a call center, they have to interact then. And the reality is they're often interacting with old systems too because moving them is not easy, right? So now you've got old systems, new systems and, and really the only way to do that is to put a layer on top of the systems of engagement and the systems of record, right? >>A layer on top that's easy to actually build an application that goes between all of these different, these different applications, outlook, Excel, legacy systems and salesforce.com and so on and so on and, and build an app that solves a real problem, have it have outcomes quickly. And this is why, Dave, we unveiled the vision here that we believe that automation is the application. And when you begin to think about I could solve a problem now without requiring a bunch of it engineers who already are maxed out, right? Uh, I can solve a problem that can directly impact the businesses or directly impact customers. And I can do that on top of these old technologies by just dragging and dropping and using a designer tool like studio or studio X in a business user can do that. That's, that's a game changer. I think what's amazing is when you go to talk to a CIO who says, I've been automating for 20 years, you know, take up the ROI. >>Once they realize this is different, the light bulb goes off. We call it the automation first mindset. A light bulb goes off and you realize, okay, this is a very different whole different way of creating value for, for an organization. I think about how people weigh the way that people work today. You're constantly context switching. You're in different systems. Like you said, Slack, you're getting texts and you want to be responsive. You want to be real time. I know Jeff Frick who was the GM of the cube has got two giant screens right on his desk. I myself, I always have 1520 tabs open if I go, Oh you got so many tabs on my, yeah. Cause I'm constantly context switching, pulling things out of email, going back and forth and so and so. I'm starting to grok this notion of the automation is the app. >>At first I thought, okay, it's the killer app, but it's not about stitching things together with through API APIs. It's really about bringing an automation perspective across the organization. We heard it from Pepsi yesterday. Yeah, right. Sort of the fabric, the automation fabric throughout the organization. Now that's aspirational for most companies today, but that really is the vision. Well, I think you had Layla from Coca-Cola also on, right. And her V their vision there and they actually took the CDO role of the CIO and put them together. And they're realizing now that that transformation is driven by this new way of thinking. Yeah, I think, you know, look, we introduced a whole set of new brand new products and capabilities around scaling around helping build these applications quicker. I, I think, you know, fast forward one year from now, the, you know, the vision we outlined will be very obvious the way people interact with, you know, via UI path to build applications, assault come, the speed to the operate will be transformational and, and so, you know, and you see this conference hear me walk around. >>I mean you saw last year in the year before you see the year before, but it's, it's a whole, the speed at which we're evolving here, I think it's unprecedented. And so I'll talk a little bit about the market for has Crigler killer was awesome this morning. He really knows his stuff now. Last year I saw some data from him and said the market by 2020 4 billion, and I said, no way. It's going to be much larger than that. Gonna be 10 billion by 2020 I did Dave Volante fork, Becca napkin by old IDC day forecast. Now what he, what he showed today is data. It actually was 10 billion by 2020 because he was including services, the services, which is what I was including in my number as well, but the of it, which was so good for him now, but the only thing is he had this kind of linear growth and that's not how these rocket ship Marcus grow. >>They're more like an old guy for an S curve. You're going to get some steep part now, so I'd love to see like a longer term forecast because that it feels like that's how this is going to evolve. Right now it's like you've seated the base and you can just feel the momentum building and then I would expect you're going to see massive steep sort of exponential growth. Steeper. There may be, you know, nonlinear because that's how these markets go >> to come from the expansion potential, right? And none of our customers are more than 1% audit automated from an RPA perspective. So that shows you the massive opportunity. But back to the market site, data size, Craig and I and the other analysts, we talk often about this. I think the Tam views are very low and you'll look at our market share, let's just get some real data out there, right? >>Our market share in 2017 was 5% let's use Craig's linear data for now. You know, our market share this year is over 20% our market share applying, and I don't want to give the exact numbers as you don't provide guidance anymore, is substantially we're substantially gaining share now. I believe that's the reality of the market. I think because we know blue prisms numbers, we go four times faster than the every quarter automation. The world won't share their numbers. But you know, I can make some guesses, but either way I think, you know, I think we're gaining share on them significantly. I think, you know, Craig's not gonna want us to be 50% of the market two years, he's just not. And so he's going to have to figure out how to identify how to think. That brought more broadly about, about that market trend. He talked about it on stage today about how does he calculate the AI impact and the other pieces now the process mining now that now that we are integrating process mining into RPA, right? >>It's strategic component of that. How does that also involve the market? So I think you have both the expansion and the plot product portfolio, which drives it. And then you have the fact that customers are going to add more automations at faster pace and more robots and that's where the expansion really kicks in. And we often say, you know, look as a, as a, as a, as a company that, you know, one day we'll be public company, our ARR numbers. Very important. We do openly transparently share that. But you know, the other big metric will be, you know, dollar based net expansion rate that shows really how customers are expanding. I think that, I know it, our numbers, we haven't shared it yet. I know all the SAS companies, the top 10 I can tell you, you know we're higher than all of them. >>The market projections are low. And I think he knows it well. >> Speaking of Tam, and when we, I saw this with, with service now, now service now the core was it right? So the, the ROI was not as obvious with, with, with you guys, you're touching business process. And so, so in David Flory are way, way back, did an analysis of service and now he said, wow, the Tam is way being way under counted by everybody. That wall street analyst Gardner, it feels like the same here because there are so many adjacencies and just talk to the customers and you're seeing that the Tam could be enormous, much bigger than the whatever 16 billion a Daniel show, the other Danielson tangles, the guy's balls. He said, Oh that's 16 billion. That's you. I pass this data. And you know, we laugh, but I'm, I'm like listening. Say I wonder if he's serious cause this guy thinks big. >>I mean, who would've thought that he'd be at this point by now? And you're just getting started? Well, I think, you know, one thing I think is, you know, we're, we're, you know, we were a little bit kind of over a little less humble when we talked about things like valuation over the last few years. We were trying to show this market's real, you know, we want to now focus more on outcomes and things get a little less from around those numbers. And I think that shows the evolution of a company's maturity, um, that we, I think we're going through right now. Uh, you know, the outcomes of, you know, Walmart on stage saying, you know, their first robot that was, this was, this was two years ago, delivered 360,000 hours of capacity for them in, in, in, in, in HR, right? That, you know, I think those, that's where we're gonna be focused because the reality is if we can deliver these big outcomes and continue them and we can go company-wide deliver on the robot for every, every, every, every person, then you know, the numbers follow along with it. >>Well we saw some M and a this week as well, which again leads me to the larger Tam cause we had PD on, um, with Rudy and you can start to see how, okay now we're going to actually move into that vision that the guy from PepsiCo laid out this, this fabric of this automation fabric across the organization. So M and a is, is a part of that as well. That starts to open up new Tam. Opportunity does. And I think, you know, a process mind is a great example of a market that is pretty well known in Europe, not so much in the U S um, and there are really only a few players in that, in that market today. Look, we're going to do what we did in RPA. We're going to do the same thing. You're process mining. We're going to just say anything we're doing in it, not as democratization, you'll our strategy will be to go mass market with these technologies, make it very easy for accessibility for every single person in the case of process mining, every business analyst to be able to mind their processes for them and, and ultimately that flows through to drive faster implementations and then faster, faster outcomes. >>I think our approach, again, our approach to the business users, our approach to democratization, um, you know it's very different than our competitors. A lot of these low code companies, I won't name a number cause I don't remember our partners here at our conference. They're IT-focused their services heavy and, and you know, their growth rates I'll be at okay are 30% year over year in this market. That shouldn't be the case at all. I mean we're a 200 plus a year. We are still and we've got big numbers and we have a whole different approach to the market. I don't think people have figured it out yet, Dave. Exactly, exactly. The strategy behind which is, which is when you have business users, subject matter experts and citizen developers that can access our technology and build automations quickly and deliver value proof for their company. And you do that in mass scale. >>Right. And then you will now allow with our apps for your end users, I get a call center to engage with a robot as part of their daily operation that none of the other it vendors who are all kind of conventional thinking and that's not, our models are very different, which I think shows in our numbers and and, and the growth rates. Yeah. Well you bet on simplicity early on. In fact, when you join you iPad, you challenged me so you have some of your Wiki bond analysts go out. I remember head download our stuff and then try to download the competitors and they'll tell us, you know how easy it as well we were able to download UI path. We, we built some simple automations. We couldn't get ahold of the other other, other companies products we tried. We were told we'll go to the reseller or how much did you have to spend and okay so you bet on simplicity, which was interesting because Daniel last night kind of admitted, look, he tracked the audience. >>He said thank you for taking a chance on us because frankly a couple of years ago this wasn't fully baked right and and so, so I want to talk about last, the last topic is sort of one of the things Craig talked about was consolidation and I've been saying that all week and said this, this market is going to consolidate. You guys are a leader now you've got to get escape velocity cause the leader makes a lot of money and becomes, gets big. The number two does. Okay, number three man, everybody else and the big guys are starting to jump in as well. You saw SAP, you know, makes an announcement and you guys are specialists and so your thoughts on hitting escape velocity, I wouldn't say you're quite there yet. I want to see more on the ecosystem. There's maybe, who knows, maybe there's an IPO coming. I've predicted that there is, but your thoughts on achieving escape velocity and some of the metrics around there, whether it's customer adoption penetration, what are your thoughts? >>Yeah, I mean we definitely don't have a timetable on an IPO, but we have investors, public investors and VCs that at some point are going to want, this is the reality of how, of how it works. Right. Um, you know, I think the, uh, you know, I think the numbers to focus right now are on around, you know, customer outcomes. I think the ecosystem is a good one. Right? You know, we have, I'd say the biggest ecosystem for us to date has been the SAP ecosystem. When we look at our advisory board members, for others, that's really where, where the action is. Supply chain management, ERP, you know, certainly CRM and others, we don't have a view that, so our competitors have, but we have chosen not to take money from our, from ecosystem companies because we don't, our customers here are building processes, all the automation across ecosystems. >>Right? So you know, we don't want to go bet on say just one like Salesforce or Workday. We want to help them across all the ecosystem now. So I think it's a little bit of a different strategy there. Look, I think the interesting thing is the SAP is the world. They bought a small company in France called contexture. They're trying to do this themselves. Microsoft, Microsoft didn't in Mark Benioff and Salesforce are asked on every earnings call now what are you doing for RPA? So they've got pressure. So maybe they invest in one of our competitors or maybe they, you'll take flow in Microsoft and expanded. I think we can't move fast enough because you know, I don't know if Microsoft has, I mean they're a great sponsor by the way. So I don't want to only be careful we swept with what I say. But you know, strategically speaking, these larger companies operate in 18 months, 12 1824 months kind of planning cycles. >>If he did that, he will never keep up with us. There's no one at any of our traditional large enterprise software companies that ever would have bet that we would come out and say that the best way to build applications right to solve problems will be through RPA. Either there'll be a layer on top of all their technologies that makes it easier than ever for business users to build applications and solve problems, that's going to scare them to death. Why? Because you don't have to move all your legacy systems anymore. Yes, you've got tons of databases, but guess what? Don't worry about it. Leave him alone. Stop spending money on ridiculous upgrades right now. Just build a new layer and I'm telling you I there. As they figured this out, they're going to keep looking back and say, Oh my God, why didn't we know? >>Why did we know there's it looked I hopefully we could all partner. We're going to try to go down that route, but there's something much bigger going on here and they haven't figured it out. Well, the SAP data is very interesting to me that I'm starting to connect the dots. I just did a piece on my breaking analysis and SAP, they thank you. They, they've acquired 31 companies over the last nine years, right? And they've not bit the bullet on integration the way Oracle had to with fusion. Right? And so as a result, there's this, they say throw everything into HANA. It's a memory that's not going to work from an integration standpoint, right? Automation is actually a way to connect, you know, the glue across all those disparate systems, right? And so that makes a lot of sense that you're having success inside SAP and there's no reason that can't continue. >>Why there's, you know, there's a number of major kind of trends we've outlined here. One of, uh, we call human in the loop. And you know, today, you know, when each, when an unattended robot could actually stop a process and instead of sending the exception to a, an it person who monitoring, say, orchestrator actually go to an inbox, a task and box of that business user in a call center or wherever, and that robot can go do something else because it's so, so efficient and productive. But once that human has to solve that problem, right, that robot or a robot will take that back on and keep going. This human and robot interaction, it doesn't exist today and we know we're rolling that out in our UI path apps. I think you know that that's kind of mind blowing and then when you add a, I can't go too far into our roadmap and strategy or when you added the app programming layer and you add data science, that's a little bit of a hint into where we're going because we're open and transparent. >>Our data science connection, it's, it's this platform here, this kind of, I'd like to still call it all RPA. I think that that's a good thing, but the reality is this platform does Tam. What it can do is nothing like it was a year ago and it won't be like where it is today. A year from now you've got the tiger by the tail, Bobby, you got work to do, but congratulations on all the success. It's really been great to be able to document this and cover it, so thanks for coming on the cube. Thank you. All right. Thank you for watching everybody back with our next guest. Right after this short break, you're watching the cube live from UI path forward three from Bellagio in Vegas right back.

>> Voiceover: Live from Las Vegas. It's theCUBE covering UiPath Forward Americas 2019. Brought to you by UiPath. >> Welcome back to the Bellagio, everybody. You are watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage, this is Day 2 of UiPath's Forward III Conference and Kourtney Bradbeary is here R&D specialist at American Fidelity. She's joined by Michael Setticasi, who's the senior director of business development at Boston-based DataRobot, but Michael's from Seattle. Guys, welcome to theCUBE. >> Kourtney B.: Thank you. >> Kourtney, let's start with you. I know you guys, you kind of do benefit solutions, but maybe talk a little a bit about the company and some of the big trends that are driving what you guys are doing. >> Kourtney B: Absolutely. So I work with American Fidelity, it's an insurance company based out of Oklahoma, but our main focus is providing solutions to our customer pain points. So we're a niche-based organization that focuses mainly on education, so the public sector, so education in municipalities in providing solutions and benefits to our employers and our employees that we work with. >> Cool, and Michael, you guys, obviously data science is your thing, but describe a little bit more about what you guys do. >> Yeah, we're an AI enterprise company. What we're really trying to do is democratize the use of AI machine learning within organizations, and we really appeal to both data scientists and business users that understand their business and data and want to do more. >> So Kourtney, you're title is really interesting. R&D special projects, so you got this little sandbox that you get to play with, RPA is on the hype cycle and now it's in the trough of disillusionment, but it's kind of an early play around with things. How did you get in to RPA? Where you guys at? What's this R&D thing going on? Right, so with research and development, I guess there's a lot of space to work with emerging technologies, and AI, and RPA, and how those two things come together and anything new that we see and exciting we're able to apply that technology. It's one thing to think, "Oh, AI, that's cool. Let's do that." But if it doesn't benefit your customer at the end of the day, if it's not driving decisions in your organization, then we don't want to do AI just 'cause it's cool. We really want to do AI because it's what benefits our customer. So we got into RPA because when we saw a demo, and it was like, whoa. If that's real, if that's what we think it's going to be, that's a game changer. So you have RPA, and you have AI kind of coming up at the same time and whenever it was, first coming out a few years ago, they're silo, they're separate. What we've started to do recently is to bring the two industries together and really bring together the RPA component and the AI component to really become IPA, or Intelligent Process Automation, so that way we can really start to transform businesses. >> So this is interesting to me, Michael, because as Kourtney was saying, most people think of these things as separate and more aspirational down the road. You guys are AI experts, what are you seeing in terms of these two domains coming together? >> You hear about intelligent automation everywhere, right? We are pushing it hard, and we're seeing a lot of customers and potential prospects look at it, but I have to give credit to American Fidelity. They are ahead of the curve. They're combining this ability to use an RPA process and a machine learning model to really automate things and provide better customer service and get to the endpoint faster and more efficiently. So I think they're ahead of the curve, but you're going to see more and more of this in the marketplace. >> So Kourtney, a lot of the customers that we talk to, this is kind of my observation, is they're automating obviously mundane processes but frankly really crappy processes. They're really screwed up in a lot of ways. And they're throwing RPA at the problem, it sounds like you have a little different philosophy around how to apply automation. Can you explain that? >> Right, so you don't want to automate something that's bad because then it's going to break a lot, and it's just not a good idea. So what we've tried to do is whenever we get request in the door, there's always a stopping, if somebody has to make a decision, in the past, it's been "Okay, well we can automate the first part and the last part", but it's kind of have to stop in the middle for you to make a decision. And what DataRobot has allowed us to do, in the past, it was really hard to actually apply machine learning, 'cause you had to have these data scientists and they'd have to spend months trying to figure out what model for the data, and is it, you know, retraining a model is really difficult. DataRobot makes a data scientist's job so much easier and actually applicable to the workplace where you could scale, enable scaling, because without DataRobot or without a service like that, it's impossible to scale. So it allows us to implement AI with our RPA to then not just automate the mundane processes, but the small decisions that we make everyday, just 'cause we do our jobs everyday and we know how to do our jobs, AI enables us to automate those processes, as well. >> And you're doing that in an unattended way, or is it an attended automation? >> Both, both. So there's some processes that we have to have a human select things and make certain decisions along the way, or there's some processes that are completely unattended. With any automation, your goal is always to automate 100%, but in reality, you're usually going to get about 80% of a process automated. So what we try to do, we go for the hundred percent, rarely get that, but then you can take out the 20% for human review. And so maybe of the 20% that's not fully automated, maybe we can make stop points for human interaction there, but there have been some processes that we have been able to fully automate. >> So Michael, the data scientists complain that 80% of their time is spent in wrangling data and getting the data ready to actually build a model. I presume that's what you guys do, you solve that problem, right? >> We definitely solve some of that, right? If you get the data all in one place, DataRobot takes care of a lot of the data preparation that's involved in data science. We've also have ways to kind of manage the best places you store your data, so that if other people use the platform, they can see where to get it to. But overall, I would just say, when you look at UiPath and the way it's growing, it's such an exciting growing company like we heard Daniel yesterday mention their growth from customer from year to year, how they're the fastest enterprise software growing company out there. So you combine that RPA market with this growing machine learning market, and there's a ton of excitement. I mean, that's what you're seeing at the conference today. >> So you guys have data scientists on staff, is that right, or-- >> Correct! >> Okay, and so what does this mean for them? Does it mean you just need less of them, or they spend more of their time doing productive work? >> It means they spend more of their time doing productive work, instead of trying to figure out what model to fit, 'cause if you're a data scientist, or an actuary, or any, data analyst, or any of those things, you might know five models that you try to fit everything to. What DataRobot enables us to do is not be stuck to those five models that we know. It enables us to combine models, and choose models based on that data, so it really helps us with the modeling. >> Are you, I should've asked this before, are you still in R&D? Or are you in production? Or where are you at in terms of majority? >> Oh no, we're in production. We have two IPA processes in production today, and we're working on increasing that as we go. We have over a hundred an fifty RPA processes in production, as well as, many many just machine learning, so we're working on combining those now. So we have many machine learning, we have many RPA, and we're working on increasing our IPA. >> What have you seen as the business impact? Do we have enough data yet to sort of-- >> Absolutely. We don't try to focus on ROI. What we try to focus on is how is this impacting our customer, and how is this impacting employees' lives. There's obviously a lot of fear around automation but at American Fidelity, what we try to do is show how this is going to improve our employees' lives and we're by no means trying to cut jobs. We're actually going to have a net increase of jobs over the next five years. We're re skilling our workforce. We're really focusing on how it improves our employees, rather than focusing on ROI. >> So you're not on the ROI treadmill? So how did you get your CFO to sort of agree to all of this? >> So we do track ROI. It's not something we share publicly. But we focus more on our humans and our employees than our ROI. >> Is that because, I mean you're not, virtually every customer I've talked to says, "Well, we're not firing people. We're just getting more productive, or shifting them to more interesting tasks, et cetera, et cetera," and if you do the ROI calculations, you say "Oh, I don't need as many humans to do this anymore", and so you'd say, "Okay, FTE cost" and then you apply that, it's kind of a BS number, 'cause it's not like you're cutting people, so it's not a hard ROI. Is that why you don't focus on ROI? Or you just think it's worthless metric? >> No... >> Actually, I'm sorry. You said you do have it, you just don't share it publicly. >> Right, we just don't share our ROI publicly. And I don't think it's made up, or it's fake. I've never met an organization that says they have more people than they have work for people. There's always work. I really enjoy the first video opening of UiPath, it's, "since the beginning of time, humans have worked", and everyone thinks that automation is going to get rid of jobs, there's a lot of controversy over that, but realistically, if you think about the first industrial revolution, that was, after the first industrial revolution hit, that was the biggest economic upturn that had seen since that time. We're in that same space now. It's just hard to see it with where we're at. It's only going to increase, work is only going to increase. It's definitely going to change. I think it's naive to think that jobs won't change. And there will be jobs that will be eliminated, job functions, but I don't think there's elimination of humans needed, if that makes sense. >> Well yeah, it does. You guys sound like you're pretty visionary about how to apply technology to your business. And Michael, I mean, Kourtney's right, machines have always replaced humans, this is nothing new, first time ever that it's in cognitive function, so that scares people a little bit, but what else are you seeing in the marketplace that you can share with us? >> We're just seeing increased use of automation. So like, you might think when you talk DataRobot, you're using us for the top 1% things that a company might do, right? If you're a bank, you might use us to help out, figure out, how you can more efficiently lend customer's money, and make sure that you're making good investments, but what we're finding is, automation and machine learning models are being used everywhere. They're being used in marketing now, right? An example could be this show. We'll get leads from this show. Let's run some machine learning to understand what leads to follow up on first, because we'll get the best result. We're seeing machine learning in HR, right? Making sure their employees are happy, tracking employee churn through machine learning, so I think what we're seeing is it's being adopted more broadly, which means you need more people. We're not replacing people. >> So, why UiPath? >> Whenever we started the vendor process and started looking at several vendors, the UiPath product just was unmatched, frankly. There was a lot of vendors that had more code base, and there was then UiPath that anyone can learn. And that's what we really liked 'cause in American Fidelity, we've chosen to go with, we have a COE but we've also chosen to go with a democratized model where everyone in the organization will be able to build robots. We're training people to build robots. We have, each department has people that are dedicated. A certain portion of their time is building robots and UiPath really made that available with their products for anybody to be able to learn. >> So you have a COE. >> Kourtney B.: Yes. It was interesting, Craig LeClaire this morning, I don't know if you saw his keynote, but he kind of made this statement, it was sort of a off-handed statement, he said, "COE, maybe that's asking too much". He didn't use term tiger team, but I inferred, it's like, rather just kind of get a tiger team of some experts, but talk a little bit more about your COE. >> So, we kind of go with a hybrid model. If you think about, typical, it's weird because RPA is only a few years old, and we're thinking typical RPA, but people usually either go with a COE or completely democratized. We've really gone with a hybrid model, so we have a COE with governance where we've set a loose framework of what to follow, and we have code standards, when you say, follow these things. We have a knowledge library that we share. But we only have a handful of full-time RPA developers, and everyone help, those developers help, teach and help grow that knowledge throughout the organization, so that way we have people in every area that can also develop. So our developers are not our own key developers. Our developers are focused on the IPA, on the AI, whereas our other people throughout the organization are focused more on RPA so we can really make a big difference more quickly. >> Do you have a software robot that automates auditing and checks for compliance? >> Yes, so we have, one of our robots, the function that it does is audit one of our inputs, so we do have robots in almost every area that, yeah, we do have audit robots. >> Has it cut the auditing bill? Is that part of the ROI? You don't have to answer that. (giggles) >> Michael, our last question for you is where do you see this all going? This is very interesting to me because I've inferred from a lot of the conversations that, like that PepsiCo guy was up yesterday, talking about an AI fabric throughout the organization, not just tactical projects, and that kind of interested me, but I expected it's much further off. I'm hearing from Kourtney that it's actually real today. What's your sort of prediction or forecast for the adoption of this more advanced intelligent process automation? Is it kind of just starting now and it's going to explode? Or am I just missing the mark here? >> No, I think you're a hundred percent on. I mean, first off, I think, like I mentioned earlier, RPA and machine learning separately, are in these incredible growth stages. Right, and we think our message to customers now is if you're not thinking about how you're doing AI and machine learning, you're already behind 'cause your competition is. And so you better get thinking about it. I think we're going to get to that level with intelligent automation, with RPA plus machine learning very soon. I do think right now we're in that infancy stage where people are looking for used cases, and they want to hear great stories, and so I do think American Fidelity is ahead of the curve, but they're not going to be ahead of the curve for long. It's catching up. If you're not doing it, we're going to eventually get to that point where you'll have someone like Elon Musk or Masayoshi Son, say, if you're not thinking of intelligent automation, you're already going to be left behind. >> All right, congratulations on the work that you've done. >> Kourtney B.: Thank you. >> It's a really awesome story. Thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. >> Yeah, yeah, thanks for having us. >> Thanks for having us. >> All right, keep it right there, everybody. We'll be back from UiPath Forward day number 2. You're watching theCUBE. Be right back. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering UiPath Forward Americas 2019. Brought to you by UiPath. >> Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage of UiPath Forward. I'm your host Rebecca Knight, co-hosting alongside of Dave Vellante. We're joined by Param Kahlon, he is the Chief Product Officer at UiPath, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. >> Thank you so much for having me here. >> So-- >> Big week! >> Yes. >> You've been busy! >> I have been busy. >> (Rebecca laughs) >> Thank you David. >> So this morning, you were up on the main stage, and you were sort of giving the audience a state of play of business today. And you were lamenting, saying, "Wasn't technology supposed to make our lives easier? "Wasn't it supposed to free us from the mundane, "and supposed to make us more efficient?" And yet, hasn't quite ended up that way. You had the quote, the famous quote, "We see computers everywhere "except in the productivity statistics," from Robert Solow, the Nobel winner. Can you refine that a little bit? And particularly within the context of the RPA market. >> Yeah, isn't it exciting? I mean, we really have so much technology that we live in today, yet we're busier, we're doing more mundane work than we've ever done before. We're more stressed than ever before. That just seems sort of paradoxical to me that, you know, all this stuff that was supposed to give us more time to do the things that we wanted to do, yet we keep doing the repetitive, robot type work that, you know, we thought technology will free us from. And I think that's fascinating that, you know, that's happening. And I think there's a few theories on why we think that's happening. I think it's happening because business has gotten a lot more complex. You know, companies are having to change business models on the fly. Digital transformation is effecting standard companies, regulated industries, in ways that they did not imagine, and companies don't know how to cope and manage all the technology well. And this where, I think, RPA is really, really useful, because it can help you change the processes, modernize the processes without having to go change, rip and replace those existing systems. You know, do the work that you were going to hire humans to do in moving data, moving processes from one system to another. Do that through robots. And that's what our robots can help free the humans, to be able to focus on the things that matter, the things that they care about, right? That's really what the beauty of the RPA is. >> So I wonder if you can help our audience, you know, understand UiPath a little bit better. You know, Daniel talks about, how is it that UiPath has ascended so quickly? And you appear to be achieving escape velocity. You kind of started out, you know, third, fourth, whatever it was, and now you're sort of number one in all these quadrants and waves. And so yesterday you talked about five pillars. And I want to unpack them a little bit. Open platform, rapid results, which I think is around ROI. Path to AI, scalability, and trust. So here's my question. Any one of your competitors could say the same thing. "Oh yes, we're open. "Oh, we get rapid ROI." So what makes UiPath different? >> I think actually not just saying those words, but making it happen, right? So anybody can say we've opened, we've done something, but do people actually have 400,000 community members that have actually using the platform on an active basis? Can you actually go to a website over the last two years and download the software and use it? How long does it take you to sign up for a cloud service that we have made available? What does it take for you to do that? I think all the things that we've invested in, in really enabling engagement with the community, right? Making it open, not just from a technology perspective, but from a people perspective as well, are the things that have differentiated ourselves. And those can be very generic terms, that you're right, other people can use as well, but I think we live those terms, right? We actually do everything in the product, from the business perspective, to make sure that openness is embraced. You know, when we look at building new capabilities, new products, we focus on, is it actually going to help our customers get quicker value, right? Is it going to help them reduce five clicks to be able to get that process done? And if so, then we should build this feature because it will make it easier, and engage more people in the audience, more people like the customer to be able to get work done. So we're super excited about bringing all those capabilities >> Okay, so the big part of that is the product. I mean if you have a great product, that always helps. It's not the sole condition, but it helps a lot. >> Param: Yeah. >> Many times we've seen leaders that don't have the best product, but I'm guessing you feel as though you have the best product. So architecturally, what is it about UiPath that's different, that differentiates you? >> Yeah, I think the core difference is, I'd say, fundamentally at a company level, is in our culture. This is a culture that's built around customers. This is a culture that's built around humility. This is a culture that's built around getting things done, and being fast about it, right? You saw a lot of product innovation that we did. If we told you a year ago, we're going to do all this, you would've laughed at our face, right? We're continue to do that pace, at the pace the market wants. And I think that is the fundamental difference in us, versus the rest of the companies out there. I'd also like to believe that we are, from a technology perspective, we have an edge, because we didn't start with the legacy of doing RPA many, many years ago. We have a much more modern stack. You alluded to the fact that we came in from behind, and we've taken to the number one place very quickly. I think part of that is the architecture decisions that we've made are more modern, are not vetted in a lot of legacy, that are helping us bring more rapid innovation to the market. That are helping us build more resilient technology, that's helping our customers achieve those outcomes, the goals that they want to be able to do, more easily on our platform. We have a number of our customers that actually did not start with us. They started with one of our competitors, and they said, "We started, we thought it was going to work, "it didn't. We came to UiPath and we saw that "it actually works." And that's a testament to the technology that we built, that's actually helping deliver the results that our customers expect it to. >> Rebecca: So, >> Dave: You know, >> Sorry Rebecca, go ahead. >> I was just going to say that, one of the other things you said this morning, was that bots allow you to focus on you, focus on the more creative aspects of your job, and you brought up some customers, PepsiCo and Nielsen, too. Can you describe sort of, how you're helping customers focus on themselves, these employees who are now, you're taking away the tedium, and that's great, and they're giddy about that. But how are they, then, channeling that energy into strategy, innovation, and the sort of more value added things? >> Param: Yeah, you know I'll give you a really quick example of a customer, that I worked with, it's a bank. And in this bank, it's a retail bank, and what used to happen before we deployed UiPath, was the banker had to go to like six different applications, and pull reports of the customer they were about to go meet, print them all out, review the data, and be able to suggest what the customer's unique needs might be, right? So for that half an hour appointment with the customer, it used to take that banker another half an hour to get ready for that appointment. After the deployed UiPath robots, UiPath's robots now go pull up the data for the customer, from those six different core banking systems, and be able to feed that to a machine learning system, to suggest what their unique needs might be. So they need five minutes to get ready for that appointment. They're more ready for that appointment, and they deliver a better outcome. People want to help other people, right? They don't want to go to systems, and print reports, and read them, and understand what it might be. They really want to be able to go meet with the customer, and help solve their problems, that help the customer, but also help the business goals for the bank. And that's what makes the people that are using our technology more happier, right? It makes them free enough to say that, instead of now spending half an hour printing stuff, I now have that extra 25 minutes, because I still need five minutes to get ready, I have the extra 25 minutes, to think about, what else can I do to further more creative aspects of my job? Or maybe I don't have to work as hard as I did in the past. >> I wonder if I could ask you about, I've been drawing parallels today with another company, ServiceNow, that I've been tracking for a long time. And they started out in this kind of narrow, change management, ITSM space >> Param: ITSM, yeah. >> And then expanded their TAM dramatically. And you shared with us, yesterday and today in the keynote, You've got RPA for devs and testers, you know StudioT, that targets 2% of the market. and then you've got the citizen developers, that's StudioX, that expands up to 10%. Business analysts, which is Explorer and Insights, that gets you to 25%. And then apps, where automation is the apps, that was a little fuzzy to me, so I want to dig into it a little bit, but that's 100% of the market. That's your, whatever it is, 20, 40, 50 billion dollar TAM. My question is this, I was going to the event last night, and I ran into some business analysts. So you're already working with those folks. So it seems like you're learning from folks that are sort of using a product, that was maybe developed for testers and devs, but they're using it today as business analysts, and you're improving that. Can you help us just understand your product strategy, just in terms of what you've announced, and how it dove tails into those segments that we just talked about? >> Absolutely, so you know, our product strategy isn't tied to like, what are we going to do to grow our TAM, and other stuff. Our marketing organizers can get super excited about that, Bobby is all over that, but really everything we've done in the product today, is about listening to customers. Understanding what their needs are, what do they want us to grow into, and what capabilities they want us to go build, right? So we've expanded the StudioX, not because we thought everybody should have StudioX, but we actually had customers that took our product, the Studio product, and said, "We want to roll this out "to every single user within the enterprise." Because they thought that every person has unique needs and they should be able to build a bot for themselves. Well they came back and told us, well we wanted to do that, but this isn't really quite ready for all of our accountants. This isn't quite ready for all of our business analysts. Can you actually make it simple? All of these people use Excel, can you make it look like Excel? So we took all of that feedback, and that's what we focused on, building StudioX. So we can make sure we meet the needs of the market. And every single pillar of the investment that we've done, has focused around making sure that we're able to meet those requirements around those. Automation is the application, now I'm going to go to that. And that also came from, you know, there's different kinds of, if you look at, take a product like Analytics, right? Or Reporting. Different people within the organization have different kinds of needs. There's people that are like, "Hey I want to create my own reports, "I want to slice and dice, I want to understand the strands, "and I'm going to use it this way." Then there's somebody who says, "Oh, I want to bring more data into that, "and I want to do data joins, "and I really am going, I'm a data junky, "I'm going to build a data model around it." And then there's users that are like, "I just want to use the report, I want somebody else to build them, I just want this report every Monday morning." Those are more executives, they're like, I just want to look at the data, let me tell you my report, and I'm just going to use it, I'm just an end user. And that's what we're trying to do, is from an automation perspective, there's people that have different types of needs. There's going to be people that are true developers, RPA developers that we've targeted with Studio, then there's people that are business analysts that are like, I can do some stuff with it, I'm not going to spend 8 hours a day every day working on it, I may spend two hours, once a week, building something that's relevant for me. And that's what StudioX is targeted to. But then there's a whole lot of other users, that are like, I don't want to build anything myself, but I want to use it, things that are relevant for me. These are people, maybe like contact center agents, that are taking orders from customers. So, let's say, in a typical Fortune 500 company, if you hired a person to take orders today, you'd have to go train the person in at least 10 different applications to be able to take orders, right? You'd have to show them how it works, when a customer calls, if it's a material order take it in this SOP system, if it's a this order that came through an acquired company, take it in that system. That takes a lot of time. What is the call center agent, the order taking person, doing? They're essentially capturing some very basic information from the customer, that are saying, I am this customer, I want this, this, and this product to be shipped at this address, and tell me when you can ship it, and what is the price for that? What we're trying to do with that application, is give that order agent a very simple interface, where they can punch in the three things simply, and get the results back that the customer cares about, without having to learn how to jump hoops across these 15 different applications to be able to enter that. Because robots can learn those applications, and take what you have put into that interface, and do the work of putting in, cascading that data, and extracting information from those systems. That is the concept behind, automation is the application. >> Sounds like a killer app. >> Yeah, it is. Yeah I like to say it that way as well. >> I want to ask you about cloud. Cause you guys announced the ability, and I did it, I went and downloaded, not downloaded but I signed up, it took seconds. I mean it was simple, and now I got to invite other people, and start, you know, digging in. But we saw this with CRM. Email, Service Management, HR, now even analytic databases, all got SaSified. >> Param: Right. >> I'm curious as to why, not really it took so long, why didn't you start with SaS? Is there something unique about RPA? Is it cause Daniel was a Microsoft guy, pre-Azure? And will this industry eventually go all SaS? Or will it be hybrid, or? >> Param: I think it's like any other workload in the enterprise, there's some customers that are going to want to remain on premise, because that's who they are, that's what they do. >> Governance, compliance, all those, security, right. >> Governance, compliance, you know, we're special. And then there's other customers that are like, you know, we're going where the rest of the world is going. We're going to let this data center work in a cloud, that we believe is secure, has the governance and compliance. So I think we're meeting customers where they are. We're going to continue to support on premise deployments. We will continue to support deployments for customers that want to deploy on private cloud infrastructure. And we'll keep deploying customers that want to use in SaS. Your question was why did it take so long for this to go to that? I think, my theory behind that, is that a lot of the automations that are happening, are touching systems that are only available on premise. Some of these are affecting systems that haven't moved to the cloud, So companies are saying, well I've got to put my robot on premise, because it's got to touch this application that's on premise. I might as well deploy the whole infrastructure on premise. And what we've done with the cloud service, is we've given you the options. You will definitely run their infrastructure in the cloud. That manages and governs the robots. And you can decide to run the robots on premise, or you can decide to run the robots in the cloud, as VMs and machines in any data center. >> So if I can put it in my words, the data lives on prem. >> Param: Yes. >> So you're bringing the automation to where the data lives, independent of the cloud, so that's really why. So the latency issues, we mentioned the other ones, compliance, governance, you know, security, etc. But there's going to be performance implications as well. If you've got a lot of data on-prem, you want to be on prem. >> Again, yeah, it just depends upon, if you've got a lot of data on-prem, and more importantly the business applications that you're using, let's say you're trying to automate a process in a mainframe application that hasn't moved through any cloud yet, that's sitting on a server in the on-premise environment. And the robot can only access it if it's deployed on a machine that sits within the same network, then you've got to put the robot in there, that can access it there as well. >> Dave: It makes sense, it's not a standalone application. It's automating other apps, and touching others, it's got dependencies all over the place. >> Exactly, it's sort of like the lowest common denominator. If every application your touching is the cloud, there's no reason you want to put the robot on premise. You would want to put the robot in the cloud as well. But the reality is that people have moved some applications to the cloud, but not every application to the cloud, that the business process is touching. >> Dave: Well a lot of ERP, a lot of financials, I would imagine the folks I talked to last night were insurance industry, so. >> Yeah, those industries have a lot of homegrown systems, built a long time ago. >> Rebecca: So there's been a lot of exciting product announcements at this conference, but I want you to talk about what's coming up ahead. What are some of the things that you're working on, that are most exciting to you, as these bots become smarter, more durable, and more able to take on complex tasks? What are we going to be talking about at next year's UiPath? >> Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question, and I think you'll hear talk next year about a few things. One is, we started a lot of initiative this year, and we're going to release the version one of many of our products this time. We're going to keep focusing on making sure we make them enterprise ready, we take the feedback across the customers, and make it ready for what they're able to do. I think another key initiative that we're focused on, is contact center. We see mass adoption of our technology in contact centers, and today what we do, is we give our customers the components that we will deploy in call centers, but we don't actually have a finished solution for call centers. Call centers have a lot of automation opportunities, we'll build a more finished solution for contact centers. The other stuff that you'll hear us do more next year, is the concept of applications. We have some ways to build applications today, but I think we're going to grow that ability to create applications, compose applications, very quickly, and you'll hear us do a lot more next year there. >> Rebecca: Well we'll look forward to hearing about it. >> Param: I really look forward to telling you next year about it. >> Dave: Thanks for coming on. >> Rebecca: Thank you so much, Param >> Thank you so much. >> I'm Rebecca Knight for Dave Vellante, that wraps up day one of UiPath Forward, come back tomorrow for more. >> [Electronic Music]

from New York it's the cube covering blockchain week now here's John furries hello and welcome back I'm John Fourier we're here on the ground actually on the water on the majesty bow to New York City as decentral has their big unveiling Anthony do you Arielle cube alumni a good friend of the cube is having a massive event here in New York City celebrating the new releases of their new platform their new hardware product actually called the cube to talk about that with Anthony but moreover it's part of a big holistic blockchain week in New York City exciting new projects from new financial products that Kryptos enabling technology innovation a lot of personal people going doing deals so what's going on with you you look great we are at the party looking good people are going crazy out out there we're in a boat I think this kind of environment is very friendly to the kind of community that is created by blockchain naturally so I really commend decentral and Anthony and all of their efforts around this in that they're now creating an environment where I can't walk five feet down the hallway without seeing somebody else that I know and the important thing about that is that now we're really creating this big digital conglomerate we're creating a network of people where I was just speaking to someone outside and he said that it's amazing to see people sharing all kinds of information about their new projects they're they're they're recognizing that there really is enough pie for everyone there's not it is a competition game but really that we should really compete on the application layer and that we should collaborate on the codebase we should collaborate on security and we should collaborate on these really big issues like regulation and privacy so it's amazing to see all these people and that's important that's the open source ethos right there really work together on a project not product because there's a difference between a project and a product and open source is that's languish it's important yeah that's the ethos I love that what's going on in the bug will share some anecdotes what's happening here people who didn't make it couldn't make the boat they you know ate some cars Aston Martin bracelet here what's some of the hallway conversations on the bow what are you hearing here during blockchain week well first of all blockchain week has been has been an amazing opportunity for the blockchain Research Institute to really showcase the work that we are doing to express our interest in enterprise blockchain but really also to support the growing community that is happening in the world and more so in Canada we believe that Canada has an amazing opportunity to to be a leader in blockchain and they are already really a significant amount of the people here our Canadian you know Anthony is a proud Canadian lots of different companies are and one of the major initiatives that we had at consensus was the Canadian Pavilion so we gathered together 23 Canadian blockchain companies and by the way you need a bigger room we did because so many there was a lot yeah open your own conference but the key part with that is that we really wanted to showcase the amazing Canadian innovations that are happening so that people recognize that you know Canada and the more specifically the Toronto Waterloo corridor is is the next Silicon Valley the next hub of blockchain and of quantum computing and of AI and so if you take those three together really those are done taps got an Allen snaps got our two co-founders they authored a report for the World Economic Forum and they argued that that blockchain really is the third leg of the stool that we need to provide an atmosphere for innovation and this was a really good way for us to do that and certainly it's got money tied to its the applications now have a financial component token economics a real key enabler in this to us certainly blockchain check great we love it everyone loves blockchain but it's the token economics that kick in that are starting to see money things applications tying into tokens and coins and yeah I think but that really creates a lot of it creates a lot of confusion it creates a lot of noise suddenly you know in that in the first generation of the internet we we said you know government hands off we want to you know we want to regulate this ourselves this is our thing it's the age of information like like that Tapscott said you know we're entering the internet of value but in entering the internet of value we're now we're now no longer dealing with just information we're dealing with things that matter to people we're dealing with identity and privacy and physical assets and you know real estate and all kinds of different things that are really foundations of the economy and in this case we really need the community to come together and support a regulatory environment because if we don't then the regulator's will and it won't work in the in our messengers it's got to be open open always be proprietary I'm so convinced that open source software which I have lived that generation when it was we were fighting for you know UNIX versus Xenu copyright with AT&T and then was a tea or two citizen now it runs the world's Tier one source one and the model is proven it's coming to crypto and yeah you see that do you see that coming clearly or did that I think as as platforms like you know obviously aetherium but as platforms like hyper ledger and r3s Corte and the forum platform from JPMorgan as these platforms grow in size and grow in membership and grow in in collaboration people will see that the the way to collaborate it's all about this I don't know if you've seen the graphs about fad protocols yes now we're in trusting our payments and our identities and our you know the things that really matter to us we're not giving them to the application layer anymore we're giving them to the protocol layer and if we're giving them to the protocol layer then we really need to collaborate to ensure that all that information is correct all the time and the only way we're going to be able to do that is to be able to create open source platforms and open source activities where everyone is able to participate that's the only way we can create something and if you want to take the code and do something downstream for that liberation please so we have lots of enterprise clients like Procter & Gamble and ExxonMobil and and PepsiCo and others where they're very interested in in enterprise blockchain but at the same time they want to be able to leverage the security of the public chain right it's um Matt spoke at a a Onix had a really really interesting comment about two weeks ago he said I think and he apologized in advance like this might be controversial but but I really think he's right in that he said you know five ten twenty years down the road we won't know the difference between an enterprise blockchain and a public chain right like we're gonna be up we will be a choice right I do you think we'll be able to have it we'll get to a point where it will be dumb not to use the public chain it will be dumb not to be able to leverage the security of it because if you and I enter into you know if we build our own blockchain together I mean that's great one of interesting things too you missed the panel because you might have seen Jimmy song's debate with I did yes that was very provocative so he's got a point on it's just two sides of the coin you know no pun intended right one is what you're saying that enterprises can come in Jimmy was saying is that it's a waste to use the public chain now because some inefficiencies he's technically accurate but that's gonna get better so I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater sometime no I agree but but I think there's a lot of solutions to come in the next year or two or three around interoperability and I think at the end of the day everyone should be able to use whatever blockchain that they think best fits their features but that they should integrate with it with a company like a on or icon or metronome or all these other interesting interoperability projects where you're able to to leverage the security of the public chain but also be able to continue to have your own ecosystem together yeah son of Don Tapscott about this one you interview them at an IBM event and and I'm old enough that I've seen a couple although some of these waves and I lived and I hear the same arguments all the time oh the performance is not there compared to this and easily but these are waves these are shifts right so PC oh no one's having anything with that you know Delta goes on on on web oh it's the so it's slow to dial-up and load a webpage but all of them who were shifts in growth growth was coming behind it yeah so that's the wrong conversations are happening the growth is coming so you guys really nail it with your analysis I think I had your team because it is the shift it is about not necessarily getting in the weeds over did this one thing is it good now yeah great work or well will something really move forward I think that so don actually said in 1992 i in paradigm shift he said that leaders of old paradigms often have trouble embracing the new and so for us at the blockchain research institute we really exist to bridge that knowledge gap between top-tier executives like fred smith and rob carter from FedEx like you know internally at PepsiCo we aim to bridge that knowledge gap so that they just better know how to flow funds within their own company just doing great one is doing great work well to get me to give a plug real quick love your work explaining some of the things you guys are doing you're on the right track I can say I love what you're doing I looked at it it's right on but you're open you're not like you know down on your fist on the table yeah you guys are cool with the work you guys are doing so we're doing 80 projects on the strategic applications of blockchain technology in a variety of industries so our research fits in three categories we have verticals where financial services is obviously our largest vertical but we're also looking into projects in in retail and manufacturing in supply chain in healthcare in government in media and telecommunications in resources and mining and you know you know pickaxe mining not real mining mining old-school mining yeah and then we're also looking at a lot of the management applications of blockchain so you know the first generation of the internet didn't really do a lot to change the structure of the corporation it allows that it allowed us to find people all over the world I can find people to do anything but I still have to negotiate a contract with them myself to enter into an agreement I sell to establish trust but if we now have this amazingly fluid technology that allows us to lower the cost of search the cost of negotiating contracts the cost of contracting and the cost of establishing trust then that blows the windows and the walls of the corporation wide open and in that we are really driving to help our member organizations understand the nature of the firm is changing economic theory of yesteryear being disrupted really fast way yeah vodka Jane thanks for coming up here one more question yes this week what did you hear in the out there in the city what's your observation for the people didn't make it to New York a lot of great face to face a lot of great engagement good networking good contacts growing ecosystem but still a tight-knit community people know each other they're sharing information what did you hear share some data some insights that that folks couldn't get if they didn't come I think for us a lot of the reason that we are here is that it's a you know peril if you don't show up it's being part of a community if if we are going to show a leadership role in this community then we need to show up for our colors we need to show up for companies that that you know may not be able to advocate for themselves I've met so many interesting companies this week that either do not have the resources or they're trying to raise money or they're trying to be investors and and the life of an entrepreneur obviously is is a tough one and for us we we have a growing pioneer membership at the blockchain Research Institute where we aim to connect large corporations who are looking for or looking to invest in different in different watching platforms but don't know where to start and so we run essentially a white listing service where we are partnered with lots of amazing companies like pay case and shift and Collider X and a on and all these different companies where they're they're really working to move the ball forward as well as make an impact so yeah it was for us it was it was looking for more innovative companies but also you know doing our part showing our role this was a one of the first times that I actually saw Don Tapscott a now except thought actively you know taking meanings and participating in the conversation and and being present and being there so so for us it was a lot of it was presence he was a lot of presidents we're some fun you having fun I am yes yes behind us is a boat we're on it we're in the front part we're in the anthony o diario private suite lounge here's where he can relax it gets kind of a green room behind us awesome DJ four stories of boat going down to your just past the Statue of Liberty a lot of action let's get back to the partying what are you saying alright I'm jump for it thanks for watching we're on the boat New York City thank you for watching

>> Announcer: Live from San Jose, it's theCUBE. Presenting Big Data Silicon Valley, brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media and its ecosystem partners. (upbeat music) >> Welcome back to theCUBE, I'm Lisa Martin with John Furrier. We are covering our second day of our event Big Data SV. We've had some great conversations, John, yesterday, today as well. Really looking at Big Data, digital transformation, Big Data, plus data science, lots of opportunity. We're excited to welcome back to theCUBE an alumni, Satyen Sangani, the co-founder and CEO of Alation. Welcome back! >> Thank you, it's wonderful to be here again. >> So you guys finish up your fiscal year end of December 2017, where in the first quarter of 2018. You guys had some really strong results, really strong momentum. >> Yeah. >> Tell us what's going on at Alation, how are you pulling this momentum through 2018. >> Well, I think we have had an enterprise focused business historically, because we solve a very complicated problem for very big enterprises, and so, in the last quarter we added customers like American Express, PepsiCo, Roche. And with huge expansions from our existing customers, some of whom, over the course of a year, I think went 12 X from an initial base. And so, we found some just incredible momentum in Q4 and for us that was a phenomenal cap to a great year. >> What about the platform you guys are doing? Can you just take a minute to explain what Alation does again just to refresh where you are on the product side? You mentioned some new accounts, some new use cases. >> Yeah. >> What's the update? Take a minute, talk about the update. >> Absolutely, so, you certainly know, John, but Alation's a data catalog and a data catalog essentially, you can think of it as Yelp or Amazon for data and information side of the enterprise. So if you think about how many different databases there are, how many different reports there are, how many different BI tools there are, how many different APIs there are, how many different algorithms there are, it's pretty dizzying for the average analyst. It's pretty dizzying for the average CIO. It's pretty dizzying for the average chief data officer. And particularly, inside of Fortune 500s where you have hundreds of thousands of databases. You have a situation where people just have too much signal or too much noise, not enough signal. And so what we do is we provide this Yelp for that information. You can come to Alation as a catalog. You can do a search on revenue 2017. You'll get all of the reports, all of the dashboards, all of the tables, all of the people that you might need to be able to find. And that gives you a single place of reference, so you can understand what you've got and what can answer your questions. >> What's interesting is, first of all, I love data. We're data driven, we're geeks on data. But when I start talking to folks that are outside the geek community or nerd community, you say data and they go, "Oh," because they cringe and they say, "Facebook." They see that data issues there. GDPR, data nightmare, where's the store, you got to manage it. And then, people are actually using data, so they're realizing how hard (laughs) it is. >> Yeah >> How much data do we have? So it's kind of like a tropic disillusionment, if you will. Now they got to get their hands on it. They've got to put it to work. >> Yeah. >> And they know that So, it's now becoming really hard (laughs) in their mind. This is business people. >> Yeah. >> They have data everywhere. How do you guys talk to that customer? Because, if you don't have quality data, if you don't have data you can trust, if you don't have the right people, it's hard to get it going. >> Yeah. >> How do you guys solve that problem and how do you talk to customers? >> So we talk a lot about data literacy. There is a lot of data in this world and that data is just emblematic of all of the stuff that's going on in this world. There's lots of systems, there's lots of complexity and the data, basically, just is about that complexity. Whether it's weblogs, or sensors, or the like. And so, you can either run away from that data, and say, "Look, I'm going to not, "I'm going to bury my head in the sand. "I'm going to be a business. "I'm just going to forget about that data stuff." And that's certainly a way to go. >> John: Yeah. >> It's a way to go away. >> Not a good outlook. >> I was going to say, is that a way of going out of business? >> Or, you can basically train, it's a human resources problem fundamentally. You've got to train your people to understand how to use data, to become data literate. And that's what our software is all about. That's what we're all about as a company. And so, we have a pretty high bar for what we think we do as a business and we're this far into that. Which is, we think we're training people to use data better. How do you learn to think scientifically? How do you go use data to make better decisions? How do you build a data driven culture? Those are the sorts of problems that I'm excited to work on. >> Alright, now take me through how you guys play out in an engagement with the customer. So okay, that's cool, you guys can come in, we're getting data literate, we understand we need to use data. Where are you guys winning? Where are you guys seeing some visibility, both in terms of the traction of the usage of the product, the use cases? Where is it kind of coming together for you guys? >> Yeah, so we literally, we have a mantra. I think any early stage company basically wins because they can focus on doing a couple of things really well. And for us, we basically do three things. We allow people to find data. We allow people to understand the data that they find. And we allow them to trust the data that they see. And so if I have a question, the first place I start is, typically, Google. I'll go there and I'll try to find whatever it is that I'm looking for. Maybe I'm looking for a Mediterranean restaurant on 1st Street in San Jose. If I'm going to go do that, I'm going to do that search and I'm going to find the thing that I'm looking for, and then I'm going to figure out, out of the possible options, which one do I want to go to. And then I'll figure out whether or not the one that has seven ratings is the one that I trust more than the one that has two. Well, data is no different. You're going to have to find the data sets. And inside of companies, there could be 20 different reports and there could be 20 different people who have information, and so you're going to trust those people through having context and understanding. >> So, trust, people, collaboration. You mentioned some big brands that you guys added towards the end of calendar 2017. How do you facilitate these conversations with maybe the chief data officer. As we know, in large enterprises, there's still a lot of ownership over data silos. >> Satyen: Yep. >> What is that conversation like, as you say on your website, "The first data catalog designed for collaboration"? How do you help these organizations as large as Coca-Cola understand where all the data are and enable the human resources to extract values, and find it, understand it, and trust it? >> Yeah, so we have a very simple hypothesis, which is, look, people fundamentally have questions. They're fundamentally curious. So, what you need to do as a chief data officer, as a chief information officer, is really figure out how to unlock that curiosity. Start with the most popular data sets. Start with the most popular systems. Start with the business people who have the most curiosity and the most demand for information. And oh, by the way, we can measure that. Which is the magical thing that we do. So we can come in and say, "Look, "we look at the logs inside of your systems to know "which people are using which data sets, "which sources are most popular, which areas are hot." Just like a social network might do. And so, just like you can say, "Okay, these are the trending restaurants." We can say, "These are the trending data sets." And that curiosity allows people to know, what data should I document first? What data should I make available first? What data do I improve the data quality over first? What data do I govern first? And so, in a world where you've got tons of signal, tons of systems, it's totally dizzying to figure out where you should start. But what we do is, we go these chief data officers and say, "Look, we can give you a tool and a catalyst so "that you know where to go, "what questions to answer, who to serve first." And you can use that to expand to other groups in the company. >> And this is interesting, a lot of people you mentioned social networks, use data to optimize for something, and in the case of Facebook, they they use my data to target ads for me. You're using data to actually say, "This is how people are using the data." So you're using data for data. (laughs) >> That's right. >> So you're saying-- >> Satyen: We're measuring how you can use data. >> And that's interesting because, I hear a lot of stories like, we bought a tool, we never used it. >> Yep. >> Or people didn't like the UI, just kind of falls on the side. You're looking at it and saying, "Let's get it out there and let's see who's using the data." And then, are you doubling down? What happens? Do I get a little star, do I get a reputation point, am I being flagged to HR as a power user? How are you guys treating that gamification in this way? It's interesting, I mean, what happens? Do I become like-- >> Yeah, so it's funny because, when you think about search, how do you figure out that something's good? So what Google did is, they came along and they've said, "We've got PageRank." What we're going to do is we're going to say, "The pages that are the best pages are the ones "that people link to most often." Well, we can do the same thing for data. The data sources that are the most useful ones are the people that are used most often. Now on top of that, you can say, "We're going to have experts put ratings," which we do. And you can say people can contribute knowledge and reviews of how this data set can be used. And people can contribute queries and reports on top of those data sets. And all of that gives you this really rich graph, this rich social graph, so that now when I look at something it doesn't look like Greek. It looks like, "Oh, well I know Lisa used this data set, "and then John used it "and so at least it must answer some questions "that are really intelligent about the media business "or about the software business. "And so that can be really useful for me "if I have no clue as to what I'm looking at." >> So the problem that you-- >> It's on how you demystify it through the social connections. >> So the problem that you solve, if what I hear you correctly, is that you make it easy to get the data. So there's some ease of use piece of it, >> Yep. >> cataloging. And then as you get people using it, this is where you take the data literacy and go into operationalizing data. >> Satyen: That's right. >> So this seems to be the challenge. So, if I'm a customer and I have a problem, the profile of your target customer or who your customers are, people who need to expand and operationalize data, how would you talk about it? >> Yeah, so it's really interesting. We talk about, one of our customers called us, sort of, the social network for nerds inside of an enterprise. And I think for me that's a compliment. (John laughing) But what I took from that, and when I explained the business of Alation, we start with those individuals who are data literate. The data scientists, the data engineers, the data stewards, the chief data officer. But those people have the knowledge and the context to then explain data to other people inside of that same institution. So in the same way that Facebook started with Harvard, and then went to the rest of the Ivies, and then went to the rest of the top 20 schools, and then ultimately to mom, and dad, and grandma, and grandpa. We're doing the exact same thing with data. We start with the folks that are data literate, we expand from there to a broader audience of people that don't necessarily have data in their titles, but have curiosity and questions. >> I like that on the curiosity side. You spent some time up at Strata Data. I'm curious, what are some of the things you're hearing from customers, maybe partners? Everyone used to talk about Hadoop, it was this big thing. And then there was a creation of data lakes, and swampiness, and all these things that are sort of becoming more complex in an organization. And with the rise of myriad data sources, the velocity, the volume, how do you help an enterprise understand and be able to catalog data from so many different sources? Is it that same principle that you just talked about in terms of, let's start with the lowest hanging fruit, start making the impact there and then grow it as we can? Or is an enterprise needs to be competitive and move really, really quickly? I guess, what's the process? >> How do you start? >> Right. >> What do people do? >> Yes! >> So it's interesting, what we find is multiple ways of starting with multiple different types of customers. And so, we have some customers that say, "Look, we've got a big, we've got Teradata, "and we've got some Hadoop, "and we've got some stuff on Amazon, "and we want to connect it all." And those customers do get started, and they start with hundreds of users, in some case, they start with thousands of users day one, and they just go Big Bang. And interestingly enough, we can get those customers enabled in matters of weeks or months to go do that. We have other customers that say, "Look, we're going to start with a team of 10 people "and we're going to see how it grows from there." And, we can accommodate either model or either approach. From our prospective, you just have to have the resources and the investment corresponding to what you're trying to do. If you're going to say, "Look, we're going to have, two dollars of budget, and we're not going to have the human resources, and the stewardship resources behind it." It's going to be hard to do the Big Bang. But if you're going to put the appropriate resources up behind it, you can do a lot of good. >> So, you can really facilitate the whole go big or go home approach, as as well as the let's start small think fast approach. >> That's right, and we always, actually ironically, recommend the latter. >> Let's start small, think fast, yeah. >> Because everybody's got a bigger appetite than they do the ability to execute. And what's great about the tool, and what I tell our customers and our employees all day long is, there's only metric I track. So year over year, for our business, we basically grow in accounts by net of churn by 55%. Year over year, and that's actually up from the prior year. And so from my perspective-- >> And what does that mean? >> So what that means is, the same customer gave us 55 cents more on the dollar than they did the prior year. Now that's best in class for most software businesses that I've heard. But what matters to me is not so much that growth rate in and of itself. What it means to me is this, that nobody's come along and says, "I've mastered my data. "I understand all of the information side of my company. "Every person knows everything there is to know." That's never been said. So if we're solving a problem where customers are saying, "Look, we get, and we can find, and understand, "and trust data, and we can do that better last year "than we did this year, and we can do it even more "with more people," we're going to be successful. >> What I like about what you're doing is, you're bringing an element of operationalizing data for literacy and for usage. But you're really bringing this notion of a humanizing element to it. Where you see it in security, you see it in emerging ecosystems. Where there's a community of data people who know how hard it is and was, and it seems to be getting easier. But the tsunami of new data coming in, IOT data, whatever, and new regulators like GDPR. These are all more surface area problems. But there's a community coming together. How have you guys seen your product create community? Have you seen any data on that, 'cause it sounds like, as people get networked together, the natural outcome of that is possibly usage you attract. But is there a community vibe that you're seeing? Is there an internal collaboration where they sit, they're having meet ups, they're having lunches. There's a social aspect in a human aspect. >> No, it's humanal, no, it's amazing. So in really subtle but really, really powerful ways. So one thing that we do for every single data source or every single report that we document, we just put who are the top users of this particular thing. So really subtly, day one, you're like, "I want to go find a report. "I don't even know "where to go inside of this really mysterious system". Postulation, you're able to say, "Well, I don't know where to go, but at least I can go call up John or Lisa," and say, "Hey, what is it that we know about this particular thing?" And I didn't have to know them. I just had to know that they had this report and they had this intelligence. So by just discovering people in who they are, you pick up on what people can know. >> So people of the new Google results, so you mentioned Google PageRank, which is web pages and relevance. You're taking a much more people approach to relevance. >> Satyen: That's right. >> To the data itself. >> That's right, and that builds community in very, very clear ways, because people have curiosity. Other people are in the mechanism why in which they satisfy that curiosity. And so that community builds automatically. >> They pay it forward, they know who to ask help for. >> That's right. >> Interesting. >> That's right. >> Last question, Satyen. The tag line, first data catalog designed for collaboration, is there a customer that comes to mind to you as really one that articulates that point exactly? Where Alation has come in and really kicked open the door, in terms of facilitating collaboration. >> Oh, absolutely. I was literally, this morning talking to one of our customers, Munich Reinsurance, largest reinsurance customer or company in the world. Their chief data officer said, "Look, three years ago, "we started with 10 people working on data. "Today, we've got hundreds. "Our aspiration is to get to thousands." We have three things that we do. One is, we actually discover insights. It's actually the smallest part of what we do. The second thing that we do is, we enable people to use data. And the third thing that we do is, drive a data driven culture. And for us, it's all about scaling knowledge, to centers in China, to centers in North America, to centers in Australia. And they've been doing that at scale. And they go to each of their people and they say, "Are you a data black belt, are you a data novice?" It's kind of like skiing. Are you blue diamond or a black diamond. >> Always ski in pairs (laughs) >> That's right. >> And they do ski in pairs. And what they end up ultimately doing is saying, "Look, we're going to train all of our workforce to become better, so that in three, 10 years, we're recognized as one of the most innovative insurance companies in the world." Three years ago, that was not the case. >> Process improvement at a whole other level. My final question for you is, for the folks watching or the folks that are going to watch this video, that could be a potential customer of yours, what are they feeling? If I'm the customer, what smoke signals am I seeing that say, I need to call Alation? What are some of the things that you've found that would tell a potential customer that they should be talkin' to you guys? >> Look, I think that they've got to throw out the old playbook. And this was a point that was made by some folks at a conference that I was at earlier this week. But they basically were saying, "Look, the DLNA's PlayBook was all about providing the right answer." Forget about that. Just allow people to ask the right questions. And if you let people's curiosity guide them, people are industrious, and ambitious, and innovative enough to go figure out what they need to go do. But if you see this as a world of control, where I'm going to just figure out what people should know and tell them what they're going to go know. that's going to be a pretty, a poor career to go choose because data's all about, sort of, freedom and innovation and understanding. And we're trying to push that along. >> Satyen, thanks so much for stopping by >> Thank you. >> and sharing how you guys are helping organizations, enterprises unlock data curiosity. We appreciate your time. >> I appreciate the time too. >> Thank you. >> And thanks John! >> And thank you. >> Thanks for co-hosting with me. For John Furrier, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching theCUBE live from our second day of coverage of our event Big Data SV. Stick around, we'll be right back with our next guest after a short break. 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(click) >> Hey, Lisa Martin on the ground with theCUBE at Google for the Sixth Annual CloudNOW Top Women in Cloud Awards Event, our second year covering this, very excited to be joined by tonight's emcee, Becky Wanta, the founder of RSW1C. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> It's great to have you here. So tell us a little bit about what you do and your background as a technology leader. >> So, I've been in technology for close to 40 years. I started out as a software. >> Sorry, I don't even, what? (laughing) >> Ha, ha, ha, it's a long time ago, yeah. So I started out as a developer back in the Department of Defense. So it wasn't rocket science in the early days when I began because it was back when computers took up whole rooms and I realized I had an affinity for that. So, I leveraged that, but then I got into, at that time, and I'm from northern California, if you remember right, the Department of Defense was drawing down. And so I decided I was going to leverage my experience in IT to get into either integrative financial services or healthcare, right. So I took over running all of tech for the Money Store at the time which you would have no idea who that is. And then that got acquired by Wells Fargo First Union, so I took over as their Global CTO for Wells Fargo. And what you'll see is, so let me just tell you about RSW1C because what it is is it's a technology consulting firm that's me. And the reason I have it is because tech changes so much that it's easy to stay current. And when I get brought into companies, and you'll look at me, so I've been the executive officer for tiny little companies like PepsiCo, Wells Fargo, Southwest Airlines. >> The small ones. >> Yeah, tiny, not really, MGM Resorts International, the largest worker's comp company in California, a company that, unborn midsize SMB in southern California that just wrapped up last year. And when I get brought into these companies, I get brought in to transform them. It's at a time in the maturation of these companies, these tiny little brands we've mentioned, where they're ready to jettison IT. So I take that very seriously because I know technology is that gateway to keep that competitive advantage. And the beauty is of that the companies I've mentioned, they're all number one in their markets. And when you're number one, there's only one direction to go, so they take that very seriously. >> How do you come in there and help an MGM Grand Resorts transform? >> So what happened in MGM's case and probably in the last five CIO positions that I've taken, they've met me as a consultant, again, from RSW1C. And then when I look into what needs to happen and I have the conversation, because everybody thinks they want to do digital transformation, and it's not an easy journey and if you don't have the executive sponsorship, don't even try it at home, right? And so, in MGM's case, they had been talking. MGM's the largest taxpayer in Nevada. People think about it as MGM Grand. It's 19 brands on The Strip. >> Is that right? >> It's Bellagio, MGM, so it's the largest taxpayer in Nevada. So it owns 44,860 rooms on The Strip. So if I just counted now, you have Circa Circa, Slots of Fun, Mirage, Bellagio, Monte Carlo, New York, New York, um, MGM Grand Las Vegas, MGM Grand Detroit. They're in the countries and so forth. So it's huge. And that includes Mandalay, ARIA, and all those, so it's huge, right? And so in MGM's case, they knew they wanted to do M life, so M life game changes their industry. And I put that in. This will be our nine year anniversary coming up on Valentine's Day. Thirty years they talked about it, and I put in with a great team And that was part of the transformation into a new way of running their business. >> Wow, we have a couple of minutes left. I'd love to get your perspective on being a female leader in tech. Who were your mentors back in the day? And who are your mentors now? >> So, I don't have any mentors. I never did. Because when I started in the industry, there wasn't a lot of women. And obviously, technology was fairly new which is why one of my passions is around helping the next generation be hugely successful. And one of the things that's important is in the space of tech, I like this mantra, this mantra that says, "How about brains "and beauty that gets you in the door? "How about having the confidence in yourself?" So I want to help a lot of the next generation be hugely successful. And that's what Jocelyn has built with CloudNow, her and Susan. And I'm a big proponent of this because I think it's a chance for us to give back and help the next generation of leaders in a non-traditional way be hugely successful in brands, in companies that are going to unleash their passion and show them how to do that. Because, the good news is that I'm a total bum, Lisa. I've never had a job. I love what I do, and I do it around the clock, so. >> Oh, if only more people could say that. That's so cool. But what we've seen with CloudNow, this is our second year covering it, I love talking to the winners and even the folks that are keynoting or helping to sponsor scholarships. There's so much opportunity. >> There really is. >> And it's so exciting when you can see someone whose life is changing as a result of finding a mentor or having enough conviction to say, "You know what? "I am interested in a STEM field. "I'm going to pursue that." >> Right. >> So, we thank you so much Becky for stopping by theCUBE. And your career is amazing. >> Thanks. >> And I'm sure you probably are mentors to countless, countless men and women out there. >> Absolutely. >> Well, thanks again for stopping by. >> Thank you, Lisa. >> Thank you for watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at Google with the CloudNow Sixth Annual Top Women in Cloud Awards Event. Stick around, we'll be right back.